#michael and being cursed with being the mirror image of his father

[purpleghoul87]

Wake up, puppet boy!

Link to the color palette I used.

[angellazull]

Hogwarts Mystery Profile: Angelo Lancaster

Finally I updated Angel's profile, model of the form was made by @hogwartsmysterystory, hope this clarifies better.

(@immagrosscandy art)

Name: Angelo Nikolas Stellair Lancaster.

Gender: Male.

Age: 17.

Birth Date: August 23, 1972.

Species: Half-veela.

Blood Status: Half-Blood.

Sexuality: Pansexual.

Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Ethnicity: Caucasian.

Nationality: Brazilian/British.

Residence: Royal-Garden, England.

Myer Briggs Personality Type: INTJ-T.

The Mage

1st Wand:

Acacia – 30 cm – Slightly Springy – Dragon heartstrings core (Antipodean Opaleye).

A very unusual wand wood, which I have found creates tricky wands that often refuse to produce magic for any but their owner, and also withhold their best effects from all but those most gifted. This sensitivity renders them difficult to place, and I keep only a small stock for those witches or wizards of sufficient subtlety, for acacia is not suited to what is commonly known as ‘bangs-and-smells’ magic. When well-matched, an acacia wand matches any for power, though it is often underrated due to the peculiarity of its temperament.

Ebony – 35 cm – Slightly Springy – Veela hair core (Provided by Leonor Lancaster). With a sapphire at the end of the handle and silver details.

2nd Wand:

(Art by @kyril-but-magical)

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

Animagus: A black Bombay cat, with a streak of blue fur on its head between its ears.

Misc Magical Abilities: Veela charm, hypnosis and sensitive to emotions.

Boggart Form:

4st-11th year: The Royal-Garden boys laughing at him and humiliating him.

11th-13th year: His friends turning away from him for being a Veela.

13th year onwards: His most important people dying without him being able to do anything.

Riddikulus form: The previous person juggling puffskeins.

Amortentia: Smell of new book, roses (the smell of Penny), peaches and apple pie.

Patronus: Cat bombay.

Patronus Memory: Jacob and him skating on ice when he was a child and his brother saving him from drowning on the ice.

Mirror of Erised: He graduating as an auror and his dad congratulating him and saying that he is proud of him.

Favourite Spells:

Animus Glacius❄️

Expecto Patronum🐈

Blue Sparks🎆

Aguamenti💦

Colovaria⚪➡️🔵

Voiceclaim: Asa Butterfield

Game appearance:

Height: 1.79 m

Weight: 60 Kg

Eye Colour: Blue sapphire

Hair Colour:

White (original)

Royal Blue (Colovaria)

Skin Tone: White

Body Modifications: N/A

Scarring: A scar on the back of his head hidden by his hair, caused by the time the Royal-Garden boys pushed him and he hit his head on the wall of the fountain.

Inventory: His wand, a notebook , A pen, current reading book, keyring earned from Kyril on his birthday.

Fashion: 

Casual - A black jeans, with his sweater with the coat of arms of Ravenclaw, with his blue All Star.

Summer - A royal blue T-shirt, black vest, dark blue denim shorts, and black sneakers.

Winter - A plain T-shirt, a wool sweater, and his furry white overcoat, with winter boots.

Formal Wear - Midnight blue smoking, with a white bow tie and black shoes.

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Illvermony House: Horned Serpent

Affiliations/Organisations:

The Lancaster family.

The Stellair Family.

The Trindade Family (Renegade).

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Circle of Khanna.

The Order of the Phoenix.

Professions:

Auror - 1991 - 2011.

Obliviator - 2011 - 2012.

Charms professor in Hogwarts 2011 - present.

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy - O

Charms – O

DADA – O

Flying – E

Herbology – O

History of Magic – O

Potions – E

Transfiguration – O

Electives:

Ancient Runes - E

CoMC - A

Quidditch: Seeker

Extra Curricular:

Transfiguration Club.

Charms Club.

Frog Choir.

Sphinx Club.

Favourite Professors:

Minerva McGonagall - Angel likes how Professor McGonagall believed in his talent for Transfiguration and did not compare him to his brother, Jay. Although she is very strict in her classes, she is always willing to help you.

Filius Flitwick - Angelo likes how the classes are fun and are never monotonous, being a Ravenclaw, Angel is very curious and likes how the teacher always clarifies his doubts and teaches him several spells, even if he is not in his class schedule and is used in their search for the Cursed Vaults and the Khanna Circle.

Least Favorite Professors:

Severus Snape - Angel admires Snape's ability and great knowledge in Potions and the Dark Arts, however he doesn't like how Snape insults him or says he is incompetent, he likes to be stimulated to learn more, with lessons in Snape, he just hopes to survive until the end of class without making his cauldron explode.

Patrícia Rakepick - Angel has always had a back seat with Rakepick, perhaps it was the way in which she found herself unshakable and unattainable. Although he learned many things from her, he never really liked her personality and always stayed away from her as much as possible. And after she murdered Rowan, the boy developed a deadly hatred for the ex-professor.

Relationships

Brother:

Jacob "Jay" Alexander Stellair Lancaster.

Half-blood.

Half-veela.

Ravenclaw.

He was a member of the Herbology Club and the dueling club until he was expelled from the school.

Hippogriff club.

Father: Charles Michael Lancaster ✞

Pure-blood.

Ravenclaw.

Ravenclaw Quidditch Team Chase.

He became an auror after he graduated from Hogwarts.

Member of the Order of the Phoenix original.

He was killed in a duel against Evan Rosier.

Mother: Leonor Mary Stellair Lancaster.

Veela.

Did not attend any magic school.

Specialists in elemental magic.

Specialist in healing spells.

Loves to sing and draw.

Has a great talent for gastronomy.

Love Interest(s):

Canon: Penny Haywood.

(sorry for the low quality image.)

Mc x Mc: Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm (Kyril Art)

Best Friends:

Canon:

🦡Penny Haywood.

🦅Rowan Khanna (Dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🐍Barnaby Lee.

🦡Chiara Lobisca.

MCs:

🐍(💛)Roger Lopez @hphm-roger

🐍Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm

🦅Elaiza Schuyler @annabelle-tanaka-official

🦅Candy and Paula Vigiere @immagrosscandy

Rival:

🐍Merula Snyde.

🐍 Ismelda Murk.

🦁Sebastian Anguslow.

Enemy:

Patrícia Rakepick.

Wizard in white robes.

"R" members.

Dormmates:

🦅Rowan Khanna (dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🦅Andre Egwu.

🦅Arjun Singh. @hogwarts9

Pets:

Arthy, the black cat.

Rowena, the snow owl (Jay owl).

Nevasca, the ice salamander.

Closest Cannon Friends:

🦡Penny Haywood.

🦅Rowan Khanna (dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🐍Barnaby Lee.

🦡Chiara Lobisca.

🦡Nymphadora Tonks.

🦁Bill Weasley.

🦁Charlie Weasley.

🦁Jae Kim.

🦅Badeea Ali.

🦁Ben Copper.

Closest MC Friends:

🐍(💛)Roger Lopez @hphm-roger

🐍Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm

🦅Elaiza Schuyler @annabelle-tanaka-official

🦅Candy e 🦡PauLINE Vigiere @immagrosscandy

🐍Jason Novak @death-or-sleep

🐍Carewyn Cronwell @carewyncromwell

🦅Flavio Ceccere @sirfluffig

🦅Montague Donohue @montaguehphm

🐍Dusty Emerald @dusty-emerald-hphm

🦡Stephanie Alexeev @hanihonii

🐍Lith Thorne @slytherinliththorne

🦁Aishwarya Mehra and 🦅Arjun Singh @hogwarts9

🦁Ethren Whitecross @hogwartsmysterystory

🦅 Simon Cahill @cursed-vault-ravenclaw

🦅Wendy Gordon @drinkyoursoupbitch

🦡Honey @hmhoney

🦅Luna Silver @lunasilvermorny

🦡Jackeline Peterson @jackie-and-the-curse

🦁 Tu Liang @wangxianforever000

🦅Samanta O'Connell @samshogwarts

Background/History:

Pre-Hogwarts: Angelo was born on August 23, 1972, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, while his father (as the son of a Brazilian) did international work in the South American country. But he returned to England at the age of four, going to live in the small village of Royal-Garden, near the south coast of the country.

At 6, Angelo suffered the first blow of his life, his father was murdered in a duel against death eater Evan Rosier.

Because of the instability of his Veela powers, he can never interact with Muggle children, because of the risks of revealing the Wizarding World. And after learning about his nature, some wizard boys who lived in the Royal Garden began to bully him, which made him stay away from the children. The only person who knew all this was Jay, and defended his little brother.

When his brother disappeared, Angelo completely isolated himself, he started to stay inside the house reading his father's and brother's books.

At 8, Angelo won Arthy as a birthday present from his mother, and that made the rest of his childhood bearable.

1st Year: While traveling on the Hogwarts Express, Angel felt very insecure about being a half-veela, so in an attempt to change the color of his white hair to black, he ended up turning his hair blue. During the first year, Angel avoided to relate with the other students, having Rowan like its only friend. His teachers, with the exception of Professor Flitwick and McGonagall, were the only ones who didn't compare him to Jay.

After his duel with Merula, Angel met Penny Haywood, when the girl was so kind to him, that from that moment, Angel always blushed when she spoke to him.

He thought he would be a normal student, but no matter how much he avoided it, the curiosity to know what happened to his brother spoke louder, then with the help of Rowan and Penny, they decided to investigate the appearance of the "mysterious ice".

2st Year: As soon as he returned to Hogwarts, Angelo was increasingly determined to discover the truth about his brother and what led him to become involved with the Cursed Vaults. After finding Ben trapped in the ice, he realized that he would need to do what he could to break the curse.

When they found the first vault, and when Rowan was wounded, Angel spent every minute of his free time, studying how to get through the ice door.

The more he investigated, the more bad rumors of his brother were coming, but he refused to believe that Jay was a bad and selfish person as they say he is.

When it was finally time to enter the ice vault. Angelo, Penny and Bill, with much effort, managed to break the curse.

3st Year: With clues to the next Vault, he had to deal with Sebastian Anguslow, a boy who always bullied him at the Royal Garden, so after explaining his situation to Talbott Winger, he agreed to help him become an animagus. After five months, he managed to become a black Bombay cat. So he was able to avoid Anguslow and all his followers.

When he managed to enter Jay's office, after defeating Merula in a duel, he found several notes from Jay about the second crypt, but the image of a loving and protecting brother was undone by the facts.

When entering the vault, Angel, Tonks, Tulip and Barnaby had to face their fears to break the boggarts' curse.

4st Year: As soon as he got back to Hogwarts, his convictions about Jay were pretty shaken, he didn't exactly know what to believe, but if there was one thing he did know, thanks to his Veela skills, he was able to feel a negative energy emanating from her, which meant he should not trust Rakepick.

While steadfastly refusing to be Rakepick's assistant, he learned of a Dementor's invasion, and that it had affected Penny, he told Tonks that he would resolve this and find out the truth behind said. After Tonks taught him to cast a patronus, he discovered that he took the form of a Bombay cat, like Arthy.

After the incident with the Dementor, the relationship between Penny and Angel strengthened each time more, and this resulted in an invitation to the Celestial Ball.

When he met Torvus, the centaur's revelations made his convictions about his brother melt away before the facts presented. This left him devastated, the image of the heroic brother he had from his childhood had been left in a past that seemed unreal.

While investigating, Professor Flitwick suggested that Angelo try to become the Ravenclaw's new perfect. But he knew that it was only a responsibility to divert his search, but the privileges of a perfect one would only help him in his search.

Once his ticket to the secret crush had caused a real mess at Hogwarts, he tried to solve it with the help of Tonks and Charlie, taking the courage to invite Penny on a date, it was an even bigger mess, but in the end, in the light of stars were all perfect, and Angelo finally realized that he had nothing but himself to be accepted, mainly due to his crush. Penny Haywood.

When he finally managed to return the arrow to Torvus, it was time for Angel, Penny, Hagrid and Torvus to enter the forest vault. From that moment, Angelo began to resolve the curses to clear the Lancaster family name and free Hogwarts from these dangers.

5st Year: After returning to Hogwarts to earn his class schedule with the time of his detention, he joined Bill and Merula, despite many protests, joined the Rakepick apprentice group.

Once again Angelo had a personal reason to break the curse, Beatrice, Penny's sister was one of the victims of the curse, so during this year, he had to manage all his time between classes, study for the owls, train and play Quidditch, and investigate Cursed Vaults.

Upon learning that Jay was directly involved in Duncan's death, Angel believed that the caring brother and that he protected him no longer existed.

Without the motivation to find Jay, he simply continued his investigations to protect his friends and clear the Lancaster's name.

During Valentine's Day, even with Lockhart's interference, Angelo and Penny had a great date and in their moment alone in the greenhouse, Angelo asked Penny for a date and gave her first kiss.

After successfully spreading the chaos and getting the painting with Peeves, Angelo, Charlie, Bill, Merula and Rakepick entering the fourth vault. After discovering the truth about Rakepick and meeting his brother again, he had the revelation that thinking about him was the only thing that kept Jay's sanity. And even though Jay was left in the crypt, he had little hope that Jay would still be the brother he was during his childhood.

6st Year: (Pending year)

7st Year: (Pending year)

Order of the Phoenix / 2nd Wizarding War: As soon as they graduated from Hogwarts, Angelo and Talbott started their Auror training with Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, thanks to their school friendship, the two Ravenclaws formed a great pair, becoming partners.

After finishing the training, Angelo and Talbott were assigned to small missions until they acquired enough experience for large missions. Until one night in 1995, Angel received devastating news, Kyril Vasiley, one of his best friends, had died, which left him devastated. The next day, he received news of the death of Cedric Diggory, another school friend, that was horrible for the blue-haired boy.

A few days after Lord Voldemort's return, Angelo was visited by Albus Dumbledore, who recruited him into the Order of the Phoenix. From that moment on Angelo became a member working on missions on behalf of Dumbledore.

In the battle of the department of mysteries, Angelo was with Tonks and they immediately went to Harry's aid.

During the time that Pius Thicknesse was minister of magic, Angelo works together with some friends to help Muggle-borns and other wizards unfairly accused of the persecution of Dolores Umbridge

After Harry, Ron and Hermione invaded the ministry, Angelo was forced to flee, after sending Leonor and mr. and mrs. Haywood to live at Jay's home in Brazil, he and Penny moved to a small cottage on a deserted Cornish beach.

Quando souberam que Harry Potter estava em Hogwarts, Angelo e Penny sabiam que Voldemort iria atrás dele, então rapidamente eles foram para Hogsmeade para ir até a escola pelo Hogs Head Inn. During the battle, Angelo dueled against the Death Eaters, especially against Cadmus Mulciber, one of those responsible for the death of his father.

Post-War: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Angelo was one of the Aurors appointed by Minister Shacklebolt to track and arrest Death Eaters and wizards who conspired in favor of the dark lord and bring them to trial.

Angelo was one of the Aurors responsible for removing the dementors from Azkaban. And he was tasked by the minister to oversee Harry and Ron's Auror training.

He worked as an auror until 2011, after retiring as an auror, He worked on the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad for a year. Until he received an invitation from Professor McGonagall to replace Filius Flitwick as a charms professor at Hogwarts in 2013.

Old Age & Death: Angelo worked as a teacher at Hogwarts for several years, until he turned 89. Then he said he and Penny lived in a house in Hogsmeade until Angel turned 103, when he died of old age.

Personality

Logical: Angelo always likes to make his decisions based on logic, it is extremely rare that he makes a decision based on emotion.

Empathic: Thanks to his Veela skills, he is able to feel the emotions of others, so he always tries to make people feel better, he cannot see his sad friends, he always tries to make his friends feel better.

Shy: Angelo due to his complicated childhood, he is a very shy boy, not being able to approach new people easily, always preferring to stay in his comfort zone. But he makes an effort when he really wants to meet someone.

Intelligent: Thanks to his photographic memory, Angelo is very intelligent, and he uses that intelligence to help his friends with their homework, mainly in History of Magic, and sometimes he doesn't mind writing essays for them.

Strategist: Due to his timid personality, many people the underestimated and don't believe they can sell him in a duel, but while his opponents try to beat him by force, he studies his opponent and waits for the right time to attack.

Affectionate: After he feels comfortable with a person, Angelo is not ashamed of being affectionate with him, hugging and caressing any friend he needs.

Misc:

The Lancaster is a purebred family, but it stopped caring about the status of purity in the late 19th century, with the family patriarch, Leonidas Lancaster.

Angelo is a descendant of two pure-blood families, the Lancaster and the Trindade, family of his paternal grandmother, Damares Trindade, a Brazilian pure-brood family, but he was disinherited when they learned that his father had married a Veela, and had half-Veela children.

The Stellair family, is a family well known among the French Veela.

Angelo developed a passion for ice and snow magic after almost drowning in a frozen lake.

He has visited the Veela sanctuary in the interior of France several times, where he can assume his Veela form while there, but wizards can only enter the sanctuary with a permit from the French Ministry of Magic.

His little habit of reading while walking comes from when he learned to read, at the age of 4, he used to read the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

And Angel likes to assume her animagus form and stay in the lap of her closest friends, receiving ear strokes, mainly from Kyril, Candy, Elaiza, Roger and Jason.

When he needs to be alone to think or just cry, he can be found sitting under the beech on the shores of the black lake, but when he is there he doesn't like to see anyone.

[burts-baked-bees]

• Grilled Cheese Sandwich •

{A Michael Myers x Female!Reader Story}

The sound of butter frying against a metal saucepan filled the almost silent kitchen as a girl holding a buttered piece of bread looked to the browning grease with a smile. The sound reminded her of late night grilled cheese parties with her father after she waited up far too late for his arrival. With a slight bit of hesitation, she tossed the bread into the pan and yelped when the hissing liquid shot up slightly. She laughed at her own fooliary and turned back to the counter to retrieve a square of bright yellow cheese for her delicious creation. Her eyes left the counter for a moment and fled to the window facing the back yard as a loud bird chirped on the sill.

“Scared the crap outta’ me…” She huffed as she watched the yellow bird twitch its head and poke at its own feathers. Her e/c eyes began to unfocus from the animal before her and started to take in the green foliage around her small but quaint yard. She took in a deep breath as a small gust of wind blew in through the window and brushed past her face. The smell of the rich earth filled her nose as she looked to the cluster of trees that seperated the edge of her own yard from the neighbors. Amidst the deep greens and striking brown tree limbs a different color began to emerge.

A deep blue came into view between flashing leaves and Y/n felt her heart pick up pace.

She knew what color would come next.

Following the deep blue up she eventually met a patch of striking white amongst the trees. Her heart stopped as her eyes met the all too familiar mask of a hulking man keeping to the shadows of her yard. She stared at the shape in the trees for a moment as the wind began to blow again. The white backside of the leaves seemed to outline the man's frame more than before and Y/n sighed deeply. This wasn't the first time she had seen this figure lingering near her presence. For the past week or so she had taken in fully the fact that no matter where she was that looming shape was almost always nearby. She could be leaving the store or just out for a walk and she would have the feeling that she was being watched, and sure enough if she looked just behind her or across the street - he would be there.

The Shape of Haddonfield.

He was like her shadow, always close behind and never lingering. It was almost a comfort to know that someone was constantly keeping an eye out for her, but she couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that he was merely stalking her in order to best decide how and when to claim her as his next bloody victim. And yet, after what she surmised must have been months at the least, of stalking her he had not once made a move to harm her in any way.

Somehow that was scarier than knowing she was going to be killed.

Y/n was ripped from her staredown with The Shape when the smell of burning bread filled her nose. “Shit!” She gasped as she frantically turned back to the stove. Quickly she added the cheese and second piece of bread and flipped it over to find the first side of her sandwich a step away from being charcoal. She scowled at the smouldering lunch and groaned, “Goddammit…” She was not one to turn down food, especially when she was hungry, but the thought of her ‘perfect’ meal was slowly slipping through her fingers as she realized she hadn’t even begun the tomato soup.

Just outside her window The Shape began to stir. Now that she was at the stove, his view of her form was limited. He wasn’t even sure if she was even in the same room anymore, but he was far too locked into this room to even think about changing his spot of observation. The sudden smell of burnt food drifted out from the house in his sight and he cocked his head to the side. That was an odd smell to ever leave her kitchen, even when her mother was cooking there was never any hint that food had been burnt. His mind brought him to the moment just before when she stood in the glass pane and locked eyes with him. He knew now that she was somewhat aware of his lingering presence, but she had yet to go any further in acknowledging him then meeting his gaze for moments at a time. He enjoyed the moments when they were both aware of the other's form.

When she saw him, he saw her.

He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t ended this particular hunt yet. There was just something about her. She seemed so out of place. She never acted like her peers, and in a way that was striking to him. He had picked her out of a crowd to be his next release of internal aggression and rage, but the longer he spent watching her, the more he began to notice little things about her that were so drastically different from those around her. There was something about her that nipped at a long repressed side of him. A place in his psyche that he thought Dr. Loomis had stripped from him long ago.

She wasn’t afraid of him.

Y/n looked back to the window for a brief moment to see if the figure had moved, and allowed a small smile to curl her lips when she noticed he hadn’t. She looked to the plate she had made for herself and pursed her lips. “I’ve got to be out of my mind…” She whispered to the flame alit her stovetop. With a quick nod she began preparing a second sandwich and filling a new mug with a hot helping of creamy red soup. She rustled around the kitchen in a burst of adrenaline filled energy, her mind racing a mile a minute and her eyes constantly checking her back window for a soothing glimpse of a white mask among the leaves.

The Shape watched in a mix of confusion and anticipation as the girl began flying about the kitchen, grabbing at food items she had already put away in their respectful cubbies. His breathing began to quicken as he watched her move to the small table in front of the sliding glass door leading to him just a few steps away. She placed a plate of food on the table followed by a mug and a glass of deep red juice. He half expected her to look to him once more before sitting down and beginning her meal, but as soon as the food was placed down she disappeared again and returned with a second set of dishes holding a mirror image of her own meal. He looked to the new plate confused; he could have sworn she was home alone. He knew her schedule backwards and forwards, and she was supposed to be home alone for the majority of today. Once her parents arrived home he would retreat to his own home to sleep for a short time, and then resume his stalking.

Y/n stood beside the table, her face turned to the placemats set before her and he watched her visibly sigh. His head tilted to the side in confusion as she removed her sunflower print apron and tossed it to the counter behind her. With that she looked to the door and took a great stride towards the glass. The Shape froze as she tugged the door open and turned her bright face to the trees where he was hiding. The wind hit her face like a wave of pure anxiety, and rustled through her clothes. He took a step back to cover himself deeper in shadow as she straightened up and cleared her throat.

“Listen..” Her voice carried out over the open yard and sent a shiver to his very core; she was addressing him. “You’ve been out there for hours. It’s chilly and windy and you haven’t moved.” Her voice wavered as she took into account just who she was attempting to speak with, “I made myself some lunch because I was hungry, and I made some extra in case--” She stopped her eyes meeting the empty holes in a white mask that surly masked his deep blue eyes. “In case you were hungry.”

The words left her mouth in a small shout as she forced herself to get them past her lips. She was looking right at him as the wind ripped past the space between them again. He remained motionless for what felt like an eternity as Y/n crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her weight on the doorframe. “Okay… I’m well aware you don’t talk, and I might be making a mistake even acknowledging you’re there, but I’m not going to let you just stand there and starve.” She looked to the home of her neighbors as she hushed her own voice, in fear of alerting the people next door to The Shapes presence in her yard. She took a deep breath and looked back to his motionless form a few yards from her, “I’m going to leave this door open, and if you want to come in and join me for lunch you can. If not…” She stiffened up not sure how to end this one sided conversation, “Uh… then… Have a nice day I guess.”

He watched intently as she nodded her head and retreated back to her table; her face a bright red and her limbs shaking. He couldn’t believe what had just transpired. She had spoken directly to him. And she didn’t tell him to leave…

Y/n sat down at the table and shifted in her seat, her heart beating like a bass drum. Even though her stomach was now in knots, and her head was cursing her for addressing the killer in the bushes, she brought her hands to the melted cheese on her pate and scooped it up on her finger. With a shaky sigh she ate the cheese and chased it down with a gulp of her juice. Not too long after she was fully immersed in her meal and enjoying the flavors she had created. Her mind almost forgot of the proposition she made but was soon reminded as a breeze passed through the open door and coated her in an invisible blanket of icy cold. She looked to the empty chair across from her and sighed, she had really thought the Haddonfield Boogeyman would take up her offer of joining her for lunch.

For all she knew, she had just given him an invitation to slip inside and slit her throat. She was letting her mind wander to the aftermath of her supposed murder. How her parents would react, what the school would do to remember her, how her friends would take the news. She was so lost in her own thoughts she didn’t even hear the large muddy boot step inside the doorway and unto her wooden kitchen floor. She was ripped from her morbid daydream when a new figue came into her view, just across from her.

Y/n stiffened up like a wooden post when she realized who had just joined her at the table.

There across from her at her small kitchen table sat the infamous Babysitter Murderer, The Shape of Haddonfield, the Boogeyman.

Michael Audrey Myers.

She swallowed hard as she soaked in the odd sight of him in her home. His large form dwarfed her at the table, and his dirty worn coveralls were a stark contrast against the light wood of the table and chair. His expressionless mask was the last thing she took in; the white face accented by straw brown hair and caked in dried mud and old blood. Every crack in the thin latex was now visible to her and she took a moment to register just how worn the mask was. For the first time, however, she was able to see something just past the mask.

Hiding just behind the misshapen eye holes Y/n could fully see the pair of very human eyes that belonged to the killer. She felt her whole body relax when she realized that he was in fact human under there, and not the monster everyone had portrayed him to be. One of his eyes however was scarred over and obviously blind. She felt a pang of pain in her chest as she processed this new found discovery.

All the pictures she had seen of the man before her as a child, he had both of his blue eyes intact. This could only mean this injury had happened to him while he was in medical custody. She felt her fear melt away as he raised his hands to the table and poked at the food on his plate. She noticed how incredibly beaten his hands were. They were more callous then skin, and what wasn’t hardened was a deep scar. His long fingers danced over the crisp butter soaked bread on his plate, and Y/n noticed how he looked almost confused at the food before him.

“It’s a grilled cheese.” She spoke, earning a slight jump from the shape before her. He looked to her and lowered his hands. His head tilted to the side in his normal fashion as he realized slowly that she was in fact still seated with him; she hadn’t run from him, but instead was beginning to speak to him again. “I guess they only had mushy foods where you grew up, huh?” He responded by looking to his left at the small hallway leading to her front door. He thought back to all the times he had watched her enter her home from the other side of that door, and now here he was seated inside the walls that kept her safe from people like him.

“Your name is Micheal… right?”

He snapped his head back to face her and she jumped. He was so used to hearing Loomis and angry nurses say that name. It had been ages since he heard his own name spoken so gently. He felt his chest flare up after the words left her mouth. Hearing her voice say his name was something he never knew he needed. “I’m sorry!” She yelped looking down at her hands, “It just didn’t feel right calling you any of those things people call you.” She looked up at him with a furrowed brow, his surprisingly soft gaze banishing her fear once again, “You just don’t seem that scary…” She leaned back in her seat and brought a potato chip to her opening mouth. He watched her eat the chip and felt a small smile creep at the edges of his mouth behind the mask. She really wasn’t afraid of him?

Y/n watched as he began to slowly nod. She cocked a brow at him and wringed her hands together, “Yes? Yes your name is Micheal?” His name fell past her lips once more, but this time in a low whisper in fear of upsetting him in any way. He simply nodded again. “So… Can I call you that? Michael?” He nodded once sternly and Y/n felt her lungs release the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. He looked back to the food on his plate and inhaled deeply. God, did he want to eat; but there was no way he was removing his mask. Not for anything.

Y/n continued to eat in a sort of silence, Micheal’s beathing and the chirping of birds outside the only soundtrack to her meal. Michael watched her as she dipped the sandwich into the mug of soup and raced against the clock to get the soggy bread to her mouth before the soup dripped all over. She calmly finished her food and sat back in her seat, wiping her mouth on a napkin. This was going to be a meal to remember, that was for sure. She watched as his eyes wandered all over the walls of her home, taking in the color of the paint, to the scratches in the wood floors.

“Can I ask you something?”

Her voice brought his attention back to her form and he shifted in his seat. She was playing with the crumbs on the table as she posed the question to the charged air. She glanced up enough to see him nod yet again, and then lower his head to try and meet her gaze. She looked back up and rubbed a hand down the side of her face, her mind still trying to process the fact that he was right in front of her. “Why haven’t…” She cut herself off in an instant. Her brow knitted together as she weighed the optimons in her mind of how this question could go. Michael looked at her with half lidded eyes, his mind reeling as to what she was going to ask next. She locked eyes with him one last time and gave a small smile, “It’s no secret what you’ve done. Everyone here knows who you are. The people you’ve…” She trailed off and gave a small dry chuckle, “Why is this happening? You could’ve… well… you could have very easily killed me by now. But instead you’re sitting here at my table, after months of watching me, silent and still. There are a million scenarios that have played in my head if I ever came face to face with you, and sharing a quiet lunch with you was definitely not one of them…” She shrugged her shoulders and laughed again. Michael could sense a million different emotions swarming around the girl at that exact moment, but still, fear wasn’t one of them. They sat there for a while, Michaels silence answering her question enough fir her to grasp that he was not in fact going to harm her. She felt a sense of clam wash over her as she just sat with him.

Oddly enough, she felt safe.

The doorbell rang out through the house as both people at the table snapped their heads to the door. Y/n shot up as Michael knocked out the chair from under him, flying to his feet. She threw her hands up and shushed him loudly. “Don’t move. I’ll make sure they leave without seeing you. I’ve got this.” She was breathless as she began her walk to the door, Micheal watched her frame move down the hall and he felt the sudden urge to pounce on her and hide them both away from the stranger at the door.

“Hey there! I’m just stopping by to drop off that casserole dish your mom had lent me!” The older woman at the door beamed at Y/n as she opened the door. The girl smiled in response and engaged in a short conversation with her mother friend. Minutes passed by before Y/n said goodbye and turned back to the kitchen. When she arrived the room was empty.

The back door was closed, and Michael was gone.

Y/n huffed as she sat down in the chair that once held Michael, the wooden frame still somewhat warm. She found herself beginning to smile thinking about the encounter she just had. That’s when she noticed the plate in front of her was empty. Michael was gone, and so was his sandwich. Y/n ran her hands down her face and began to laugh. It started off small but grew into a full chest shaking laugh as she leaned forward on the table and let all the tension in her bones melt away.

Somewhere, she thought to herself, the Haddonfield Boogeyman is walking around with my grilled cheese in his hand.

The thought was enough to send her into a new fit of laughter.

Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all……

[teaspoon-full-of-sugar]

confession

pairing: priest!michael x novice!reader

warnings: (brief) descriptions of masterbation, rough smut, blasphemy, degradation/humiliation, choking, teasing, orgasm denial, begging, unprotected sex, (minor) cum play, my ramblings on what it means to sin, do not read if you’re offended by misuse of biblical verse !

word count: 3.5k

synopsis: y/n is being tempted by sins of thought, and father langdon helps with her repentance.

This is a smutty priest/nun au, so some topics in this may be offensive to some; discretion is advised. I also want to note that I am not a catholic. I was raised as a witness, so I don’t know much of anything about Catholicism or their practices, other than quick research to write this. Please, keep this in mind while reading this, as some things may not be entirely accurate. This does not reflect my views, nor does this reflect the actual happenings in this religion. Sorry, this author’s note is really long. There are just some things that I think needed to be said. Without further ado, please enjoy this very self-indulgent fic.

Also tagging @sojournmichael  because this  catholic school girl fic inspired me (even if it’s not very similar) thank you!

—

Y/N sits in the first row of pews, like all novices, close to the altar, which is filled with lit candles and gifts. Father Langdon is well into Mass, but she has trouble listening.

At first, her infatuation with him was childish and based purely on his looks, since he was a sight to behold. She assumed that it would pass, like most things. However, as the years passed, the more they spoke, the more she learned about him and vice versa, she could never shake the nervousness she felt around him, or thoughts of his sweet words in her moments of contemplation.

And no matter how many times she tried to rid herself of insatiable dreams, she couldn't seem to stop the visions of his head between her quivering legs, his hands in her hair, pulling tightly, and his soothing words in her ear as she takes all of him inside her. She dreams of him, both day and night, and no amount of prayer can seem to eliminate him from her tainted mind.

Love feels like the wrong word to describe what she felt toward him. Love is something cherished, yet she thinks of him in vile, wicked, sinful ways. Guilt nearly swallows her whole whenever she looks at him. He is a man of the Lord, sworn to celibacy, and she imagines him as some common whore to ogle. Their gazes lock from across the chapel, and he tilts his head, blue eyes calm. He peers into her soul, and she almost thinks he knows what she was thinking about.

Suddenly, everyone stands to recite Our Father, breaking her from her thoughts.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name."

The words melt away into the background as Langdon paces past the front row, nodding at her when their eyes meet. He's close enough to touch, and her fingers twitch to feel his warmth. She stutters through the prayer she's known since childhood and tries to clear her mind, but it's no use. Muddled images of Langdon keep appearing, no matter how much she wants to shy away. A heavy breath passes through her lips, a final plea with the Lord to give her strength.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

—

Y/N finds herself in the chapel after night prayers, standing in front of the priests' room. It's hidden behind the altar, barren and stripped of any sinful embellishments. She knocks on the door gently.

"Come in." Langdon's voice comes from the other side, and she freezes. She had hoped that Father Scott was there instead of Langdon, but she can't turn back now. There's a mirror beside the door that shakes as she closes the door, making her flinch. Michael Langdon sits at a large desk, hands busy with piles of papers.

"Do you have a moment?" She asks, and he gestures for her to sit. "I am at a crossroads, Father," she begins, fiddling with her beads. "Will you hear my confession?" She still can't look at him, her head bowed down in disgrace, staring down at her shoes.

"Yes, that's what I'm here for."

"Thank you, Father."

"Would you like to speak in the confession booth, sister?"

"No, I fear I will lose courage if—" Her throat closes when she finally meets his eyes, guilt and fear muddling together in the pit of her stomach as she throbs with sinful arousal. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, forgive me, for I have sinned." Y/N breathes out shakily, nervous under his stare. Blue never seemed like a deadly color until she met him. His eyes, brilliant and sharp, are alluring, and when he smiles at her, sweet with temptation, it's as if he has put her under a spell.

"It's been three weeks since my last confession."

"John 1:9, 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness'," he recites beautifully. "Repent, my child," he says as he leans on his elbows, hands interlocked in front of him. Y/N bows her head shamefully as she thinks of how his rings would bite at her heated skin, cold and teasing, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, before finally easing between her shaky thighs. She swallows dryly.

"In two weeks, I am taking my first vows, and my faith is being tested. I am being tempted with sins of thought."

"Describe these temptations," he says, his fingers tracing over his lips.

She looks at him with teary eyes, fingers tracing the cross that hangs from her neck. Shame darkens her features, and she visibly wilts, sinking deeper into the chair. He leans closer, brow cocking, as she struggles to steady her mind.

"I know I shouldn't. These... unholy thoughts, they keep me awake at night, they taunt me in my moments of silent contemplation, and they distract me from the teachings of our Lord, Father."

He tilts his head earnestly and moves to sit on the edge of his desk, the clicking of black leather boots masking her shallow breaths. She doesn't look at him; no, she can't look at him, fearing that those tempting eyes will lure her in and swallow her whole. She's afraid that once she gives in, she'll never want to turn back. Langdon isn't in his robes, like during mass, rather he's in a simple black attire, the high collar of his shirt

"Do you feel it now?" His voice is soft and calm, holding no judgement, but it lilts a little as if he's belittling her. He leans closer. "With me?" A hand cups her chin gently, urging her to face him. "The ache, it's always there, throbbing and burning. Isn't it, Y/N?" Her mouth dries. She's never seen those... sinful eyes so close before. Words elude her as she can only nod pitifully, and his lips pout. Those blue eyes hungrily graze over her.

Every instinct is telling her to lunge at him and claim him as her own. He could pacify her hunger and quell her thirst, and she would take it all, anything to be rid of this awful ache between her thighs. Lust settles into her belly, heavy and tense.

"Is it painful?"

She nods again, but that's not good enough this time.

"Use your words, sister," he hisses. He kneels beside her now, one hand still holding her chin, while the other rests on her knee, gripping it almost painfully, but his touch leaves her trembling, yearning for more of his warmth. If only he were to go a little higher. Her legs tighten together.

"Yes, Father, it's painful," she answers weakly, and he smiles a little, fingers inching up her thigh. He can feel her muscles shake and tense beneath them, but her little sighs of relief leave no chance for questioning. He leans dangerously close to her, inhaling her amber scent, sweet and sultry; his eyes flutter closed, relishing in the feeling of her squirming because of him.

"Have you given in to these temptations?"

"No," she gasps. His hand suddenly stops moving, and he leaves her altogether. A hum rumbles through his chest, and he nods approvingly, sitting back in his chair. Her wide eyes are still wet, but her heaving chest and pinched features show they're tears of frustration rather than shame. He smirks.

"Recite two Hail Mary's before you go to bed, and I will see you at mass tomorrow morning."

Her legs nearly crumble beneath her as she stands, nodding furiously while wiping her tears. Before she leaves, like a good girl, Y/N turns back to him and bows her head slightly.

"Thank you, Father."

—

Confession is meant for penance and retribution. For those with ill-intentions, those who confess simply to ease guilt rather than to signify a love for the Lord and a true regret, it's a selfish act, which in itself is a sin. Y/N considers herself a devout woman to her Lord and his teachings. Never before has she been faced with such difficult times, and now, she finds herself questioning His ways. It's odd how one person can completely change the way you view the world around you, how you can hesitate and think through actions that used to happen instinctually.

The week following her confession with Langdon is worse than before. During classes, she thinks of how heavy and warm his hands felt on her body. During mass, she doesn't listen to what he's preaching; rather, she thinks of the timbre of his voice in her ear, leaving her wanton and pliant Is it painful? His insincere words echo in her mind, and despite the blatant taunting, she warms, pussy throbbing.

She wonders what might have happened if she said that she did give in to her temptations. Would he have forgiven her as easily? Or would he have made her get on her knees and—no. She curses herself for getting lost in such thoughts during her time of daily prayer. She bows her head, pleading with Him to help and guide her off the path of unrighteousness she can feel herself slipping down.

That night, as she lies in her bed, alone with such loud, wicked thoughts, her resolve weakens, and her hand slips between her legs. It’s odd initially, the feeling. There’s no way to describe it; there’s a sense of relief that washes over her, but the arousal worsens, searing and fervent. Her fingers move faster, desperate to chase that feeling, that rush of pleasure and pain until a fire settles in her belly, hips undulating at their own will; the thought of his eyes staring at her with hunger is what pushes her over the edge.

As she comes with Michael's name on her lips, broken and sweet, she feels no guilt, only bliss.

—

Later that week, the night before she takes her vows, she meets with him again, in that faceless room; it's become a sanctuary for her, a place where she envisions her darkest fantasies being fulfilled.

"Father," she says, catching his attention suddenly. He stands in front of the desk.

"Y/N," he says, and any courage she thought she had dissolves. She thinks of the judgement she would face if; she would have to leave the only thing she had ever known.

"Will you hear my confession?" She asks, just like on that night two weeks ago. He nods. “I fear I cannot take my vows without repentance first," she explains. "I have given in to the temptations of my thoughts." She stands there, heart and soul bare to this man, lip trembling.

"I know," he says. His mouth, red and full, curls up deviously. He looks at her, blue eyes taunting her to make a move. He stalks forward, backing her against the wall into an embellished cross. The metal digs into her back, but she barely feels the ache. His eyes are sin, she realizes. The rich blue incites rebellion, rousing her with an awakening and freedom she had been blind to.

And just like Eve, she gives in to temptation, embraces selfishness, and kisses him. His hands cup her neck and tug at her hair while hers claw at him, desperate to feel him. He bites at her lip harshly, bruising and swelling, and he rips at her dress until the buttons fall uselessly to the floor. For a moment, she holds the material to her chest, heart pounding, but as he nibbles on her skin, lips warm against her, her arms fall and so does the dress, into a useless heap on the floor.

"Is this what you thought about?" He asks, fiddling with her rosary beads. "Stripped bare before me, spreading your greedy thighs, giving in to your gluttonous nature, greedy and selfish, and it's all for me, isn't it?"

He hooks one of her legs over his hip and scratches his nails of her cotton underwear. She moans, hips bucking. He pushes the material down her legs, slow and teasing, his lips painting wet kisses to her tender neck. His hand fits perfectly between her legs, it seems. He massages that sensitive bundle between two fingers, and her knees break at the unfamiliar pleasure. He catches her easily, wrapping an arm around her waist, and she whines, struggling to keep her eyes open.

"You've dreamt of this, sinfully being taken while the eyes of our Lord watches. Don't lie. I can feel you dripping." Ecstasy burns in her belly, pussy throbbing as he pulls his hand away with a wet sound.

"Yes, I want you," she says, hips moving desperately against him.

"Selfish and wicked," he tuts. “Proverbs 11:21, 'the wicked shall not go unpunished'." He pinches roughly at her nipples, and she whimpers, arching her chest into him, eager for more. "Do you agree, Y/N?" She swallows, heart racing.

"Yes."

He smiles and so does she. He sucks on her bruised breasts. Shivers rack through her body at the sudden warmth. Her eyes flutter closed as his hands twist at the supple skin of her hips, grinding them against his groin. She tugs at his pants.

"Kneel."

She sinks to her knees at his gravely demand. Her hands run along the meat of his thighs. Her heart is racing as he pulls in pants down slightly, freeing his cock. It twitches, red and swollen, as she breathes heavily, mouth watery. Her tongue traces a bead of precum down his shaft, lips sucking back up to the tip. She looks up at him. His features are stoic, lips thinned, but his eyes are hungry, blown open by lust and dominance. He smirks down at her, long blonde hair He caresses her cheek with a tenderness his gaze doesn’t hold before he digs his nails into the back of her head.

His hands tighten in her hair, guiding her mouth further and further down until her nose nestles against the wiry blonde hairs at his pubic bone. She chokes on his cock, shoulders lurching with every jolt of his hips.

Through teary eyes, she can see his teeth bared, cheeks red and blotchy. His moans, thick with desire, leaves her yearning for more.

She pulls back, a string of saliva trailing from the head to her bruised lips; her chest heaves for breath.

"Relax," he coaxes, running his thumb over her jaw. "Open up for me." She does as asked, her mouth open and eager. He settles himself in the dip of her tongue, saliva pooling beneath his heavy cock. She can feel him throbbing. He thrusts himself into her mouth until he’s tight to the back of her throat. He traces his fingers down to her neck, feeling the skin tighten and ripple with every thrust. He pulls out, rubbing the tip over her wet tongue; tendrils of saliva drip to the floor.

“Come here,” he says, pulling her onto her feet. He guides her to the desk, pressing her front down. As she lays there, spread and bare for him to see, she doesn’t feel judgement nor hesitation. Arousal seeps down her legs, muscles trembling. She can feel his hungry eyes on her. Despite the fact that she’s bent over, accepting of anything he has to offer, she feels power rush through her veins. Maybe she is being selfish and greedy and power hungry—sinful—but

She jumps when his hand caresses her, spreading her wetness. Breath eludes her when he strokes the tip of his cock through her folds.

"1 Corinthians tells us, 'Do not deprive one another... come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control'. Feel me and know that this is just," he says, sinking into her slowly. She shudders, her pussy stretching easily around him. He grinds into her.

"Good girl," he coos; a cacophony of weak moans, sticky skin slapping together, and her rosary beads clunking over the desk fills the room, loud and sinful. A part of her prays no one will hear, and another part is aroused at the idea. She jolts forward with each thrust of his hips, which are growing quicker and rougher; her hands slip from beneath her, face pressed to the cool wood desk. It muffles her cries of pleasure.

He twists her beads tight around her neck, and he pulls until they're cheek-to-cheek, her arched back pressed to his chest.

"Please," she whimpers, barely audible as she tries to take deep breaths. Despite her worn appearance, sweat dripping down her cheek, eyelids fluttering closed, she has a smile.

"Please, what, dear? Tell me what you need; tell me your sins, and maybe I will give in," he says. She struggles to speak through broken moans, eyes closed and lips swollen. Her beads break from his tight grip, the cross falling to the ground, and she gasps for breath, falling on her elbows.

The world falls away, and she’s sure she’s reached heaven. With Michael so close, teasing and toying with her body, she’s almost at her peak, pussy tightening around his cock, arousal dripping down her legs; she embraces the pain of him pounding so deep inside her because she so close to a burning, sinful—blissful, end. Her thighs begin quivering, and her back arches, hips stuttering.

Then, he stops. He holds her tightly, cock staying firmly planted inside.

And the feeling sinks, leaving her shaking, gasping, pleading—unfulfilled. An ache settles at her clit, throbbing and biting. Her fingers inch back, gripping onto his shirt tightly.

"Oh, God," she sobs, grinding against him desperately. "No, no, please, Father, please. Close, so close, please." She babbles incoherently, her body trembling. He strokes his hands across her back, nails scratching along her spine. He leans down, nose pressing into her sweaty hairline. She moans as his cock sinks deeper inside and tries fruitlessly to move her hips for some friction.

"Tell me what you want," he growls, yanking her up by her hair. She shakes her head, mind foggy with pleasure.

"Harder," she begs, words slurred. He pulls out slowly, until her fluttering walls envelop his pink head. He stays there for a moment, hands holding onto her shoulders, before he slams deep to her. A guttural cry slips through her lips, mouth moving with silent pleas—more, more, more. Her warmth swallow him easily, with every merciless thrust of his hips, she takes him, greedy and ravenous.

"Faster, faster, please, Michael," she gasps.

"Only because you sound so sweet begging for me.”

"Thank you," she cries. "Thank you."

His hips move quicker, like she asked, pounding into her. The desk shakes and creaks from the movements.

"Hard and fast, like a bitch in heat," he moans. "Taking me so well, so deep."

With trembling fingers, she rubs herself, trying to push herself to oblivion, but he smacks her hand away and pulls at her hair.

“James 3:16, ‘For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice’,” he growls into her ear. “Maybe I shouldn’t even let you come, teach you humility and selflessness.” She shakes her head, pushing back into his thrusts.

“I’ll be good,” she whines, “promise. So good.”

“I knew you would be a good girl for me,” he moans, tracing his finger over her lips. She opens up for him, tongue lapping fervently at his calloused skin. He shoves his fingers deeper until warm saliva trickles down his arm, her throat closing around him. His breathing is shallow in her ear, and his hips stutter. His hand moves from her mouth to her throat, fingers slipping slightly from their wetness.

She purrs at the feeling of his cum filling her, eyes closing with content. His thrusts slow, keeping her right on the edge with her pussy clenching and milking him through his orgasm.

“May I please come?” The voice is soft and sweet. Her hands hold the edge of the desk tightly, resisting the urge to finish herself off. He nearly scoffs at the question.

“Do you deserve such a gift after you were being so selfish earlier?” She nods quickly. Soft whines break through her lips when his fingers slips over her wet curls and to her clit, rubbing mercilessly. A weak gasp sounds in the thick air, and her knees break, body falling pliant and eager for him. He shudders as she tightens around his overstimulated cock.

The burning that had begun to twist inside of her makes her walls flutter. She concentrates on his nails burrowing into her skin, trying to find anything that could make this experience more prolonged, but soon enough, she was crying out as tremors of pleasure snapped through her body with her powerful orgasm, leaving her muscles quivering. She pants, bracing a hand to his back to stabilize herself.

He slips a finger down to where they’re still connected, their cum dripping and soaking into his pants, and he brings it to her mouth. He traces his thumb over her lips, skin wet and swollen with arousal and spit. He kisses her and whispers.

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good."

"For His mercy endures forever."

—

[brokehorrorfan]

Blu-ray Review: The Omen Collection

In the pantheon of religious horror, the holy trinity consists of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen. Although The Omen arrived last, opening on June 6, 1976, it arguably offers more excitement than its satanic brethren (which is not to say that it is a superior film). Likely to be considered a slow-burner by today's standards, the picture builds tension and unravels a mystery at a meticulous pace, but it's punctuated by elaborate, Rube Goldberg-ian death scenes.

The Omen spawned a trilogy of films, a made-for-television sequel, and a modern remake. Scream Factory has collected all five movies in The Omen Collection, which is limited to 10,000 units. Besting Fox's earlier Blu-ray set - which omitted Part IV and featured some of the worst box set packaging known to man - each film is packaged in an individual Blu-ray case with original artwork within a rigid slipcover case. It boasts a deluge of extras, new and old.

In the original film, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick, Anatomy of a Murder), adopt a baby named Damien (Harvey Stephens) after their own child is stillborn. Beginning with his fifth birthday, a string of mysterious deaths surround Damien. Upon being presented with convincing evidence by a photographer (David Warner, Tron), Robert becomes convinced that his son is none other than the antichrist, and he is faced with the task of stopping him to prevent Armageddon.

Firing on all cylinders, The Omen is an exemplary horror film. Working from a well-constructed script by David Seltzer (Shining Through, Prophecy), director Richard Donner grounds the story firmly in reality. The fantastical elements are easy to swallow, as each and every incident in the plot could be mere coincidence. Peck brings a gravitas to the production, leading a strong cast in which Remick also holds her own. Even the six-year-old Stephens, who never acted before and did very little after, is convincingly malevolent.

John Richardson's (Aliens, Harry Potter) special effects for the proto-Final Destination deaths - including one of the greatest beheadings ever committed on celluloid - remain shocking after more than 40 years. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Star Wars: A New Hope, Dr. Strangelove) captures it all with clean camerawork, while Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Gremlins) provides a chilling orchestral score elevated to pure evil with choral chanting.

The Omen has been newly mastered in 4K from the original negative, approved by Donner, for the new release. The result is a pristine presentation with improved detail and color saturation over Fox’s previous high-definition transfer. The Omen carries a whopping four audio commentaries. One, featuring special project consultant Scott Michael Bosco, is new. His audio sounds compressed - as if it were recorded on a cell phone - but it's dense with details focusing on the theological aspects. Bosco often digresses, but I appreciate the fresh perspective rather than a historian reciting IMDb trivia.

The other audio commentaries include: a track with Donner and editor Stuart Baird (Lethal Weapon, Skyfall), in which the two old friends reminisce about the highs and lows of the production; a track with Donner and filmmaker Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential), which features as much good-natured joking as it does insight; and a track with film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman, and Jeff Bond, largely focusing on Goldsmith's score. A lot of information is repeated across the commentaries, but the varying viewpoints make them all worth listening to.

Seltzer and actress Holly Palance (who plays the nanny whose suicide by hanging is among the film’s most memorable moment) sit down for new interviews. Seltzer's chat is particularly enjoyable, as he's candid and humble. He openly states that his script is not as good as the movie it birthed. He also shares what he would have done if he had the opportunity to write the sequel. Palance, the daughter of the great Jack Palance, recounts her naivety about working on her first film and shooting her iconic death scene. The final new extra is an appreciation of The Omen's score by composer Chris Young, who says he looked to Goldsmith's progression across The Omen trilogy as he was scoring the Hellraiser films. It's fascinating to hear one accomplished professional praise another in their field.

All of the archival extras are ported over: a thorough, 15-minute interview with Donner from 2008; 666: The Omen Revealed, a 46-minute retrospective from 2000 featuring crew members along with religious experts to provide context; The Omen Revelations, which is essentially a streamlined version of 666, recycling much of its footage in 24 minutes; Curse or Coincidence, in which the crew recounts a variety of curious incidents that nearly derailed the production; an introduction by Donner; a deleted scene with commentary by Donner; an older interview with Seltzer, which features a lot of the same information as the new one; and an interview with Goldsmith about his score. There's also an appreciation of The Omen by filmmaker Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), in which the master of horror waxes poetic about the influential picture for 20 minutes; Trailers from Hell trailer commentary by filmmaker Larry Cohen (The Stuff), who cites The Omen as one of his favorite movies; the trailer; TV spots; radio spots; and four image galleries: stills, behind-the-scenes, posters and lobby cards, and publicity.

Following the massive success of the first film, Fox fast-tracked a sequel, Damien: Omen II, to open in 1978. Having narrowly survived the events of The Omen, a 12-year-old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) now lives with his affluent uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden, Sunset Blvd.), aunt, Ann (Lee Grant, In the Heat of the Night), and cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), in Chicago. Damien is ostensibly a well-adjusted kid, unaware of who - or what - he is, but those who cross him wind up dead in freak accidents.

Omen II's plotting mirrors that of the first film, but the mystery aspect that made the original so effective is gone. The viewer knows from the start that Damien is, in fact, the antichrist, so they're left waiting for the characters to catch up. The plot dedicates an inordinate amount of time to Thorn's business enterprises, which is only vaguely paid of in the next installment when Damien rises to power. On the bright side, there are several admirably inventive deaths in the tradition of the first, from a bird attack that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous to a visceral elevator bisection to a harrowing scene of a man trapped in a pond under ice.

Since Donner had moved on to Superman and Seltzer was either uninterested or not asked (depending on the source) to pen the sequel, a new creative team was employed. Stanley Mann (Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer) and Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Flash Gordon) wrote the script, with the latter set to direct. Hodges only shot for a few days, during which he quickly fell behind schedule, before being swiftly replaced by Don Taylor (Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Goldsmith returns to score with a worthy successor, retaining the signature sound while expanding it to incorporate electronics.

Leo McKern is the only returning cast member, reprising his role as archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen in the prologue. Peck's formidable presence is sorely missed, but Holden - who, incidentally, turned down the lead role in The Omen - and Grant bring some prestige to the production. Scott-Taylor is a convincing surrogate for Stephens, but the child acting leaves a bit to be desired. It's offset by a supporting cast that includes Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front), Sylvia Sidney (Beetlejuice), Allan Arbus (M*A*S*H), and Meshach Taylor (Mannequin).

Damien: Omen II's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Grant, who is proud of the sequel and shares a funny anecdote about discovering her first wrinkle while filming; Foxworth, who was able to get to know Holden, one of his heroes, on their daily commute; and actress Elizabeth Sheppard, who proudly discusses working with Holden as well as Vincent Price (on The Tomb of Ligeia). In a separate featurette, Sheppard narrates a gallery of her personal photos from the shoot, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the bird attack sequence.

Since Omen II's mythology has little biblical foundation, Bosco's new commentary features even more tenuous tangents, but it affords him the opportunity to discuss the franchise more subjectively. An archival commentary with producer Harvey Bernhard proves to be a bit more informative. The disc also includes a vintage making-of featurette consisting of clips, interviews, and footage from the set, along with the trailer, a TV spot, a radio spot, and a still gallery.

The Omen trilogy came to a conclusion in 1981 with Omen III: The Final Conflict - although it proved not to be final after all. As prophesied, Damien (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park), now 33 - the same age as Jesus when he was crucified - has risen to political power. Following the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain’s ghastly suicide, Damien is appointed the position, which was once held by his adoptive father. The only true foe for the antichrist is, naturally, Christ himself. Rather than bringing about the apocalypse, as the franchise had been driving toward since the beginning, Damien attempts to prevent the second coming in a sanctimonious conclusion to the story arc.

While no successor could top the original Omen, its first sequel smartly embraced the gratuitous death scenes. For the third installment, however, director Graham Baker (Alien Nation) made a conscious effort to avoid them. Instead, he delivers inept monks trying to assassinate Damien with the Seven Daggers of Megiddo, while the antichrist’s legion of apostles murder newborn males who are the potential Christ child. Andrew Birkin's (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) script leans further into religiosity at the expensive of the horror elements while interjecting silly mythology akin to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Omen III: The Final Conflict's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Baker, who takes a truly retrospective look back on the film, comparing the society of today to that of when it was produced; Birkin, who hadn't seen The Omen when he first met for the gig and wasn't particularly impressed when he finally watched it; and production assistant Jeanne Ferber, who explains how she was among those polled by Bernhard to help choose the lead, with Neill selected unanimously.

For his final commentary in the set, Bosco is back to pointing out the film's connections to scripture, leading to a lengthy tirade comparing Christianity and Judaism. An archival track with Baker has a few nuggets of information among extended gaps of silence, but most of his points are addressed more concisely in the new interview. Special features are rounded out by the trailer, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Although The Omen’s main storyline continued with two more book sequels, Fox opted to use the familiar title for a made-for-television movie on their budding network in 1991. Although dubbed Omen IV: The Awakening, the film largely serves as a remake of the original film but with a female antichrist. After numerous failed attempts to get pregnant, politician Gene York (Michael Woods) and his wife, Karen (Faye Grant, V), adopt an orphan girl. Seven years later, Delia (Asia Vieira, A Home at the End of the World) becomes increasingly violent and manipulative, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

Similar to Omen II's production troubles, Omen IV started with Jorge Montesi (Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal) in the director's chair, but he was fire mid-shoot and replaced by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers). Writer Brian Taggert (Poltergeist III) keeps the basic structure of Seltzer's original script intact, but the details of each beat are altered and the death scenes are subdued for TV. In addition to gender-swapping the creepy kid, it's the mother who is proactive this time around.

Despite maintaining the general outline of The Omen, the plot is harder to believe this time around, stretching the required suspension of disbelief to include psychics that can read auras. The most ludicrous plot point comes in the form of a shoehorned connection to The Omen mythology. This "twist" canonically positions Omen IV as a sequel rather than a thinly-veiled remake, but it feels more like a low-budget knockoff than an official installment in the franchise.

Omen IV: The Awakening doesn't have any audio commentaries, but its Blu-ray debut includes a new interview with Taggert, who breaks down several of the major choices made in the script. It also contains The Omen Legacy, a feature-length documentary on the franchise that aired on TV in 2001. Narrated by Jack Palance (City Slickers), it finds cast and crew members (including a couple of folks who don't appear in any other special features) and religious figures (the Church of Satan’s high priestess among them) discussing all four films while playing up the alleged curse. The trailer and a still gallery are also included.

Amidst the onslaught of horror remakes that dominated the early 2000s, Fox shrewdly capitalized with The Omen in 2006 - on 6/6/06, to be exact. Director John Moore (Max Payne) offers slick production value and an inspired cast, but it feels wholly unnecessary considering how closely it follows the original script. Seltzer is the only credited writer, but it's unclear if his 40-year-old script was simply polished off or if he was involved in re-writes, as there are some subtle changes to contemporize it. While it fails to bring anything new to the table, it’s a stronger effort than Omen IV.

Liev Schreiber (Scream) and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) star as the Thorns. Talented as they are, they lack the chemistry of Peck and Remick. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is successfully creepy as the new Damien, while the role's originator, Harvey Stephens, makes a quick cameo. In a particularly motivated bit of stunt casting, Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) plays the antichrist's new nanny. David Thewlis (Harry Potter) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) also have supporting roles.

The remake is the only Blu-ray in the set that doesn't offer any new special features. The existing extras cover a lot of ground, but it would’ve been interesting to hear the crew reflect back on it. Omenisms is a 37-minute documentary exploring the pressures of making a movie with a release date set in advance, even showing Moore losing his temper and yelling at a producer. It feels very of its time, with director Stephen French  treating the piece like a hip art film, but it contains a lot of great material.

Moore, producer Glenn Williamson, and editor Dan Zimmermann participate in an audio commentary that's fairly informative but doesn't touch on many of the trials and tribulations showcased in Omenisms. There's also a featurette about Marco Beltrami (Scream) recording his score at the legendary Abbey Road Studio; Revelation 666, a cheesy TV special tracing the history, interpretation, and theories of 666; unrated, extended scenes, including a longer version of the ending; and theatrical trailers.

While The Exorcist remains the be-all and end-all of occult horror, The Omen franchise as a whole is more consistent. The first three Omen films comprise a cohesive trilogy, while Part IV and the remake each offer a fresh, if flawed, perspective on the material. Between the movies, commentaries, interviews, and featurettes, The Omen Collection contains over 30 hours of content, making it an unbelievable value and a must-have for any horror collector.

The Omen Collection is available now on Blu-ray via Scream Factory.

[alexanderlightweight]

Turbulent Dreams

(Part of the Roswell New Mexico Week 2019)

Prompt: Freaky Friday

Michael’s dreams normally contained the night sky.  A vast and endless heaven stretching across the cold desert with the stars so bright he felt they could guide him home.  His nightmares contained his and Alex’s sobs, Jesse Mane’s impassive face as he cruelly shattered both bones and two bright futures.  The terrors that shook him apart in his sleep were filled with cages and glass walls, doors he couldn’t breach and Max and Isobel’s screams echoing in his mind and Michael unable to see or save them.

Now, his dreams exploded around him.  Plumes of dust and smoke, unfamiliar screaming and words too muffled to make out from the ringing of his ears.  A strange phantom agony, as though he should be feeling pain but his body was too numb to accept the possibility that he was injured.  

When he woke up, panting and gasping for breath.  Chest heaving and face dripping sweat he cursed, using his powers to snatch a bottle of acetone from his stash and as he chugged it down, one hand automatically reached out to his right leg.  It was stiff and aching, as though he’d slept on it wrong.

-

He drank himself into a stupor that night, booze and acetone mixing until he didn’t have to think about how he and Isobel were going to bring Max back to life.  Until he didn’t have to think about the mess that was his personal hell -life- and everything that he’d been trying to avoid.  

If he dreamt that night, he didn’t remember it.

His right leg ached again that morning, even though he’d slept curled on his left side.  

-

The next night his dreams were back, confusing and with a fear that didn’t feel like his own.  A ghost of terror that tickled the back of his neck and put him on edge but never fully enveloped him.

Michael dreamt of hospitals.  Instead of dissections and torture, it was IV’s and blurred memories.  Confusion, he never knew quite where he was or who was with him.  Nothing was familiar, he was looking for someone but he couldn’t find them.  People he didn’t know asked questions he couldn’t answer and he was missing something.  When he tried to figure out what that was, a hand would push him firmly down, a beep sounded and the world floated away.  The feeling of misplaced terror lingered.

He was adrift.

-

On the good nights, with good dreams, Michael dreamt of blue skies with the odd wisp of clouds.  He dreamt of the smell of petrichor lingering on the desert, the rain already greedily drank by the hungry ocean of sand.  He’d see a glimpse of tire tracks on the desert and the blue of his truck parked with a nest of blankets in the bed and a guitar nestled against a pillow.  Two pairs of boots rested in the corner and it felt like a memory.

Those nights were peaceful, a strangely familiar thrum of a guitar being strummed soothing him until he felt cocooned by peace and safety and love.  

Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye he’d catch a smile that seemed so familiar it was as though he were catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror.  A brush of curls against his fingers, like he’d run his hands through his own curls.  It felt familiar, but so new and beautiful.

-

The worst nights were the nights Jesse Manes once again invaded his dreams.  It was like watching the assault from someone else’s eyes.  To see the hammer shatter his bones left a sickening feeling in his stomach and he’d wake himself up by being sick.  Guilt lingered heavy those mornings, a burden he couldn’t shake.  

Michael felt like he was losing his mind.

It took a lot longer to realize it wasn’t his mind that was lost.  

-

Alex knew his dreams, they’d been a constant companion of both relief and torture through the long nights of his deployment and then the even longer days and nights of rehab.  The quick naps that he’d grab when he could, just a few minutes of rest where he could replay his worst or best memories behind closed lids.

So when his dreams changed, he noticed.

These were not his fears or his desires.

-

On good nights when the aches of his body were dull enough that he could actually enjoy the feel of cool blankets on his skin -without feeling confined- he’d dream of space.  Of galaxies unfolding before him, stardust in his wake as he explored.  In those dreams he felt more free than he’d ever in his life, then should be remotely possible.  He felt safe and at home, hands steady on him and lips against his own, the familiar scent of his own body-wash lingering.

The bad nights, the bad nights tore him down.  There was no physical pain that he felt, just terror and sick despair in the pit of his stomach as his hand pounded at a glass prison.  Of screams he didn’t recognize from people he loved but couldn’t see.  

Those nights were the worst, nights where he saw two bare feet poking out of ratty medical pants.  They looked wrong, he wasn’t sure why but he knew they weren’t his.  He knew because when he saw them, both of them were intact, no metal in sight.

When he woke from those it was to nausea in his stomach and his teeth grinding as he looked at his legs, one gone with phantom aches and his other leg throbbing as if in sympathy.  

He dreamt of needles and while his father was a frequent visitor of his nightly terrors, this was different.  He dreamt of watching himself being choked, of being in pain and on the floor but somehow watching as Jesse turned a bloody hammer on the seventeen year old version of himself.  Despite all his fears, the horror’s his mind created with Jesse as the monster haunting his dreams, the person who died at his father’s hand had never been himself.

Something was wrong.

-

It got worse before it got better.

The good dreams of stardust mingled with dreams of Caulfield and those were rarely good.  Sometimes, rarely he would get images of a beautiful woman with blonde hair playing with a curly haired child that he knew was Michael.  However beautiful those dreams started out, they always ended in fire and misery.

Sometimes the dreams were sweet.  Soft skin and light perfume, a sound he recognized as Maria’s favorite song being expertly plucked from a guitar.  As comforting and beautiful as those dreams might be, he always woke from them shaking, eye damp despite himself and heart pounding with a loss that didn’t come from the dreams.  Good dreams shouldn’t have been just as painful as the bad, but on those nights, they were worse for Alex.

They weren’t his dreams, but he knew who they belonged to.  

He needed answers -some way to fix this- and there was only one person he was willing to go to at the moment, he needed to talk to Isobel Evans.  

-

[psychoblue9]

“The Vermilion Wedding”

Image by Osmar-Shotgun

In Earth-616, Norman Osborn was impaled by his own device when Peter Parker spared him following the death of Gwen Stacy.  This led to Norman being left for dead and ultimately being allowed to recover to torment Peter years later.  On Earth-21205, he was not so fortunate.  Immediately following the confirmation of Gwen’s death, Norman was unable to escape the wrath of Peter and was beaten to death by the wrathful youth.   As his berserker rage calmed, the terrifying weight of what he had done struck Peter, and he realized he had become the monster he swore to fight against as Spider-man.  He entered a deep depression, and gradually he distanced himself from his remaining friends and family.  But the urge to fight remained, and he could not ignore the call of the great responsibility that came with his power.  Spider-man’s brutal murder of the Green Goblin was a public affair, and the slander that the Daily Bugle heaped upon the hero had become reality.  As that realization set in, Peter destroyed his costume and fashioned himself a new one: rather than drag the legend of Spider-man further through the mud, he would instead try and right the path of a legacy tainted with villany.   The world had become a sick joke for Peter, so the most he could do was laugh back. Using his genius intellect to its further extent, Peter raided the late Norman’s weapon caches and rechristened himself as “the Hobgoblin.”  He would protect the innocent by punishing the guilty, and he would act as the executioner to those who thought themselves above the law.  The months that followed were marked with the smell of brimstone, charred flesh and fresh cadavers as Peter combined the lethal technology of the Goblin legacy with the powers gifted to him as a totem of the Spider.  While Peter was initially repulsed by the realization that he took Norman’s life in selfish rage, there was an odd sense of fulfilling amusement watching the limbs of criminals and murderers forcefully separate themselves from their bodies.  It was amusing enough that Peter would often find himself bursting into laughter. Despite his newfound brutal edge, Peter was empathetic for the people he cared for, and did his best to smile for them.  But his smile was not genuine, and it was clear to those around him that he was going down a bad path.  As Peter completed his prerequisite coursework necessary for graduation, he distanced himself further from his remaining friends and family and spent most of his free time planning the next mission of the Hobgoblin’s raid. Norman’s death left a significant power vacuum within the criminal underworld, as the late Green Goblin carved himself a significant chunk of New York’s arms and drug dealing.  Thanks to the journals he left behind at his hideouts, Peter gained access to the key points he would need to hit around the city to ensure the vacuum was never filled.  Even the Kingpin’s vast resources proved a minor deterrent.  On the one year anniversary of Gwen and Norman’s deaths, the Hobgoblin staged a bloody coup alongside Daredevil, Power Man, Iron Fist, Michael Morbius and the Punisher.  Wilson Fisk met his violent end, as did 523 men who stood in their way.  Fisk Tower burned into the night, a funeral pyre for New York’s criminal empire, but Peter felt only temporary satisfaction.   All that remained was the next mission, to ensure the world did not have to suffer as he agonized daily at the blood on his hands, knowing it would never be enough despite the knowledge that he had no choice.  The mutual understanding of that painful truth between the “team” assembled that night, and the tragic realization that they could be never be anything more than acquaintances, made sure Hobgoblin’s comrades would celebrate alone and leave the pyre without speaking another word to each other. There were times where Peter took it upon himself to fashion a civilian life for himself following the loss of his righteousness, but the more he tried to re-engage with his friends, the more he realized the ripple he sent by staining his hands with blood.  His best friend Harry had fallen deeper into drug abuse in his grief, and became destitute when he learned the truth of his father’s sins.  Flash had reverted to his old ways as Peter became more withdrawn, and when Peter attempted to reconcile, Flash told him that he wanted nothing to do with him.   His Aunt May attempted to console him, but Peter did not return her calls more than a simple confirmation that he was still breathing.  A modest check would be sent to her in order to ensure she could continue living comfortably, and she remained blissfully unaware of the blood money Peter pried from the fingers of dying evil.   The only one who had not given up on Peter’s happiness was Mary Jane Watson, who became immediately smitten with his purity upon being introduced by their families.  At first she kept her distance from Peter so that it didn’t appear she was trying to rebound off the death of Gwen.  But the longer she waited for Peter, the more she realized he wasn’t going to return to the man he once was...not unless she came to him first and appealed to him.  She had attempted to do so at their graduation ceremony, and while Peter told her that she shouldn’t want anything to do with him, it only made her want to help him more.   Peter did not tell her this because he wasn’t interested in her, as the time that passed following Gwen’s death only infected the wounds in his soul rather than heal it.  If anything, accepting the warmth of Mary Jane’s feelings would have been a good first step to cauterize those wounds.  Peter told her to stay away from him because he cared about her too much to let her get trapped in the tornado of his life.  Even if Norman took the truth about Peter’s double life to his grave, it didn’t change the fact that all it took was someone else to bring ruin upon the people he cared about.  It was better to continue alone: the sins were his to bear, and keeping Mary Jane out of them would be how he returned her feelings.   If he couldn’t be with her, he could at least continue to protect her from the shadows. Only one month after the destruction of Fisk Tower, May informed Mary Jane that Peter would be attending a gala at the Museum of Fine Arts.  Peter had recently begun teaching at his former high school, and his class had been invited as part of the event.  At the gala, she thought she had spotted Peter sampling one of the appetizers, but disaster struck just as his name was about to escape her lips.  One of the artifacts within the museum had been compromised, and within that artifact was the soul of the ancient sorcerer Kulan Gath.  With a spell and an inhale, Kulan Gath began absorbing the souls of the patrons of the gala, withering their bodies to husks and trapping his victims with magic barriers.   As Mary Jane attempted to flee, she spotted Peter and chased after him to ensure their safety.  But when he turned a corner in the shadows, it was the Hobgoblin who emerged from them, and Mary Jane finally realized the full effects that Gwen’s death had upon him.  It was all clear to her now: he had already lost his Uncle Ben due to his selfishness, and then lost Gwen due to carelessness, and his innocence to the poison of vengeance.  All he knew how to do now was fight back, push everyone he loved out of the way, and do his best to ensure no one else had to feel his pain. “But is that so bad?  What if I want to feel his pain?  What if I want to share his pain?  Peter...why not let me take some of your burden?  You shouldn’t have to do this alone!” Mary Jane decided that as men and women were leeched of their life force around her that she would go down fighting on behalf of the man she wished to love.  She searched the room for something that would aid her last assault, even as the Hobgoblin engaged Kulan Gath in brutal combat, and found a sword that had broken free of its casing.  Deciding it would be sufficient, Mary Jane grabbed the sword’s hilt, and in a flash of fire, her existence became a vessel to punish the guilty. Within the blade awakened the memories and mission of Mary Jane’s distant ancestor, whose stake in this battle closely mirrored her own.  The soul within the blade surged through her body and brought forth a new wrinkle to the battle, and with that wrinkle came a flicker that shifted the woman’s attire and made her hair as wild as her eyes.  The soul heard the name “Kulan Gath” echo through Mary Jane’s mind, and it hastened her transformation into her more familiar form.  Kulan Gath, the man who ordered the slaughter of her family.  Kulan Gath, who encouraged her brutal rape.  Kulan Gath, who existed solely to be cut down by her vengeful sword.  Kulan Gath, who now stood before her in an age long after their time.   “Kulan Gath, you who shall soon be vanquished, look alive and bare witness to thine executioner!” The sorcerer called her “Red Sonja” and cursed her existence.  The Hobgoblin, who had caught Mary Jane pick up the sword a moment before she grasped its hilt, immediately protected her from Gath’s assault and swore that his last stand would be one marked with her standing triumphant in blood the the guilty.  Whoever Mary Jane turned into answered to the name the sorcerer bestowed upon her, and with that confirmation came a slew of deplorable accusations that made the Hobgoblin thirst for retribution along with her. His hesitance had already cost him the love of his life.  Peter would have much rather have Mary Jane suffer the death of her true love.  She was so much stronger than him in that regard: over time she would find another suitor.  To that prospect, Peter cackled in fatalistic glee as he brandished his incendiaries to start one more funeral pyre. With no more victims left to leech from, the revitalized Kulan Gath summoned his demonic legion through portals that reeked of rot and sulfur, and he laughed preemptively at what he felt was a surefire incoming victory.  Too bad for him, his foes had abandoned mercy for people like him and his ilk.  In their minds, they were already dead for the atrocities they lived for.  The only mercy the Hobgoblin and Red Sonja granted them were swift, gory ends.     With all of his strength and technology, coupled with the woman’s battle fury, the Hobgoblin succeeded with Mary Jane where he had failed with Gwen Stacy.  Kulan Gath was dismembered shortly before the Hobgoblin set him ablaze with grenades.  But the thrill of victory was not immediately evident to Red Sonja.  The taste of the blood of her most hated enemy had whipped her into a frenzy, and when the Hobgoblin called out to her, she had lost the ability to recognize friend and foe. The Hobgoblin was offered no respite, and Red Sonja attacked him under the pretense of being a foul demon.  At first, he only attempted to calm her.  He told her that they had won, and that the innocent souls Kulan Gath fed upon in the museum had been avenged and freed to their destined afterlife.  But the more she swung at him, the more the Hobgoblin lost patience.  It was kill or be killed, just as it had been since the night Spider-Man cut down his web and instead adopted the arsenal of the Goblin legacy.   The two of them fought for an undetermined amount of time, the eerily empty halls of the museum echoing with the clash of their weapons.  Red Sonja delivered a crushing knee to the Hobgoblin when he caught the blade of her sword, but a screaming voice within her stayed her decapitating stroke.   “He needs us!  Please!  Don’t hurt him...because…” Seeing his opportunity, the Hobgoblin wrapped his hand around the warrior’s neck and with his other hand preparing to melt her flesh with a gauntlet ray.  But as he looked into her eyes rapidly softening to something gentler than a moment prior, he found himself crying with a maddened laughter of despair.  The world had played another cruel joke upon him: the damage to his soul was so extensive that he was only seconds away from ending Mary Jane’s life. What was more important, the life he needed to protect the innocent, or the woman who loved him that also demanded his head?  Why couldn’t he have both?  There was nothing but death in this museum. The withered husks of his friends, co-workers, and his students littered the floor.  Why was the Hobgoblin laughing louder, crying harder, when this cruel joke was on him? As he dropped the woman, the Hobgoblin looked at the sword she dropped and contemplated taking his own life with it.  But arms wrapped around him once more, not to strangle him, but to embrace him.  He turned as the woman pulled off his mask and dropped it next to the sword, and she cooed, “You are worthy...let us share your pain...she needs you to share your pain with us…” The entity Red Sonja had answered the maiden Mary Jane’s call to protect and avenge, awoken by her enemy Kulan Gath’s revival.  Red Sonja, as per the vows bestowed upon her on the day she took up arms, was forbidden to lay with a man unless he defeated her in fair combat.  In her berserker fury, her vessel spelled out to her the overwhelming passion and emotion she felt for the “demon” that risked his life to protect the innocent, and that her only wish was to act as the breakwater for the fever of madness and grief that threatened to consume him.  It was a mission that Red Sonja gladly accepted, and thus she decided that the exception to her vow had been confirmed. Peter was speechless as he pondered the words of the entity that had possessed Mary Jane...no, maybe not just an entity anymore.  In that moment, Mary Jane had become whoever she had turned into, and he noticed that she was soaked in blood just as he was.  The hell Peter had lived in for the past fourteen months was marked with death upon grisly death, both from the people he cared about and the people who sought to hurt them.  At first, he thought the worst part about that hell was his loss of innocence, but staring into this goddess’ eyes, Peter became aware of the truth. The worst part about his personal hell was the overwhelming loneliness.  This woman, whatever amalgamation of Mary Jane and Red Sonja thought of herself as, offered Peter salvation through companionship.  They would accept their sins together, share their pain of loss together...and cleanse themselves with their addiction to each other when the time was right.  For the Hobgoblin, in his darkest hour of desperation, he accepted her light with open arms and reciprocated her kiss. There would come a time where Peter knew that the spell placed upon Mary Jane would need to be undone.  There would come a time where Mary Jane would need to return to the life she was supposed to lead without magical intervention.  There would come a time where Peter knew she would be safest away from him.  But in that moment, Peter allowed her to indulge herself, and in turn she allowed him a chance to indulge himself with her.  Just for that night, in the blood of the guilty, the two of them allowed whatever was left of their purity to flourish with love.

[neven-ebrez]

Supernatural's Narrative Structure Throughout the Years (Read More edition)

Supernatural has seen four showrunners (with one consistent one throughout, Robert Singer), which are: Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver and now, Andrew Dabb.  At the beginning, the show focused on a more simplistic method of storytelling; the protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester went up against urban legends while looking for their elusive father.  Thirteen seasons later and this pilot season marks the only true exception to the show’s narrative structure. Starting in season 2 the show adopts a method of storytelling known as the A/B/C structure.  There is a “A” plot (known as the show’s “mytharc”), its “B” plot (its character development arc, usually shown through the lens of Dean Winchester, but the show frequently, especially in its later years, shows this through others), and then finally, its “C” plot, which exists in the form of “filler episodes” referred to as “Monsters of the Week”, or MOTW for the purposes of the meta writing community.  And it is through this mirrored structure that the complete story of Supernatural is told.

Dean Winchester is the show’s lens of righteousness (earlier on, but this shifts from time to time) and it is through him that the adopted structure of the show reveals both its strength and weakness.  Dean has learned not to talk about his hard life and frequently when he is begged to share his feelings, they are dismissed (unfortunately by Sam, Bobby, and Cas at various points) in favor of the show’s enforcement of toxic masculinity (oh, drama!) to maintain such structure needed to support a static two lead format.  Instead of Dean talking about his feelings, they are told through the show’s MOTW characters and situations.  This process is referred to as “the ‘C’ plot mirrors the 'B’ plot”, discussed further in length here and here.  Because of the various degrees of repression carried by our main characters, the show uses other characters to tell their stories with words.  The show often also creates whole characters to represent ideas, both simple (Bela Talbot, S3) and complex (Amara, S11). Almost every character that is not Sam and Dean, especially in the  seasons, is created and crafted to tell the story of them.  This creates situations where the show is frequently problematic in its social message/image because it’s using a multitude of diverse often under represented characters to tell the story of two white textually straight male leads, and then later, its two most often recurring regulars.  Because these things are not socially equal, the show endures quite a lot of justified criticism as a result.

Bela Talbot is the first structural case of simple mirroring being done (although her character was requested at the behest of the network, true, the manner in which they utilized her is entirely significant).  I think it’s first important, however, to talk about how Kripke crafted the show using the structure.  He talked about how in the end he wanted good Dean versus bad Sam.  This, of course, focuses the early structure of the show to align Sam with darkness and damning decisions. All of season two pushes Sam onto a dark path exploring his cursed demon blood powers while Dean tries desperately to stop this.  Season 3 introduces Bela, a narrative mirror for Dean to show what would happen to Dean if Sam wasn’t in his life.  She IS DEAN, but WITHOUT a Sam in her life.  And for her, this spells doom as she desperately tries to avoid the fate of her deal with a Crossroads Demon (a deal she made to avoid child sex abuse, a stand in comparison to Dean’s robbed childhood which the show would later revisit heavily in season 11).  The structure of the season 3 is relatively simple.  Bela was supposed to die while Dean is saved from his deal’s fate by Sam, effectively showing that while Sam is doing some dark things, that they are justified through the means to save Dean (a common moral stance Supernatural would come to depict over and over again).  This, of course, doesn’t get to happen.  The writers strike of 2007-08  forces Kripke to abandon this structure in favor of simply sending Dean to Hell.  Our first attempt at a predictive narrative structure thus fails.  It is not discarded, however, and our first successful implementation of it is in season 4.

In season 4 the writers are met with the tough task of getting Dean quickly out of Hell and so Angels are introduced.  This would prove to be a major turning point in the show’s success and its ultimate current structure some 9 seasons later. The introduction of Angels, while initially desired to be temporary was fully embrace with the introduction of Castiel as portrayed by Misha Collins.  This mythology introduction gave Kripke the perfect way to have good Dean versus bad Sam  in the form of Michael versus Lucifer, and old tell of rebellious siblings confronting one another in an ultimate fight.  Here, the show begins its ultimate structure towards this alignment, with the demon Ruby pulling Sam towards Lucifer and Castiel pulling Dean towards Michael (or, well, stopping Sam, as pulling Dean towards Michael is actually a goal of Zachariah in Season 5 instead of it being a goal of Castiel).

In season 4, all the characters (even Sam and Dean) and episodes (frequently showing the release of “seals” which bind Lucifer) are being used as functions towards a single goal, the release of Lucifer.  It was a simple and clean straight forward structure that allowed flow into a cohesive storyline, which remains the best of Supernatural’s structure and storytelling even to this day imo, It also allowed individuality (and the exploration of what it means to have humanity) to blossom within the addition of Castiel (originally only slated to be a 3 episode character), though the character could still be simplified into Dean with Sam’s bad choices.  Castiel would not start becoming his own character (instead of a character mirror or narrative concept) until much later in the series, though he would still be often regaled to simply serving the “B” plot of Dean, eventually getting a permanent “B” plot with him, thus cementing his importance in Dean’s life and within the show’s newer, complex structure.  

Season 5 saw the end of Kripke’s vision, but with one problem.  The show was getting a renewal.  We can see through season 5’s structure that Kripke intended Sam and Dean to die together in the Devil’s hole, unable to kill one another due to their love.  Against renewal and in an effort to salvage the sacrifice structure, we are instead introduced to Adam, a half brother who would instead receive Dean’s fate.  The season builds and compounds a sense of hopeless in our characters, both desperate to not play a part in Heaven’s games. Our mytharc and MOTW episodes in season 5 exist to drive this sense of compounding inevitability.  It is a structure not as clean as season 4’s but mainly because it has the same problem as season 3’s: the ending had to be changed. But meanwhile the show had another problem: “Where do you go after the Apocalypse?” It would not be a problem tackled by Kripke, but instead long time writer Sera Gamble, as Supernatural experienced its first showrunner change.  

With the departure of Kripke came the beginning of structural chaos and uncertainty.  Season 6 is driven by questions that seemingly have no answer against a plot that had just been done.  The Apocalypse was being put back on the rails and Castiel was dealing with it mostly offscreen, unlike Sam and Dean who, as leads, got to deal with it visibly in every episode in season 5.  This caused the audience to not experience the sense of urgency and desperation that Castiel is going through and it proves to be a structural weakness throughout the whole season as Sam and Dean deal with the fallout of Castiel’s righteousness in the form of Sam’s hell damage from his damaged soul in the cage and Crowley’s experiments on monsters, which is seemingly without purpose until the end of the season draws near and we finally see the importance the monsters hold.  Banished of Lucifer, the recurring addition of Crowley provides the show with a central point in which Hell things will now operate going forward.  This is the season in which Castiel begins the pattern making the mistakes of Sam.  And it is from this point that the show’s mirrored storytelling reaches new heights, most of which are predictable, unfortunately. Just as Sam and Dean release Lucifer, Cas releases the Leviathan into the world and thus we are shuttled into season 7, Apocalypse 2.0, monster edition (instead of angels/demons).  

Season 7 saw the ultimate weakness of the two lead structure, while the show headed down an already trotted path against massively failing ratings.  It is here that Gamble killed off both Bobby and Castiel while dumping a massive amount of emotional baggage onto Sam and Dean from which the show (and characters) seemed unlikely to recover from, buried in the Friday Night death slot.  Here, the season introduced a true structured  “B” plot for Dean and Cas, but it remained in the mirrored structure only, seeing as how Cas was effectively DEAD.  It is given in the form of grief and suffering, as per Gamble’s favored depiction of the show.  Not only were things hopeless, but everyone Sam and Dean cared about were dead (oh look, it’s season 13′s premise as well!).  The structures of Gamble era were driven primarily with a focus towards sorrow and suffering and while it’s true that the Leviathans (as compared to the totally delightful, but utterly senseless wanderings of season 6) were an interesting metaphor for corporate America’s greed and monstrosity, this did little to enrich and progress Sam and Dean as characters who were headed for anywhere except death.  And it is here we enter Carver era.

Replacing Gamble as showrunner was another long time writer for the show, Jeremy Carver.  Helming and writing with fresh eyes from having been away for a while, Carver era saw the dawn of a new light in the show.  It is often called a reboot of the show.  Castiel was back, Netflix produced a new influx of viewership, and the show had more or less cemented itself into the CW fold, renewed late and against all hope from grave of Friday night.  Conventions and streaming media provided a life line that gave way to a new form of structure on the show: precised mirrored storytelling in the form of a (possible, likely) three act structure.  In Carver era, (unlike its predecessors) things became driven by a repetitive thematic means and the genre of the show was shifted to something with an adventurous tone.  The Winchesters were going to close the Gates of Hell! Instead of reactive, our characters were thrust into being proactive.  This shifted the structure onto choice… and consequence.  Every detail fed into this: pop culture references, color coding within the visual framework, characters created that represented specific emotional struggles for our characters to interact with and conquer (or die through).  Season 8 is easily compared to Star Wars episode IV in terms of its place in Carver Era.  While Star Wars episode IV could function as a stand alone (seeing as the show didn’t realize the introduction of its lifeline yet), it was made to function as part of a beginning of a much longer and detailed story.  

Once again in season 8 Sam and Cas began to take on the role of pushing the mytharc along, with Sam completing the Hell trials to close the Gates and Cas breaking Heaven’s control over him to close the Gates of Heaven.  The role of Castiel (while visually is reduced from seasons 4, 5 and 6), in relation to his relationship with Dean, becomes significant.  A vast number of narrative structural mirrors are put into place to frame the relationship a certain way, and they are decidedly romantic in nature. The Dean/Cas relationship then begins to be told exclusively through interspecies romantic relationships, with a significant amount needing to break some kind of hold over a supernatural being, reflecting Naomi’s reprogramming of Castiel to kill Dean (8x11-8x17). The text and subtext of this season is further queer coded to a significant degree, evident very early on by reference to such works as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (8x03), among many others.  Carver was taking the Dean/Cas relationship very seriously and it was a showrunning decision that would drive the storyline in structure just as much as the Dean/Sam one going forward, even after his departure.  Cas, meanwhile, is given a lot of structural baggage to explain away his absence as a regular instead of a lead. Not that he wasn’t crafted this way before, but soon a structural decision would come that tied both the Dean/Cas storyline and the Dean/Sam one together in a way that would prove inseparable. The choices made in the season 8 finale (with both Cas and Sam trying to leave Dean alone) are the consequences that would fester and bleed into the new season and the rest of Carver era.  

Consequences.  Choice. “I did what I had to…”

Under higher ratings than the show had had in YEARS, season 9 began, along with my structural meta series, The Divine Reviews, where I sought to document the show’s new structure (mostly how serious it was taking the newly active Destiel “B” plot from its former place as a grief standalone storyline).  9x01-9x03 represents a tying of the storylines for Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas in a way that makes it impossible to talk about one without the other, structurally speaking. Dean can deal with Cas leaving him, but only if Sam is alive.  And when push comes to shove, Dean will sacrifice Cas’ safety and position at his side if it means the survival of Sam.  The weight of this realization falls heavily on Dean and is the structural source of grief that saturates a season full of rape metaphors as Dean tricks Sam into not dying through the angel Gadreel’s possession of Sam.  For the first time, the show makes it uncomfortable to side with Dean (unless you like the fact that Dean will force his will on Sam to keep him alive) and Dean starts down a dark path of self hatred the likes of which the show has never delved into to such a striking degree.  This self hatred structurally manifests itself as the Mark of Cain and Dean’s decision to take it on without warning of consequence represents a significant turning point in the show’s ongoing structure.  Dean begins to carry the mytharc and the metaphor within, with significant structure weight put into the fact that Dean can’t bother to feel guilt for his actions, understandable as they are.  Dean and Cas thus begin a new romantic structure, one where lovers are torn apart by family duty (this is, perhaps, most laughably shown in 9x20 in the failed Bloodlines pilot episode that gives us heterosexual interspecies couple Violet/David who even mirror Destiel dialogue into their relationship of star crossed lovers separated by things beyond their control).  

Post midseason finale in season 9, narrative mirrors begin in earnest that take the foreshadowing for Dean to die into high gear.  These are vague and non-specific, however, with the decision to turn Dean into a demon through the Mark of Cain being made late into the season.  The death of Abaddon (and the possibility that she would simply possess him) seals Dean’s structural fate, as he is killed by what it narratively represents, the block to his character development. It is here that the show hits a structural sag with season 10 and the Mark of Cain being structurally translated into a variety of narrative woes: a disease that infects Dean’s heart, a catalyst which amplifies Dean’s already weary and repressed soul, a force from which there is no destruction and no relief.  

Season 10 on the whole represents a failure to find a solid avenue to character development in Dean.  Supernatural didn’t know how to solve it’s own created problem.  And while Dean’s death was given several avenues in season 9 from which to walk down, the same meandering does not look all together acceptable as it was before.  For the first time Crowley is woven into the structural storytelling, carrying Dean away, just as Hannah does to Cas, leaving Sam alone to solve the problem “of Dean”, who is given the structural foreboding task of avoiding Cain’s fate, which saw him kill his wife and brother, Cas and Sam respectively in our structure.  The season, rather than focusing on the underlining cause of Dean taking the Mark of Cain, focuses instead on Dean trying desperately to avoid dealing with the consequences of his actions.  This culminates in Dean beating Cas nearly to death just as Cain kills his wife.  Cas avoids such a fate, however, and begins a more passive stance in the narrative, supporting Sam, instead, who must now fill the role of Abel in our structure. By Death, Dean is ordered to kill Sam to avoid further complications from the Mark of Cain, which is revealed to be an age old lock to something ambiguously called “the Darkness”. Dean is, of course, unable to kill Sam, and kills Death instead and then we are given our final structural form of the decision to take the Mark of Cain in the form of Amara, God’s sister.  Still, we are dealing with consequences of Dean’s choices, but not the underlying cause.

At this point, the Dean/Cas storyline has been given lover/wife mirrors for going on 3 seasons now.  Cas is continuously coded as Dean’s “wife” by all structural elements within SPN’s mirrored storytelling.  Their relationship has been given much structural depiction and weight, which continues on into season 11 against the false lover, Amara.  I talk extensively about the child abuse and sex abuse mirrors involving Amara and how they relate to Dean’s stolen childhood here.  It is here, after 2 seasons of the same storyline, that the Mark of Cain Dean character developmental structure has been given its final form, but sadly, would not see its end.  

We see Dean’s helplessness towards his past in the form of Amara’s control over him.  And with Amara comes our third sibling vs sibling mirror in the form of God versus Amara (the previous being Michael versus Lucifer and Cain versus Abel), Supernatural’s go to depiction for Sam and Dean’s histories and averted futures.  The season’s structure builds towards the inevitable appearance of God to stop Amara, who has justifiable reasons to be angry as Hell.  Supernatural has, at this point, painted itself into a bad corner. There’s no bigger storyline it can go to as it is faced with the monumental task of resolving not only God and Amara, but everything that their struggle represents, Dean’s stolen life at the hands of his father.  For it’s conclusion, Supernatural would now face a different structural problem, however.  

The network would not allow them to kill God.  And while I have no absolute certainty from which to draw on here, I can only guess that either Amara was going to die also, most possibly to restore balance to the universe as Chuck’s death would cause everything to be destroyed or she was going to bring him back shortly after killing him.  We never get to know the truth of the structure as Chuck is effectively only injured, not killed.  And Amara makes the choice to heal him and forgive him instead of them possibly sharing oblivion together.  Amara then gives Dean back the thing she determines he needs most: his mother.  And it is here that Dabb era officially begins, Dabb having shadowed the running of the show at the end of the season following the mid season silent departure of Carver.  

Season 12. With a character development arc for Dean already 3 seasons in the making, Dabb is given the monumental showrunning task of “where do you go after God leaving?”  A smaller scale mytharc is given in place of the sweeping epic of Carver era.  The British Men of Letters are introduced as a way of shaping Sam into being a leader among the American hunters, readdressing the question of what Sam can do to stay in the life and find his place outside of Dean. Dean, however, continues on the structural development path of confronting the thing that prevents him from feeling he only deserves to go down swinging.  Mary is fleshed out as a person though she and Castiel continue to suffer from the show’s inability to switch to an ensemble cast, which is, at this point, a point of long regarded contention among many fans.  

Mary and Cas begin to mirror each other (as we contemplate their significance to Dean) and drive the story, each wishing to make amends and give Sam and Dean a world they feel is best without either of them asking how Sam and Dean feel about their actions. This sees Mary siding with the British Men of Letters and Cas pursuing Lucifer in an attempt to cage him once more, having let him out to deal with Amara last season in another attempt to save Dean from action (Cas’ need to die for his family because he sees himself as expendable is a plot line that’s long overdue for resolution). We see Mary being made to earn her place as family through her realizing why Cas already has.  It is the most passive Sam and Dean have ever been in the structure, with everything mostly driven by Mary and Cas along with the overall theme of what it means to truly love and sacrifice to earn the label of “family”. For this, Cas is given a structural death sentence.  And Supernatural delivers, painfully.  A portal to another world is opened up courtesy of Jack, the nephilim of Lucifer and it is here that Dabb era ultimately takes us: a new world of possibilities.   The same can not, however, be said of the show’s narrative structure, which seems to be on a one way road and has been for a long, albeit slow, time.  

Dean has forgiven Mary for setting him on the path to have a robbed childhood, effectively wrapping up the long drawn out Mark of Cain storyline.  Forgiveness. Love. Family. New beginnings. These are the themes that run through Dabb era. Dean is finally given everything and then within the space of one episode it has been taken away.  The nephilim introduces the show to once again ask the age old question: “nature or nuture?”, as Sam and Dean are forced to deal with an unprecedented force thrust upon them in their moments of grief.  Like Carver before him, Dabb era looks to be using a three act structure, with Carver’s final act serving also as Dabb’s beginning.  This would place season 13 quickly through the realms of Star Wars V-VI.  Things are bleak, hope has quickly been lost, the lover has been taken and the family has been torn apart.  A dark empire looms.  And it is here that Dabb era continues.

Season 13 functions structurally as a reworking of season 12, with much the same values as Dabb’s first season, but with Sam and Dean’s desires driving the structure instead of Cas and Mary’s. A course of hope is set, one where the Winchesters can finally find a way to try and live a life that actually includes LIVING while hunting, all the while trying to hang it up for good, but realizing this may simply be an unattainable dream.

Dabb era has firmly made its bed as “Family Don’t End in Blood” and has laid in it. Mirrors for Dean and Cas continue to be a familial/romantic blend, reflective of how Dean and Cas’ confusion and fear over addressing the unquantifiable love between one another continues to bleed into the entire narrative, the show continuing to use missions as a buffer to having the characters finally have a “feelings” talk to one another. It is a conversation they both continue to fear: when Dean stops lumping Sam into his feelings, and Cas stops deflecting to a more pressing mission as a means to avoid the fear of heartache that comes with Dean simply calling him “family” or “brother” one more time. NEED over WANT.

Sam’s development into leader, however, is put onto the back burner in favor of the season’s elaborate structural examination of trauma. Sam can no longer do anything as long as Lucifer continues to linger. Like with season 12, season 13 gives the Winchesters back everything, then threatens to take it all away again. Mary’s desire to help the AU world over returning home hits the Winchesters very hard. The mission to protect people is given full focus to Sam. If Sam wants a relationship with his mom, then helping reshape the life of the hunters living in the hunting world is how he does that. This is essential. And while season 14 will drive this idea, the Mary/Sam angle is something temporarily set aside.

Trauma (from hunting, from Mary, from John, from Heaven and angels), building a family through bonds, and hope for the future all culminate as the thematic lifeblood that runs through Dabb era. I discuss season 13 further at length here.  Like the two seasons before it, the theme of trauma and how to move forward from it continues into season 14 with Michael structurally translating as the trauma of bad parenting/leading upon Dean Winchester specifically. Season 13 and season 14, in many ways, will (seemingly) function as two sides to the same coin, a narrative structured to examine how the trauma of the past informs (and stagnates) the fear and hope of the future. I’ve called season 14 an accordion arc, and it is, but it’s also one that is far more natural than season 10 due to more careful planning. Seasons 13 and 14 within Dabb era function and do the same as seasons 9 and 10 within Carver era: carrying the driving conflict/mytharc (the MOC for Carver era, Michael for Dabb era) across two seasons, but to Dabb’s credit over Carver, Dabb seems to have planned for it a lot better ahead of time.

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This post was originally crafted here.  It was requested under a READ MORE so I reworked it into a single new post as presented above.  It will be updated when season 14 is complete.

[fibula-rasa]

24-Hours in The Twilight Zone

When I learned that a certain cable network isn’t doing their annual Twilight Zone marathon this year...

I decided to plan out a 24-hour block of Twilight Zone episodes myself. I limited myself to episodes that reflected on American life or American history to fit the holiday. (In other words, don’t come at me if your favorite episodes aren’t on this list. All of mine aren’t either!)

All episodes included are available streaming through Netflix and Amazon Prime. The full guide with episode numbers is below the jump, but here’s a Primetime preview:

Happy Viewing!

6:00am - The Shelter (3.3)

Things get ugly when a birthday party in a peaceful suburb is interrupted by a civil defense alert.

6:30am - The Old Man in the Cave (5.7)

In 1974, the survivors of nuclear apocalypse try to stay alive with the aid of a mysterious man in a cave at the outskirts of town. (Starring James Coburn & John Anderson)

7:00am - Two (3.1)

Two lone soldiers from opposing armies find one another in the shambles of main street. (Starring Charles Bronson & Elizabeth Montgomery)

7:30am - The Silence (2.25)

An cranky rich old man bets a boisterous rich young man to stay silent for an entire year. (Starring Franchot Tone)

8:00am - A Thing About Machines (2.4)

Man versus all machines. (Starring Richard Haydn)

8:30am - Static (2.20)

A nostalgic old man tunes in for a second chance. (Starring Dean Jagger)

9:00am - Young Man’s Fancy (3.34)

A newlywed isn’t ready to leave behind his childhood home to his new wife’s chagrin.

9:30am - Nightmare as a Child (1.29)

A teacher is haunted by a peculiar and demanding child.

10:00am - Walking Distance (1.5)

A stressed out ad man tries to go home again. (Starring Gig Young)

10:30am - The Big Tall Wish (1.27)

A small boy makes a big wish for his friend, a washed-up boxer, to win a fight. (Starring Ivan Dixon)

11:00am - The Mighty Casey (1.35)

The Hoboken Zephyrs bring in a ringer. (Starring Jack Warden)

11:30am - I Sing the Body Electric (3.35)

A grieving family turns to Facsimile Ltd. to fill the void in their lives. (Starring Josephine Hutchinson)

12:00pm - Mirror Image (1.21)

A woman has a ticket to start a new life in a new town, if she can ever leave the bus station. (Starring Vera Miles)

12:30pm - The After Hours (1.34)

Sometimes you just want to buy a simple, undamaged gold thimble for your mother’s birthday and then the fabric of reality begins to fray. (Starring Anne Francis)

1:00pm - The Passersby (3.4)

Around the end of the Civil War, the wife of a Confederate soldier awaits his return. 

1:30pm - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (5.22)

An adaptation of the Ambrose Bierce story. A man is executed for sabotage.

2:00pm - Back There (2.13)

A man gets the chance to test out his theories on time travel. (Starring Russell Johnson)

2:30pm - Long Live Walter Jameson (1.24)

A close colleague discovers the true reason Walter Jameson is such a good history teacher. (Starring Kevin McCarthy)

3:00pm - Still Valley (3.11)

A Confederate soldier thinks black magic might turn the tides of the Civil War. (Starring Gary Merrill & Vaughn Taylor)

3:30pm - The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms (5.10)

National Guardsmen running exercises discover the Battle of Little Bighorn is still being waged.

4:00pm - The Grave (3.7)

A hired gun visits the grave of his latest victim. (Starring Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, & James Best)

4:30pm - The Hunt (3.19)

A day of hunting doesn’t go as planned for a man and his dog.

5:00pm - Black Leather Jackets (5.18)

When a bunch of motorcycle riding delinquents move in, the aftermath isn’t quite what the townspeople expect. (Starring Shelley Fabares)

5:30pm - Ring-A-Ding Girl (5.13)

A warm welcome is planned for the Ring-A-Ding girl when she returns to her hometown.

6:00pm - The Mind and the Matter (2.27)

A New Yorker fed up with people exercises his psychic abilities. (Starring Shelley Berman)

6:30pm - Hocus-Pocus and Frisby (3.30)

The town yarn spinner attracts the attention of extraterrestrial visitors. (Starring Andy Devine)

7:00pm - The Brain Center at Whipple’s (5.33)

A factory owner is on a mission to fully automate his factory. (Starring Richard Deacon)

7:30pm - The Changing of the Guard (3.37)

In the face of retirement, an elderly professor contemplates his past and future. (Starring Donald Pleasance)

Primetime!

Enjoy a six-hour block of episodes that cross the United States while you avoid your neighbors who shouldn’t be trusted with fireworks.

8:00pm - A Stop at Willoughby (1.30)

A New York ad man is overwhelmed by the stresses of modern city life and dreams of a simpler life, in a simpler place, with simpler people. (Starring James Daly)

8:30pm - The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1.22)

A friendly suburb descends into paranoia and chaos with little motivation. (Starring Claude Akins & Jack Weston)

9:00pm - The Hitch-Hiker (1.16)

A school teacher hits a snag on a cross-country trip. (Starring Inger Stevens)

9:30pm - It’s a Good Life (3.8)

A small town (once located in middle America) is plagued by a two-eyed, two-legged, 3-foot-tall monster. (Starring Bill Mumy, Cloris Leachman, & John Larch)

10:00pm - The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank (3.23)

When Jeff Myrtlebank wakes up at his own funeral, he causes quite a stir. (Starring James Best & Sherry Jackson)

10:30pm - The Masks (5.25)

On the night of Mardi Gras, an old man holds a strange party for his greedy, self-centered relatives. (Starring Robert Keith)

11:00pm - A Hundred Yards Over The Rim (2.23)

A father travels an impossible distance in the New Mexico desert to find help for his son. (Starring Cliff Robertson)

11:30pm - Dust (2.12)

On the day of a young man’s execution, a con man tries to charge for salvation. (Starring John Larch, Thomas Gomez, & Vladimir Sokoloff)

12:00am - The Prime Mover (2.21)

A telekinetic short-order cook gets taken for a ride by his best friend. (Starring Buddy Ebsen)

12:30am - The Whole Truth (2.14)

A cursed (or enchanted) car passes through the lot of an unscrupulous used car salesman. (Starring Jack Carson)

1:00am - The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (1.4)

A faded film star isn’t ready to let go of her past. (Starring Ida Lupino & Martin Balsam)

1:30am - The Bewitchin’ Pool (5.36)

Two children, distressed by their parents’ troubled marriage, escape to a magic swimming hole at the bottom of their pool. (Starring Mary Badham)

2:00am - The Fugitive (3.25)

The unlikely friendship of an old man and a disabled child is even more unlikely than it seems.

2:30am - The Midnight Sun (3.10)

A painter and her landlady try to stick in out in New York City as the earth slowly closes in on the sun. (Starring Lois Nettleton)

3:00am - People Are Alike All Over (1.25)

A nervous astronaut finds life on Mars (Starring Roddy McDowall)

3:30am - Third from the Sun (1.14)

In the face of certain destruction, two men and their families launch a daring interplanetary escape. (Starring Fritz Weaver)

4:00am - Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? (2.28)

A diner crowded in with bus passengers finds there may be a Martian in their midst.

4:30am - Mr. Garrity and the Graves (5.32)

Bringing people back from the dead ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. (Starring John Dehner)

5:00am - I am the Night - Color Me Black (5.26)

The sun doesn’t rise over a town where a man is about to be executed for killing a bigot. (Starring Michael Constantine) 

5:30am - In Praise of Pip (5.1)

A lone shark gets to thinking about his life after he learns his son was wounded while serving in the army abroad. (Starring Jack Klugman & Bill Mumy)

Added note: If you’re in the US and have a TV antenna, the network Decades is also running a marathon!

[madclouds]

Monthly Movie Challenge #01 - October 2017 (Halloween)

Hey~

So i just finished the Challenge calendar i wanted so bad cause i love movies and challenges. But October means spooky so here’s a challenge with horror/thriller/comedy i haven’t watch yet (well except 2/3), I hope you didn’t as well so you can make this challenge with me ;) [Challenge on trakt.tv]

[DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLE]

DETAILS :

1. Let the Right One In (2008) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 7,9/10 Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.  2. The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,7/10 A scientist and a teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie. 3. Digging Up the Marrow (2014) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,8/10 A documentary exploring genre based monster art takes an odd turn when the filmmakers are contacted by a man who claims he can prove that monsters are indeed real. 4. Krampus (2015) [ [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,2/10 A boy who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning a festive demon to his family home. 5. We Are Still Here (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,7/10 In the cold, wintery fields of New England, a lonely old house wakes up every thirty years - and demands a sacrifice. 6. Cult of Chucky (2017) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,2/10 Chucky returns to terrorize his human victim, Nica. Meanwhile, the killer doll has some scores to settle with his old enemies, with the help of his former wife. 7. Troll Hunter (2010) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 8,6/10 A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter. 8. They Look Like People (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,0/10 Suspecting that people around him are turning into evil creatures, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself. 9. Prevenge (2016) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,9/10 Widow Ruth is seven months pregnant when, believing herself to be guided by her unborn baby, she embarks on a homicidal rampage, dispatching anyone who stands in her way. 10. The Devil's Candy (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,5/10 A struggling painter is possessed by satanic forces after he and his young family move into their dream home in rural Texas, in this creepy haunted-house tale. 11. Oculus (2013) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,5/10 A woman tries to exonerate her brother, who was convicted of murder, by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon. 12. Clown (2014) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,7/10 A loving father finds a clown suit for his son's birthday party, only to realize that it's cursed. 13. The Invitation (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,7/10 While attending a dinner party at his former home, a man thinks his ex-wife and her new husband have sinister intentions for their guests. 14. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,8/10 A father and son, both coroners, are pulled into a complex mystery while attempting to identify the body of a young woman, who was apparently harboring dark secrets. 15. The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,8/10 Two girls must battle a mysterious evil force when they get left behind at their boarding school over winter break. 16. The Pact (2012) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,8/10 As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother's death and the disappearance of her sister, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home. 17. Donnie Darko (2001) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 8,1/10 A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident. 18. I am a Hero (2015) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,8/10 One day, after returning from work late in the evening, Hideo witnesses a traffic accident in which a car crashes into a nearby pedestrian, killing the victim instantly. However, despite severe injuries including a broken neck, the victim's body stands up and walks away. Hideo questions whether this is another one of his hallucinations, but strange events begin happening around him. 19. Mulholland Drive (2001) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 8,0/10 After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality. 20. 1922 (2017) | [Trailer]  ⭐ Released October 20 A simple yet proud rancher in the year 1922 conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate. 21. Morgan (2016) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,8/10 A corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an artificially created humanoid being. 22. Audition (1999) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 7,2/10 A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all. 23. Disturbia (2007) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,9/10 A teen living under house arrest becomes convinced his neighbor is a serial killer. 24. The Unseeable (2006) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,9/10 When a pregnant country girl leaves home to search for her missing husband, she finds refuge at a mysterious estate whose inhabitants hold more secrets than she may wish to know. 25. Killer Toon (2013) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,4/10 Popular horror web-comic artist Ji Yoon finds life imitating her own work when her publisher turns up dead in a way, precisely mirrors the images in her latest comic. 26. The Neighbor (2016) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 5,7/10 Set in Cutter Mississippi, the film follows a man who discovers the dark truth about his neighbor and the secrets he may be keeping in the cellar. 27. Gerald’s Game (2017) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 7,0/10 While trying to spice up their marriage in their remote lake house, Jessie must fight to survive when her husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her handcuffed to their bed frame. 28. Byzantium (2012) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,5/10 Residents of a coastal town learn, with deathly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought shelter at a local resort. 29. Halloween (1978) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 7,8/10 Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield to kill again. 30. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 7,5/10 Two siblings visit their grandfather's grave in Texas along with three of their friends and are attacked by a family of cannibalistic psychopaths. 31. Trick 'r Treat (2007) | [Trailer]  ⭐ 6,8/10 Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.  

DONE~~! I hope you’ll enjoy your challenge. Do not hesitate to reblog when you’ve watched the movie of the day! See who did too with the tag #madcloudschallenge

[aion-rsa]

How The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Embraces Satanic Panic

https://ift.tt/2T631nI

This article features The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It spoilers. The piece also contains information regarding violence and abuse that may upset some readers.

Director Michael Chaves and company are not subtle about their influences in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. It’s there in the first scene. As we’re reintroduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren, darkness has fallen over a family, and a Satanic presence is in the home. A young child lays bedridden, cursed to endure demonic possession, and an old priest arrives late in the foggy night. When Father Gordon gets out of his cab, The Conjuring even reenacts an image so famously associated with The Exorcist that Warner Bros. made it that movie’s poster almost 50 years ago.

But maybe it’s a good thing The Conjuring flicks are getting blunter about who they’re borrowing from. The earlier movies in the series regularly evoked William Friedkin’s 1973 exorcism movie, including with their 1970s settings. But we’re past those small winks and nudges in The Devil Made Me Do It. The threequel has moved on to 1981 and away from worrying only about demons. Aye, we now must also dread the occultists and cults who summon them. And at a glance, it’s kind of fun that the series is playing with the heightened religious paranoia of the Reagan era.

If the original The Conjuring was set during a golden age for religious horror movies, then The Conjuring 3 continues Ed and Lorraine’s thread at the moment when that fear of Satanists became more than fiction to millions of Americans. Within two years of The Devil Made Me Do It’s setting, a rising tide of Satanic Panic would lead to dozens of school officials, employees, and parents being accused of participating in Satanic rituals which included blood orgies and human sacrifices—with many serving years or decades in prison. It was the beginning of a new kind of paranoia in American life, and it was inspired, at least in part, by the spooky imagery of movies like The Exorcist.

Friedkin’s original “the Devil made me do it” chiller was not the first big Hollywood movie about the danger of demonic activity in 20th century America, but it was the most popular. Released the day after Christmas in 1973, The Exorcist became a pop culture phenomenon, the likes of which the horror genre has rarely seen before or since. When adjusted for inflation, it sold more tickets than Avatar, Titanic, or any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With an almost clinical documentarian disaffection, the movie’s shock horror scared the hell out of audiences, leading to a massive surge in church attendance. Not that all church leaders were receptive. In fact, evangelist Billy Graham famously alleged the film itself was evil, saying “the Devil is in every frame.” Apparently, the celluloid prints were all individually cursed. (One can only imagine what Graham would’ve made of the streaming service Shudder.)

But that is perhaps the real key to the rising fear of Satan in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Films like The Exorcist were just a snapshot of a culture in the midst of ideological upheaval. There was the increased secularization that came from younger generations demanding more than their parents’ hegemonic status quo, but there was also a simultaneous revival of evangelism and modern Christian fundamentalism, which was in part a reaction to that same rapid change.

Movies like Exorcist tapped into the zeitgeist, and maybe shaped it, slightly, but those forces were already there. At most, something like Friedkin’s film just gave anxiety among religious Americans a new image of what that indescribable fear looks like. For example, thanks to The Exorcist, the Ouija board went from a harmless child’s game to being viewed in some households as the gateway to Hell forevermore.

And beyond horror films, there was a growing (and more grounded) fear of cults in this period. That’s because in August 1969, followers of Charles Manson broke into the homes of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca over the course of two nights, murdering seven people between them, including Tate’s unborn child (she was eight and a half months pregnant).

The murders were committed in a ritualistic, grisly fashion that included messages written in blood on the walls. Meanwhile, Tate’s husband and the father of her child, Roman Polanski, had recently directed the first major Hollywood blockbuster about Satanic cults, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), in which a pregnant woman is offered up to the Dark One. The grim parallels did not go unnoticed in the seedier corners of the press before the “Manson Family” was finally arrested in December of that year.

The culture-shattering effects of the Manson murders are still being felt 50 years later as major movies continued to be made on the subject. Even The Conjuring films have tapped into it, with the original Annabelle spinoff in 2014 being set in 1967, the same year that the novel Rosemary’s Baby was published. That movie revealed the Annabelle doll was commandeered by a demon controlling a Manson-like cult called the Disciples of the Ram, which were responsible for a random home invasion that ended in ritualistic slaughter. The Disciples of the Ram is also the cult name-dropped in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Additionally, the central characters in Annabelle are named Mia and John, after Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes, who played a married couple introduced to a cult of witches in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby.

By the time 1980 rolled around, movies like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and their slew of copycats were slowly turning into a mirror—not so much of reality but of what many folks feared to be the rising menace of cults and occult-inspired crime. It was the era of a “silent majority” rejecting counterculture and its various eccentricities, including the rise of actual Satanism as a government-recognized religion.

Indeed, Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan and wrote The Satanic Bible in 1966, which despite its provocative title and imagery was largely a derivative philosophical text about self-actualization. Some have even convincingly argued that LaVey simply pilfered then-obscure 19th century philosophers and added an occult gloss to get attention and tax exempt status for his new venture. It also was a hell of a way to troll devout Christians.

If provocation was the goal, the Church of Satan got its wish, contributing to a conservative rejection of leftist counterculture, particularly following media obsessions with ritualistic serial killers like the Zodiac Killer in northern California, or the Jonestown cult, which committed ritualistic mass murder and suicide by the hundreds in 1978, all in the purported name of socialism. Meanwhile, evangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. was founding the “Moral Majority” in 1979 as a political movement designed to elect Republicans based, in part, out of a fear of the secularization of American society.

By the 1980s, millions of Americans were primed to believe that the Devil, or at least his nutso disciples, walked among us like the friendly neighbors in Rosemary’s Baby, all while secretly waiting to serve you up to Beelzebub. Consider the villain in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, a mysterious woman who damns a child to possession simply because… she can? In a world where Satanic cults and human sacrifices are real, motives are incidental.

This largely fanciful fear manifested itself into a more gruesome reality when soon-to-be-disgraced Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith published the now thoroughly debunked Michelle Remembers in 1980. As a discredited memoir by a doctor and patient who later married, the book became a bestseller with its sensationalistic and lurid tales derived from Smith’s “memories” attained via controversial Recovered Memory Therapy (hypnosis).

In the book, Smith and her doctor/husband claimed that while in a trance she remembered her mother was secretly a member of the Church of Satan. However, this wasn’t the glorified far-left contrarian organization founded by LaVey in 1966. According to Michelle Remembers, the Church of Satan actually predates the founding of the Roman Catholic Church 2,000 years ago, and it’s acted for centuries as a secret organization trading in the blood of slaughtered infants (QAnon followers would love it).

Smith claimed that in the 1950s, when she was between the ages of five and six, she was kept in cages, tortured, sexually abused, and participated in rituals that included orgies, human sacrifices, and on one occasion summoning Satan himself from the bowels of Hell. Smith also claimed she was saved and had her physical scars erased by no less than a returned Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. The book was a publishing sensation, and even by 1989, Smith was still showing up on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show to chat about the danger of Satanic cults. Winfrey booked her alongside Laurel Rose Willson, a woman who falsely claimed she was raised by Satanists to be a “breeder,” pumping out infants for human sacrifice and dismemberment.

Two years after Michelle Remembers was published, social workers in Bakersfield, California, who had read the book, became concerned when two children (who were coached by their step-grandmother) claimed they were sexually abused by their parents—claiming their family was part of a secret cult. No evidence was found, but faster than you can say Salem, more children were encouraged to come forward and offer similar tales of abuse and Satanic activity. Ed Jagels, the district attorney and local conservative culture warrior, had his office tell jurors that more than 30 people participated in a Satanic cult that drank blood, murdered infants, and participated in incest.

Twenty-six people were convicted of sexual abuse without corroborating evidence. Twenty-five of those cases were overturned by Californian appellate courts, although not before one innocent man served 20 years out of his 40-year sentence. Children later admitted they made up incidents and were guided by concerned interviewers, and Kern County was forced to settle $9.56 million in lawsuits from those wrongfully accused and convicted.

This was only the first in a string of high-profile 1980s cases dubbed by the press to be “daycare sex abuse hysteria.” They also acted as a grotesque subgenre of a then thriving Satanic Panic. Just a year after the Bakersfield accusations began, a mother who was later diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia accused the staff of the McMartin preschool in 1983 of conspiring with her estranged husband in the rape of her son. The child then told investigators that he witnessed a sex cult in his preschool, which included witchcraft and a teacher levitating before flying around the room.

Local police investigators welcomed the help of an unlicensed psychotherapist to examine 400 children in the school. The results led to seven daycare staff members being accused by 41 children of 321 counts of child abuse, which included stories of hidden underground tunnels, sex orgies, and at least one baby being sacrificed to Satan. The resulting five-year trial and legal proceedings remains the most expensive in California’s history, in which no physical evidence was presented and there were no convictions. But Winfrey guest Laurel Rose Willson testified as a witness, claiming she saw the abuse firsthand during her time as a Satanist.

These were just a handful of cases, and the first of at least a half-dozen daycare centers accused of Satanic activity and abuse. Several led to wrongful convictions of preschool owners and teachers. The convictions were overturned years later. However, the terror of baby-sacrificing Satanists walking among us persisted.

In 1982, Patricia Pulling began a well-publicized campaign against Dungeons & Dragons after her son died by suicide. Pulling, and soon many sympathetic evangelicals, became convinced the roleplaying game drove him to suicide due to cursed cards with demonic power. Future Fox News mainstay Geraldo Rivera hosted Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground on NBC in 1988, which became the highest-rated television documentary up to that point. In 1992, the Justice Department was forced to publish a monograph thoroughly explaining why American law enforcement needed to stop considering “Satanic cults” as a threat to society.

And as late as 1994, three teenagers in West Memphis, Arkansas were famously convicted of murdering three boys the year before based largely on hearsay evidence and the prosecution accepting rumors that these goth teenagers worshipped the Devil. Therefore the 1993 murders were part of a “Satanic ritual.” In 2007, forensic evidence revealed the only DNA found at the crime scene belonged to the victims and unknown killers who were not the West Memphis Three. They were released after serving 18 years in prison, although to this day Arkansas has failed to expunge their convictions.

Read more

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How The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Secretly Ties Into Annabelle

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Ending Explained

By David Crow

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is (very) loosely based on a court case during this era of mass Satanic hysteria. A cynic might even wonder if the real Ed and Lorraine Warren pitched the “Devil made me do it” defense to tap into the then prevalent fear of little possessed Regan MacNeils spider-walking down the stairs at any moment. While the real Ed and Lorraine were never asked to participate in the investigation of a missing person who turned out to have died by demon-induced suicide (as seen in the movie), there were plenty of police detectives in the ‘80s ready to embrace a fear of the occult as both motive and Exhibit A evidence.

Perhaps that’s why there is a slightly ickier feeling about The Conjuring 3 than its predecessors. The new movie plays into a cultural fantasy that ruined lives and sent innocent people to prison. There’s a scene in The Devil Made Me Do It where the saintly onscreen versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren take text written by medieval Catholic Church witch hunters as gospel—which is a disquieting notion when one pauses to consider the likely superstitious and misogynistic motivations of those torch-happy holy men.

It also would be too easy to smirk now at the madness of heartland Christians convinced their neighbors were baby-eaters 40 years ago. That type of paranoia still exists in modern conspiracy theories, even if it is slightly less tied to fears of demons and exorcisms. Ask the owner of a pizza parlor in Washington D.C., which right-leaning conspiracy theorists were convinced housed a child sex ring, resulting in a man storming into the restaurant with a gun.

Meanwhile, a poll in 2020 found that as many as 53 percent of self-identified Republicans believed the QAnon conspiracy theory which claims Democratic leaders and Hollywood celebrities drink the blood of children to stay young. Witches, vampires, and even the Devil can be the source for fascinating stories and fictions. But when folks believe in this stuff, it’s far too easy to become possessed by a more human evil.

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The post How The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Embraces Satanic Panic appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ixeozT

[fueledandmotivated]

What is glorification?

Clarify • Share • Report • Asked July 01 2013 • Anonymous (via GotQuestions)

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S. Michael Houdmann

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The short answer is that "glorification" is God's final removal of sin from the life of the saints (i.e., everyone who is saved) in the eternal state (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17). At Christ's coming, the glory of God (Romans 5:2)-His honor, praise, majesty, and holiness-will be realized in us; instead of being mortals burdened with sin nature, we will be changed into holy immortals with direct and unhindered access to God's presence, and we will enjoy holy communion with Him throughout eternity. In considering glorification, we should focus on Christ, for He is every Christian's "blessed hope"; also, we may consider final glorification as the culmination of sanctification. Final glorification must await the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13; 1 Timothy 6:14). Until He returns, we are burdened with sin, and our spiritual vision is distorted because of the curse. "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). Every day, we should be diligent by the Spirit to put to death what is "fleshly" (sinful) in us (Romans 8:13). How and when will we be finally glorified? At the last trumpet, when Jesus comes, the saints will undergo a fundamental, instant transformation ("we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" - 1 Corinthians 15:51); then the "perishable" will put on the "imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:53). Yet 2 Corinthians 3:18 clearly indicates that, in a mysterious sense, "we all," in the present, "with unveiled face" are "beholding the glory of the Lord" and are being transformed into His image "from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18). Lest anyone imagine that this beholding and transformation (as part of sanctification) is the work of especially saintly people, the Scripture adds the following bit of information: "For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." In other words, it is a blessing bestowed on every believer. This does not refer to our final glorification but to an aspect of sanctification by which the Spirit is transfiguring us right now. To Him be the praise for His work in sanctifying us in the Spirit and in truth (Jude 24-25; John 17:17; 4:23). We should understand what Scripture teaches about the nature of glory-both God's unsurpassed glory and our share in it at His coming. God's glory refers not merely to the unapproachable light that the Lord inhabits (1 Timothy 6:15-16), but also to His honor (Luke 2:13) and holiness. The "You" referred to in Psalm 104:2 is the same God referenced in 1 Timothy 6:15-16; He is "clothed with splendor and majesty," covering Himself "with light as with a garment" (Psalm 104:2; cf. 93:1; Job 37:22; 40:10). When the Lord Jesus returns in His great glory to execute judgment (Matthew 24:29-31; 25:31-35), He will do so as the only Sovereign, who alone has eternal dominion (1 Timothy 6:14-16). Created beings dare not gaze upon God's awesome glory; like Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4-29) and Simon Peter (Luke 5:8), Isaiah was devastated by self-loathing in the presence of the all-holy God. After the seraphim proclaimed, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" Isaiah said, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:4). Even the seraphim showed that they were unworthy to gaze upon the divine glory, covering their faces with their wings. God's glory may be said to be "heavy" or "weighty"; the Hebrew word kabod literally means "heavy or burdensome"; Most often, the Scriptural usage of kabod is figurative (e.g., "heavy with sin"), from which we get the idea of the "weightiness" of a person who is honorable, impressive, or worthy of respect. When the Lord Jesus became incarnate, He revealed both the "weighty" holiness of God and the fullness of His grace and truth ("and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" [John 1:14; cf. 17:1-5]). The glory revealed by the incarnate Christ accompanies the ministry of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:7); it is unchanging and permanent (Isaiah 4:6-7; cf. Job 14:2; Psalm 102:11; 103:15; James 1:10). The previous manifestations of God's glory were temporary, like the fading effluence of God's glory from Moses' face. Moses veiled his face so that the hard-hearted Israelites might not see that the glory was fading (1 Corinthians 3:12), but in our case the veil has been removed through Christ, and we reflect the glory of the Lord and seek by the Spirit to be like Him. In His high priestly prayer, the Lord Jesus requested that God would sanctify us by His truth (i.e., make us holy; John 17:17); sanctification is necessary if we are to see Jesus' glory and be with Him in eternal fellowship (John 17:21-24). "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). If the glorification of the saints follows the pattern revealed in Scripture, it must entail our sharing in the glory (i.e., the holiness) of God. According to Philippians 3:20-21, our citizenship is in heaven, and when our Savior returns He will transform our lowly bodies "to be like His glorious body." Although it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, we know that, when He returns in great glory, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). We will be perfectly conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus and be like Him in that our humanity will be free from sin and its consequences. Our blessed hope should spur us on to holiness, the Spirit enabling us. "Everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure" (1 John 3:3). See http://www.gotquestions.org/glorification.html

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND 8/24/18 – The Happytime Murders, A-X-L and More

Over the 17 years I’ve been writing about box office, we always get to the 2ndhalf of August, and I feel the need to mention something called “The Dog Days of Summer.” This year, it’s quite literal with movies like Dog Days, Alpha, next week��s Pick of the Litter (a great doc!) and this week’s A-X-L, which is basically a robot dog movie. If nothing else, the summer will end with a Melissa McCarthy comedy, just like it started with a Melissa McCarthy comedy, and maybe this one will avoid the late August curse… or not.

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS (STXfilms)

First up is McCarthy’s latest comedy which pairs her with Brian Henson of The Henson Company (of Muppets fame) in the type of raunchy R-rated comedy in which she thrives, but which is fairly new territory for the Hensons. It’s a buddy cop comedy where McCarthy is paired with the world’s first (and apparently worst) puppet policeman as they’re trying to find out who is killing the fabled TV personalities, the Happytime Gang.

While McCarthy is the featured human, the movie also stars Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph and Joel McHale, all of whom have done their fair share of comedies, plus it has an obligatory appearance by MADtv’s Michael McDonald who seems to in every one of McCarthy’s movies. But really, the movie is mostly about the puppet characters who do drugs, have sex and swear a lot.

The Red Band trailer for The Happytime Murders has done fairly well online, so awareness of the movie should be in pretty good shape, but the primary audience for the movie will be the older high school and college-age guys who generally wouldn’t pay much interest to McCarthy or her films.

The two recent Muppets movies released by Disney aren’t great barometers for this film due to its R-rating. Maybe Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Sausage Party from August 2012 might be a better comparison since that similarly twisted animation into a far-dirtier and more adult realm, although that movie’s $34.2 million opening was probably helped by the Sony marketing and how well its done with other films by Rogen/Goldberg. It doesn’t feel like Happytime Murders can open that well.

There’s also still the problem with STX deciding that the 2ndto last week of August is a good time to release a movie like this, and maybe there’s no good week to release it, because it’s so different. Because of this, I don’t expect reviews to be that great either. You can find them herewhenever they go live.

It just doesn’t seem likely that the movie will get enough traction to beat Crazy Rich Asians this weekend, so I’d expect it to end up somewhere in the $12 to 14 million range in second place.

Mini-Review: There’s something to be said about a comedy that barely gets snickers let alone full-on laughs, although you have to give Brian Henson, son of the late, great Jim Henson, credit for finding a fairly clever way into the buddy cop comedy we’ve seen so many times before. Detective Phil Phillips was the first puppet police officer on the force, but when he failed to save his partner Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) while she was being held by a puppet perp, he loses his badge. Going into practice as a private detective, he’s on a case, when he discovers that his actor brother and the cast of the kids’ show “The Happytime Gang” are being systematically murdered. Reteaming with Edwards, Phillips must find the killer who also has framed him for the murders, so that he’s being chased by the FBI (in the guise of Joel McHale, once again playing a jerk).

Where to begin with this movie that tries to put a more adult twist on the Muppets movies, except that it’s generally entertaining, if not particularly memorable or recommendable to everyone. In other words, it’s no Sausage Party.  Henson isn’t the best director in terms of getting the most out of the movie in terms of production value, but fortunately he has human stars like McCarthy, Rashida Jones and Elizabeth Banks who are able to bring more to a relatively flat script. The language and jokes are absolutely filthy, usually involving puppet sex and drugs, but it often feels like it’s constantly going for the lowest-hanging fruit for laugh.

Overall, The Happytime Murdersis an okay movie, although I doubt it will ever be considered a cult hit. I’m just glad more people who look like Kermit the Frog are finally being represented in Hollywood movies. Rating: 6.5/10

A-X-L (Global Road)

(No, that’s not an image from the movie above. Just thought you’d be interested to see what Axl Rose from Guns ‘n’ Roses looks like.)

I’m not sure I have very much to say about this movie, which is essentially a low-budget Transformers with a robot dog that also changes itself into a motorcycle. The movie is from Oliver Daly who previously has done a short, and it stars Thomas Jane, although he appears nowhere in the trailer that I remember. It also stars Ted McGinley and Lou Taylor Pucci, but we’re still not getting to a point where this would be anything more than a VOD release. The star of the film is Alex Neustaedter, who appeared on Colony and lots of other movies I haven’t seen. I just don’t see what the draw of this film is when it’s going up against other stronger family films. Opening in 1,695 theaters, A-X-L will probably end up somewhere in the $3 to 5 million range at the bottom of the top 10. (It certainly seems like Global Road may be facing bankruptcy soon, so this might be the final feature from another distributor that tried its best to make a difference.)

Basically, Crazy Rich Asians should be #1, and we should have a slight shake-up after that as last week’s #3 movie, Mark Wahlberg’s Mile 22, is likely to have a bigger drop-off than the well-received Alpha.

This week’s top 10 should look something like this…

1. Crazy Rich Asians  (New Line) - $17.5 million -30% 2. The Happytime Murders (STXfilms) - $12.4 million N/A 3. The Meg  (Warner Bros.) - $19.5 million -52% 4. Alpha (Sony) - $6.5 million -37% 5. Mile 22  (STXfilms) - $6.2 million -55% 6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout  (Paramount) - $6.0 millon -44% 7. Christopher Robin  (Disney) - $5.4 million -40% 8. BlacKkKlansman  (Focus Features) - $4.8 million -35% 9. A-X-L (Global Road) - $3.3 million N/A 10. Slender Man  (Screen Gems) - $2.1 million -56%

LIMITED RELEASES

There are lots and lots of specialty releases this weekend, bu tI want to give special attention to a thriller called SEARCHING (Screen Gems), which opens in limited release this weekend and will expand nationwide next week over Labor Day. It’s the feature film directorial debut of Aneesh Chaganty, and it stars John Cho (Star Trek) as a father whose daughter has disappeared, and like Unfriended: Dark Web, the entire story is told on a laptop screen, but this one is really good and one of my favorites from Sundance. I hope that people check this one out when it opens because I think it’s an amazing star turn for Cho, who actually has been great in everything he’s done going back to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and it’s interesting to see how Chaganty uses technology to tell this story. (Mark my words, he will be a filmmaker to keep an eye on in the future.)

Another film worth noting is SUPPORT THE GIRLS (Magnolia), the new film from Computer Chess director Andrew Bujalski, this one starring Regina Hall as Lisa Conroy, the manager of a sports bar called Double Whammies, who is trying to balance all of the drama between the mostly female staff and mostly male customers, as things build up to a big boxing match that will only air if they can get the cable fixed. This is another fun film from Bujalski, definitely more modern and even more accessible than some of his previous films. Hall is terrific in the film and there are a lot of fun characters who interact as the film goes on. I was particularly impressed with Haley Lu Richardson (Split) who was almost unrecognizable as the restaurant’s bubbly star server. After premiering at the SXSW Film Festival in March, Bujalski’s latest is opening in a lot of theaters across the country including a number of Alamo Drafthouse theaters, so check out where it will play on the official site.

Another movie that is finally being released almost a year after it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is Michael Noer’s remake of PAPILLON (Bleecker Street), based on the books by Parisian safecracker Henri Charrière, as played by Charlie Hunnam, as he’s framed for murder and jailed on Devil’s Island. There, he forms an alliance with counterfeiter, Louis Dega, as played by Rami Malek of Mr. Robot, as the two plot an escape. (And MoviePass users, Bleecker Street has partnered with MoviePass so you can use it to see Papillon all weekend!)

Sam Rockwell and Ben Schwartz star in Hadi Hajaig’s BLUE IGUANA (Screen Media Films)as small-time New York crooks who are hired by a cute London lawyer (Phoebe Fox from Black Mirror) to fly to England and steal a rare jewel that another gangster wants for himself. New York, L.A. and a bunch of other theaters plus On Demand.

Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Bill Nighy star in Isabel (Elegy, Learning to Drive) Coixet’s new movie THE BOOKSHOP (Greenwich). Set in 1959 England, Mortimer plays Florence Green, who is opening a book store in a small coastal town, getting the support from a reclusive widower (Nighy) while facing the local grand Dame (Clarkson). After sneaking into a few film festivals (like Berlin), The Bookshop will open in New York at the Landmark 57 (which takes MoviePass!) and Angelika Film Center as well as in L.A., plus it will be in more theaters on August 31.

If you’re into the weirdest anime possible then you’re probably already familiar with Massaki Yuasa from his previous films Mind Game and Lu on the Wall). His latest film THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL (GKIDS) might be his weirdest movie yet, and Fathom Events is screening it tonight, plus it will be playing at the Metrograph for a week (or more). It takes place in the course of a night as a mysterious high school girl walks through the streets of Kyoto’s Ponto-Cho party district drinking a LOT while interacting with all sorts of strange (and perverted) men. This one is as crazy and fun as Mind Game.

As far as some of this week’s docs, there’s the self-explanatory John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (Oscilloscope) from director Julien Faraut, opening in L.A. at four theaters including the Royal and Laemmle’s Playhouse. Narrated by Mathieu Amalric, it assembles rare 16mm footage of McEnroe as he competes at the French Open in 1984.

Opening at the IFC Center in New York is Stephen Maing’s Crime + Punishment (IFC Films / Hulu), winner of a Special Jury Prize for “Social Impact,” as the filmmaker spent years with minority cops looking at the web of injustice which is hurting communities of color. Exec-produced by Laura Poitras (CitizenFour), it will open Friday with a preview screening tonight and QnAs with Maing and the NYP12.

The Quad Cinema will premiere Gail Freedman’s Hot to Trot, which won the Audience Award at this year’s NewFest with its look at same sex ballroom dancing. (Freedman and some of the subjects will be on hand on Friday/Saturday at 7:05pm for QnAs.)

What Keeps You Alive (IFC Midnight), the new film from Colin Minihan (It Stains the Sands Red), reunites him with Brittany Allen who plays Jules, one-half of a lesbian couple (with Hannah Emily Anderson, Syfy’s The Purge TV series) celebrating their one-year anniversary at a cabin in the woods. When the latter starts showing a new dark side, Jules must fight for her life. It will open in select theaters (including the IFC Center) as well as On Demand.

Ross Boyask’s aptly-titled revenge thriller I Am Vengeance (Saban Films/Lionsgate) stars former WWE superstar Stu “Wade” Barrett as ex-soldier John Gold who sets off on a mission to discover who murdered his best friend.

Rosemarie DeWitt and Danny McBride star in Jonathan Watson’s Arizona (RLJE Films) with DeWitt playing a single mom and real estate agent trying to keep things together after the 2009 housing crisis, which gets worse when her disgruntled client (McBride) confronts her boss. Also starring Luke Wilson, Kaitlin Olson and David Alan Grier, it will open in select theaters and be available On Demand, on iTunes and then on Amazon Prime Video on August 28.

Let’s get to some retrospective stuff. The Metrograph in New York is kicking off an extensive Larry Clark Retrospective with the director of Kidsappearing in person for QnAs as well as the New York premiere of his latest film Marfa Girl 2(the sequel to Marfa Girl, if you didn’t guess). They will also be screening Sofia Bohdanowicz’s Maison du Bonheur about 77-year-old Julianne Ellam, who has lived in the same home in Montmartre, Paris telling stories and people’s horoscopes, all filmed in 16mm.

The Quad Cinema will probably top that with their all-day Planet of the Apes Marathon on Sunday. 30 bucks to see the original five movies!

IFC Center will be showing a week-long 50thanniversary edition of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and all weekend long, you can all see Ant-Man director Peyton Reed’s 2000 film Bring It On, starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Gabrielle Union and Jesse Bradford.

(Don’t worry, L.A. peeps. I’m slowly my way to the far coast to share some of the repertory offerings there. Stay tuned!)

Don’t feel like going out? Netflix will premiere the first season of The Innocents (Netflix), Simon Duric and Hania Elkington’s new series starring Sorcha Groundsell and Percelle Ascott as two teenagers who run away to be together… oh, and she’s a shape-shifter, plus it also stars Guy Pearce.

[cyrelia-j]

[fic] Invictus IV (Kelas Parmak, past Garak/Parmak)

Which will soon be just Garak/Parmak but don't think it'll stop there because this is going own a pretty dark well. Kidfic turned damn serious, Federation through a warped and bitter lens, and morally bankrupt not nice Garak. This is NOT healthy/cuddly forgiveness Kelim. Written for @guljerry

So for anyone still here, you can catch parts 1, 2, and 3 HERE, HERE, and HERE

Summary: Post Canon Cardassia story (AU from the novels) After The Fire, Kelas Parmak finds himself a father seven times over to orphans left behind keeping an underground clinic and garden going even in this dystopian future. But Vakem Parmak taught him the importance of survival- even if the enemies are his former lover Elim Garak or The Federation itself

This Chapter: Garak is interrogated, though who's really the one with the screws put to them?

Warnings: Language, references to torture, a lot of angst, emotional manipulation, not nice Garak, mental instability

Also you can check my notes on the biology/genders in this AU HERE

There are two things that Kelas Parmak fears most in this world; that’s what Elim Garak would say. Parmak would say that he is afraid for the future, afraid for his children, and perhaps even afraid for the “undesirables” that he treats. Garak would dismiss those as mere worries, not true fear. And perhaps he’s right. There are only two things in this world that can bring Parmak to his knees shaking, screaming, vomiting, blacked out in terror. Those two things are Garak’s eyes and his own reflection.

In Garak’s eyes he sees the souls of the dead that he buried as a child, the lifeless eyes staring at him, some frozen open in horror as he dropped them in the hard ground. He sees the dead coming for him. He sees everyone that he couldn’t save, those who cursed him as a monster, as a harbinger of death. And they always come for him, raging angrily in his head, reaching out from the cold slits of Garak’s pupils. Kelas still dreams of those eyes at night, waking up with a scream dead in his throat, unable to breathe. Before he looked in Garak’s eyes he might have said that there was nothing that he was afraid of. It was easier to forget about the mirror. The mirror had stopped haunting his dreams when the plague came.

Before the plague, there was only one true fear that Parmak held. When he was a child, his mother told him that he was beautiful. She told him that he was precious and perfectly made as he was. In spite of the rest of the village speaking of him and his family with pity for such a poor child, in spite of the taunts of his appearance - his white hair, his “pink little vole eyes”, his “sickening skin”, his “gross” hump - he had never considered his appearance one way or the other. He could breathe, he could move, and he could feel the warmth of the lamps they used to light their camp. He was also born with poor vision that had gone undiagnosed until his sixth year.

Before that he could see the shapes well enough to get by though the world still shook out of focus from time to time. He tried to express it but didn’t understand what was wrong to verbalize. But eventually there came a time when he didn’t need to- when his parents understood what was wrong with him. He never understood the reality of his physical “corruption” as they called it until he happened to glimpse himself once in a large bucket of captured precious rainwater. He had seen the collected water before but this was the first time that he’d though to peer at it closely, the light that day hitting it just right to reflect.

And he saw a monster.

He screamed and backed away, looking frantically around for the monster that he saw in that vision, turning, dizzy, seeing one of the older men walking back to his tent. Kelas remembered the man was Eron and he was always somewhat kind to him. He told Eron about the monster in the water and that was when the old man told him with a sympathetic shake of his head that he wasn’t seeing a monster but his own reflection. His mother would tell him later that it was merely his poor vision coupled with his child’s imagination which conjured the image but he knew she was only being kind. He’d dared to look one other time, at the Placement Center in Central telling himself the same things. He told himself that it wasn’t real. He told himself that he was fine. He was wrong. He requested after that for them to please remove any such objects. He didn’t look again.

Parmak supposes he should be thankful that the fear Garak had put in him supersedes such childish things. Sometimes he almost wonders what it is that he looks like. Sometimes he’s almost tempted to stare into a piece or glass or a cracked window pane, a shiny bit of metal just to see what it is that others see… what men like Michael see when they stroke the side of his face and don’t seem to be afraid. But Garak’s eyes are another matter. He still feels bile rising in the back of his throat and his heart start to race even at the thought. He doesn’t have the fearlessness of his youth but… Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps he can look just for a moment. That would shift the balance of power to his favor. He forces his feet to keep from shuffling so that he doesn’t betray his unease.

Parmak tries. He starts from the bottom, from the floor but there’s a freeze that seizes him when his eyes move up Garak’s body. He can’t go any further once his gaze reaches Garak’s neck. Parmak can feel his heart start to pound even harder as he tries. He feels dizzy. He feels sick. He forces his hand to remain steady with the quickly mixed drug in the vial but he knows any moment it’s going to start shaking. He counts the ridges on Garak’s neck knowing the count moving to his ear, moving to his lips until he almost thinks that it’s close enough that he can fool him. He used to focus on Garak’s chufa before. The lips are better, he thinks. He opens his mouth and closes it again tightly.

“Ya’?” he hears whispered beside him. It’s… especially humiliating to have to rely on his daughter to speak for him. Parmak shuts his eyes and opens them again. He looks down at the vial.

“You’ll have to excuse poor Kelas, I’m afraid he doesn’t respond particularly well to shock. He’s always been sensitive.” Parmak grips the vial tightly when he hears Garak’s biting honeyed words.

“And Elim for his part has always had an amusing habit of talking more than the subjects he was meant to interrogate. I recall hearing it said once that his most effective method of interrogation was to recite Preloc until a subject broke under a wave of overwrought and dramatic verse.”

“Here you told me that you found my recitations enchanting, you wound me, my dear.” Parmak breathes deeply, that specter of Garak the interrogator falling back behind the old banter.

“Ah, I did… Mm, I suppose then you’re not the only one of us proficient with lies.” Parmak holds up the vial knowing that Garak can see it. “Do you remember that I told you once that my father said lying was a disease that would rot the tongue?” Parmak imagines Garak sticking out his tongue in response as he usually would when Parmak would make that remark. “You’re sticking it out now, aren’t you, Elim?” He asks, smiling in spite of himself.

“Perhaps you should look and see for yourself.” There’s a darkness underlying that tone that makes him nearly shiver.

“I’m not going to be playing that game with you today,” Parmak says, barely managing to project his voice above a whisper. He hates it.

“Bet he’s got a thickie, don’t he, ya’?” Roka’s timely interruption nearly makes him jump but it breaks the tension of that moment neatly. “S’always them old’uns with the thickies mess your head up good like that.” Parmak nearly drops the vial.

“Th-that’s… ah… really no one’s concern,” he says blinking a few times.

“Guls with the whore talk,” Parmak hears Yihot muttering on his other side.

“Like ya’ ain’t heard worse from thems come in middle month needing to drop an egg,” Roka declares loudly.

“Doesn’t mean I need to hear it now. Look at him, preening like that. Hey! Why don’t I yank it out and slice it off right now, Obbie!?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to need a bigger knife. Isn’t that right, Kelas?”

Parmak smiles, eyes to Garak’s throat, feeling a morbid satisfaction seeing the chains around his neck.

“Right as always,” he says and walks over in two hasty strides. He grabs a fistful of Garak’s hair just as he imagines the wide grin painting Garak’s face, yanks his head back, and pours the vial into his mouth, sure to press the chains into his throat and force a swallow. Parmak barely steps out of the way as Garak begins to cough. He knows that the dosage is higher than necessary, but he’s tested it enough times over the years to know that even if the entirety of the vial makes it down Garak’s throat there won’t be any ill effects- at least none that he can’t handle, none that he doesn’t deserve. “There we are, now that should take a few moments for the effect but it should work.” He looks to Yihot. “I appreciate your efforts, but you would be wise,” he looks to Roka now as well. “-not to engage him. Although Elim is quite capable in a variety of areas, although he can certainly kill with a myriad of implements, his most potent weapon is his voice.

Roka snorts.

“Ain’t nothin’ impressive ‘bout this old’un yet,” she says not looking intimidated in the slightest.

“All he’s got is his voice, old man. We made sure we searched him thoroughly. Nothin’ on the screens either?” Parmak smiles at them weakly.

“No, nothing, It would seem that he really has come to us unaccompanied. Would you give us a moment, please? We need to discuss a few things and… there are certain subjects I’d rather you weren’t present for. Especially if Elim is going to insist on vulgarity.”

“The only vulgar thing in this world is a common mind,” Garak quotes Iloja of Prim rather nicely.

“You can’t even look at him, old man,” Yihot growls under his breath.

“Mmm, well I don’t expect that to change any time soon,” Parmak agrees.

“We got this. Let me loosen a few of his scales and I don’t care if he names every son of a whore his mother ever made it with I’ll get what we need,” Yihot insists.

“It’s fine,” Parmak says holding up his hands. If one of you would bring me a seat though, that would be the most help you could give right now. It’s been long enough that I’d be at ease if you were to check on the others and start with dinner. Roka looks uncertain as does Yihot but they both agree.

“Anything goes up, ya’ I got something what’ll fix ‘im right.” Parmak laughs softly at that giving her wrist a squeeze.

“Ah, I should have let you know that Order agents are quite immune to most common street drugs, Trap included. But I’m proud of you. You’re strong. Be well both,” he says dismissively, Yihot taking a moment to drag another wooden chair in from an adjacent room. “Facing him is fine,” Parmak says, sitting down once the chair is situated, facing Garak. He waits until he hears them leave before smiling at Garak, focusing his eyes up, on a point on the wall that he’d already decided on. “Well, Elim, I think that you should be sufficiently prepared so shall we begin?”

---

“Nothing could prepare me for glimpsing your loveliness again, my dear. For once my eyes have beheld your glory, I should slay you for fear that my devotion to you might eclipse my life’s duty.” Garak says the line, watching Parmak’s face go still. Still so lovely, Garak thinks. The effect is exactly as he imagined. He sees Parmak unsure if the serum had worked. It hadn’t of course. The nice little drug cocktail that Lok had supplied him – mindful of his current pharmaceutical indiscretions – will easily counter the outdated concoction that Parmak had developed for Tain. But the lie will lead to the truth and it will lead to Parmak’s believing anything that Garak tells him. You’re concerned, Kelas. You know that it should have taken effect by now. It’s been years since you’ve used it or I wouldn’t be able to plant that doubt in you. You’re uncertain. You’re off balance. You should have kept the young ones in here instead of trying to “spare” them the sight of seeing you supplicant on your knees at my feet. They gave you strength, Kelas. It’s unfortunate.

“You can’t lie to me,” Parmak says.

“As I breathe, I lie,” Garak says indifferently, seeing Parmak frown. “Perhaps you should test me like you used to. Remember you once said the true efficacy of any truth serum lie in its ability to trick the truth from my tongue.”

“I used to say a lot of things, Elim,” Parmak says softly. He laughs - a subtle shake of his shoulders - “I used to tell you that I was unbreakable. I used to tell you that you didn’t scare me.”

“I could never be with a man who wasn’t afraid of me,” Garaks offers charitably.

“You were the only one who saw through me even then.” Parmak crosses his arms sitting back, looking at the ceiling. Garak scents the air again pleased to be only tasting him now.

“And now? Do I still see through you, my dear?”

“I’m not going to look at you,” Parmak declares to the ceiling. “I’m going to kill you.”

“For every life you take, you must give back a hundred,” Garak quotes. This time from the old doctor who’d raised Parmak: Vakem Parmak. “But I count eight including yourself, not a hundred.”

“Maybe I’ll kill an eighth of you then,” Parmak retorts defiantly. Garak smiles amused.

“I assure you in spite of your daughter’s colorful commentary my manhood doesn’t quite constitute an eighth of my person.” Parmaks snorts in response to that.

“Mmm… well I’m sure that the serum must be working then, since I recall you once declaring that your everted ch’och easily spanned two regnars end to end.”

“Perhaps I’ve held back for you out of consideration.” Garak feels his tongue thick in his mouth as a result of the drug. It has a bitter taste though he’s certainly swallowed worse. He imagines that Parmak would laugh but instead he sits back up. Garak notices that his eyes fall briefly to Garak’s lap. “Fear not, Kelas, it’s still intact in spite of your hatchlings’ overzealous searching.”

“Why are you here?” Parmak asks looking at Garak’s chest.

“Untie me.”

“Bury me,” Parmak hisses, leaning forward in the chair the anger finally starting to rise to the surface.

“Untie me.”

“Why are you here?!”

“Because of a foolish oversight on my father’s part, same as you, dear Kelas.” That stops him. It’s as good a confession as any but Garak doesn’t take any satisfaction out of it. Parmak’s guilt in Tain’s death was never in any doubt. “But what I don’t understand is how you were able to get close to him a second time. Your holes are sweet, but they’re hardly that magical.” He’s as vulgar as possible in that declaration - another “tell” that the serum is working for Parmak to grab. He sees Parmak’s eyes flash, and he sees an aborted snap of his head. Parmak wants to look him in the eyes but he can’t.

He’s silent again for a long while and Garak is impressed that he isn’t rising to the bait further.

“Oh well, I think that neatly answers any question as to why you’re here, Elim.” Assumptions are the poison of any interrogation. Garak could easily tell him that and he thinks that Parmak should rightly know better. He’s harder after The Fire; that much Garak can tell. But that steel also seems to have come at the expense of his analytics. That would be convenient. Garak would sooner deal with a brave idiot than a smart coward. Still as for his erroneous conclusion, there’s a simplicity to it that’s beneath Parmak. Garak is pleased that he seems to realize it as well. “No, that’s not it,” he amends softly. “You wouldn’t want me to think that either. If you really wanted to kill me, we’d all be dead.”

“Ah but I would also miss an opportunity to acquaint myself with your handsome little brood Kelas. Tell me, are any of them Tain’s?” he asks glibly knowing full well that shouldn’t be possible.

Parmak’s face gives him the answer that his mouth doesn’t.

“For once, you’re not the one asking the questions.” Garak doesn’t need to. He knows. The answer is no.  

“Yes, and I find that being in this position affords me an insight into the process that I’ve had little opportunity to experience. I must say if the work of my colleagues to this point had been so frightfully dull and unimaginative… I can see why I was the only one who could break you.” Curiously, Parmak tilts his head at that remark and sighs deeply. He surprises Garak by slowly beginning to unlock the chain from around his neck.

“You didn’t break me, Elim,” he answers softly before moving to the ropes around Garak’s waist and chest. “I was broken long before that.” His hands work the bindings on Garak’s arms. “I just didn’t realize it. Please be silent a moment. I need to untie your legs and your voice grates on me when you’re being particularly smug.”

Garak is obedient. Parmak is supplicant. At least that’s the picture he makes on his knees before him, Garak staring down at his white head, at the obscene slip of a shirt that billows out just enough for Garak to look down it. He looks in silence, scenting the air again, scenting Parmak, scenting his body, scenting that fear, seeing his chest, fragile, soft, the swollen dirty nipples of a live bearing Northerner who’s been wet nursing a little suckling not theirs.

Garak shuts his eyes and breathes in as Parmak moves to his other leg. He wants him. He wants to put his mouth to that chest, he wants to pinch those barbaric mammalian throwback things until Parmak sobs and begs him to stop. He wants to turn him around, drag him onto his lap and fuck every thought of Tain from his body. Which is exactly why he told Lok that he shouldn’t be used for this assignment. It was a foolish objection and he knew it the moment he’d made it. Lok may have also quite perceptively pointed out that one of the strengths that Garak developed over the years was turning his tendencies toward the emotional to good work.

“Why are you here, Elim?” Parmak asks, still on his knees, eyes on the floor and Garak has never felt more powerful or more vulnerable with Parmak in that position. Good work, he hears Lok say to him.

“I’m here for you, Kelas,” he answers honestly.

“Are we back to that again?”

“The Order is back again.”

“The Order should stay dead with the rest of Old Cardassia.”

“The New Order is going to build the New Cardassia, Kelas, and once there was no one more determined to build a new Cardassia than you.” Garak flexes his hands and slowly begins working feeling back into his arms. The tingling, the pain of blood flow is bit of nostalgia.

“And you find yourself in need of a doctor?” Parmak asks with a soft laugh. Surely you can dig out some of the camp relics if you’re willing to track me down. Doctor Medek would suit your purposes far better than I would.” It never fails to amaze Garak how young Parmak always looks no matter how tired, no matter how he slumps or shuffles or whispers quietly to the walls.

“Our beloved Doctor Medek didn’t kill Enabran Tain,” Garak murmurs.

This is where the subject’s heart skips a beat. This is where the subject will either lie or ask-

“How did you know?”

“Because I saw Tain at Internment Camp 371 when he was dying. Shall I list the symptoms, Kelas? Shall I tell you that I knew within a matter of hours that the toxin build up had to have been over the span of months, possibly years to still be in his system? Shall I tell you how I suspected and how my suspicions led me to you upon my return?”

“Mmm… I’m sure if you did you’d weave quite a fanciful tale, Elim.” Parmak bows his head, hands between his knees as small as he can make himself, pillowing his forehead to Garak’s knee. “I’m sure you already have. Ah… I know how you love these grand moments of drama so I should hate to take that from you but… but it was a test, you know,” he hears Parmak say and in a way it’s almost… beautiful. “You and me,” Parmak continues before Garak can say anything else. “That was a test. You breaking me? Was a test. Me returning to Tain after 3 years there…” Garak sees Parmak jump, that laugh he gives because he’s incapable of tears.

“That was a test,” Garak supplies for him glad the drugs already leave him cold.

“That was a test. And then I decided thoughtlessly without consulting you that your life might find some value if you were to be finished with tests.”

“I see…”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Parmak says, lifting his head and smacking Garak’s knee. “Our relationship wasn’t the test. Mmm, likely Tain saw it as ah… convenient means to begin the test…”

“Tain was fond of his “tests”,” Garak agrees thinking of Palandine, of Doctor Bashir, even so far back as to remember the little regnar. “Clearly, I passed that one,” he observes mildly. Of course he would; especially after seeing Parmak and Tain that night. “So then-”

“This is my interrogation, Elim.” Garak sees Parmak’s hands on his knees with the old familiarity. He holds them apart. He looks up at Garak’s chufa – the closest that he ever comes to looking him in the eyes. “So what will you do if I choose not to dirty my hands for you?” His mouth is set hard. It’s the look of a man who’s had his fill of death.

“I never asked you the first time. That was your decision- your life, your mistake, your assassination. Your hands are already dirty, Kelas.”

Parmak slaps the inside of his thigh hard.

“Then bury me, snake!” He yells standing up and turning away. Garak grabs his wrist tightly, muscles protesting the sudden movement. “Let go of me,” he hisses. Parmak is old, Parmak has always looked weak but he’s always been exceptionally strong. He doesn’t try and pull away.

“I will lay in the dirt with you Kelas,” Garak swears, their eyes almost meeting when Parmak turns back around slowly. “But first, I’m going to tell you a “fanciful tale” as you would say, a tale worthy of a snake.” He can see Parmak’s eyes darting, twitching unconsciously. Parmak easily slips his hold but then hooks his index finger around Garak’s. He keeps looking at his chufa.

“Doctor Parmak use to say the only trust that you can hold in a snake’s tail is that you cannot trust it at all.”

“I can’t lie to you, my dear,” Garak lies. “Not here, not in this honest little patch of darkness.” Parmak really is stunning with the shadows from the dimming light along his ridges. It makes him look stronger, it makes his eyes look bigger behind his spectacles. Garak sees those pupils continue to shake with that albino’s weakness.

“Why are you here?” Parmak whispers, middle finger hooking around Garak’s next. Garak looks at him speculatively, knowing that he has to play this exactly right.

“Perhaps some time when this unpleasant business has passed us we might hear of my adventures upon the dying monument to the Old vanity, but for now, what you need to know. Before The Fire, before the war, before the Occupation, I discovered the Founder home world.” He pauses, seeing a tension in Parmak’s shoulders, feeling it through their fingers. “I was going to destroy it. I could see what was going to happen, it rang in my head more clearly than anything I’ve ever felt. It was one of those visions that I’ve always had.”

“That’s...” Parmak swallows looking down at their link. “That would be genocide, Elim. That would be an unconscionable massacre.”

“One life for a hundred, Kelas. What are our lives worth? What are eight hundred million, what are a billion Cardassian lives worth?”

Parmak doesn’t answer him right away, Garak letting that sink in.

“They stopped me, of course. The Federation, the moral Starfleet like you, could hardly condone such a despicable act.”

“Of course they wouldn’t. That’s one thing I’ve learned about them. They value life.” Parmak stares at the gray wall behind Garak.

“Ah, but we’re not to the end of the story yet, my dear Kelas. For in these classic human tales, I’ve learned there’s always a twist, always a grand unmasking of the villain at the highest moment of tension.” Another finger hooks - the ring this time - he’s getting to him. The last finger follows at Garak’s initiation, the eight digits twining around each other, Parmak looking at the wall like it’s about to come for him looking anxious, uneasy, almost as if he knows what Garak’s is going to say. Garak wants Parmak to look at him. He will- when the moment is right.

“So now we come to the, as the humans say, coup de grâce, that final merciful blow. It should hardly come as a surprise to you that the vaunted Federation works in the shadows same as we do. They call it Section 31, one might say the dark puppet masters really pulling the strings behind that noble front. Shall I tell you what delightful little egg they birthed into existence, Kelas?” Parmak twists his hand holding it tightly. He breathes in hard, closes his eyes, no doubt bracing himself. But there is no brace, Garak thinks, no mercy as he tells him plainly and simply. “A virus. Once the Federation casualties became too great, once too many of theirs had been lost, that’s when Guls damn genocide became acceptable.” And he watches Parmak shutting his eyes with a soft whimper, a tight press of his lips a nearly painful squeeze to Garak’s hand but he revels in it. This is what he needs. This is what Lok had wanted from him. “You told me Kelas, you told me as you sat in that miserable cell that when you looked in my eyes you saw the dead coming for you.”

“Elim-” Frantic, scared, as if Garak with his words alone could force him to look. “Please...”

“How many dead do you think you’ll see now? How many “disposable Northerners” that they deny exist? How many starving Nokarans? Kranessans because of the “evils” of bio mimetic gel that they refuse to give us? How many more have to die to serve their sick self righteous hypocrisy?”

“I don’t... I don’t know what you want from me, Elim. I’m a doctor... I’m not a...”

“I want you to help me eliminate a virus, Kelas. That was your specialization after all. Communicable disease, infection, pathogens, microbes. That’s what the Federation is.”

“A virus...” Parmak whispers, breaths coming faster, more shallow and Garak suppresses the urge to smile.

“Look at me, Kelas, my dear Kelas. I’ve spent these last thirty miserable years dreaming of those enchanting eyes of  yours looking into mine.” Sweet, soft, like the thick poisonous honey filling the deadly Elaran bowl flowers; they always trap their butterflies. Garak begs him softly, intoning his Nokaran name as he does. “Pleassse Kelasssar...” slips sibilantly into the air between them like a spell.

And Parmak looks.

[nessietessimalnua]

UNIT 2 ESSAY DRAFT #1

Analysing the narrative of Kubo and the Two Strings, referring to the Hero’s Journey 

In this essay I will be analysing a narrative using Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (2007), looking at the structure of the narrative, it’s characters and their possible archetypes, and how effective the medium of the narrative is (stop motion film, live action, written book, etc.) in telling a story.

The Hero’s Journey is a narrative theory first published by Christopher Vogler in 1998, inspired and based upon Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, and his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (originally published in 1949), both of which explore the similar and repeated structures of folklore tales and myths. Vogler worked upon Campbell’s ideas and came up with the theory that every story shares a few similar structural elements, going on to determine the stages of the stories’ structures – he claimed that there were around twelve: the Ordinary World (or exposition – the world the Hero exists in before the story/adventure), the Call to Adventure (or the inciting incident), the Refusal of the Call (if the story contains a ‘reluctant Hero’ - a Hero who doesn’t (at least at first) want to go on ‘the adventure’), a Meeting with a Mentor (though this isn’t always present in stories), the Crossing of the First Threshold (when the Hero either fully commits or passes into the ‘Special World’ – the domain of the adventure/story), Tests, Allies and Enemies (usually the largest part of a story – after the Hero crosses into the Special World, they encounter challenges and get into situations where they make both enemies and allies), the Approach to the Inmost Cave (the Hero reaches the edge of where the quest object is hidden), The Ordeal (the midpoint of the narrative, usually – where the Hero hits rock bottom and the audience is held in suspense), the Reward (the Hero claims/retrieves the treasure/knowledge/object they’ve been searching for), the Road Back (the Hero starts the journey back to the ordinary World, but is still in some sort of danger – they are perhaps pursued by a force awakened by the retrieval of the reward/treasure), the Resurrection (the climax – the Hero’s final test, using lessons learnt from the Ordeal to vanquish the enemy/fear),  and finally, the Return with the Elixir (or the denouement – the Hero returns to the Ordinary World with the reward from the Special World). Vogler also sorted the characters into groups, or Archetypes, based on similar traits/abilities they exhibited. They were as follows: The Hero, the Mentor, the Shape-Shifter, the Trickster, the Shadow, the Herald and the Threshold Guardian. Many characters are combinations of these archetypes – for instance, the Trickster-Hero is common in stories – and not all of them must necessarily be human: The Shadow could be an antagonist or the Hero’s worst fear, just as the Herald could be an event or object that spurs the Hero onto their quest.

As an example of this theory, I’m going to analyse Kubo and the Two Strings (Laika, 2016): a stop-motion animated film about a young boy who is sent on a quest to find his ‘dead’ father’s legendary armour, needed to defeat the Moon King and his two daughters. Kubo is an interesting example because several of the story’s stages overlap, and in some cases it’s almost as though they repeat (for example, there’s what seems to be a ‘mini Ordeal’ earlier in the film where the Hero (Kubo) nearly dies, the mentor (Monkey) Is badly wounded in a battle with one of the Moon King’s daughters and their means of transport is destroyed, leaving them stranded in the middle of an ocean-like lake. However, Monkey defeats the enemy, Kubo recovers and gains the knowledge that his mother (thought to have died during the Crossing the First Threshold/Refusal of the Call) was alive and with him as Monkey, then uses his magic to recreate their ship so they could sail to land – meaning the characters hit ‘rock bottom’ before recovering and receiving a reward of some kind – in this case, knowledge and a piece of the armour). There’re also two possible Heralds in the beginning of the film: first, when an old lady in the village Kubo visits persuades the boy to stay later for a Festival, in which the villagers light lanterns and pray to their deceased loved ones, causing Kubo to be caught in the moonlight and be found by the Moon King, or a little later when – after enchanting his robes to fly him to safety – Kubo’s mother tells him to find his father’s armour before charging at The Sisters. The introduction of the Sisters could also be seen as Crossing the First Threshold, as their arrival thrust Kubo into the realm of the Moon King and his powerful magic: the only magic the boy ever having seen before being his and his mothers, which causes paper to fold itself into semi-sentient origami figures. Another Crossing the First Threshold scene could be when Kubo wakes up in the other-worldly Farlands with Monkey (also doubling as a Meeting the Mentor stage), the enchantment on his robes having flown him to safety – he crossed the boundary of the village and the small, quaint world he knew into the wider, wilder one his father had once lived in. The largest ‘stage’ in the film is the Tests, Allies and Enemies, beginning after Kubo and Monkey land in the Farlands and lasting up until the Approach to the Inmost Cave/Ordeal stage at Hanzo’s old fortress. During this stage Kubo encounters two allies and four, potentially five enemies; When he and Monkey make camp for the first night in the Farlands, after admitting that neither of them know where to even start searching for the armour, during his sleep Kubo’s magic creates mini-Hanzo – a small origami samurai reminiscent of his father’s legendary warrior image. Mini-Hanzo then revealed himself to be a guide – pointing his katana in the direction of the pieces of armour. The second encounter is with Beetle – at first thought to be a threat after he ‘kidnaps’ Kubo, he is soon pledging himself to help them, thinking he used to be Hanzo’s apprentice (he has little to no memory of his past). The first enemy they encounter in the Farlands (the Moon King’s daughters are the first pair of antagonists they meet at the beginning) is the giant skeleton that guards the first piece of the armour: The sword unbreakable. They defeat it and bond during the experience, and set off to find the second piece of armour. That leads on to what could be considered the ‘mini-ordeal’ explained before, resulting in them encountering another enemy (the lake monster) and then defeating two (escaping the monsters in the lake and Monkey beating the Moon King’s daughter). They don’t encounter any more enemies or allies until the main ordeal at Hanzo’s Fortress, in which they battle the last of the Sisters and Kubo leaves to take on the Moon King after Beetle and Monkey are killed.

The story doesn’t have a very large cast – one main protagonist, two allies (three if you count mini-Hanzo), three main antagonists, two minor antagonists (or Threshold Guardians) and then a handful of background characters (the villagers you see in the beginning and at the end). The smaller number of characters means that they share the traits of more than one archetype, which I think helps the narrative as it gives the characters more depth and personality. For example, Kubo is the story’s Hero, however he’s also a Trickster – this is shown through his playful shamisen performances in the village and throughout the story, and during his interactions with Beetle and Monkey – when he causes a paper bird to ‘attack’ Monkey with his music, for instance: “I didn’t tell them to do that! At least, not the second time…” Beetle is also a Trickster and acts as the comic relief: his absentmindedness and childlike attitude makes him a lovable character, like a distraction to the darker themes of the film. He’s also a Shape Shifter, however, in that he’s actually Kubo’s father, Hanzo: “Oh, this is precious. You've been together all this time and you haven't even realised? You took her from us. It was only fitting we took something from you. How swiftly those memories spilled from your head, wiping out all recollection of your obscene union... Hanzo.” – the last Sister to Beetle, spoken whilst crumpling mini-Hanzo. This shows the darker side of Beetle, a flip on his light hearted personality. Quite a few of the characters seem to have Shape Shifter traits: Monkey is revealed to be Kubo’s mother, having used the last of her magic to transfer herself into the monkey charm he carries, being a Shape Shifter and Mentor; Beetle is really a cursed Hanzo – Kubo’s father, so is a Trickster Shape Shifter; and the Moon King first reveals himself to Kubo in a dream, telling him the location of the last piece of armour – this turns out to be a trap, however, and can make the Moon King a more cruel Trickster, as well as a Shape Shifter and Shadow.    

On the medium of the story, the use of stop-motion for Kubo is quite substantial: the magic of the story is based upon creating life/sentience from music and paper – the arts - reflecting the fact that the characters themselves are models that have been created and given ‘life’ by the animators that built and moved them: it’s an intimate medium, which I think mirrors the emphasis on character relationships in the story. Kubo’s line “If you must blink, do it now.” Is also quite ironic, as – it being a stop-motion film – if you blink, you’re likely missing a week’s worth of animation!

In conclusion, I believe Kubo and the Two Strings to be an interesting example of how the Hero’s Journey theory is applied and used to structure modern narratives, being able to create original and emotive stories from the same basic elements.

  Bibliography

Vogler, C. (2007). The writer's journey. 3rd ed. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions

Kubo and the Two Strings. (2016). [FILM] Travis Knight, Laika, Focus Features

[neven-ebrez]

Supernatural's Narrative Structure Throughout the Years

Supernatural has seen four showrunners (with one consistent one throughout, Robert Singer), which are: Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver and now, Andrew Dabb.  At the beginning, the show focused on a more simplistic method of storytelling; the protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester went up against urban legends while looking for their elusive father.  Twelve seasons later and this pilot season marks the only true exception to the show’s narrative structure. Starting in season 2 the show adopts a method of storytelling known as the A/B/C structure.  There is a “A” plot (known as the show’s “mytharc”), its “B” plot (its character development arc, usually shown through the lens of Dean Winchester, but the show frequently, especially in its later years, shows this through others), and then finally, its “C” plot, which exists in the form of “filler episodes” referred to as “Monsters of the Week”, or MOTW for the purposes of the meta writing community.  And it is through this mirrored structure that the complete story of Supernatural is told.

Dean Winchester is the show’s lens of righteousness (earlier on, but this shifts from time to time) and it is through him that the adopted structure of the show reveals both its strength and weakness.  Dean has learned not to talk about his hard life and frequently when he is begged to share his feelings, they are dismissed (unfortunately by Sam, Bobby, and Cas at various points) in favor of the show’s enforcement of toxic masculinity (oh, drama!) to maintain such structure needed to support a static two lead format.  Instead of Dean talking about his feelings, they are told through the show’s MOTW characters and situations.  This process is referred to as “the ‘C’ plot mirrors the 'B’ plot”, discussed further in length here.  Because of the various degrees of repression carried by our main characters, the show uses other characters to tell their stories with words.  The show often also creates whole characters to represent ideas, both simple (Bela Talbot, S3) and complex (Amara, S11).  Almost every character that is not Sam and Dean, especially in later seasons, is created and crafted to tell the story of them.  This creates situations where the show is frequently problematic in its social message/image because it’s using a multitude of diverse often under represented characters to tell the story of two white textually straight male leads, and then later, its two most often recurring regulars.  Because these things are not socially equal, the show endures quite a lot of justified criticism as a result.

Bela Talbot is the first structural case of simple mirroring being done (although her character was requested at the behest of the network, true, the manner in which they utilized her is entirely significant).  I think it’s first important, however, to talk about how Kripke crafted the show using the structure.  He talked about how in the end he wanted good Dean versus bad Sam.  This, of course, focuses the early structure of the show to align Sam with darkness and damning decisions. All of season two pushes Sam onto a dark path exploring his cursed demon blood powers while Dean tries desperately to stop this.  Season 3 introduces Bela, a narrative mirror for Dean to show what would happen to Dean if Sam wasn’t in his life.  She IS DEAN, but WITHOUT a Sam in her life.  And for her, this spells doom as she desperately tries to avoid the fate of her deal with a Crossroads Demon (a deal she made to avoid child sex abuse, a stand in comparison to Dean’s robbed childhood which the show would later revisit heavily in season 11).  The structure of the season 3 is relatively simple.  Bela was supposed to die while Dean is saved from his deal’s fate by Sam, effectively showing that while Sam is doing some dark things, that they are justified through the means to save Dean (a common moral stance Supernatural would come to depict over and over again).  This, of course, doesn’t get to happen.  The writers strike of 2007-08  forces Kripke to abandon this structure in favor of simply sending Dean to Hell.  Our first attempt at a predictive narrative structure thus fails.  It is not discarded, however, and our first successful implementation of it is in season 4.

In season 4 the writers are met with the tough task of getting Dean quickly out of Hell and so Angels are introduced.  This would prove to be a major turning point in the show’s success and its ultimate current structure some 9 seasons later. The introduction of Angels, while initially desired to be temporary was fully embrace with the introduction of Castiel as portrayed by Misha Collins.  This mythology introduction gave Kripke the perfect way to have good Dean versus bad Sam  in the form of Michael versus Lucifer, and old tell of rebellious siblings confronting one another in an ultimate fight.  Here, the show begins its ultimate structure towards this alignment, with the demon Ruby pulling Sam towards Lucifer and Castiel pulling Dean towards Michael (or, well, stopping Sam, as pulling Dean towards Michael is actually a goal of Zachariah in Season 5 instead of it being a goal of Castiel). 

In season 4, all the characters (even Sam and Dean) and episodes (frequently showing the release of “seals” which bind Lucifer) are being used as functions towards a single goal, the release of Lucifer.  It was a simple and clean straight forward structure that allowed flow into a cohesive storyline, which remains the best of Supernatural’s structure and storytelling even to this day imo, It also allowed individuality (and the exploration of what it means to have humanity) to blossom within the addition of Castiel (originally only slated to be a 3 episode character), though the character could still be simplified into Dean with Sam’s bad choices.  Castiel would not start becoming his own character (instead of a character mirror or narrative concept) until much later in the series, though he would still be often regaled to simply serving the “B” plot of Dean, eventually getting a permanent “B” plot with him, thus cementing his importance in Dean’s life and within the show’s newer, complex structure.  

Season 5 saw the end of Kripke’s vision, but with one problem.  The show was getting a renewal.  We can see through season 5’s structure that Kripke intended Sam and Dean to die together in the Devil’s hole, unable to kill one another due to their love.  Against renewal and in an effort to salvage the sacrifice structure, we are instead introduced to Adam, a half brother who would instead receive Dean’s fate.  The season builds and compounds a sense of hopeless in our characters, both desperate to not play a part in Heaven’s games. Our mytharc and MOTW episodes in season 5 exist to drive this sense of compounding inevitability.  It is a structure not as clean as season 4’s but mainly because it has the same problem as season 3’s: the ending had to be changed. But meanwhile the show had another problem: “Where do you go after the Apocalypse?” It would not be a problem tackled by Kripke, but instead long time writer Sera Gamble, as Supernatural experienced its first showrunner change.  

With the departure of Kripke came the beginning of structural chaos and uncertainty.  Season 6 is driven by questions that seemingly have no answer against a plot that had just been done.  The Apocalypse was being put back on the rails and Castiel was dealing with it mostly offscreen, unlike Sam and Dean who, as leads, got to deal with it visibly in every episode in season 5.  This caused the audience to not experience the sense of urgency and desperation that Castiel is going through and it proves to be a structural weakness throughout the whole season as Sam and Dean deal with the fallout of Castiel’s righteousness in the form of Sam’s hell damage from his damaged soul in the cage and Crowley’s experiments on monsters, which is seemingly without purpose until the end of the season draws near and we finally see the importance the monsters hold.  Banished of Lucifer, the recurring addition of Crowley provides the show with a central point in which Hell will now operate going forward.  This is the season in which Castiel begins the pattern making the mistakes of Sam.  And it is from this point that the show’s mirrored storytelling reaches new heights, most of which are predictable, unfortunately.  Just as Sam and Dean release Lucifer, Cas releases the Leviathan into the world and thus we are shuttled into season 7, Apocalypse 2.0, monster edition (instead of angels/demons).  

Season 7 saw the ultimate weakness of the two lead structure, while the show headed down an already trotted path against massively failing ratings.  It is here that Gamble killed off both Bobby and Castiel while dumping a massive amount of emotional baggage onto Sam and Dean from which the show (and characters) seemed unlikely to recover from, buried in the Friday Night death slot.  Here, the season introduced a true structured  “B” plot for Dean and Cas, but it remained in the mirrored structure only, seeing as how Cas was effectively DEAD.  It is given in the form of grief and suffering, as per Gamble’s favored depiction of the show.  Not only were things hopeless, but everyone Sam and Dean cared about were dead (oh look, it’s season 13′s premise as well!).  The structures of Gamble era were driven primarily with a focus towards sorrow and suffering and while it’s true that the Leviathans (as compared to the totally delightful, but utterly senseless wanderings of season 6) were an interesting metaphor for corporate America’s greed and monstrosity, this did little to enrich and progress Sam and Dean as characters who were headed for anywhere except death.  And it is here we enter Carver era.

Carver era saw the dawn of a new light in the show.  It is often called a reboot of the show.  Castiel was back, Netflix produced a new influx of viewership, and the show had more or less cemented itself into the CW fold, renewed late and against all hope from grave of Friday night.  Conventions and streaming media provided a life line that gave way to a new form of structure on the show: precised mirrored storytelling in the form of a (possible, likely) three act structure.  In Carver era, (unlike its predecessors) things became driven by a repetitive thematic means and the genre of the show was shifted to something with an adventurous tone.  The Winchesters were going to close the Gates of Hell! Instead of reactive, our characters were thrust into being proactive.  This shifted the structure onto choice… and consequence.  Every detail fed into this: pop culture references, color coding within the visual framework, characters created that represented specific emotional struggles for our characters to interact with and conquer (or die through).  Season 8 is easily compared to Star Wars episode IV in terms of its place in Carver Era.  While Star Wars episode IV could function as a stand alone (seeing as the show didn’t realize the introduction of its lifeline yet), it was made to function as part of a beginning of a much longer and detailed story.  

Once again in season 8 Sam and Cas began to take on the role of pushing the mytharc along, with Sam completing the Hell trials to close the Gates and Cas breaking Heaven’s control over him to close the Gates of Heaven.  The role of Castiel (while visually is reduced from seasons 4, 5 and 6), in relation to his relationship with Dean, becomes significant.  A vast number of narrative structural mirrors are put into place to frame the relationship a certain way, and they are definitively romantic in nature.  The Dean/Cas relationship then begins to be told exclusively through interspecies romantic relationships, with a significant amount needing to break some kind of hold over a supernatural being, reflecting Naomi’s reprogramming of Castiel to kill Dean (8x11-8x17). The text and subtext of this season is further queer coded to a significant degree, evident very early on by reference to such works as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (8x03), among many others.  Carver was taking the Dean/Cas relationship very seriously and it was a showrunning decision that would drive the storyline in structure just as much as the Dean/Sam one going forward, even after his departure.  Cas, meanwhile, is given a lot of structural baggage to explain away his absence as a regular instead of a lead. Not that he wasn’t crafted this way before, but soon a structural decision would come that tied both the Dean/Cas storyline and the Dean/Sam one together in a way that would prove inseparable. The choices made in the season 8 finale (with both Cas and Sam trying to leave Dean alone) are the consequences that would fester and bleed into the new season and the rest of Carver era.  

Consequences.  Choice. “I did what I had to…”

Under higher ratings than the show had had in YEARS, season 9 began, along with my structural meta series, The Divine Reviews, where I sought to document the show’s new structure (mostly how serious it was taking the newly active Destiel “B” plot from its former place as a grief standalone storyline).  9x01-9x03 represents a tying of the storylines for Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas in a way that makes it impossible to talk about one without the other, structurally speaking. Dean can deal with Cas leaving him, but only if Sam is alive.  And when push comes to shove, Dean will sacrifice Cas’ safety and position at his side if it means the survival of Sam.  The weight of this realization falls heavily on Dean and is the structural source of grief that saturates a season full of rape metaphors as Dean tricks Sam into not dying through the angel Gadreel’s possession of Sam.  For the first time, the show makes it uncomfortable to side with Dean (unless you like the fact that Dean will force his will on Sam to keep him alive) and Dean starts down a dark path of self hatred the likes of which the show has never delved into to such a striking degree.  This self hatred structurally manifests itself as the Mark of Cain and Dean’s decision to take it on without warning of consequence represents a significant turning point in the show’s ongoing structure.  Dean begins to carry the mytharc and the metaphor within, with significant structure weight put into the fact that Dean can’t bother to feel guilt for his actions, understandable as they are.  Dean and Cas thus begin a new romantic structure, one where lovers are torn apart by family duty (this is, perhaps, most laughably shown in 9x20 in the failed Bloodlines pilot episode that gives us heterosexual interspecies couple Violet/David who even mirror Destiel dialogue into their relationship of star crossed lovers separated by things beyond their control).  

Post midseason finale in season 9, narrative mirrors begin in earnest that take the foreshadowing for Dean to die into high gear.  These are vague and non-specific, however, with the decision to turn Dean into a demon through the Mark of Cain being made late into the season.  The death of Abaddon (and the possibility that she would simply possess him) seals Dean’s structural fate, as he is killed by what it narratively represents, the block to his character development. It is here that the show hits a structural sag with season 10, the Mark of Cain being structurally translated into a variety of narrative woes: a disease that infects Dean’s heart, a catalyst which amplifies Dean’s already weary and repressed soul, a force from which there is no destruction and no relief.  

Season 10 on the whole represents a failure to find a solid avenue to character development in Dean.  Supernatural didn’t know how to solve it’s own created problem.  And while Dean’s death was given several avenues in season 9 from which to walk down, the same meandering does not look all together acceptable as it was before.  For the first time Crowley is woven into the structural storytelling, carrying Dean away, just as Hannah does to Cas, leaving Sam alone to solve the problem “of Dean”, who is given the structural foreboding task of avoiding Cain’s fate, which saw him kill his wife and brother, Cas and Sam respectively in our structure.  The season, rather than focusing on the underlining cause of Dean taking the Mark of Cain, focuses instead on Dean trying desperately to avoid dealing with the consequences of his actions.  This culminates in Dean beating Cas nearly to death just as Cain kills his wife.  Cas avoids such a fate, however, and begins a more passive stance in the narrative, supporting Sam, instead, who must now fill the role of Abel in our structure. By Death, Dean is ordered to kill Sam to avoid further complications from the Mark of Cain, which is revealed to be an age old lock to something ambiguously called “the Darkness”. Dean is, of course, unable to kill Sam, and kills Death instead and then we are given our final structural form of the decision to take the Mark of Cain in the form of Amara, God’s sister.  Still, we are dealing with consequences and not the underlying cause.

At this point, the Dean/Cas storyline has been given lover/wife mirrors for going on 3 seasons now.  Cas is continuously coded as Dean’s “wife” by all structural elements within SPN’s mirrored storytelling.  Their relationship has been given much structural depiction and weight, which continues on into season 11 against the false lover, Amara.  I talk extensively about the child abuse and sex abuse mirrors involving Amara and how they relate to Dean’s stolen childhood here.  It is here, after 2 seasons of the same storyline, that the Mark of Cain Dean character developmental structure has been given its final form, but sadly, would not see its end.  

We see Dean’s helplessness towards his past in the form of Amara’s control over him.  And with Amara comes our third sibling vs sibling mirror in the form of God versus Amara (the previous being Michael versus Lucifer and Cain versus Abel), Supernatural’s go to depiction for Sam and Dean’s histories and averted futures.  The season’s structure builds towards the inevitable appearance of God to stop Amara, who has justifiable reasons to be angry as Hell.  Supernatural has, at this point, painted itself into a bad corner. There’s no bigger storyline it can go to as it is faced with the monumental task of resolving not only God and Amara, but everything that their struggle represents, Dean’s stolen life at the hands of his father.  For it’s conclusion, Supernatural would now face a different structural problem, however.  

The network would not allow them to kill God.  And while I have no absolute certainty from which to draw on here, I can only guess that either Amara was going to die also, most possibly to restore balance to the universe as Chuck’s death would cause everything to be destroyed.  We never get to know the truth of the structure as Chuck is effectively only injured, not killed.  And Amara makes the choice to heal him and forgive him instead of them sharing oblivion together.  Amara then gives Dean back the thing she determines he needs most: his mother.  And it is here that Dabb era officially begins, Dabb having shadowed the running of the show at the end of the season following the mid season silent departure of Carver.  

Season 12. With a character development arc for Dean already 3 seasons in the making, Dabb is given the monumental showrunning task of “where do you go after God leaving?”  A smaller scale mytharc is given in place of the sweeping epic of Carver era.  The British Men of Letters are introduced as a way of shaping Sam into being a leader among the American hunters, readdressing the question of what Sam can do to stay in the life and find his place outside of Dean. Dean, however, continues on the structural development path of confronting the thing that prevents him from feeling he only deserves to go down swinging.  Mary is fleshed out as a person though she and Castiel continue to suffer from the show’s inability to switch to an ensemble cast, which is, at this point, a point of long regarded contention among many fans.  

Mary and Cas begin to mirror each other (as we contemplate their significance to Dean) and drive the story, each wishing to make amends and give Sam and Dean a world they feel is best without either of them asking how Sam and Dean feel about their actions. This sees Mary siding with the British Men of Letters and Cas pursuing Lucifer in an attempt to cage him once more, having let him out to deal with Amara last season in another attempt to save Dean from action (Cas’ need to die for the Winchesters is a plot line that’s long overdue for resolution).  We see Mary being made to earn her place as family through her realizing why Cas already has.  It is the most passive Sam and Dean have ever been in the structure, with everything mostly driven by Mary and Cas along with the overall theme of what it means to truly love and sacrifice to earn the label of “family”. For this, Cas is given a structural death sentence.  And Supernatural delivers, painfully.  A portal to another world is opened up courtesy of Jack, the nephilim of Lucifer and it is here that Dabb era ultimately takes us: a new world of possibilities.   The same can not, however, be said of the show’s narrative structure, which seems to be on a one way road and has been for a long, albeit slow, time.  

Dean has forgiven Mary for setting him on the path to have a robbed childhood, effectively wrapping up the long drawn out Mark of Cain storyline.  Forgiveness. Love. Family. New beginnings. These are the themes that run through Dabb era. Dean is finally given everything and then within the space of one episode it has been taken away.  The nephilim introduces the show to once again ask the age old question: “nature or nuture?”, as Sam and Dean are forced to deal with an unprecedented force thrust upon them in their moments of grief, well, mostly Dean’s grief, according to the PR around the new season.  Like Carver before him, Dabb era looks to be using a three act structure, with Carver’s final act serving also as Dabb’s beginning.  This would place season 13 quickly through the realms of Star Wars V-VI.  Things are bleak, hope has quickly been lost, the lover has been taken and the family has been torn apart.  A dark empire looms.  And it is here that Dabb era continues, which has many threads that still needing tending.

A reason to live.  

This is what Castiel needs to be given once he comes back. Not just a reason to die, but a reason to not leave Dean.  Dean telling him he’s “family”, that he’s their “brother”, that Dean simple “needs” him… none of this has worked, has been enough to get Cas to stay.  The effective elimination of “guardian” saw Cas throwing himself into another guardianship role upon the rejection of the label by Dean.  For a long time now, Supernatural structure has been crafted around the parameters which would make Dean happy, condemning all actions by characters that go against this and helping Dean eliminate the roadblocks to his own happiness.  Mary and Cas made the wrong decisions to save Dean from pain and are thus punished by the narrative for such actions.  It is here, in Dabb era, that the Winchesters are finally made to contemplate the actions of others towards their survival and they are made to suffer for it, Dean more than Sam.  

The return of Cas, we are told, will represent a turning point for Dean.  And while Sam tries to get the nephilim to reopen the door to the world where they lost their mother, the nephilim himself will be made to question what makes him who he is.  Like Sam, he is given powers he can’t control and like Dean, he doesn’t want to become his father (all according to the PR anyway).  Jack is effectively painted as a mirror for both Dean and Sam to reflect upon themselves and their actions, the power of their choices.  I’m sure Cas will experience the same kind of narrative mirror in Jack, but only time will tell for sure on that one.  As getting Mary back falls mostly to Sam (Dean having thought her to be dead), I can only guess that getting Cas back will mainly be a plot for Dean, Sam having been regaled to Dean’s support on all things Cas by reassuring him for a while now.  And while Dean and Cas are no longer being portrayed by same sex/interspecies/lover mirrors by the narrative anymore (in favor of sibling mirrors or unrequited love mirrors, which both illustrate Cas’ POV for what Dean says they are and what Cas fears they are), I think a great deal can be gleamed by seeing exactly how Dean handles his death (as opposed to the other times). To push the sibling mirrors of 12x11 and 12x20, one would think they wouldn’t burn his body, much like Sam and Dean never burn one another’s, but I doubt this is the case, as the text has been pulling Dean in mostly one way towards Cas, though how clear the show will be is always a matter of speculation, but they haven’t honestly given themselves much room on this, structurally speaking (though we all have seen how Supernatural sometimes betrays its structure for various reasons, as noted above several times).  

It’s hard to say what, if anything, Michael’s desire will translate into in the broader sense of the structure.  I just don’t know enough to even take a guess except to maybe say it’s showing the difference in Sam and Dean’s view of the nephilim (Sam wanting to control/use him, and Dean wanting to kill him), in the form of Michael versus Lucifer but that is simply not a sustainable structure.  It is clear, however, that the apocalypse world in general is meant to serve as visual shorthand in the realigning of Sam and Dean as moral centers in the Supernatural universe.  While it was hard to side with Dean’s actions in Carver era post S9 (and Lord knows, the show almost lost me), it is quite easy to see here that without Sam and Dean, things would be so, so much worse.  Mary’s fate is also a murky matter.  One would guess that since she is a part of Dean’s happiness in having a whole family, that she is essential to keep alive (Dean seeking her to talk about his feelings and such) and that the show would not kill her being that it’s gotta be close to its end.  The show’s failure to promote Sam Smith to regular does not work to Mary’s favor in terms of survival (especially since it promoted Alex Calvert and Mark Pellegrino to regulars instead).  It could be that the show plans to transplant her onto the spinoff at the end of the season but I’m not sure that’s the case, obviously.  

And while I think the show will toe the line with the nephilim being good or bad, I think he’ll ultimately be good, or rather, do something good, perhaps in the Apocalypse world.  The structure simply demands it.  With a big bad like Michael potentially coming to our world there’s really little room for Jack to ultimately be bad, too.  I’m sure he’ll have some set backs, but there’s really only one logical way the show can go there.  It will be interesting to see how much Mary drives the story this year, but I’m guessing she won’t much and neither will Cas.  I think Sam and Dean’s interaction with the nephilim will do this instead, which means he’ll need to give them each something they want.  For Sam this is Mary and for Dean this is Cas.  Meanwhile, Dabb has given the show a good lifeline in the mythology sense in the form of a multiverse.  Instead of closing doors like his predecessors, he has quite literally opened them.  For Supernatural’s narrative structure, it’s a whole new world.