#like I don’t think this about canon Michael I’m sort of making up my own character

[ennard-is-near]

Some Michael Afton headcanons and crack theories and whatnot

🚨 warning, If you know me irl (You know who you are, I see you) be aware that I’m not serious hahahahaha I would never be cringe hahaha 🚨

Okay, here we go:

Kid/Teenage hcs:

He’s super quiet after The Bite of ‘83. Like won’t talk to anyone or answer most questions outside of occasional one word answers. [I’ve talked about this before]

He was 13 during the Bite of ‘83.

Wasn’t really popular or a bully or anything before the Bite of ‘83. He was just like, a regular kid whose dad was well-known. It’s like if the mayor’s son was in your class or something. Yeah he’s kind of an asshole, but so is every middle school boy.

Ppl tend to avoid him after The Bite just because if you had the choice between talking to the guy who killed his brother or not doing that, you’d probably pick the latter. People felt bad for him or whatever but it’s not like they wanted to befriend him.

Cannot drive because he just never learned (William was NOT about to teach him). He walks most places.

I know this is semi-canon but he likes drawing stuff. He’s not very creative though, so he mostly draws what he sees around him. He ends of up drawing a lot of animatronics and TV show characters.

Mowed lawns and washed cars around the neighborhood for money when he was like 11-12. William was the type of dad who didn’t give pocket change and made his kids work for their own money. Michael wasn’t great at his neighborhood jobs though so people only hired him if they had money to give away and were willing to go through and fix the spots he missed.

The rest of these are Post-Scoop:

The FNaF 3 hallucinations are like a semi-regular issue for him. He occasionally just sees shit. Doesn’t have to be phantom animatronics, though. Can be more chill (by comparison lol) and like people he knew just standing there, weird shadows (especially in reflections) and sounds and voices. [I‘ve talked about this before too, sorry]

Really scared of the dark. Lights on in every room + flashlight on him at all times scared.

The power went out in his house a couple times when it snowed and (even though it didn’t get pitch black because of light from the windows) he did not like it.

He’s also the master of batteries, they’re scattered all over the house.

His power bill is so much. Like you’d drop dead if you saw it. TV and lights and air conditioning on 24/7 drive it up. His water bill is virtually nothing, though, so that’s good.

Doesn’t have issues with money because he has access to William’s bank account somehow.

Still lives in the house he grew up in. I just feel like he does.

Sort of has an issue with animals. They do not like him and will bark at and attack him whenever given the opportunity. He’s literally a dead body and animals tend to not like those. Birds will literally swoop down and attack him sometimes. He has fought two raccoons.

Absolutely a creature of the night. Only leaves the house past midnight and is back before sunrise. This is for a couple reasons, mostly just because there’s less happening at night. He carries a flashlight around when he goes out though bc he’s so scared.

Has like one guy who he’s on good terms with. It’s some random graveyard shift worker at the local corner store. He goes to the same store like every Tuesday or whatever and it’s always the same guy working there. They don’t even say that much to each other but they’re still buddies. When Michael works at the FNaF 1 location the employee is actually kinda sad because he doesn’t come in that week and he’s really confused as to where that guy could have gone or if he finally died or something. And then Michael comes in the next week and the routine continues and the employee will never know what happened that one week the weird guy didn’t come in.

Okay that’s it. <3

[juniorig0327]

Thinking about that Tartarus AU and some possible demigods

Obviously any demigods that were chucked down there would have to have some Greek in them atleast for the ones crossing pantheons.

And so I’ve been thinking and I’m thinking that it would be like sort of taboo to have demigods belonging to two pantheons like if two demigods from two different pantheons were to come together or if a god and a demigod from different pantheons were to come together.

And so I’ve had three different ideas for demigods.

1. Aztec and Greek. Now this one is a little harder since their civilizations have never interacted or anything. But I was thinking maybe some of the Greek gods were attracted to the Americas because the flame was slowly moving (but wouldn’t finish until after the revolution). And at some point the Aztecs and Greek pantheons got into contact and maybe the Greek gods blessed Spain to get rid of the other pantheons there to clear a path for them (I’m not really knowledgeable on like their fight with Spain so uh). And so somewhere in there a demigod was born and that demigod had such busted parentage and didn’t even think twice about casting him down in there. This might get changed around but I definitely want to try my hand at it.

2. Mesopotamia and Greek. Now this one is WAY easier since I’m pretty sure Alexander the Great conquered Mesopotamia so like I could def make it work. I feel like for this one it would be much more viable for a god and demigod to possibly have a child because the Greek Pantheon aren’t trying to actively like destroy them.

And so they weren’t conquered about this 2/3 (well just say demigod), demigod guy until he started growing dangerous and out of control and they chucked em down there.

3. Hera and Ixion. What if Ixion’s plan was successful? If Hera birthed a demigod child, her only demigod child and Hera and Zeus were just too repulsed by the demigod child and what it meant. But Hera didn’t want to kill the child. Maybe they tried to raise it. But maybe one day they couldn’t take it anymore and cast him down Tartarus. Maybe Hera didn’t even know about it and just thought maybe he died normally. Inspired by the version of Prometheus where he was Hera’s child (look it up at your own risk?)

I don’t want to do any other demigods really so I think those would be the only ones alive. They’re be tails of other demigods that have fallen and died, but no demigods has been fallen or cast and escaped, at least until Percy tries, until Percy inspired these demigods to fight fate but in the end only come out with two (or three) demigods.

Im debating who I want to kill and keep alive in the back of my mind lol. I think the only one out of canon demigods would be Michael Yew (besides Percy ofc). Out of the ocs probably only Hera’s child.

Might make a few more though because I did find something interesting about an epithet of Ares: Enyalios. And apparently they used to be separate deities. And in some versions he’s the child of Kronos and Rhea (idk how true it is I just thought it was lowkey kinda cool).

Also got a random thought of maybe other titans grouping up to have children. (Based off the random thought I had in the AM hours of Hyperion and Rhea having kids) but I probably won’t do that. That’s more suited for like a crack fix lmao.

[another-lost-mc]

is it bad that as much as i like your ocs (theyre amazing, i love them!), i really miss seeing you write for the canon characters

You know, that’s valid. The proportion of Canon and OC content here lately has been way off. It’s sort of the elephant in the room I ignore every time I think about Obey Me and my inspiration automatically focuses on the world building or OC potential instead.

There’s a few reasons why I’ve been less interested in writing canon lately.

1. Disappointment with Nightbringer. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure why this game exists (except to overhaul the franchise’s monetization structure). The premise and lore payoff hasn’t been that great for me personally - it feels more like an AU rather than a canon addition/continuation of the OG game. It feels like we still end up with more loose ends and questions that we don’t have (and may never get) answers for. I’m still waiting for Raphael and Mephisto to be dateable, by the way. As a result, my focus when writing OM content has been using the OG story/characterization using the odd piece from NB that makes sense, and that leads into…

2. My favourite parts of Obey Me are under-developed in canon. I enjoy most of the canon cast, I really do. But I want more Celestial Realm lore, I want more Michael (and not NB HM Lesson 20 Michael), I want more angels in general. They’ve mentioned Uriel a couple times now, give me that angel please and thank you! (No longer relevant, I wrote a version of him myself.)

The world feels so empty at times but there’s so much potential. Parts of the Devildom are more fleshed out with NB adding to it, but what about the other realms? What’s going on with the Sorcerer’s Society and the reapers? I never know if the interesting hints of lore we get are truly relevant or if it’s just something the game decided was convenient for a plot point and never gets mentioned again. NB has been great for Solomon fans since it’s practically a Solomon x MC fanfic written with a forced roommates trope, and that might be the best thing about it from a lore perspective.

My OCs were originally meant to explore gaps in the world and give the canon characters room to grow beyond the one or two defining traits the game keeps repeating over and over. I like writing Mammon when I can have him interact with Karasu, I like imagining the types of angels other exchange students might meet in the Celestial Realm, I like giving a name and personality to the mysterious owner of The Fall where so many events and Devilgram stories take place. Admittedly, it was refreshing to see that other people enjoyed reading about them or imagining them paired with their own MCs/OCs too. I call them the OC Fan Club with genuine affection.

3. It’s not something I talk about often but before I began writing fanfiction, I was mostly focused on concepts or outlines for original stories. Writing supernatural and horror themes always been my interest as a writer so anything with demons/angels/other monstrous races automatically catches my eye.

It’s a little mean to say, but half-baked worlds like the Devildom are a lot of fun to use as a foundation for expanding my own ideas. The OC story I’ve been working on is one way for me to write longer and more complex pieces which is the type I like most. Granted, it includes nearly the entire game cast and it explores the Devildom and Celestial Realm in ways that tie together some of my favourite personal headcanons and characterization. It focuses on angel characters and the history/culture of the Celestial Realm which are two of my main interests for this game. It’s a huge project - the outline is nearly 20k words on its own, it’s practically a novel divided into four sections with 30+ chapters and an epilogue. I can’t even express how excited I am when I get to work on this.

That being said, I do like writing canon content and I’ve been missing it more lately. I got burnt out when it felt like I was losing interest in NB and was pushing myself to keep writing anyway which isn’t great.

Today someone left a nice comment on something I wrote a while back, an angst piece for the demon brothers. I haven’t read it in a while and after going back and re-reading it, I was like, “Huh, I don’t remember liking this as much as I do.” And then I remembered something in my drafts that’s been rotting away, half-edited and ignored, and realized that I wanted to finish it. So, I’ve been slowly tinkering with things while I work on my angels’ story. Some of my plans are ambitious and real life distractions (mostly health related, like my recent bout of COVID) haven’t helped.

If I learned anything about my writing since starting this blog, it’s that:

writing what you’re passionate about is more fulfilling than writing what seems trendy or popular

giving and receiving feedback and fostering friendships/supporting each other keeps the community thriving

self care self care self care

Anyway. My goal has always been to write about the things I love about the game world and the things I create that are inspired by it. It’s a delicate balancing act that I’m still working on.

[rosemariad]

Supernatural season 14

Oh boy!

So Alt-Michael has taken over Dean’s body and absconded to parts unknown - what an unprecedented plot twist who could’ve possibly seen this coming, certainly not Dean, the one guy who doesn’t trust angels and has a history of being short-sighted & making shitty deals.

Since this is season 14, and there’s only 1 more season after this, I presume Dean will never grow out of these bad qualities 🤦🏾‍♀️, so…moving on.

Check you out Sam, leading your new band of hunters, like some sort of Hunters Incorporated©️. I’m glad Sam gets to spend more time with his mom, but he won’t let her take care of him 😔😭

Was it me or did that Michael & Anael scene feel like Jensen x Danneel role play 🤣 - at least when he caressed her face. Like really bro? I don’t think the scene would’ve played out that way if the actors weren’t actual husband and wife 🤣

Shoutout to Supernatural for keeping Mark Pellegrino employed lol 😂😂 cuz I don’t see Why the fuck he’s still around if the devil is supposedly dead - wasn’t Mark P. also doing 13 reasons why around this time?? Anywho, Nick, luci’s longtime vessel, isn’t dead???? What does Nick have that jimmy novak didn’t (or literally any other angel vessel for that matter) — plot convenience? That must be it 🤣🤣🤣

Cas honey, why are you letting these demons beat you up? Cuz Dean is gone on your watch? cuz im sorry there’s no way im believing Cas was weaker than all them demons. That’s also plot convenience IDGAF!

After yet another demon-hunter showdown, Mary and Bobby are spotted sharing a beer & flirting…I wish John were around to see this AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh Jack, poor guy feels worthless for having no power. He should’ve been like ‘Castiel what’s it like being worthless?’ since that was Castiel’s arc for a minute too, which again fuck Supernatural for. Cas had like 1 badass moment last season when he fried Donatello’s brains but that’s it. Meanwhile Nick totally called Cas out, bringing up Jimmy again and driving that guilt straight into Castiel.

Alt-Michael is recruiting?? Brief Dean cameo in 14x02, you give him like 2 lines, wow 😒. Even Sam got more screen time in 5x22 swan song…but Dean suddenly comes back at the end of the episode???? Nah, bullshit!

Also lol karma for Dean in 14x02 when Jack is like, ‘Dean doesn’t matter’, Michael has to be stopped. Ahahahahahahaha. He was the so called pragmatist when it came to Jack, now it’s Jack’s turn. Castiel’s face when jack said it tho…

Dean got stabbed by AU Kaia? What?? Oh look yet another instance of Dean running away from his problems and pain and being a dick to Kaia (though she's technically a different person) again! Good for you tho AU Kaia for giving Dean a taste of his own medicine and telling him off.

Bobby leave Sam alone, I’m here for his captain my captain era. The lovable giant is doing his best!

So some necromancer gets away from Jack & Dean but we’re not gonna see her again, right??? There’s just a little over 30 episodes left in the show at this point. They probably didn’t know that at the time though.

Shoutout to the devil for basically condemning his child to die from a lack of grace :/ while Cas was able to survive (cuz plot convenience most likely) Jack as a nephilim was unable to do so. Gabe’s spare angel grace couldn’t help (I wonder if he were still alive in canon, if it would’ve made a difference. Oh well).

So this is where Cas made the deal with the empty (yes I know about it, how doesn’t everyone that shit went viral the very night it originally aired amidst the infamous nail-biting 2020 election week), tumblr is still serving the memes to this day.

Cas doesn’t want the Winchesters to know cuz Dean 😭 idc, if I was Jack I would NOT keep that secret. Dean would know IMMEDIATELY.

I think more angels died, but heaven hasn’t fallen yet…right? They keep coming back to that. Hm…

Nick’s arc is…bleh. Pretty sure in his desperation he just brought Luci back from the empty…welp. I guess when you’re an archangel who was predestined by God to fight in a fateful epic battle against your big bro, you just get certain perks in the afterlife 😒

Sam doesn’t want Alt-Charlie to go when its like bro! She. Is. Not. Charlie!!! For fuck sake guys SMH, let her live her fucking life! God forbid she want to run away to fucking safety and not die bloody like her counterpart 🤬

Bobby and Mary run off to a cabin for weeks on end 😏😂 to recuperate, sure Mary 🤣

Garth is back! Working as a spy for the Winchesters, oh dear Lord no. I know he makes it to season 15 but maaaan I don't like this….

The nerve of Dean to challenge Alt-Kaia to either hand over the weapon or kill her. What if she just killed him? Also, can't they just replicate the weapon for their own uses? All they would need to do is ensure they're using the same materials Kaia did when she forged the weapon in her own world.

How many hits to the head is Sam supposed to fuckin' take? I feel like it's happened more in this season alone than the entire show so far? He should probably be dead at this point 🤣

Jack got taken, oh no! why didn't Michael kill him? To take him as a ward? Seriously? Whatever.

And it turns out the past episode was a long con to get Dean right where Alt-Michael wanted him. I know there was a catch to him letting Dean go in 14x02.

So Alt-Michael chose to trap Dean in…contentment? With Pamela Barnes? And they weren't even a couple, just friends. She called him out on something.

Why not have him be with a real girlfriend of his, like Lisa or even Cassie? I’m supposed to believe Dean's dream is an unsuccessful bar living out his days with a platonic lady friend??? Really??? Bullshit!

John returns for the final time to go back to 2003? Okay. His hair is cut and grayish. Lol so I’m gonna see that as John gained some weight (from food/drink or muscle training idc) and dyes his hair black but the root are grey and come out every so often 🤣 but yay JDM I wish you had been in more episodes! Oh well.

So no one’s gonna talk about:

a) Adam’s existence

b) Bobby X Mary or how Bobby essentially replaced john as the father/husband by getting involved with Mary AND being a surrogate father to Sam & Dean (with a clear preference to Dean but whatever)

I’d care more about Sam & John’s convo if we had more time with them together on screen. But it was nice to see them squash their beef.

Dean & John’s convo was faaaar too brief. But insightful to their relationship. John wanted dean to have a family, echoing his wishes for his eldest in season 1 in his convo w/ Sam.

But Dean was like I have a family 🥺 my emotions!

Back to the Michael bullshit – a fight with a gorgon fucked up his containment so he literally broke out of Dean's body and killed all the hunters who were conveniently at the bunker when they brought an unconscious Dean back there. Even poor unfortunate Maggie. For a second I thought Mary would be there since Maggie mentioned she was on her way back but no, he ended up possessing Rowena.

Then they bring the old angel torture device of disabling our heroes' ability to breathe, like in the season 5 premiere, making them blind (that's new) and making them hurt.

Jack gets his chance to take Michael down, and takes his grace??????

Oh Sam bby, it's not your fault. Those people were doomed no matter what. TBH I'm surprised they lasted this long. But cuz he's a Winchester and he was raised by Dean & they've rubbed off each other too much at this point (nobromo), he decides to focus on yet another case even when Dean himself isn't willing since big bro has pointed out they have done 3 cases back to back. They're not the young men they used to be lol.

Cas goes with Sam to a milkshake town and given his legendary levels of awkwardness he's immediately seen and called out for his inherent queerness by the townsfolk (in all senses of the word).

Aw Sam wants to stay, ofc he does. This town is simple and peaceful. He could use some of that. Too bad this place is making people's heads explode.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Ah subtle there Supernatural, making Jack, a Nephilim who's the offspring of the devil himself choose between angel and devil food cake 🤣 Dean why would you put him in that position?

Cas why you gotta be snitching on Sam to your boy bestie like that 🤣 – typical boyfriend tomfoolery

Oftentimes since Jack started in this show, he's felt like an intern and 14x16 is one of those times. They don't wanna bring jack along so they think to leave him alone doing chores. Good Lord.

Oh honey Sam you didn't have to tell the sheriff you're not FBI, just stick to the monster stuff. He knows what's up.

And Jack sweetie pie you don't need to impress those kids. He should be hanging out with kids his own age. Just Jack with a bunch of babies 🤣. So cute! My headcanon is that he can actually talk to them. At least then it wouldn't have ended with a stabbing. Thankfully he cleaned up his mess, even though the local kids are terrified of him. It’s a shame he doesn’t have friends. If only he was allowed to have Claire in his life.

They finally resolved the Nick storyline (I hope) by killing him off via Jack but Mary is not happy. She’s concerned. She’s been concerned about him the whole frickin episode since he sassed her as they tried setting up a game night with Dean.

It’s like these people keep forgetting what Jack is capable of.

He didn’t have to relish the kill though. On the other hand, it felt like Mary’s concern was a bit much — if it were me I would’ve kept my mouth shut as to not upset a powerful fledging being into killing me by accident.

So Mary dies…again.

This is also why we can’t have nice things. I know Dean’s never gonna let this shit go. Sure Cas has fucked up a bunch, but killing a direct blood relative of Dean’s…nope. That’s unforgivable. I know they’re not gonna let Dean kill off a kid but I know he’s NEVER ever gonna forget Jack’s role in Mary’s (second) demise.

Why couldn’t you leave the boy alone Mary?!?!?!!?!

The boys show up, did they not circle back to pick up their mother? Seriously? Goodness Lord. So depressing watching the brothers just assuming their mommy’s coming back 😭

Cas (cuz of course this shit went tits up while Daddy was away) calls Dean to get caught up on what happened the last episode and is concerned that the Winchesters left their mom alone with Jack. Then why did you leave him Cas? You could’ve taken him with you. Like it would’ve been better if one of the brothers was alone with Jack? Badasses they may be, but they would’ve ended up just like Mary let’s be honest. The only difference would’ve been whichever brother got got would’ve come back. Mary will not be getting that special treatment…

Jack is tripping out since he murdered his foster G-maw - ends up flying all over the world (so his soul is definitely gone? But if it were gone, would he even care about killing Mary? everyone’s trying to track him down IDK why he doesn’t just destroy the phone he has. We get flashes of Mary & Jack’s time together and technically I believe she spent the most time with him (at least in season 13)

They’re still giving Mark P work on this show making him the manifestation of Jack’s subconscious cuz the kill is driving Jack insane 😭🥺 He’s reacting so much like a little boy who knows he fucked up it that makes this so much sadder 😭 Jack’s being driven mad with grief.

Oh fuck they’re going to where she died. Oh fuck.

WTF is wrong with these people! He’s a fucking boy! A super power nuke of a boy, but still a fucking boy! Like the Winchesters never made a mistake! What about the nurse who got killed in 4x22 by Sam? All the people Dean slaughtered under the MoC, as a demon! That’s just off the top of my head! No but cuz they’re the fucking protagonists 😡🤬

Samuel Winchester you know manipulating this child Is 5 different kinds of fucked up!

Jack why did you call it an accident! Did you not want to use the words murder? Destroyed? Obliterated?

Dean you piece of shit, why are you lying to this boy!!!!!! You know Jack’s desperate to make peace with you, and you lead him to a grave he’s never supposed to escape?! Poor thing Jack was sooo scared!

Sam, the regret is gonna eat you alive! Sam, for fucks sake, SPEAK THE FUCK UP! You clearly got shit you wanna say, fucking say it!

Dean you’re surprised Jack’s going along with it?! Of course he’s gonna go along with it, he wants to please you, you shady, manipulative BASTARD!

That’s right Castiel stand up for Jack since nobody else is willing to!

Oh boy, the celestial boy is freaking out. Claustrophobia was kicking in, this shit ain’t gonna end well. It’s a dark day when a psychological manifestation of Satan is making sense more than everyone else.

I’m not surprised Jack got out though. That box was made for an archangel and he isn’t that. He’s a nephilim, technically a different entity, right? now, the Winchesters have a pissed off mega-powerful creature on their hands. Great job team 🤣

that’s right Jack, give them a piece of your fucking mind! Fuck ‘em up queen.

Oh shit! I’ve watched this part a dozen times on YouTube, the part where jack makes the whole world tell the truth no matter what! Donald trump is canonically Crowley’s bitch! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

All hail the stapler queen! Iconic!

And God reveals Himself, what grand timing! He says He came for Cas’s prayer (but Cas prayed to Him in season 6 too, no?) but then He states the real reason for His arrival — Jack.

Meanwhile Jack went to see his real G-maw, not a good plan Jackie boy. She’s put 2+2 together that her daughter Kelly is NOT ok and now Jack has to confess the truth. (Where’s the dad? Was the actor unavailable or dead at this point?)

Sam was outed to love Celine Dion (I love her too Sammy it’s ok, her songs are AMAZING! My favorite is it’s all coming back to me now, I crush that shit in karaoke.) Dean follows a mommy blog 🤣 of course he does, probably cuz he identifies with her more & loves that her life is so full of shit (like I said, he identifies with her).

God don’t sanction lying, the real God would never do such a thing. Isn’t it like the 6th commandment, thou shall not lie? Like dude, the fuck?!

And no, writing means telling stories that are often made up but it’s not meant to deceive anybody. But Hollywood on the other hand…yeesh.

Dean breaking Chuck’s guitar 🤣

Chuck saying ‘DON’T!’ Having Dean shook 🤣

Why are you asking them how things are, like you don’t know?! You’re omnipotent!

They canonically made the British queen a lizard? Damn. These old Americans (the writers) are dicks!

Finally Sam is speaking up! Thank God!

Dean stop blaming people, Jesus, it was an accident (Jack you phrased it sooooo poorly though)! shout out to Sam for taking it this so well cuz he’s been through too much this season alone. He lost a whole fucking army, then his mom after he got to know her this time! And the concussions! So many concussions.

Angry Cas is sooooo fucking hot 🥵 when he slammed that truck with his fist 😏

Awww the first thing he does when he sees Jack is hugs him. Jack needed that so bad!

The biggest travesty is we never got to see the SquirrelVerse!

When Sam asks if God is watching them — Sam do you even know what omnipresent means?!

It’s just like I said in season 11. God doesn’t owe anyone anything. But everyone owes Him everything. He gave everyone the freedom to choose, for better or worse. But this iteration of who God is seems to watch what people and creatures decide to do with their lives. He made the weapon to see who among Sam, Dean or Cas would take it and strike Jack down.

So ultimately when Dean tracks Jack down and Jack throws Cas into a tombstone and Sam is running dramatically to stop it, Dean ultimately decides not to kill Jack. But why though? He kept talking shit about how Jack needed to be dealt with, but when the moment comes, he won’t do it?! I mean I’m glad but it doesn’t really make sense?!

Was it the puppy eyes? Did Sam teach Jack that trick? But Jack closed his eyes at the last second???

Oh Dean, you’re such a fucking softie. That’s on you God. You made him softer than Mr. Pillsberry.

If anything, Dean is the step daddy. Cas is Daddy. And then there’s Uncle Sam 🤣

Sam is many things, but stupid is never one of them. Naïve maybe, trusting, desperate. But not stupid. And not crazy, this time 🤣

I will say what makes this story compelling is the fact that the Winchesters find themselves locked in a cycle of violence at the hands of their Creator, and they’re refusing to commit further acts of violence in effort to stop it all and rebel against their cruel, dispassionate maker. But they have no means to back it up…today.

Not the Burger King catchphrase🤣🤣🤣

Not Jack being…smote?

Not Dean being yeeted into another tombstone?

Sam, why did you think that was gonna work on God? He made the weapon. You really think He’d make something that could kill Himself? Nah bruh.

So we’ve approached the ending of the penultimate season. 20 more episodes to go! Ah!!!! I’m excited but also not since the ending is what I know (mildly).

Side note - Sam & Dean still don’t know about Castiel’s bargain with the Empty (kinda seems pointless since God killed Jack anyway…Cas basically fucked himself for nothing 🤦🏾‍♀️ [I know how it ends but yeah still])

It’s not about the destination though, it’s the journey (I keep telling myself that).

God said fuck y’all. Shouldn’t’ve poked the bear…now these poor innocent people gonna die like sheep to the slaughter. Y’all got a lot of cleaning up to do and with so little people to help you.

So did God undo all the killings the Winchesters did? Cuz damn….that’s 10+ years of work undone. In 1 moment.

They’re not getting out of the cycle anytime soon.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: The Films of Quentin Tarantino

There are few directors out there as ridiculously praised and extremely controversial as Quentin Tarantino. He’s done nothing his whole career but release films that garner critical acclaim and massive fanbases due to the stellar acting and writing within his films, but at the same time he’s been relentlessly criticized for his excessive use of racial slurs, his excessive homages to the point of plagiarism, and his habit of inserting his fetishes into every single one of his movies. What fetishes do I mean? Let’s just say his films have a lot of sole, and it would be no easy feet to go toe-to-toe with how in your face he is about what he likes.

While the man does have his problems (don’t get me started, I’m here to review movies, not gossip) and his style certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve found myself enjoying his work a lot ever since I was a teenager, and his films are what pushed me into checking out a lot of more obscure films in the exploitation genre; in particular, I’m a pretty big fan of blaxploitation thanks to Tarantino’s work, and I doubt I would’ve ever checked it out if not for his constant homages. I can’t really hate a guy who helped make me aware of Pam Grier, can I?

What’s most impressive is that out of his ten films there’s not one I would say is genuinely “bad.” Sure, there’s at least one I think is a boring, middling affair, and there are a couple of heavily flawed but still solid films, but there isn’t a single awful movie in his filmography. That’s honestly pretty impressive, especially considering the sort of weird throwback films he makes. After finally sitting down and watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood recently, I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and do what was a long time coming on this blog: Review Tarantino’s movies. And then I just decided, hey, why not review them all at once, as an homage to Schafrillas Productions and his director rankings? Oho, see, I can homage things too!

To be clear here, I’m only reviewing the films Quentined and Tarantined by the man himself; the “Tarantinoverse” is a bit more expansive than his own filmography, as True Romance (which he wrote) is canon and Machete, Machete Kills, From Dusk Til Dawn, Hobo with a Shotgun, Planet Terror, Thanksgiving, and the Spy Kids movies are all part of the “show within a show” side of his world, but those are all topics for another time. Right now, it’s all Tarantino baby! Now let’s get on to the actual ranking, and pray that I don’t put a foot in my mouth with these opinions.

10. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

I feel pretty safe in calling this Tarantino’s worst film. It’s not necessarily awful or anything, it has good qualities to it, but it takes every problem Tarantino’s style has and cranks it up to 11.

The film is long and dialogue-heavy, with lots of that classic Tarantino writing, but while individual scenes are good such as when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is filming a scene with a little girl or Brad Pitt’s character goes to the ranch the Manson Family are holed up at they never really feel like they congeal into a cohesive narrative, instead feeling more like a long string of vignettes. This is especially bad in regards to Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate, whose numerous scenes really add nothing to the movie but constant looming reminders that Helter Skelter is going to happen and lots of shots of Robbie’s feet. The excessively padded runtime is so bad that when you finally get to the part where the tables are turned on the Manson Family, a historical twist that should feel fun and cathartic, it comes off as too little, too late instead.

It’s really a shame the film is so meandering, because in almost every other aspect it really shines. Every actor is giving it their all; Pitt and DiCaprio are absolutely fantastic, Robbie brings charm even to her filler role, and every single bit part actor is fully committed and leaves a mark. Standouts include Dakota Fanning as the de facto head honcho of the Family when Manson is out and Mike Moh as Bruce Lee in a scene that is at once deeply disrespectful to one of history’s greatest action stars and also very funny. This is a film you can tell everyone involved gave a shit about.

But for me, it’s not enough for me to really love the film. I like a lot about the movie for sure, but I just hate how nothing ever really comes together in a satisfying way. Maybe if a bit of the fat was trimmed I would have a higher opinion of the movie, but as it is three hours of vignettes (even well-acted ones) is truly excessive. It’s mid at worst, but for Tarantino that’s still pretty shocking when everything else he’s done is above average at worst.

9. Death Proof

This is a truly underrated film, but frankly, it’s easy to see why it is that way. This half of the double feature that was Grindhouse is a throwback to films that were actually two movies spliced together, and it has all the issues that entails. The first half of the film is a more grounded, dialogue-heavy buildup to a terrifying conclusion, while the second half is a wild and crazy action and stunt showcase, and the two halves feel at odds with each other…which is by design, but still.

This might be a hot take, but I find the slow burning first half to be the superior part of the film. As much as I love Tarantino’s insane action films, Kurt Russell’s portrayal of the sinister Stuntman Mike is just just utterly gripping; he is easily one of the best villains in Tarantino’s filmography. The whole first half establishes him really well, building up the anxiety until he finally gets to show the girl he leaves with just how well he death proofed his car. He’s just so damn cool.

And then comes the second half where he’s reduced to a bit of a chump. And this probably wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the protagonists up against him were compelling, but they’re not. They’re a bunch of girls who are boring at best and relentlessly unpleasant at worst; the fact they leave behind one of their friends to an uncertain (but likely unpleasant) fate at the hands of a creepy redneck is especially appalling. Beatrix Kiddo they ain’t.

This is a wildly uneven film, so I can see why it didn’t find its audience right away, but I think these days it had garnered a minor cult following. If you can handle the flawed second half, this is still a really good movie with a captivating villain performance that more than makes up for its shortcomings, but I definitely can’t justify putting it any higher on this list.

8. Inglourious Basterds

Oh, this might be a controversial one. This movie is the same sort of beast as OUATIH, which is why I have it so low, but with one crucial difference: It does everything better. Yes, this movie is long and a bit meandering, but it always feels like it’s moving towards a final goal. Yes, it ends with a history-altering plot twist, but this one might be the most cathartic one of all time. And yes, there’s gratuitous feet shots, but at least they’re in plot-relevant scenes.

Of course, the best thing about the movie is the villain, Hans Landa. Christoph Waltz’s big American breakout is one of the most compelling villains of the 2010s, a charismatic, cunning, self-serving Nazi bastard who you really want to see get what’s coming to him. I might be inclined to call him the best Tarantino villain of all time.

I think what weirdly brings the film down is the titular Basterds themselves, and not because they ultimately feel superfluous to the plot; it’s the same sort of thing as Raiders of the Lost Ark, them being absent wouldn’t have changed much but we also wouldn’t have much of an exciting adventure. My issue is that Brad Pitt aside they are just not interesting or compelling at all. You really need to work hard to sell attempted filmmaker Eli Roth as the ultimate Jewish badass, and the film doesn’t really deliver. If only Adam Sandler took the role as was the original vision; we really were robbed. It’s all the worse because it cuts away from the actual compelling plot with Shosanna for these schmucks.

To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but I find it falls short of the hype around it. I’ve seen it described as movie with a lot of great scenes that never really comes together to be a great movie, and I mostly agree with that assessment; there’s so much to love here, but also so much I don’t care about. It’s definitely worth watching but it’s also where you can see the seeds for the problems with OUATIH planted.

7. The Hateful Eight

This isn’t a Tarantino film held in a particularly high regard; it’s not exactly hated, but it’s not what anyone would call their favorite either. Its contentious nature boils down to something apparent right in the title: Every character in this movie is a fucking asshole. It can be genuinely hard to get invested in these people when they’re a big collection of liars, killers, sadists, criminals, racists, and rapists.

Now, if you can stomach these nasty characters, what you’re left with is “John Carpenter’s The Thing… but a Western!” And I have to admit as a huge fan of The Thing, this is a very solid reimagining of the concept in a grounded setting. I do wish there was any character to root for here, but watching a group of people slowly tearing each other apart in a claustrophobic, isolated setting is still fun to watch. I don’t think it’s nearly as good or insightful as Carpenter’s movie, but very few movies are.

This is definitely a movie I can see people hating more than the previous two films, but I feel like this movie is more consistent than Basterds or Death Proof. Those movies have higher highs, but this movie never hits the lows they do, and even if his character is a massive asshole Samuel L. Jackson is always great to see in a Tarantino flick. Plus that brief appearance from Channing Tatum is great, especially with how it ends. This is a very solid film, but “very solid” is about as high as the praise I’ll give it will get.

6. Reservoir Dogs

Tarantino’s directorial debut, and boy is that readily apparent. It does a good job at establishing hallmarks of his style, like the sorts of conversations his characters have, their love of racial slurs, non-linear storytelling, and his trend of casting himself as a douchey minor character. It does everything fairly well, and I’d go as far as to call it one of the best directorial debuts ever… and that’s about it, really.

Like this is a very good film with strong performances—Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi being the standouts—but it definitely feels less refined than his later works with the same style. His sophomore film just completely blows this one out of the water, to the point it’s hard to muster up the interest to revisit this as opposed to watching Pulp Fiction for the hundredth time. It’s not that this film is bad; it’s just that Tarantino’s later films do what this one does better.

It’s definitely a good film, maybe even great, but there’s clear room to improve. Hell, there wasn’t a single shot of a woman’s feet in the whole movie! Tarantino was slacking.

5. Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Now we’re in to the really great movies. And yes, while it doesn’t keep up the energy of the first film, I would definitely call this a great movie.

Where the first volume was driven by action, this one is more driven by talking, and thankfully the characters are saying a lot of interesting things here (the standout being Bill’s media illiteracy in regards to Superman, which reveals a lot about his character). There’s also the reveal of Beatrix Kiddo’s name as well as her backstory, and there are some standout moments like Beatrix escaping from being buried alive and the tense final conversation with Bill. Overall, the film does a fantastic job at fleshing the story out and expanding our understanding of the characters.

Like I said, though, it just doesn’t keep up the energy of the first film. Budd is great and serves as a more psychological opponent, burying Beatrix alive as a way to test if she has the resolve to finish her quest for revenge, but both Elle and Bill himself are dealt with in a rather anti-climactic manner. It says a lot that O-Ren, one of Bill’s former lackeys, put up a grander and more impressive fight than her boss did. While I do appreciate the more philosophical approach, it’s hard not to be miffed when a duology called “Kill Bill” doesn’t kill Bill in a more grandiose way befitting the character.

Obviously, I don’t think it brings the film down much, and this is still a good conclusion to the story. I just can’t help but feel it could’ve amped things up just a bit, y’know?

4. Jackie Brown

This is probably the weirdest film in Tarantino’s filmography, being an adaptation of a book that lacks a lot of his usual style and features a lot of people he didn’t work with afterwards (like Robert De Niro and Pam Grier). This has led to a lot of people praising it as one of Tarantino’s best works for being unique among his oeuvre… and also a lot of people deriding it for how different it is from his usual style.

I definitely think it’s up there with his best works, but I don’t think it’s the absolute best. It’s sort of like how I see Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies; they’re great films (well, the first two anyway) but I can’t in good conscience hold them up as the best Batman media because they ultimately lack a lot of what makes me love Batman as a character. And this film lacks a lot of what makes me love a Tarantino movie; it’s a fantastic, realistic crime drama, but that’s not really what I’m watching Tarantino for, you know?

Still, its placement on this list should tell you I still see this as a must-watch. Starring Grier alone makes it worth checking out, and it definitely showcases Tarantino has far more range as a filmmaker than you’d expect.

3. Django Unchained

Right from the opening song, you can tell this is going to be an epic movie. Tarantino truly nailed the Western on his first go around, adding his own spin to the genre and making a truly stellar film. However, it’s not without a few issues.

The main cast is fantastic. We have Christoph Waltz as a noble and heroic abolitionist, an atypical role he pulls off flawlessly; Samuel L. Jackson as a sinister house slave who is all about licking the boot that treads on him; and of course Leonardo DiCaprio as a hammy, egotistical slave owner, a stellar villain role that should have nabbed him an Oscar. Even minor roles are great, with Don Johnson appearing as a plantation owner early on and Jonah Hill of all people popping up as a proto-Klansman.

You might notice I didn’t mention Jamie Foxx as the titular Django. That’s because, unfortunately, he’s a bit of an issue with the film. It’s not Foxx’s performance; he makes Django cool and likable, and his awesome trademark Tarantino roaring rampage of revenge in the third act sells him as a truly badass character. No, the issue is the narrative seems to seriously sideline him in favor of Waltz’s character, to the point for large swaths of the film he feels a bit like a side character in his own story. I don’t find it to be a huge issue, but it can be frustrating, especially since this is a very long movie and a few scenes drag on a bit longer than necessary. You really couldn’t give the title character a bit more to do until the last half hour, Quentin?

Still, I don’t think its issues hold it back all that much. This is an incredibly fantastic film whose highs easily overshadow its frustrating lows. Frankly, if any Tarantino movie deserves a sequel, it would be this one; I think Django has a lot of interesting stories in him, and a film where he actually gets to be the central character the whole time would be great.

2. Kill Bill: Vol. 1

This right here is pretty damn close to being my absolute favorite Tarantino film. Where something like OUATIH is all of Tarantino’s flaws compounded into one film, this is all of his strengths together in one film. Fantastically violent action, stellar casting with not a single weak performance, an awesome soundtrack, tons of great homages to the works that inspired it, non-linear storytelling used effectively, and more style in a single frame than some movies have in their entire runtime.

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of issues with the movie, though I kind of don’t like how all the action is front loaded while all the character insight and dialogue gets shoved into the second part. It’s nothing that makes me think less of either film, but I think maybe sprinkling more insight into who the Bride is in this movie and putting some more action in the second part would keep the sequel from feeling a bit anti-climactic. I also wish we got more of Vernita Green, the first assassin we see dispatched onscreen and the one who gets the least characterization; with a third film increasingly unlikely at this point, meaning we won’t ever see her daughter seek her vengeance, it’s a shame we don’t get at least a little more of a look into who she is as a person like we did with Budd and especially O-Ren.

Aside from that, though? This is Tarantino at his best, and Uma Thurman’s crowning achievement as an actress, one that cements her as action royalty alongside the greats like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Weaver. There’s just one film Tarantino did that, objectively, is a much better film, and I’m sure as soon as you saw this ranking you knew exactly what it’d be...

1. Pulp Fiction

Of course this takes the top spot. Was there ever any doubt? This movie is everything Tarantino is about rolled into one supremely satisfying package.

The cast is nothing short of phenomenal. We have Bruce Willis in his prime, we’ve got John Travolta pulling out of a career slump, we’ve got Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames in roles that put them on the map, and we have a veritable buffet of talent in minor roles, the most memorable of which is Christopher Walken telling a child the delightful story of a pocket watch’s journey home from war. There’s not a bad performance here. But of course the real superstar is Samuel L. Jackson, who gave a career-defining performance as Jules, the baddest motherfucker around (it says so on his wallet).

The great performances wouldn’t matter much if not for the great script, though. The dialogue in this film is unreal with how good it is, with characters having very odd yet also very realistic and natural conversations. Jules and Vince discussing burgers, for instance, is one of the most memorable sequences in the film… and it’s just them driving! Some of the writing is a little contentious (did you really need to have your character say the N-word fifty times, Quentin?), but none of it is really bad.

I will say Tarantino as Jimmy is one of my few issues with the film, but also an issue I kind of like anyway. His acting is a wonky and there is genuinely no reason why he should be spouting off all these racial slurs (even in-universe, since his buddy Jules and his wife are black), but the sheer audacity of the whole thing saves it. Still, I can’t help but feel the scene hasn’t aged as gracefully as a lot of the film, and the amateur performance from Tarantino sticks out all the more because he is standing right next to two of the most talented actors ever.

Another aspect of the film I think has aged pretty poorly is the gay hillbilly rapists, but I don’t think this aspect is as cut and dry as “hey maybe the white director who has little acting training shouldn’t play the guy who says the N-word.” On the one hand, having the only queer characters in your movie being depraved rapists is not a good look, though this was par for the course for the 90s. On the other hand, the movie treats Marsellus getting raped with the same level of deadly seriousness that a woman in that position would receive in a film. That’s a pretty bold, progressive plot point, especially since men getting raped (especially male-on-male) was and still is used as a joke. And watching the movie in a day and age with tons of queer characters in media does soften the blow a bit, because these aren’t the only gay characters you’ll see in fiction anymore. I think it’s important to have discussions about these sorts of archaic portrayals of queers in film, but I don’t think this breaks the movie.

In modern times the film has gotten a reputation as a “red flag” film loved by toxic guys, and I think that’s unfair; is it the movie’s fault dudebros fail to see the movie is a refutation of crime and violence? Think about it: The only person in the film who gets an unambiguously happy ending is the one who has a spiritual awakening and abandons his criminal ways to walk the Earth. Every other major character pays in some way for their continued violent ways: Butch goes through Hell and ends up in exile, Marsellus Wallace gets raped, Mia overdoses and nearly dies, and Vince does die. Hell, there’s an entire segment where Jules and Vince are repeatedly chastised for careless violence causing a huge mess; as you may recall, Jules’ pal Jimmy was not too keen to find Phil LaMarr dead in his garage, and had some choice words to say about it. Stupid people see the blood and slurs and take it at face value, but the narrative itself tells these sorts they’re well and truly fucked because when you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Of course, my favorite interpretation of the film is that it is espousing the belief that Beatles fans are superior to Elvis ones, as an extension of Mia’s comment in a deleted scene that you’re either an Elvis person or a Beatles person. Vince is clearly an Elvis guy, and he is presented as an unprofessional, careless buffoon who causes numerous issues and ends up dying due to his own inattentiveness; meanwhile, Jules is vaguely implied to be the proverbial “Beatles guy” (he calls the robber in the diner “Ringo”) and escapes the film unscathed. This is even funnier when you consider that one of Tarantino’s first onscreen roles was as an Elvis impersonator in Golden Girls, something that implies he might be an Elvis guy himself, which would make the film the most epic act of self-deprecation ever.

This is one of the greatest sophomore releases from a director ever, and one of the greatest films of the 90s. This film frequently finds its way to the top of “best films of all time” lists, and with good reason; it is, to this day, just that good. I think there’s a temptation to call any of his other films his magnum opus due to just how acclaimed and pervasive in pop culture this film is, but it got that way for a reason. It is a damn good crime story with all sorts of twists and turns and plenty of stuff for viewers to ruminate on and interpret as they please. Hell, I thought I liked Kill Bill more than it until I rewatched it, but boy does this just blow even that masterpiece out of the water.

If nothing else, the film is incredible for one simple reason: Tarantino managed to insert his foot fetish into the film without it feeling as needlessly gratuitous as it is in some later films! Bravo, Tarantino!

[ackackh]

DOGSTARS 🤭😆

Oh heyyyy, my one true friend on here answering the call 💛 thank you for the ask!!

My favorite scene

Here’s the thing 😏 my favorite scene rn is the first kiss but it’s not published yet! (We’re looking at probably chapter 4 for those who are concerned) but right now, as for the published scenes, my favorite is the first porch scene. It was just so rewarding to write the two of them alone again for the first time in two years, basically right off the heels of ‘we’re sure you were still alive, letters don’t prove shit.’ I love that, while he doesn’t realize it, Andy just wants to be as close to Eddie as he can be; I love that Eddie is just fucking thrilled that Andy’s there at all. The adrenaline high of his surprise visit is still going strong at that point. I also really like the introduction to Joe and Michael here, good (if rowdy) boys that Eddie just desperately wants to love and protect.

Very close runner up is the breakfast scene, the first morning Andy stays there. I was just really fun to explore the younger siblings and showcase their personalities a little bit.

My favorite chapter (if it’s a multichapter)

AH! I’m sorry it’s the camping trip I’m currently working on! It’s just Andy and Eddie rediscovering a very youthful joy and feeling free and untethered from the problems of their lives. It’s where the feelings of love and intimacy really start to take root for them and it’s so!!! They deserve every happiness and this is just the beginning!

Hardest scene to write

I think later, when I’m writing heavier scenes, this one will seem like whatever, but rn I’m making Joe and Eddie fight and for some reason it’s killing me! Like, I know exactly what needs to happen but the words are just beyond me rn. Plus the scene with the Brubakers in ch 2, I agonized over. Took me forever to feel even remotely okay with sharing it.

Favorite character to write in the fic

Favorite is also one of the hardest to write, my darling Eddie. I think I’ve realized one of the reasons I enjoy writing from Andy’s perspective is that it gives me the opportunity to wax poetic about how much he (and I) love Eddie. I love his canon dynamic with the mortar squad, his boys, and I’m absolutely taking that sort of energy and putting it into Eddie’s relationships with his siblings. As the youngest sibling myself, I think I just adore big brothers, and Eddie is such a good big brother. And it’s fun to write the way Andy coaxes him out of his quiet nature and makes him feel comfortable. Only problem is that Eddie is fucking funnier than me so that’s hard to get right!

Favorite dynamic to write in the fic

SIBLINGS. Each of the siblings (including Bill, Andy’s brother, who we’ll meet later) have a unique relationship with Eddie and Andy, and exploring that has been so fun and so rewarding. Especially Eddie’s relationship with Joe, it’s been really expanded in this fic, and they just have so much shit going on. Joe idealizes Eddie to a fault and when he doesn’t meet his expectations, things get really messy. But they still love each other so damn much.

Why I chose that title

Back in the day when I wrote Our Hemisphere, I liked taking the titles of my fics from elements or dialogue within, so that accounted for that title. Plus, the idea of “ours,” something private and precious to them, their own world. So with DOGSTAR. The idea was a play on that, their love sort of coming to fruition at the tail end of summer, which is when Sirius a is visible, and their little stargazing scene (which will make a reprisal here soon.)

A fun fact about the fic

Fun fact: like so many of my fics, I started planning this re-write sometime before 2020 I think. Maybe 2021, it’s hard to remember now. But I’m so glad I’m finally doing it. Writing something that I can really use to compare my current self to my younger self is just so rewarding, really a highlight of my year so far ahaha.

[senseandaccountability]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @mightymizora (thank youuu)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 94. 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 1,108,787, ahahaha. I’ve been at it for like 20 years though. 3. What fandoms do you write for? Baldur’sGate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Lucifer make up the bulk of my fics but I’ve dabbled in some more fandoms.  4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

There are names for what binds us - (DAI; Blackwall/Trevelyan) The free parking jackpot rule - (Lucifer; Lucifer/Chloe) Blaze Me a Sun - (BG3; Astarion/Tav) And Hate the Idle Pleasures of These Days - (Lucifer; Michael/Ella) Kiss by Kiss I Cover Your Small Infinity - (Lucifer; Lucifer/Chloe)

5. Do you respond to comments? I always try to!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? All of my A Song of Ice and Fire fics are angsty since they’re about women who die in various horrible ways. But I’m generally more of a bittersweet writer, I think. 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Like I said, I lean towards the bittersweet and most endings are more sweet than bitter.Compared to canon outcomes I’d say my Michael fics for the Lucifer fandom are the happiest ones because you can’t give me a wretched, bitter, jealous mirror to Most Loved Boi Lucifer and not expect me to root for him in some way. 8. Do you get hate on fics? Not since my Jamie/Brienne drabbles ended up on a rabid Jamie/Cersei reclist. I also had some snippy comments/PMs on a Michael fic where I closed down Hell because Lucifer the show gave me an American Dream ending with self-improvement through therapy in Hell instead of questioning revenge as a moral solution. 9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Gods, I used to. Not so much now, no. It’s just not that interesting to me anymore, I rather write around the smut. The kind of smut I like to write is emotionally intense and/or angsty, at any rate.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Very, very rarely. I’m uninterested in reading them myself but I’ve used crossover as a concept in two stories: Troy Lies in Ruins (Cyberpunk 2077) in which Johnny is the Clementine inside V’s head and I use Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as inspiration for their post-game quest to find each other again.

The Gods That Answer After Dark (Lucifer) in which I crossover Deckerstar with the novel The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and had a chance to shut down that damned hell again.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes, someone more or less paraphrased my Johnny/V fic And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire by posting their own fic with pretty much entire paragraphs stolen from mine. I didn’t do anything about it, though, it had no comments/kudos at the time. 

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, it was flattering. 

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I don’t think so, not that I can recall. I’d be up for it, though, it would be kind of cool to co-write a romance story where two authors write two different characters. 

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? I don’t think I can pick just one. 

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I always intend to finish the WIPs. That said, it would require a lot of willpower to return to the oldest WIPs I have, by now. 16. What are your writing strengths? I think I’m good at concepts, characters and hopefully keeping a distinct sort of style. I used to be more pretentious. I think my writing has become better by dropping some of the most literary concepts in favour of focusing on emotions and social dynamics. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot? I think I could write plot - I like to plan stories out - but I don’t really want to dedicate time to write it. I’m also really bored by action and exposition. Ugh at having to explain and describe shit beyond a tightly packed sentence or two.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I don’t even understand this question and will blame it on English being my second language. 

19. First fandom you wrote for? The Legend of the Ice People, oh my lord. If only for my desk drawer. https://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-of-the-Ice-People-19-book-series/dp/B075TY2F5M The US version of the covers have removed ALL suggestive and thrillingly forbidden vibe from the original though. What 13 year old me loved about them was that the first book was about a horny 16 year old girl who falls in love with a 40 something demonic and cursed (also solitary and very angsty) dude after having intense sex dreams about him as Satan. Every book after that just added to the cocktail of sex, history and ancient curses and for years so much of what I wrote was fanfic versions of this series.  20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written? I’m rather fond of this Aeducan/Gorim story: so I wait for you like a lonely house

I'm tagging @wanderingaldecaldo, @thievinghippo, @icescrabblerjerky and @threewhiskeylunch if you're up for it. Otherwise feel free to ignore.

[enriquemzn262]

I don’t think enough people understand how incredibly powerful Eminem is, which is strange because he has been constantly informing us of his capabilities for years

Let’s start with his healing factor. Eminem seems to be virtually immortal, capable of surviving all manner of fatal injuries unphased. In the song I’m Shady, he states sings “The ill type, I stab myself with a steel spike/While I blow my brain out, just to see what it feels like.” This man mutilates himself recreationally.

This regeneration ability seems to have manifested in his early youth, as in the song Brain Damage, he recalls a time in which his brain fell out of his skull and simply and casually picked it up and put it back in his head (“She beat me over the head with the remote control/Opened a hole, and my whole brain fell out of my skull/I picked it up and screamed ‘Look bitch, what have you done!?’/‘Oh my God! I'm sorry son!’ ‘Shut up you cunt!"/I said ‘Fuck it!’ Took it and stuck it back up in my head/Then I sewed it shut and put a couple of screws in my neck.”

He is also seemingly unaffected by the loss of limbs, being able to function perfectly with just one leg (“But she swallowed my fuckin' leg whole like an egg roll/With one leg left, now I'm hoppin' around crippled,” As the World Turns)

Eminem seems to possess elemental abilities that could rival or even surpass those of X-Men’s Storm, considering that he’s “hot enough to melt hell and burn Satan too,” can “catch lightning in a bottle” and “set fire to water” (Cinderella Man). In addition, he is “cold enough to make the seasons change into freezing rain” (Bad Meets Evil)

If Eminem ever finds himself in a disadvantageous position, he can summon the power of his “Gadget Dick.” While the full capabilities of this appendage are unknown, it is capable of causing an earthquake and power outage upon being “whipped out.” So we can comfortably assume that his penis alone is a city-level threat at the very least (“Just tryna buy me some time then I remembered this magic trick/Duh-dah-duh-dah-duh-duh! Go-go gadget dick!/Whipped that shit out, and ain't no doubt about it/It hit the ground and caused an earthquake and power outage,” As the World Turns)

He has canonically killed Superman (“I killed Superman,” Rain Man), he possesses a “spider sense” on par with that of Spider-Man’s (“My spider sense is telling me Spiderman is nearby and my plan is to get him next,” Rain Man), he is capable of of destroying Iron Man’s armor with his acidic saliva, as well as turning Iron Man into plastic (“Salivas like sulfuric acid in your hand it'll eat through/Anything metal, the ass of Iron Man/Turn him into plastic so for you to think…” On Fire) and has battled the likes of Freddy Krueger and survived unscathed (“Walked up Elm Street with a fuckin' Wiffle bat drew/Fought Freddy Krueger, and Edward Scissorhands too/Then came out with a little scratch, ooh,” Underground).

He is capable of stealing other people’s abilities (“Have Michael Myers looking like a liar/Swipe his powers, replace his knife with flowers and a stack of flyers,” Underground). He also possesses the same abilities as the Hulk (“I’m unstoppable, Incredible Hulk,” Drop the World) and considers himself superior to Thor (“So you’ll be Thor and I’ll be Odin,” Rap God)

By his own admission, he holds the entire planet in the palm of his hand (“So tell Saddam not to bother with makin’ another bomb cause I’ve got the whole world in my palm,” Still Don’t Give a Fuck), implying that he is some sort of entity similar to the Buddha from Journey to the West. He could crush this world anytime he wants.

He is capable of surviving a fall into Hell, can withstand the heat of hellfire and casually manhandle Satan (“Splattered all over the entire state/and straight to hell, got impaled by the gates/Saw Satan, stuck his face in an ashtray/While I sashayed around flames with a match/And I gave him the gas face,” Wicked Ways)

He can manipulate time itself (“Smash an hourglass, grab the sand, takes his hands and cup 'em/Spin a rhyme to freeze the clock, take the hands of time and cuff 'em… Rewound the future to the present, paused it, don't ask how,” Cinderella Man), and possess reality warping capabilities that defy logic (“Fuck catchin' lightnin', he struck it, screamed, ‘Shut up’ at thunder/Then flipped the world upside down and made it rain upward,” Cinderella Man)

His very existence defies God (“Shit, I ain't even supposed to be here by the grace of God,” Cinderella Man)

And top of all that… he’s just straight up omnipotent (“I’m omnipotent,” Rap God)

So, sorry Goku fans, Superman fans, Rimuru fans, Ben 10 fans, Saitama fans, etc, Eminem stomps your favorite character

Now you made me remember why I stopped being an Eminem fan the moment I became fully bilingual.

[theylovebats]

!SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES AND RIDE THE CYCLONE AHEAD!

Okay! Here is my group of elaborate Magnus RTC crossover concepts (Some are more in depth than others)

Karnak: An avatar of the end; An avatar of the web; An avatar of the eye, skipping all this cause Karnak’s would be super long!

Ocean: An avatar of the eye, some random teenage girl interning at the institute, everyone (especially Jon) kind of hates her and finds her to be a nuisance, there’s a twist and she turns out to be Mary Keay’s assistant, works HARD to become a favorite of the eye, abuses her omnipotent powers like crazy (usually just to show off), Gerry HATES her, Mary thinks she’s perfect and complains about how he “Could’ve been more like her; An avatar of the web, I don’t have much for this it just also made sense but I like the first one better-

Noel: An avatar of the desolation, doesn’t get involved in the Lightless Flame, just does his own thing, evil life destroying drag show; An avatar of the corruption, similar to Jane Prentiss but he is a minor in canon and I’m running with him being a minor so it’s more of a performance art experience that lures you in by being interesting, I feel like him and Prentiss are very close (she views him as her adopted son), drag show vibes either way, Basira and him get along oddly well, I feel like he gets an intern job working for the ghosty podcast so him and Georgie are buddies, Melanie and him have banter but not as much as him and Basira do, they’re the only ones who know they’re joking, everyone else thinks Basira and Noel hate eachother

Mischa: An avatar of the hunt, he’s part of a ridiculous SoundCloud rapper gang that consists of a bunch of other hunt avatars, you make fun of him for a bit and then him and his pack of buddies destroy you; An avatar of the desolation, he sort of accidentally wrecks the lives of tragic souls he hyper-fixates on, he doesn’t realize that the entity he works for is feeding on his pain as much as his victims, random but I feel like him and Tim are besties, he’s friends with Sasha too, after things don’t go well with Talia or they decide to be friends Sasha and Tim try to set him up with Noel, pummels the HECK out of NOT Sasha with Jane/Penny’s help

Ricky: An avatar of the spiral, he gets all creative and hypnotic with his wacky psychedelic cat visuals, Michael was afraid of him and so is Helen, he confuses you with sermons from the Bachelor Man Bible, Tim and him are best friends in both versions; An avatar of the vast, SPAAAACE, he terrorizes astronauts and Simon Fairchild is also afraid of him, him and Daisy are buddies and joke around about the dogs and cats stuff, Daisy carries him around a lot, Georgie is his friend and they learn ASL together, they find his cat stories very interesting

Jane/Penny: An avatar of the stranger, she canonically is beheaded and brought back as Jane Doe, she TERRIFIES everyone from her fear group, Jon pretends to be neutral her but he’s very attached and views her as his niece, can often be found watching National Geographic in the room Martin sleeps in for a hot sec (reciting facts, requesting to play dolls, just generally scaring him and the whole of the employees), the entire institute goes from being afraid of her to loving her over the course of the plot, quickly becomes the golden child of the Magnus institute as she’s not actually that harmful; An avatar of the spiral, Michael and Helen love her, confuzzles you with her weird decapitation tricks, animal facts, identity crisis hypnosis abilities, another interpretation could be actual Penny Lamb with spiral avatar traits and stuff

Constance: An avatar of the vast, CLOUD MAGIC, she definitely has a lil sugar cloud clump she floats on, spends a lot of her time just hanging upside down and doing silly little sky tricks, she for a while doesn’t realize that her spooking of human people is very harmful but after she does she gets a bit of a devious side, she has tea with Simon a LOT and they poke fun at each other for being a “Gen Z hormonal beast” and a “Silly old British man” but neither have the heart to get too mean, I have so much for the final few seasons with this one-; An avatar of the lonely, this one was too sad, I changed it so she’s still vast but she hangs around Martin in his lonely era and makes Blackwood (same last name) jokes, they poke fun at Peter for his multiple divorces with Elias, her and Martin have an adopted sibling relationship, she introduces Martin to the family before the world ends and they love him

BONUS

Ezra: An avatar of the spiral; An avatar of the web

Virgil: An avatar of the end; An avatar of the corruption

[thebrightsessions]

Entertainment Spotlight: Briggon Snow

Briggon Snow is a Los Angeles-based actor, writer and creator, originally from South Portland, Maine. He is known for voicing Caleb Michaels in The Bright Sessions and The College Tapes, and roles in The Big Loop (Podcast), Seal Team (CBS), Game Shakers (Nickelodeon) and Masters of Sex (Showtime).

Can you share any fun facts about the making of The Bright Sessions and/or The College Tapes that fans would be surprised to find out?

Oh boy. I was just wracking my brain on this and struggling™. “Should I mention the obvious: That we did this remotely? Talk about those challenges?” And then moments ago my husband stepped out onto our balcony where I was staring at my laptop, read this question, and made a very cheeky suggestion. So here we go:

Everyone loves kissing in audio, right? *crickets* No? Only some of you? Well, I know it’s a hot-button topic, but when it comes to squishy romance feelings I’m here for it, I’ll admit. And well, we recorded this in a pandemic, so...no kissing allowed. And how did we get around that? Well, as one of our illustrious and poor defenseless audio designers got to e̶x̶p̶e̶r̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ suffer through...I sent over “roll-the-tape” recordings of me pulling my husband into my home recording booth to - essentially - makeout for all of your enjoyment/cringes. Now...who’s kissing in The College Tapes? You’ll have to wait and hear (again sorry) because...well...reasons...

If you could have a conversation with Caleb, what would you want to talk about?

I’d love to go on trail with him or go camping and just talk about...feelings. I know the feelings/emotions thing is a constant for him so this is a little on the nose - but in playing Caleb and now writing for him too - I was challenged to submerge myself in my heart and mind and body and meditate with the emotions that pass me by every day. Lauren’s writing gave me a roadmap to identify and place things within myself outside of recording (a gift I’ll never be able to repay). And in these last five years I’ve found myself endlessly fascinated with human emotionality and our awareness or lack thereof and how we move throughout life in relationship with the things we feel. I’d love to look Caleb in the eyes and have us be unabashedly open with each other; the good, the bad, the everything.

Do you have a memory from college or young adulthood that you think would make a good College Tapes scene or episode?

It’s funny. I pulled on so many memories and feelings from my time at college. There’s one particular story involving greek life and my freshman roommate that I absolutely stole when writing my episodes. But I have one memory that’s so...nothing really...but so powerful in my life that I’d like to share...

My best friend in college ended up showing me Avatar: The Last Airbender, and when we’d watch it in his dorm, we would naturally smoosh up on his bed and cuddle under a blanket. And for me, a gay kid - just cuddling up with my straight best friend because we loved each other - and it not being weird or joked about when our friends were around - meant - like - everything to me.

Again, not a big crazy college memory. But let’s hear it for the straight boys out there dismantling toxic masculinity one soft action at a time!

If you could be Atypical in real life, would you want to be? If yes, what powers do you think that you would have?

I want to be an Atypical! I’d love to be able to communicate with anyone (+ animals) regardless of language. I want to know people. I love meeting people. I think one of the greatest privileges of being an actor is that we’re thrown together with other folks who (if it’s going right) open themselves up to you and participate in a created intimacy to seek understanding. More than anything, I’m curious and want to be influenced by other perspectives in this life - and the idea of being able to connect with and learn from a person in Morocco or even an Orca Whale off the coast of Washington is *heart eyes*.

Do you have any headcanons (something that you believe to be true that isn’t explicitly stated) about Caleb?

I don’t know if I’m going against actual canon here. After 5 years it’s hard to keep track of what’s in what episode in The Bright Sessions universe. But I’ve always imagined Caleb as a closet master chef of sorts. I think he learned to cook out of necessity growing up; odd hours for practices and games and his parents being a little scattered. And I think by college, Caleb is super impressive in the kitchen. The kitchen - like the gym or sport or nature - is one of his churches.

Can you share your favorite piece of The Bright Sessions fan art?

There have been so many incredible pieces of fan art over the years and I’ve loved them all. It’s wild how transformative fandoms can be. You never know what aspect of a character or a story is going to take hold in a person’s imagination, and all of the different headcanons and pieces of art our strange and unusual family has shared over the years continues to be my favorite part of being in the cast of The Bright Sessions.

(Grayson, ghostcribs)

I’ve always adored Grayson’s imagining of Caleb and Adam. Grayson is one of my very favorite artists ever; so much so that I eventually - nervously - reached out, and now he and I have started work on a little project of our own. And I love that. We all get to (and I think have the responsibility to if we can) inspire each other with what we put out into the world. It’s call and answer and it makes for the best stuff.

Thanks for taking the time, Briggon! Catch The College Tapes, only on Luminary. 

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Season 16 (Part 1)

Summary: After being captured by Michael while Dean was under his control, the reader has spent a very long time locked away waiting for someone to come and find her. When the day finally comes that the door opens, it’s not a familiar face she’s greeted with. Somehow the impossible is standing right in front of her but there’s no time to think about that. Something is terribly wrong and the reader needs the help of this strange young man if she wants to stop what Michael’s put in motion and have a chance at seeing Dean alive again...

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x reader

Square: Free Space

Word Count: 3,600ish

Warnings: language, SPN season 15 and series spoilers, injury, mention of main character deaths, mention of torture, angst, fluff

A/N: This series takes place post season 15 and follows canon (i.e. if it happened in the show, it happened in this story’s universe). This series is told between the reader and Dean’s POV. This was also written for @supernatural-jackles​ Tell Me A Story bingo!

________

Reader’s POV

You just about had a heart attack when the door opened. It’d been such a long time since it’d been opened. Years and years and years. You’d lost track of the days quickly but it was long enough for you to accept that it’d been a very long time. Long enough to accept that when Michael took over Dean and threw you down in the windowless little room, Dean didn’t win that fight.

The only thing keeping you going aside from the spell Michael had put up to keep you permanently trapped, body stuck in time, was the desire to save Dean. Or what was left of him. You’d been alone for years, body having taken a beating by Michael when he first captured you. You were still covered in bruises, broken ribs that wouldn’t heal, pain in every breath. You didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Solitude, cut off from the world, that was your main form of torture. Dean though...who knew what hell he was going through trapped with a psychopath like that for all these years.

You readied yourself, a dark figure walking inside the room. The room was pitch black to a certain point before you were trapped under a bright light you’d yet to figure out how to turn off. The figure stopped as their feet hit the brightness, a pair of brown boots and slim dark jeans all you could make out. They mumbled something and you felt the air shift slightly. You dared to reach at hand out to where the invisible wall keeping you trapped had been.

Your hand waved right on through it and you suddenly felt cool, clean air hit you. The person jolted when you sprang up, running away as you bolted for the door. You followed them up a flight of stairs and straight out into the foyer of a very nice house. You could see it was a man now and tackled him, straddling his hips and grabbing your knife from your waistband of your loose shorts, holding it to his throat. He breathed hard as you stared at him, cocking your head.

He was the spitting image of Dean. Mostly. His eyes weren’t green and there was something about his nose that reminded you of your own. The biggest tell of all though was the genuine fear in his face, the confusion. 

“What’s your name,” you said. You held up the knife for a moment and tucked it away when you saw he was only focused on it. The young man, no more than twenty years old, took a deep breath. You yelped when he threw his legs up and wrapped them around your waist, yanking you off of him. He scrambled to his feet but you were on his tail, grabbing at his jacket. He spun around and popped you in the face, sending you to the floor.

You whined and cupped your cheek, the young man frozen in the doorway with a horrified look on his face.

“Who punches their own mom!” you shouted. He ran out the door and you went after, growling at your bare feet as he took off down the gravel driveway. “I’m gonna find you!”

You stomped your foot on the cool concrete front path, glancing to your right and spotting a sports car. You jogged back inside and found a pair of women’s sneakers, a little too big but you tied them tight and found some keys on a front table. 

About two minutes later you were pulling up beside the guy on the road and hopped out of the car, the man running into the nearby treeline. You pulled out your knife and threw it, catching his jacket and pinning the sleeve to the tree trunk. He stumbled and fell down as you walked over, staring up with wide eyes. You sighed and ran a hand over your face. 

“Can you at least tell me your first name?” you asked. He shook his head and you crossed your arms. “I bet your name is Lyle, isn’t it.”

“How’d you know that?” he asked, voice a bit higher than Dean’s but it made you smile, something warm and familiar to it.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think recently. Lyle is my top name for a boy if I ever had one,” you said. “So. Lyle Winchester.”

“That’s not my name,” he said. He stood up and pulled out the knife, carefully holding it out to you.

“You look just like Dean and me. You’re my son...somehow,” you said.

“Fine. My name is Lyle and that’s all I can say about myself,” he said. “I’m serious.”

You recognized the tone, that edge to it, the roughness but laced with an undercurrent of worry. Part of you wanted him to tell you everything about him but you knew he couldn’t, instead letting yourself give him a simple nod.

“I’ll make you a deal Lyle. I won’t ask questions about you that you can’t answer if you tell me how and why you got me out of there and answer anything else I want to know about this little situation.”

“Or else what?” he scoffed.

“Or else someday when you’re a teenager I won’t let you do anything. Lyle.” You took the knife from him and put it away, taking a deep breath. You stepped back out to the road, leaning against the car. You shut your eyes, something heavy draped over you. You peeled one eye open, Lyle leaning back against the car next to you in a blue flannel and dark gray t-shirt. His black hooded jacket was over your shoulders and you slipped your arms through the sleeves, wrapping them around yourself. You squeezed your eyes tight, shuddering before warm arms embraced you, Lyle almost as tall as Dean holding you close to him. “How did you know I was down there?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said.

“What year is it?” you asked.

“2089.” You froze, staring up at him. “Well, 2089 where we are right now is.”

“Lyle. It was 2018 when Michael took me. That’s not possible.”

“I can’t answer that either.” Tears welled up in your eyes and he hugged you again. “Sorry.”

“Dean was thirty nine the last time I saw him and it’s seventy one years later? He is dead. Sam is dead. They’re all dead so explain to me how the fucking hell I have a son with Dean!” you shouted. You pushed him away and ran your hands over your face. “Years. Fucking years I’ve sat down there waiting for him to come and get me. Him or Sam or someone. Fucking seventy one years!”

“Y/N,” he said, sounding a bit awkward but he cleared his throat. “I can’t answer everything because I don’t know everything. But I exist and that should tell you something.”

You wiped off your face with his sleeve and looked around, turning back and staring at him.

“I’m at the start of whatever this is and you’re way down the line,” you said. He nodded with a slight smile.

“I don’t understand it but this, where I’m from, this has already happened to you.”

“You’re from the future then,” you said.

“Not exactly,” he said. 

“A different universe?” He looked at you like you were nuts and the air shifted, Lyle freezing. You turned and saw Jack, a smile on his face. “Jack?”

“Hi Y/N,” he said. He stepped over and gave you a big hug, a little bit of ache inside you easing finally. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just on pause.”

“Jack I don’t understand fucking anything. What’s going on?” you asked. He pursed his lips and sighed.

“Well you already figured out Lyle is your and Dean’s son. I didn’t think I could slip that one past you. But it had to be him that came and saved you.”

“Why?”

“Dean’s in heaven. Has been for 69 years.” You broke away from him feeling like you’d had a punch to gut and making you breathless. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that with the whole decades worth of trauma thing happening right now.”

“Did Michael…” you trailed off.

“No. A piece of rebar on a vamp hunt,” he said.

“He what?” you said.

“Yeah got pushed back on it. Sam was okay though. Oh and Dean had a dog for a few months.”

“Dean fucking died from that? That’s what kept him down?” you said. Jack nodded and you looked down, blinking your eyes. “Disregarding what is going on in my head right now about that, why didn’t you heal him? Or Castiel?”

“Well Cas was in heaven helping me rebuild after he sort of died and I brought him back. I kinda am the new God,” he said with a smile.

“I’m proud of that but again, why didn’t you come down here and heal Dean?”

“I’m sort of hands off in that regard,” he said. You were about to go off on him for that when it hit you.

“Jack how long have you known I was alive,” you said. 

“2020 when I took over, I got these extra-”

“You knew I was alive and  left me in a hole in the ground for over seventy years?” you said. 

“Like I said, I’m hands off,” he said. 

“I was your fucking mom! I took care of you! I protected you! I almost died for you more than once and when you find out I’m still alive you say fuck that bitch, she can deal with it on her own? What the fuck is wrong with you!” you shouted. You slapped him in the face, Jack pouting as you sank down to your knees. “I want Dean.”

“Y/N.”

“I want Dean and Sam.”

“Y/N-”

“I want Dean!”

“I can’t-”

“Fuck you! You’re as every bit as evil as that devil father of yours after all,” you said. You forced yourself to your feet, tears prickling in his eyes. “Oh did I hurt your feelings? Tough fucking shit! Do you realize that I have not only been stuck waiting for years but my body got stuck too. I’ve been sitting with broken ribs for seventy years. Every single breath excruciating.”

You yanked up your shirt, deep purple and black skin radiating across most of your abdomen. Jack reached out a hand and you moved back, dropping your shirt.

“I thought you were hands off. I don’t want your-” you said before warmth trickled through you, the pain gone, body feeling so strange at being without it. 

“I don’t have to touch to heal you,” he said quietly. He swallowed and bowed his head. “I tried to let people live their lives without my interference and sometimes they’re messy but I’ve come to realize recently that’s wrong. A bit of help here and there is good. It gives people hope and maybe I should have done things different.”

“My family’s dead and I don’t want to wait around decades more to see them again in heaven. You’re going to-”

“No I won’t. Lyle’s life counts on you doing exactly what you’re supposed to as do your two other children’s. I can’t just put you in heaven. You can’t die right and you have to wait to see Dean until things work themselves out. Lyle’s going to be with you for a while and help get some things settled. It’s already set in motion so go with it,” he said.

“Jack I want Dean. Please,” you said. “Please Jack. Just five minutes.”

“Would you rather have your family back in the near future, alive, or would you rather have your and Dean’s souls torn apart and you never see him again, dead or alive? Rather he over there doesn’t exist? Rather no one exists?”

“I didn’t say that. Of course I would rather have them back alive-“

“Then be patient.”

“Jack. You gotta give me something. Something please.”

“I’ll talk to Lyle, tell him he can loosen up some. But I can’t tell you what to do. You have to follow your gut. Listen to Lyle and it’ll work out,” said Jack. You squeezed your eyes shut, Jack carefully resting a hand on your shoulder. “Do you hate me?”

“I hate that our family was ripped apart. I hate that you didn’t tell the boys I was alive once you knew. I hate that the last time I saw Dean alive we argued. I think what I hate most of all is that you treated us like everyone else. We’re not, Jack. We’re your family. All of us deserved a chance at normal and we didn’t get it.”

“Sam did.”

“How many years did Sam live without us? Without his brother?” you asked. Jack glanced down and you nodded. “You said you became God? Why didn’t you get rid of the monsters altogether Jack. Don’t tell me you don’t have that power.”

“I thought...I thought it was the natural order.”

“Yet you know there are other universes with no monsters at all. You could have taken the monsters away. Shit turn them human for all I care. The boys didn’t have to keep hunting after you took over. You could have been hands off and changed that one fact and saved so many lives, improved so many lives.”

“No. I couldn’t have changed it. Not back then.”

“Why the hell not?” you asked. He pulled his hand away and you found yourself in some clean clothes, Lyle’s jacket folded on top of the car.

“Because when I became God, I learned a lot. It sucks knowing that certain things have to happen and that I had to ignore when Sam prayed to me in that barn because things had to happen this way.”

“But why?”

“Because if I didn’t, if I’d intervened then and there, this universe, all of the ones I’ve been busy rebuilding, the way I’ve been rebuilding heaven...it’d be gone. Destroyed and I wouldn’t be able to put it back. It’s a temporary pain even if it doesn’t seem like it. So please, Y/N, please, listen to Lyle. Work with him. It’ll work out and things can be okay. You can have everything you ever wanted and more. You can have the freaking apple pie life and the no monsters and all of it but please understand you have more shit to go through first and whatever happens, do not let Lyle die.”

“He’s my son. I wouldn’t let that happen to him,” you said. Jack nodded and you grabbed his arm when he turned to leave. “You’ve grown up Jackie.”

“I’m still a baby by God standards,” he said.

“The guys take care of you after I was gone?” you asked. 

“Yeah. I missed you though,” he said. “I accidentally killed Mary and sort of lost my soul for a bit. Things got bad for a while.”

“Do you see Kelly in heaven sometimes? Mary?” you asked. He nodded and you smiled. “Kids can fuck up and your parents will forgive you.”

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, Y/N. If I could snap my fingers to fix it all, stop it from ever happening, I would.”

“I’m going to trust that it had to be this way,” you said. “But give me a ballpark figure here. When do I get the guys back?”

“That’s relative. You’re going to end up breaking the space time continuum so it’s hard to answer that correctly.” You stared at him and he shrugged. “Not too long. A few days at most. I promise.”

“Wait is that how we have a twenty year old son?” you asked.

“Yes. The next time you see Dean he’ll be younger than the last you saw him. Just trust your gut and Lyle. Next time I see you I hope things are much better,” he said. You opened your mouth but he disappeared. You shook your head and turned around, Lyle now wearing his jacket, standing closer to the passenger seat door. For a long while you both simply stared, Lyle looking as if he’d just had his own long conversation with Jack. 

“You can call me Y/N if that makes it easier,” you said. He nodded and you took a deep breath, going to the driver’s side. “So. What’s the next move?”

“Jack just said after I got you out we had to go to Lebanon. He didn’t tell me anything more than that,” he said.

“Any idea where we are?” you asked.

“San Antonio,” he said. “So we go North?”

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Mind taking the first shift driving? I sort of haven’t slept in like seventy years.”

“No that’s fine,” he said. He walked around the front and you made your way to the passenger side, climbing in and sighing. He got behind the wheel and took a deep breath. “You and dad run a construction business.”

“That’s nice,” you said, smiling to yourself. “Dean’d be real good at that kind of thing. He’s really smart.”

“I know. Most guys can’t call up their dad for help on their architecture homework,” he said. 

“You go to college?” you asked, Lyle nodding. “Do you know about...this stuff?”

“I’m still not convinced I’m not insane. I just got home on a friday night. We had dinner and everyone went outside to have a bonfire in the backyard. I went in to use the bathroom and Uncle Jack stopped me before I could get back outside. He said a lot of crazy stuff I didn’t believe but the fact you were in that basement...you and dad are only like forty but you’re obviously too old right now to have had me when that would have made sense and Uncle Jack said space and time is gonna break and-”

“Lyle,” you said, holding up a hand. “Relax. I just want to know, do you know what hunting is?”

“Dad doesn’t go hunting,” he said, narrowing his eyes. You smiled and nodded to yourself. “We don’t even own a gun.”

“I doubt that. But that must mean that something happens to the monsters along the way too.”

“What do you mean monsters? And why were you kidnapped in a basement? And what the fuck is going on? You’re supposed to be my mom that runs the family business and you kick ass in your soccer league in the summer and you can’t cook to save your life and that’s okay cause you’re really good at baking and pies and shit and I just don’t understand who you really are.” His face was flush, eyes fighting back tears. You smiled, reaching over and cupping his cheek.

“You’re a good guy Lyle. We obviously did something right,” you said, wiping away a stray tear that fell. “It’s scary. It’s really scary. I’m not your mom yet but I will be someday. I promise I will tell you everything you don’t know when I catch up to your time. Dean and I will. But we need to go to Lebanon and the faster we can go there and figure out what we have to do, the faster we can get you back home where you belong.”

“But can’t you-”

“This world isn’t safe, Lyle. It is very unsafe for a Winchester especially. Please drive now,” you said. You put on your seatbelt and he closed his eyes. “Please.”

“I was supposed to be having a smore right now,” he said.

“I know. But saving the world is kinda cool,” you said. 

“I don’t want to save the world. I want to go home and not see my mom be beat to shit. I want my dad to go back to teasing me at dinner and not being dead,” he said. 

“If we do this right, you can go back to that really soon. It hasn’t happened for me yet. We can talk all about this when you come back. The night you come back we can talk through it all. But we have to get going. The sooner we go, the sooner it goes back to normal.”

“It’ll never be normal again.”

“Yes it will. I promise.”

“How do you-“

“Because I just had this really bad thing happen to me but someday I’m going to have you and everything I ever wanted with Dean. So it sucks right now but it’ll be better eventually. I know it will. You’re here so I know it’ll be normal.” He nodded and wiped off his face, starting the car up again.

“Y/N. Are you okay after...you know...being down there beat up all that time?”

“Not really,” you said. He took off his jacket and handed it to you. You stared before he rolled his eyes, laying it over your front.

“Sleep. I can drive.”

“Lyle.”

“Y/N. Rest. It’s safe. I got this.”

“You take after your dad.”

“Take after someone else too,” he said. You smiled and nodded, resting your head on your shoulder, closing your eyes. “I’ll wake you up for breakfast.”

“Egg and-”

“Cheese on a biscuit, two breakfast burritos, extra hot sauce and a small hot latte.”

“At least my road trip order didn’t change,” you said, quickly relaxing and falling asleep for the first time in ages.

_______

A/N: Read part 2 here!

[sugar--exe]

alright, so this is my final list of random podcast character headcanons. for those who don’t know, i have previously posted hc lists for jonathan sims and peter nureyev, and this is the list for michael!! also, i’m currently writing a gerry x michael fic that explores a few of these hcs, so if you’re interesting in a little extract from it, let me know

disclaimer! i have my own way of understanding how michael works, it probably doesn’t fit into canon but it stops him from making my head hurt, so it’s okay. also, this list is taken directly from my notes app, and might not make sense, so be warned. 

he does not hold his hands right oh no

likes to wear Patterns. the more they clash the better

probably would run a joint tiktok account with helen

can go through doors in any media, i.e on tv, illustrated doors on books, etc etc

kinda vibrates a little? like static distortion or bad signal on a tv. and he tends to get less distorted when people touch him

when he was forced into becoming the distortion, it sort of smushed them together into one being, and both sides of it are constantly fighting for control of the body

because of him being slightly human, his constant state of tv-static-distortion tends to hurt, like a constant headache.

keeping his physical form human is difficult unless he’s around other humans, as his existence makes it hard to get it right unless he has an example

when he’s in Freaky Mode it gets really hard to count how many fingers he has 

his eyes have colour. dunno which one, but they sure do have it

facial expressions are hard. sometimes he gets them right. sometimes

oh he’s so tall. oh

probably could glow in the dark if he really wanted to

definitely likes energy drinks. not to drink but like. to look at. he likes the vibe

his reflection does not look right 

if you try to move him physically he will. bend

likes to fuck with the doors in the institute for Fun. also cause he hates elias

gets distracted easily

kinda. wants to commit to things? but doesn’t 

quite romantic! remembers what love felt like, and desperately wants to experience it again 

can literally just. fold himself in half. 

when you’re in his hallways your fingerprints are fucked up

 if he didn’t get absolutely fucked over by the spiral he would have been lonely aligned

doesn’t quite understand personal space, and tends to stand too close to people

his inner monologue tends to be just a constant flow of thought and sensation and it takes quite a lot for something to garner his full attention

however, touching him in any way will make him pay attention

his mannerisms tend to be just slightly animalistic

likes to suck on raw lemons like a little weirdo

even when his hands are normal (not sharp), he still uses them very carefully

thinks animals are funky

always has various candies in his pockets. usually brightly coloured, always crunchy

still carries around his glasses, despite not needing to wear them

can turn 2d sometimes to fuck with people

tends to hum tunelessly a lot

tends to mirror physical mannerisms 

doesn’t need to blink in weirdo-mode

it can plant thoughts in people’s heads while they’re in the hallways, but not in a way that’s easily noticeable

the lights in the hallways will flicker and burst when he’s angry or upset, and the mirrors will crack 

can get stuck in repeating motions, like a record sticking

if he tries too hard to be human at a bad time, he can start getting cracks on his body

clumsy as f u c k

doodles a lot

likes the smell of petrol and cleaning products

can’t be killed through bodily harm but dislikes the feeling anyway

is always cold

paler in weirdo mode than when he’s being normal

hair is always just slightly staticky and floats around

hates elias/jonah and is very petty about it

very good at whistling

sometimes he purrs involuntarily but he doesn’t like to

sits super weirdly

very pointy teeth

can’t sleep in weirdo mode but sometimes it pretends to

big fan of spiders despite them being web-aligned

[cuttoothed]

For the second day of @jonmartinweek, mostly for the prompt "injury", though also a little bit "love confession" (by omission).

Set directly after episode 92. Content warnings for mild descriptions of Jon’s canonical injuries (blood, burns).

*

Things are...tense, when they go back down to the Archives. Actually, “tense” is probably an understatement, after finding out that Elias murdered not only Gertrude Robinson, but also the unknown man in Document Storage—who as it turned out was none other than Juergen bloody Leitner.

A lot to take on board, all in all.

Basira seems to have accepted her new employment status with eerie calm, and starts setting up at Sasha’s old desk (oh god, Sasha’s dead, has been for months), fetching notebooks and folders from the stationery cupboard and arranging pens and highlighters in a desk tidy. Daisy is nowhere to be seen—thankfully, Martin thinks, because she was even scarier than usual in Elias’ office. Melanie storms off into the stacks and there are sounds of shouting and things hitting the floor, which Martin is in no hurry to investigate. Tim sits at his desk with his feet propped up for about five minutes, then stands up and says: “Fuck this, I’m off to the pub.” He doesn’t invite anyone else to go with him, and Martin thinks their presence probably wouldn’t be welcome.

Jon arrives in about half an hour later, smelling of fresh cigarette smoke. Normally Martin would disapprove, but the way things are right now he’s tempted to take up a few bad habits himself. Jon looks...exhausted, defeated, his shoulders slumped wearily. His clothes are smudged with dirt, and there’s drying blood crusted around the injury on his neck; the bandages on his hand are starting to slip, revealing the angry, raw burns beneath.

Martin’s not sure he’s ever been so happy to see someone in his life.

Jon gives him a small, tired smile as he passes, then heads into his office and shuts the door. Martin knows that no sane person would try to go straight back to work looking like they’d just been through a war zone and still with an open wound; he is also aware that Jonathan Sims is the sort of person to do precisely that. He hesitates for a few moments, then makes a decision.

He fetches the first aid kit from the break room, and goes and knocks on Jon’s door. It’s a firm knock, a knock that he hopes says “I’m coming in whether you like it or not”, because it’s not beyond Jon to try to avoid them all for an extended period.

“Come in,” Jon calls, and even his voice sounds exhausted. When he sees Martin enter the room, his expression softens in a way that’s difficult to parse. Is he just relieved that it isn’t one of the others? Or is he actually pleased that it’s Martin?

It’s been two months since Jon went into hiding while suspected of murder, and the last time Martin saw him he had been quite sure Jon was planning to—to hurt himself, somehow. Before that, though, there had been a time when they were...well, close, in a way. Jon had let his guard down around Martin, in the midst of being so suspicious and afraid. He had trusted Martin, when he didn’t trust anyone else, had eaten lunch with him and talked about boring, ordinary things, the tight set of his shoulders relaxing just a little. He had even laughed, sometimes. It had been, despite everything, one of the happier times in Martin’s life, and if that’s not pathetic he doesn’t know what is.

“Hi, Jon,” he says.

“Martin,” says Jon, his tone soft. “It’s so—ahh, how are you?”

“How am I? You’re the one with a bloody great gash in your neck and looking like you put your hand in a fire.” Martin brandishes the first aid kit. “You really should go to the hospital, but I know it would be a waste of my time suggesting it.”

“Thank you for bringing that,” Jon says. “I appreciate it. You can just leave it on the desk.”

“Nope,” Martin tells him cheerily, setting the kit down and opening it. “I know you, Jon. If I leave it with you it’ll still be sitting here untouched tomorrow. Plus, I got my first aid certification when I was working in the library. It’s probably expired now, but I think it still counts.”

Jon looks as if he’s about to protest, but then he huffs a breath that might be a laugh, and nods in concession.

“All right then,” he says.

Martin snaps on a pair of disposable gloves and directs Jon to sit on the desk and undo the top two buttons on his shirt, so Martin can examine the wound on his neck. It’s shallow, fortunately, and the bleeding seems to have already stopped. Martin cleans away the crusted blood as gently as he can, though Jon still winces a few times.

“What happened?” Martin asks, as he smears on antibiotic cream.

“Daisy. She, ah, she decided that I was dangerous. Needed to be dealt with. Fortunately Basira was able to convince her otherwise.”

“Bloody hell,” Martin mutters. He’s not sure why he’s surprised; he’s always felt afraid around Daisy, like a rabbit being in the same room with a fox. But he just sort of assumed it was typical Martin fear of, well, everything. He never thought Daisy would actually hurt any of them. He applies a bandage carefully over the wound, and then turns his attention to Jon’s hand. Unwrapping the bandages reveals the red, blistered mess beneath, and Martin hisses in sympathy.

“Please tell me you went to the hospital for this.”

“I went to a walk-in clinic,” Jon says. “They cleaned it up, gave me some antibiotics and painkillers. They, uh, they did recommend I see my GP for follow up monitoring, and that I should get a referral to a physiotherapist, but, well, it’s been a busy few days.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs, exasperated, and Jon smiles a bit shakily.

“I know,” he says. “I will go to a GP, I promise. It’s just a bit tricky when you’re wanted for murder. Anyway, it seems to be healing rather well, all things considered.”

Martin considers whether to apply antibiotic cream, but the skin doesn’t seem to be broken, and he knows it’s best not to touch the area more than needed. Instead, he rewraps it with clean, dry bandages, being sure to keep them loose.

“How did this happen?” he asks, to distract himself from the fact that he is, technically, holding Jon’s hand. Jon gives a self-deprecating laugh.

“I, uh, I was trying to get information from a devotee of the Lightless Flame. This was her price.”

“The Lightless Flame? That cult—from the statements?”

“The same. As it turns out, a—a lot of things from the statements are real. Unpleasantly so.”

“I—yeah, I sort of figured that out when Tim and I got trapped in these weird corridors for days by that Michael...thing.”

Jon’s face blanches, his brows furrowing.

“You—god, Martin, I didn’t know. Are you—I mean, you’re okay, obviously, but— Have you seen Michael since?”

“No, and I hope I don’t.” Martin feels faintly nauseous at the memory. He doesn’t realize his hands are trembling slightly until the fingers of Jon’s hand, the unburned one, touch his wrist.

“I’m so sorry, Martin,” he says. “When I realized a-about Sasha, about that thing, I hoped I could take care of it myself, spare you and Tim. I never wanted to drag you into all this.”

“I don’t think there’s much avoiding it,” Martin mutters miserably. “And you didn’t seem to mind dragging Melanie into it, while you were on the lam.”

“I shouldn’t have asked her for help either. It wasn’t fair to put any of you in the position of aiding a suspected murderer.”

“I never believed you did it,” Martin tells him fiercely. “It just would have been nice to know you were okay, you know?”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I—I wanted to contact you, but it seemed too risky. I knew the police would be watching you, since we’re friends. Or—or at least friendly.”

Everyone I’ve talked to says you and him were close. Martin had been ridiculously pleased by the accusation at the time, and he feels the same now, with Jon’s injured hand cradled in both of his. Jon trusts Martin with his wounds, his vulnerability. Jon wanted to contact him; Jon thinks they’re friends.

“I—” Martin starts to say, and he doesn’t know if his next words will be I missed you or I worry about you or some humiliating romantic confession blurted out and impossible to take back. He draws a deep breath, and instead says: “I’m glad you’re back, and that you’re okay. I don’t have that many friends, I can’t afford to lose one.”

He says it like a joke, and mercifully, Jon takes it as one, and gives a relieved laugh. Martin realizes he’s long since finished bandaging the burn and is now just sort of...holding Jon’s hand; he releases it, reluctantly, and Jon smiles, lifting his other hand to touch the bandage on his throat.

“Thank you, Martin,” he says, hopping down from the desk. “I appreciate it, really.”

“As a token of your appreciation, you can go ahead and make a doctor’s appointment for that hand,” says Martin firmly, closing up the first aid kit.

“I will,” Jon says solemnly, and Martin believes him, but he’s also going to check in and remind him at the end of the day because Jon has a tendency to forget about trivial things like his own wellbeing. It’s just who he is, and Martin’s made his peace with it, like he’s made his peace with being utterly, hopelessly gone for Jonathan Sims.

“I was going to make some tea, if you fancy,” he says as he opens the door. “You look like you could use a cup.”

“Oh, yes, that would be lovely, thank you. Oh, and Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad I’m back as well. I—” Jon hesitates a moment, then says: “I missed your tea.”

It’s not much of a declaration, but Martin understands what Jon means by it; for the two of them, it means a lot.

[quillyfied]

Omenstuck Goodies and Extras

Hello! Below are my doodles and extra details for Omenstuck that didn’t make it into the fic (and probably wouldn’t have even if I did finish writing it properly); any questions or comments are completely welcome, because this project has been so big for so long I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. This is going to be extremely Homestuck jargon-heavy, because I have given up any pretense of Omenstuck being at all friendly for non-Homestucks and I’m deeply sorry for that. Anyway. On with the show!

The basic plot element breakdown: this was an experiment in applying to Homestuck lore what Good Omens accomplishes: what if these NPCs become main characters instead? How that worked out for Omenstuck was that the story followed Aziraphale and Crowley through the different Dream Shards (as opposed to Homestuck Dream Bubbles, since reality is breaking apart and different realities are occupying the same area in Paradox Space), the game of Sburb being under stress from the game-breaking move of Satan (Lord of Space) pulling Agnes (Muse of Time) from her own session and forcing them together into the same pocket of reality and therefore causing the rest of the parallel realities of Sburb to start crashing into each other. Aziraphale and Crowley were just carapacian pawns the entire time—it was only Sburb’s code attempting to work as intended that started trying to populate itself with players and ended up cannibalizing its own NPCs, rewriting them as other species Sburb already had saved in its data banks (cherubs, trolls, humans, etc).

Gabriel and Beelzebub were the White King and Black King. Michael was the White Queen. Hastur and Ligur were Dersite agents. The other angels and demons in the troll session don’t have fixed carapacian roles, beyond the angels being Prospitian and the demons being Dersites, but that was the general idea driving the structure of both the background narrative and the troll session narrative, once we got there. Death and the other Horsemen were occupying a weird role, vaguely as the Felt (who in HS are creatures called leprechauns, but we didn’t get to learn too much in-depth info about them and I certainly wasn’t about to make some up, so for the purposes of the story, they sort of occupied a coding troubleshooter role but hijacked by Satan’s Lord of Space powers into becoming more his cronies than anything else).

So by the time the story, bound to linearity, manages to catch up with the “human” session of Aziraphale and Crowley, playing out on a Dream Shard that was in the middle of getting sucked into the collision of two very real sessions (the Scratched sessions of Satan and Agnes, occupied by Adam and his friends and Anathema and hers respectively), Aziraphale and Crowley have gone beyond their tiny existing glitch of hooking up every Sburb cycle and have become much more sentient and aware. And, because playing with the Thief of Doom/Rogue of Life dichotomy with regard to past and parallel lives is fun, they get to pull from their former lives/sessions to become hodgepodge creatures that resemble their Good Omens canon forms, wings and all. Meanwhile, Satan is pulling a Lord English in attempting to destroy and subjugate everything, Agnes is pulling a Calliope in providing inspiration to her descendant/ancestor Anathema, and Adam is playing with the wide possibilities of being a Page of Space and limitless creativity being his superpower, just like in GO canon. And eventually, thanks to Adam fixing the Sburb glitches and reforging the game, all of the characters now get to live out full lives in perpetuity, Sburb being turned into an infinite sustainable creation machine rather than a cycle of creation and consumption.

If any of that made sense, I’m glad, because I think I got lost in the weeds while writing the fic and got too tickled with myself for being cryptic that I forgot to make things make sense. Not sure I achieved that now, either. And as for Warlock, a full breakdown of his fate and role is coming, but later. Want to talk about some of these unused or glossed-over details first.

As I mentioned in my comment glossary for A3A1 (Chapter Six), the “human” session for Aziraphale, Crowley, Gabriel, and Beelzebub was a non-HS canon “glitch” session, in keeping with the fact that the gang here are supposed to be Derse/Prospit carapacian inhabitants of the Sburb game and not true players. I wanted that to be reflected in their Quest Planets, for desolation and futility to be the name of the game. And, for simplicity’s sake, I kept them all in a black and white theme (Aziraphale and Crowley share a palette, Gabriel and Beelzebub share a palette).

Crowley: Land of Scales and Barren. Dark volcanic sand, huge snake skeletons arcing up and through the ground. Snake denizen (which would be in line with Homestuck tradition), snake fossil consorts (not canon but not too far off its reptilian preferences either). I traced a snake spine to make the upd8 art that showed Crowley and Aziraphale’s bandstand fight from A3A1, and I’m still proud of that, dangit.

Beelzebub: Land of Honeycomb and Hollow. Flat black rock bored through with pale-lit hexagonal tunnels. Fly denizen, bug consorts. I was particularly pleased with how Beelzebub’s concept and name for their Quest Planet turned out; shame we never got to visit it, because it feels rad to me.

Aziraphale: Land of Scripts and Cavities. Pale sand (actually paper particles), strange cryptic scribble structures, caves with more scribbles on the walls. Bird denizen, pterodactyl fossil consorts. I might have flipped that around in the actual script of the fic but eh. I mostly wanted Aziraphale’s to feel particularly infuriating to him, since he is the one having the most visceral flashbacks to previous lives (what you get for dying so often, you self-sacrificial chump, CROWLEY WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE IN THE TROLL SESSION AND YET YOU JUMPED IN ANYWAY) and it’s his unease that starts the chapter, and for it to be very flammable. For reasons.

Gabriel: Land of Angels and Deficiency. Barren pale flat landscape, huge airplane-sized scorch marks. I mentioned this in the Ch6 comment glossary, but to reiterate, Gabriel’s in particular is a callback to his role in the troll session, where he took on the canonical Eridan role and started blasting angels on his Quest Planet, which he was not supposed to do but got fixated on anyway. It also helps that in Homestuck, “angels” are huge, powerful, serpentine creatures who aren’t consorts or denizens but whose role in the game was never realized (except as foreshadowing for cherubs, who are also huge serpentine winged creatures that are incredibly hard to kill and will attack when provoked).

Now for one of the “real” sessions, Agnes’ session that she was pulled from and was subsequently Scratched, or flipped over for the dancestors of Agnes’ session to become the players instead. I wanted these to be based on a Homestuck canon Void session, since a circular quest pattern and waiting for something to happen fits Anathema’s GO canon arc (and much like in GO canon, she is unsatisfied with waiting and tries to make a change herself: hence her meeting Adam and Aziraphale at the connection point between the three colliding sessions). I color sampled from real noble gases as best I could for the general accent colors of the Void planets, and stuck them with basic HS canon templates for the Alpha Kids’ session, if flipped around a bit (and using different grave synonyms than HS canon to make them stand out). Also their Pesterchum colors, but more on their handles later.

Anathema: Land of Krypton and Mausoleums. Yaldaboath for denizen (powerful, often drawn to game-breaking players), iguanas for consorts. Since mausoleums are above-ground structures that go deeper, I wanted Anathema’s planet to look like islands in a sea of mist, because that’s metal. Also she was the only one with a defined quest out of the group, and it was just to find the Great Beast, about as vague as GO canon, especially when the Great Beast is in reference to Adam and not Anathema’s denizen (though I think if she’d thought of it, Yaldaboath could probably have provided some details, for a price).

Newt: Land of Xenon and Undercrofts. Abraxas for a denizen, turtle consorts, which is very appropriate given that most of Newt’s quest planet features are underground. Undercrofts aren’t graves, precisely, but they’re often used as structures for deeper architecture and sometimes cathedrals will stick crypts down there. For a guy like Newt who is sort of politely bewildered and not very assertive, it felt appropriate and even kinda cute for him.

Shadwell: Land of Argon and Tumuli. Nix for denizen, salamanders for consorts. Tumuli, according to my research, are hill crypts; it felt like an appropriately archaic word for a guy like Shadwell, and is occupied with said hill crypts surrounded by streams of argon gas. Similar to Anathema’s, in a way, but given that I never summoned the mental willpower to find out exactly what Shadwell’s role in the greater Omenstuck narrative is, imagining a grumpy paranoid witch hunter bumbling from hill to hill looking for a can of condensed milk will have to do.

Tracy: Land of Radon and Vaults. Hemera for denizen, crocodiles for consorts. Tracy’s land is brightest of them all, for obvious reasons, and I gave her little pools of radon gas to wander around along with the above-ground vaults. Admittedly, I was struggling to find grave synonyms by that point that hadn’t been already used in HS canon, and struggling mentally in general with the entire concept, so Tracy and Shadwell get a bit of a cop-out for their Quest Planets since they aren’t meant to be front and center important anyway. Tracy’s more pivotal role in GO canon was pretty diminished in Omenstuck, acting instead as a Prospit dreamer guide to Anathema’s Derse dreamer, but at least her typing quirk was fun.

The Them’s Quest Planets are next, and full warning, they are eye-searing.

The Them were fun, because I was toying with a trickster mode flavor to their planets, but also I was lazy and assigned them Beta Kid colors and decided to just use those colors for my planet sketches. The Them is the Scratched version of Satan’s session, as led by his dancestor Adam, and is supposed to be a healthier session since they have a Space player and a Knight to assist in frog breeding duties to create a normal, viable Genesis Frog. Once again, their planets and quests weren’t really essential to the plot, so for the most part they went on mention alone. The consorts also match the Beta Kid color they got assigned, just to make it easier on myself. I think. Pretty sure.

Adam: Land of Dreams and Nightmares. Echidna for a denizen, iguanas for consorts (to match Anathema). Adam’s planet is supposed to look most Earth-like, with reversed lands and seas. As with most viable sessions, Adam as the Space player has a frog temple on his planet and the means to go about creating the Genesis Frog, but the most defining trait of his world is its malleability and how it responds to Adam’s wishes. Familiar, no?

Pepper: Land of Choice and Injustice. Hephaestus is her denizen, crocodiles for consorts. Pepper’s land is full of statues of Justice with tipped scales, courthouses, and her quest is related to righting all the scales and instances of injustice in her planet, as evidenced by the name. As with most Sburb Quest Planets, the quest is tailored to a younger audience, matching and challenging Pepper’s growing sense of social responsibility and dedication to righteous causes. Also. War’s foil and all.

Brian: Land of Bridges and Detritus. Typhus for consort, salamanders for consort. Brian’s land is pretty self-explanatory: it’s full of bridges and garbage. His quest is to clean up or find use for the garbage. Standard Brian stuff, in having him both mirror and contrast Pollution.

Wensley: Land of Accounts and Figures. Cetus for denizen, turtles for consort. Wensleydale’s quest was about balancing the accounts and figures, so similar to Pepper’s quest for justice, but much more boring. His land is populated with giant ledgers and dollar signs in the doodle, and in theory his quest would do more to have him compare and contrast with Famine, but it never got that far.

When crafting the Act 3 classpects, I had a hard time, because I wanted the full set of three sessions to fill available roles, but also, the available roles were a bit like the troll session in that it was more about completionism than about what truly fit. Agnes and Satan fill the Lord/Muse roles and the Space/Time dichotomy, and for ease’s sake (and plot continuity) I had Aziraphale, Crowley, Gabriel, and Beelzebub keep their troll session classpects, but that left the humans a little scattershot. I threw out a lot of Homestuck canon speculation regarding certain classes and their (seemingly) gender-locked states, and did some creative bending with aspects. But. Did my best. Here they are.

Satan: Lord of Space (seemed to fit; needed Satan to fill the HS Lord English role as an agent of unstoppable and unspeakable violence, and Space fit Adam better, so I made it fit Satan too. In HS, dancestors don’t usually share a class or an aspect, but they can be related. I wanted Adam and Satan, as well as Agnes and Anathema, to share Aspects, because it kinda fit a GO theme about outgrowing your origins and choosing who you are despite where you came from or what your destiny says you’re supposed to be. I think Satan also fits as a Space player as a nod to Lucifer the Morningstar, but that’s more of a nod than anything.)

Agnes: Muse of Time (I settled on Muse because Satan needed a counterpart as a Lord for plot reasons, and because Muse is precisely what Agnes is, in Good Omens: she doesn’t take any actions, she merely inspires through her prophecies. As for Time, I think that’s pretty obvious, don’t you?)

Adam: Page of Space (obvious, had to be a Space player because Space is all about creativity and creation, and he couldn’t be another Lord since that wasn’t quite his MO and he couldn’t be a Bard because Gabriel had it, though a Bard would be a perfect fit for his wildcard nature. Prince, too, would have been a good fit as an agent of destruction, but Beelzebub had that. Which left Page, the class occupied traditionally by the weakest players, but shown to have the most wide-open chance for growth and success due to its limitless capacity for potential.)

Pepper: Knight of Mind (Knight was obvious from the get-go, though I did swap a few other classes in there while trying stuff out. Mind was difficult to land on but I eventually chose it for her because of its ties to choices, which seems to be something important to Pepper.)

Brian: Heir of Blood (sort of a throwaway classpect, but I kind of like the idea of Brian coming to embody bonds, given his surprising insight as well as brave chewing-out of Adam in GO. Plus his loyalty. Bri is a loyal guy and that’s canon.)

Wensleydale: Witch of Light (a hard one, and admittedly I wish in hindsight I’d made Shadwell the Witch because CAN YOU IMAGINE, and also Anathema and Tracy both would have suited Witch power sets well, but Anathema needed to be a Seer and Tracy’s gimmick is that she isn’t a Witch and it felt too active a class for her. I landed on it for Wensley mostly because I’m tickled by the idea of him taking up witchcraft in Anathema’s stead as a personal GO headcanon. Light was a no-brainer. Wensley regurgitates facts like the nerd he is, so knowledge is his domain no question. Luck is a little more questionable but his glasses didn’t break during Armageddon so I’ll give it to him.)

Anathema: Seer of Time (I chose Seer for her instead of Witch because Anathema, for all her desire to be an active player, is a more passive one in GO canon; Seer could also be a more active role in HS, it’s mostly guesswork, but between Seer and Witch, I needed Anathema to be able to catch glimpses of the future, not manipulate it, and mostly through her medium of Agnes’ GameFAQs, which both fulfils Agnes’ ultimate HS passive role as inspiration and her GO role as cryptic guide. And Time, because of Agnes.)

Newt: Maid of Void (I stumbled face-first into this after trying a few other combinations and once it clicked I could have slapped myself for not thinking of it sooner. Maid, one who helps another person or literally “made”, and Void, the absence of all other aspects and sort of anti-creation rather than destruction? Chef’s kiss. Couldn’t have planned it better myself. In English, I suppose, what this means is that taking Newt’s single-use purpose in GO to irrevocably destroy electronics translates pretty darn well to a suggested utility of a Maid of Void to cancel out an act of another player, perhaps some rage-happy Lord of Space or assorted cronies on a rampage.)

Tracy: Sylph of Heart (in simplest terms, a healer of relationships or feelings. Could have had a lot more utility if I had the spoons to use her fake medium and sex worker skillset in this capacity to mend some of the breaks in communications between players, but c’est la vie, sometimes our ambitions are greater than our abilities.)

Shadwell: Mage of Breath (and behold the bottom of the barrel for what Shadwell could be, the last classpect combination available. Mages are an odd class and I’m not sure I truly understand them, but what Shadwell is, to the best of my knowledge, is one who knows about detachment or wind. If you want to look at it that way: a blowhard. Mages can also represent an absence of their aspect in themselves or their party, so a lack of lack of attachment, or a lack of wind or direction: sure. Why not. Why not. Can’t be any more cryptic and useless than the rest of the behind the scenes knowledge of this fic.)

Yes, everyone had pesterchum handles. No, they were probably never coming up. Yes, the colors depicted were the colors I was going to code for them if they ever did come up. I gave Satan and Agnes the rNA “uu/UU” designations, and kept the human DNA sequence combinations for the humans. Because easy. Didn’t color-match the canon HS colors and abbreviations, so I’m sure a veteran Homestuck looking at these theoretical pesterlogs would have lost their minds, but I did the same thing in the troll session, so we can all live with it. I’m also not going to explain my choices, because they feel self-explanatory; anyone who feels differently can shoot me a reply or an ask!

Satan: universalUsurper

Agnes: untoldUniverse

Adam: guaranteedTrouble

Brian: grimyGusto

Pepper: testifyingGrit

Wensley: thoroughTeller

Anathema: geneticTheurgist

Newt: tragicTurpin

Tracy: ghostlyGuide

Shadwell: thunderGun

Now, for the main non-canon event that I dropped into this unwieldy chili of canon and non-canon elements: Warlock’s classpect.

I knew I wanted to include Warlock, but I wasn’t sure how. The single-player Dead session that a Lord or a Muse is supposed to embark on was already tossed out the window by having Satan create a specialized two-player session for himself and Agnes, trapping them in a reality bubble that was breaking everything outside of it. All possible classpects had been assigned, and I wasn’t particularly interested in creating another overlap. So what to do?

Easy. Pulled a Hussie and made a non-canon classpect just for Warlock.

Cheekily named the Twist of Fate, Warlock’s role in the story was to act as a sort of deus ex machina for saving Aziraphale from the destruction of his Dream Shard, and for him to show Adam the way forward. A Twist of Fate is a one-use classpect that can unleash unfathomable power exactly one time per thread of Fate the player is following. The apple that grew in Crowley’s garden in A3A1? Warlock’s doing. Time and Doom are both aspects that sort of encapsulate what Fate is, but because it’s my fic, I decided to make it a special separate aspect just for Warlock to follow. Warlock’s backstory and what happened to him after he got sucked into a black hole in A2 was going to pop up in an interlude, but the basics are that he occupied the same general narrative as Caliborn in Homestuck, playing a game of single-player billiards in an attempt to achieve his God Tier and escape his sliver of reality. The Other Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a nod to the Good Omens book, were going to be Felt-like creatures that did Warlock’s bidding, but there just wasn’t the time or energy to get it done. So Warlock did two very big things as a proto-antichrist to show Adam how it’s done: he fused together the three-way session collision into a single solid piece of universe, and he handed Adam the apple, the visual key Adam needed to realize the choice was his to make when it came to what to do next. I have much affection for Warlock as a character that could be a very good foil for Adam, if they ever met in GO canon, and this was my blown kiss to GO fanon that recognizes and expounds on that.

And…that’s it. Nothing more behind the curtain, no more tricks up my sleeves, no more detritus or ephemera to disgorge from my thinkpan. It’s all out there. As always, questions and comments are so welcome, either on AO3 or as an ask or reply here on Tumblr. Thank you to anyone who read this, I’m sorry I couldn’t give a complete story, and hopefully this info-dumping sort of makes up for it? Hope so, anyway. Bye!

[theyreonlynoodlesmike]

A Reading: Part 10 (Poly!Lost Boys x Fem! Witch Reader)

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Warnings: cursing, the frogs are canonically jerks, prejudice,

Word Count: 3k

"Bye, Lucy!" You called, walking out of the video store. It had been a few months since Max's death, since the time you'd accidentally stumbled onto the town of Santa Carla. Summer had left, as well as most of the summer tourists. Yet, you had stayed.

You'd stayed as a safe avenue of communication between the Emerson's and the coven at first. You and Mrs. Johnson talked terms, this time without Grandpa's presence, and dictated what would happen after. 

It was decided the boys would stay in Santa Carla, as would the Emerson's. They'd live in avoidance, mostly. The Emerson's wouldn't tell anyone about the coven, would call off the Frogs, and the boys wouldn't attempt to turn or kill any of the Emerson's, or their friends. And, for the first few weeks, avoidance had worked. Until Star needed to get some of her things.

All of the Emerson's, except Grandpa, came to the cave. It was quickly decided that the boys didn't feel comfortable having a retired vampire hunter know where they slept, but that didn't mean they'd been successful in avoiding an interaction with the Frogs. You'd watched how the boys hovered, not knowing how to treat the brunette as she hurried to stuff what she needed into trash bags. They'd decided not to leave the humans alone in their den, but to spend the time acting as if they simply weren't there. Michael stood by the entrance to her room, but it was proven quickly that he was no help at all. He avoided eye-contact with any of the boys, and almost hadn't even introduced himself to you. The only help seemed to be Lucy, and, quickly, you understood why Max had risked so much for the woman. To the point of getting himself, and almost his son's, killed.

She'd regarded you all with a warmth that was uncommon from anyone not apart of the supernatural world, and her first words had been,

"Wow, this place is amazing!" As she looked around the cave. After that, it'd been hard to be anything except nice to her. She quickly ruined the boys' original plan by introducing herself and asking for their names, and you saw the boys look uncharacteristically embarrassed when she mentioned something about a motorcycle interaction. "And you are?" She asked, and you'd given her name freely. She'd looked you over, and then at the boys. You could see the wheels turning in her head, and she tried to politely ask, "Are you...one of Max's children?" She asked, and you laughed in surprise before quickly shaking your hands.

"No, no. I'm not- I'm human. I'm just-" You'd been cut off by a gruff voice, one you quickly realized belonged to one of the camo-wearing teens. The one wearing the red bandana to be precise.

"A witch." He said, like the simple word disgusted him. He and his brother were standing near the stone steps, with the youngest Emerson only a step besides them. You frowned at the wannabe hunter, part of you wishing you'd given him more than a scare that one day, but you glare quickly proved to shake whatever tough resolve he had. He and his brother took a step back, as if you might curse them. Lucy was quick to say, 

"Edgar! That's not polite." She said the last sentence with a tilt of her head, and you couldn't help but smile at the look she gave him. You heard a snicker behind you, and you knew it was Paul without having to look. The Frogs looked at eachother, before Edgar shuffled his feet and muttered an apology. Even if it was a sorry excuse for one, you accepted it. She gave him a warm smile, and then one to you as well. She lifted her brows and moved her shoulders, her voice sweet as she said,

"Well, let's get started, shall we?" You helped her help Star. She took her time to actually fold the clothes before putting them into the bags, while Star was just throwing what she could into them. It was clear she didn't want to stay long, and she was murmuring to herself the entire time. Though, for Lucy's sake, she eventually just started giving you and Lucy the clothes for the pair of you to fold. The younger boys, to make themselves useful, ran up any bags and boxes of things that Star was going to take with her. After about a half hour, she'd gotten more brave and began walking around the cave to find whatever discarded items she claimed as her own. She didn't speak the boys, until Paul came over, to you specifically, with a box of sorted cadettes. You arched a brow and gave him a look, and he glanced over to where Star was packing in her make-shift room. 

"These ones are hers, but I don't think she wants to, y'know." He said, tilting his head towards her. You could guess the rest of his sentence. He figured Star was avoiding them for a reason, whether it be out of embarrassment or a want to distance herself from her previous vampirism. You also guessed that not all of the boys wanted to talk to her either. You'd noted how Marko had flown high into the cave, deciding to focus on spray painting something on the ceiling rather than what was going on below. How David sat in his chair, having turned it away from all of you as he read. You gave him a smile and beckoned him close. He smiled and leaned in to press a kiss to your lips, bracing his hands on your upper arms as he did so. You quietly told him,

"Thank you. You're sweet." And he accepted the compliment with a smile and a nod, before he was waltzing back over towards their music collection to rearrange it now that it was partially empty. You brought the box over to Star, asking her,

"Um, these are yours?" And she gave you a look of surprise. Her eyes flicked to the blonde that was sitting on the floor, and she gave you a polite smile and a nod before she took the box from your arms. She placed it with the rest of the stuff that she was taking, and you went back over to Lucy to help her organize what she could. You hadn't noticed the tallest of the boys coming closer until Dwayne was right besides you. You didn't jump, as you were already used to the quietest of the boys. Lucy did, however, and she placed a hand over her chest at the sight of him. 

"Oh!" She said, and both of you gave her a small grin before Dwayne held out a stuffed bear to you. You only had to glance at it once to know that it belonged to the youngest of the previous coven, and your eyes flicked to the curly haired brunette when she came out with another pile for you and Lucy. She froze at the sight of one of the vampires, and you watched as Dwaynes eyes met hers. She gulped before slowly continuing her original path, gently putting down the clothes. Dwayne held out the bear, before he said,

"For Laddie." And Star gave him a nod after she took it. Dwayne nodded back, a silent communication passing between them, before he began to walk away from where you'd set up. Before he could escape completely, Lucy suggested,

"You could- If you want to, you boys could help the others take stuff up. I mean, dear, you're going to want your bed, right?" Lucy asked the girl, and Lucy paused. She looked at Lucy, before glancing at Dwayne. Another beat passed, another moment of silent communication between the brunettes, before Star said a small,

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose. I need my bed frame, and Laddies stuff too." And Dwayne was whistling at the other boys. The only one that responded was Paul, who was pushing himself up to stand and jogging over. You didn't expect David to come, he wouldn't respond to something like that, but you sighed when the three of you glanced up at where Marko was stubbornly sitting. Paul scratched his head, and you sighed.

You knew Marko was stubborn. You'd quickly found that out after living with them for a few weeks. He was only second to David, but he'd quickly decided to take Laddie and Stars reinstated humanity as a personal insult. It didn't help that some of the humans present were supposed to be the ones that murdered him. You looked up at him and called,

"Marko?" While he wasn't completely needed, you knew things would go smoother if he did. Plus, it would help make them look better in the eyes of the non-supernatural beings. Marko didn't say a word in reply, but you saw his head turned. He narrowed his eyes at the Frogs, before his eyes shifted to you. You tilted your head. They'll leave quicker if you help, you thought, and you watched as he slowly shook the can. And you can just get Laddies stuff, you added. He considered it, but ultimately shook his head. It seemed he wasn't ready to move on yet. You bit your lip, shrugging as you looked at Paul and Dwayne. Under his breath, you heard Alan mutter,

"Vampires. Bad hosts." And the Frogs looked up to see you and Dwayne glaring at them, while Paul rolled his eyes and shook his head. Lucy gave him a look, but didn't correct him. 

"I'll get Stars bed." Paul said, and he walked brazenly towards Stars room. "'scuse me, chica." Paul said as he passed Star, and lifted the bed up like it didn't weigh a thing. When he was out of Stars makeshift room, he was able to lift it above his head easily. "So, like, how are we doing this?" He asked, and the humans, the ones who hadn't already been half-vampires themselves, stared at his show of strength.

It was quickly decided that they were going to strap a bed to the roof of each car, as they'd brought two, and they would strap the bed frames on top. Moving the beds was easy for the boys, with Dwayne and Paul simply carrying them up towards the darkness of the night. The only issue was the bedframes. They were awkward to lift and not as flexible as the mattresses themselves, so they still had to be carried by two people. You were just about to offer to help Paul carry up Laddie's bed while Michael and Dwayne tried to get Stars through the entrance of the cave when you heard a flutter besides you.

"I got it." Marko said, reaching to give your arm a squeeze. You gave him a wide smile. Thank you, you thought. He leaned in to press a kiss to your cheek, before he gave you one of his mischievous grins and said, "No problem. You just owe me one now." And he was quick to dance himself out of swatting range. You watched as Paul let out a small cheer of,

"Hell yeah, man." And clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll go first." He said, and lifted his end of the bed. Marko lifted his with ease, but quickly said,

"No way. You're gonna fall on your ass if you lead." And he moved to hold the bedframe behind him and the pair of blondes went to follow the brunettes into the tunnel. It went, admittedly, a little smoother than the brunettes had gone. You blamed it on Michael not having a comparable amount of strength, and not on the fact that he couldn't follow Dwaynes directions when he told him he was tilting it the wrong way.

Lucy had sided up next to you, watching the boys with you now that everything had been sorted and packed. With nothing else to take up and most of the vampires gone, the younger teens were having a look around. They avoided the side that David was sitting in, and you shook your head when you watched them pick up one of the boys' many finds. You saw that Lucy had noticed as well, and you watched her open her mouth to undoubtedly tell them to put it down.

"It's fine." You said, cutting her off and assuring her. "The boys are hoarders anyways." You joked, earning a light laugh from her. The two of you were quiet for a moment, and you opted to watch the boys until the three of them noticed and quickly stopped touching whatever they had been. Again, the pair of you laughed. After a moment, Lucy knocked her arm against yours gently, saying,

"Well, I think we made a good team today." She started, and you gave her a nod in agreement. She was nice, and you were sure the boys agreed too. After a moment, she said, "The boys...They seem rather taken with you." She commented, and you knew what she was too polite to directly ask. If you were honest, you didn't know what you were to any of them. You'd been their protector, their ambassador, and now...You weren't sure. But you knew that David hadn't rescinded your invitation to stay yet.

"Yeah." You agreed simply, keeping your reply vague and looking over towards the platinum blonde. To your surprise, he lifted his head from his book. He glanced over at you, something swirling in his eyes that you couldn't quite place. You sent him a small wave, and he responded to it by giving you an arch of his brow. You rolled your eyes. You should've known that David was allergic to any form of being nice. When you went to glance back over at him, he was standing besides you. Alright, that made you jump.

"Lucy," He started, his eyes flicking to the short-haired woman besides you and ignoring you altogether. "You still work at Video Max's, right?" He asked, and the woman almost seemed a little surprised that David knew. Or, maybe, that he was even talking to her. She gave him a nod, and, before she could verbally respond, David said, "How would you like to own it?" And your mouth nearly fell open at the offer. You were quick to look at the woman besides you. She lifted a hand to her mouth, pausing as if she didn't know what to say. He'd caught the younger boys attention as well, who looked ready to pounce and protect at the slightest sign that this was a trick.

"I-I," She paused, running a hand over her face. "Own it?" She asked, repeating his words. He gave her a charming smile, one that could make even an elderly woman blush.

"Well, we inherited it after Max's death and we don't really have the same," He paused to find the word. "Interests as he did. You already work there and it practically makes money just by being open, so," He paused to glance at you. You'd been wondering what he was doing, why he was doing this. It struck you then. He'd been swimming around your head, and this was his attempt at being nice. "If you want it, it's yours." 

Lucy would've had to be stupid to refuse. She'd been the owner since that day, and David had been right. Even with all of the tourists gone, the store still made money just by being open. Lucy had sent the teens up while she talked with David about the store, and the three of you had gone up to find an interesting sight. 

Dwayne and Michael were still trying to tie the bed-frame to the bed, before Star finally bat away his hands and helped Dwayne tie it. Marko and Paul had already finished, and you saw the pair of them talking to Sam of all people. The Frogs seemed to have decidedly pulled away from the vampires at first, but it seemed that they'd subconsciously moved closer to hear the boys' conversation. You saw him commenting on all of Markos patches, which Marko showed off proudly, and Paul was yapping a mile a minute about the thrift stores they could show Sam so he wouldn't get scalped by the boardwalk prices. You even heard him add a small jab of,

"Like some people." And you watched as Michael gave him a half-hearted punch to the shoulder. Michael seemed to do it without even realizing, seeming shocked with himself, and momentarily terrifed, but Paul was already laughing it off. "Ooh, do it again Mikey I think I liked it." Paul joked, and you quickly cleared your throat before he could say anything worse in front of the woman besides you. Lucy has gone over to go fret over her son's, questioning Michael just on how frequently he punched people, when David had reached for your hand. The leather was cool and smoothing against your fingertips, but his hold was strong. He gave your hand a squeeze when you looked at him, and, for the first time, you thought David almost looked relaxed. He'd given you a tug, but it was you that stepped closer and let him put his arm around you.

Since then, the avoidance rule had been discarded. Laddie had been momentarily adopted by the Emerson's until they found his birth family, which was proving to be harder than they thought. Laddie had been a runaway even before the boys found him. Dwayne and the others wanted to be apart of the little boys life, even if it was just to babysit him on the boardwalk. This led to a strange, silent agreement with Star. Even though you didn't know any better, you almost wanted to say that her moving out and distancing herself had been the best thing for their friendship.

Speaking of friendship, Sam had developed a sort of one with Paul and Marko, one that exasperated Michael to no end. Especially when Paul claimed that he preferred his little brother. And Michael? It had taken the longest for Michael to truly shed any lingering negativity he had towards the boys, but it was decided that he would have to eventually when Lucy offered you a job at the store. One that you'd been hesitant to accept, but had decided to so you could pay the boys some sort of rent. Even if it was only to make you feel better about your current living situation. Even if it lead to you being even more tied to Santa Carla, and the vampires that inhabited it.

But you brushed all those thoughts aside for now. Sam had called you during your shift, and you had a certain pair of brothers to worry about.

[astaroth1357]

Do you think Simeon is Falling? He's been acting Solomon level of shadiness, or was your bangle theory correct and its failing and the real Simeon is poking through?

Honestly, I don't know what's up with Simeon... I know there's a lot of theories going around about it and I've been poking through them in my own time. As far as I can see there’s probably three likely scenarios.

CAUTION: Probably going to be spoilers for events in Season 2-3 to follow under cut. Read at your own discretion.

1. He's falling and has been for some time now.

Something has always struck me as kind of off about Simeon - and I think even the characters in game think the same - it's just been hard to put a finger on until recently...

He's sort of like Solomon in that he acts on his own agenda and will tell no one about what he's up to. I don’t think Simeon feels obligated to tell anyone the truth so long as he can get the result he feels is best out of a situation - and that includes the MC. I'd go out on a limb to say that's, frankly, not very angelic behavior.

As uncomfortable as the angel event was, it did give us some insight into how angels act through how the brothers changed and Lucifer - of all people - had a strong aversion to acting deceptively... Simeon on the other hand appears to employ deception with little external strife over the matter. For an angel, he's not the most angelic at times...

I suspect if he were falling, it didn't start at the Devildom but earlier than that. Likely during the War and after he lost Lucifer. They were actually surprisingly close friends in the Celestial Realm (this is canon) and I can see a lot of angels who still saw our demon boys as brothers getting real bitter about their fate... If there were ever a time to get cynical, it's when your friend gets thrown to eternal damnation for what amounts to caring about his family...

I think it's important to also point out that Diavolo doesn't like nor trust Simeon (at least according to official material I've seen), so whatever would cause that kind of mistrust must pre-date the events of the game as we see them. Or it's just the vibe coming off of him, which doesn't help his case at all...

2. Something about Celestial Realm/Michael's influence is messing with him...

The introduction of the bangles is really a game changer lore-wise, but we can't get too carried away with trying to shove them into the story proper. The Events timeline/continuity is still different than the main story and though they both work within the same canon, we can’t just mesh the two without strong evidence available to do so.

First and foremost, I don’t think the bangles were always used as some kind of behavioral control device in the Celestial Realm - at least not when the brothers were still around. I'm certain they would recognized them if that had been the case. So they'd have to be a new development...

IF Simeon is wearing them, or some kind of similar device (and that is an IF. I'm unaware if we ever get a confirmation on that) then it may be reasonable to assume that his actions are being influenced in some way... but that's only if you accept that the bangles are some kind of Michael-approved standard in Heaven, which I'm less certain of than other people...

I mentioned before that I didn’t exactly trust Simeon when he said that Michael gave him those bangles and, quite frankly, I still don't. We've already seen him acting on Michael's "behalf" when that wasn't the case at all during the Ring incident. And again, Simeon is not opposed to lying if he gets him his best outcome.

As far as I'm concerned, all of his mentions of Michael's wishes/intentions should be treated as suspect after that point. It’s entirely possible he could have enchanted those bangles himself in an attempt to quell the brothers' more troublesome impulses and make the party he was set to oversee go well. We've seen multiple times during TSL events that he can be quite the perfectionist if his name is attached... I wouldn't put it past him is all I'm saying.

I also don't think he and Luke are in the human world right now for the reason they say they are (that's pretty blatant), but they may not even be there with Michael's permission at all. Simeon could have just lied to Luke about it because he wanted to see MC again and knew Luke raise an alarm if he left on his own... It's highly suspect is all I'm saying.

3. There's literally nothing wrong with him, this is just a side of we've never gotten to see before.

And then there’s the less fun and probably more troubling theory... That we just didn't know Simeon like we thought we did. The new attention on the (Un)Dateables pretty much means anything could come to light about their characters now. They need a lot of fleshing out, so we should probably be prepared to find out new things that go against our previous assumptions all the time...

It's an unfortunate truth that when a side character starts getting more screentime, they may begin to develop into something different than the fandom saw them previously. That's just not in our hands. Maybe there is no conspiracy or "something wrong with Simeon" and he was just never the pure cinnamon roll we wanted him to be? We can't make any judgements as of yet, but I think that's important to keep in mind.