#which can only happen if they loosen up on the first love narrative / don't make it as though may strung oom along all those years

[finalacts]

something i've been thinking about with pluto is how the core three--ai, oom, and may--all have prescribed "roles" in their tangled mess of a relationship and how that has made it incredibly difficult for each character to see themselves and each other as People outside of those roles. this is where i think their core miscommunication happens, because it's not that the characters don't talk, it's more that they are constantly talking at or past each other, not to.

aioon and oaboom are obvious--aioon's the dutiful older sister, selfless to the point of being self-sacrificial, and oaboom's the overshadowed younger sister, precious only because her "weakness"** requires more attention. for aioon, moving forward is going to look like figuring out how to be a good sister/granddaughter without giving up her sense of self, and learning that these two things are actually one and the same--as we've seen, every time she sacrifices her happiness for what she thinks others want from her, it actually comes back to bite her in the ass. for oaboom, it's unlearning the belief that she is a burden because of her illness and learning that her ability to be loved is innate and does/should not need to be externally validated. for them both, it's going to include forgiving themselves and each other for their parents' deaths and all of the childhood hurts that ensued.

may is a little trickier to figure out, and i think i've settled on hers being that her identity and worldview--her role, literally--is almost entirely defined by that first interaction (one that aioon doesn't even remember, mind you). not only is attaching your entire sense of self to someone else's love for you just unhealthy in general, i actually think she spends quite a significant portion of the series unable to see aioon in her entirety because of it (not to mention how it basically caused the mess that was her relationship with oom). to her, aioon is still that teenage girl who showed her she was worth fighting for and how to fight--she's her savior. may's attachment to aioon is all encompassing, and it is devastating. it's why may keeps making aioon promise to choose her over everything else, not realizing that aioon (as she is now) would never be able to deliver. it's why her manipulations (lovebombing aioon every time she tries to tell her the truth or leave) ultimately don't work--aioon is not driven by love the same way she is. for aioon, that first meeting is inconsequential. it's not her lifeforce the way it is may's.

given all of this and the breakup at the end of ep 11, i think the only way forward for may is to figure out who she is outside of aioon--specifically, outside of this need to be loved by aioon. who is may as a person, an attorney, a cousin, a friend, when she doesn't have aioon guiding her (physically or otherwise)? personally, it's the only way i can see their relationship balancing out: may needs to have other things driving her the way aioon is driven by her family and friends, or else they'll just end up back where they started--with aioon leaving and may devastated.

ideally, their reunion would look something like aioon, the writer, meets metavee, the attorney, rather than aioon, may's first love, (re)meets may, aioon's twin sister's ex. a core theme in pluto is how our fixation on the past makes us unable to move forward, and how we should learn from our mistakes but not be haunted and bogged down by them. what aioon and may need is a fresh start, a chance to build upon new foundation, and i hope the ep 11 >> ep 12 time jump gives them that.

**just a quick aside mostly for myself to say that oaboom being canonically chronically ill is very interesting to me!! and i will be letting the thoughts abt that and how disability in general plays out in pluto percolate some more

[symbioticsimplicity]

@taddy-cat

You asked for the essay, you get the essay.

First and foremost, the premise of the show is that anyone, no matter how awful, can be redeemed. Based on that alone, there's already room for Alastor to make the cut. He would absolutely take the longest and I believe he'd be the last of the original cast to have done so, but I think its not only possible but plausible. From a writing perspective it would be brilliant should they carry it off.

But that's the Doylist answer, we're interested in the Watsonian one.

The first thing that makes me think so, is that we've already seen him change, in small ways, but its change nonetheless.

Turning away Mimzy, which while was most likely because he was trying to make Lucifer swallow the narrative that he was constructing, still showed him prioritizing the hotel.

Lending Charlie his Mic. THAT was a trust exercise. It didn't take place during one of the scheduled times, but make no mistake he placed a SHITTON of trust in Charlie then, he just didn't tell her. It was on his own terms, but like I said SMALL changes.

Threatening Husk. That sounds contradictory because how could threatening someone indicate a GOOD change? Because we very much have heard about Alastor being the type of person you don't fuck around with. People do everything they can to avoid him so much as NOTICING them. He's absolutely the type to kill without warning but he DIDN'T. He threatened because he LIKES Husk.

And of course him mentioning "One could become accustomed" to the rest of the Hazbin cast. First of all, that was right before a major battle, he could very well lose any of these people the next day. That's such a fond thing to say under those circumstances, especially for someone like him. (This is pure speculation, but remember what Mimzy said about him becoming a kitten after a drink or two?? What better time to drink than the eve before a major battle??? Alcohol loosens the tongue, ergo Alastor is an affectionate drunk. Honestly??? That would be fucking hilarious, and would explain why hes not visibly drunk around any of them despite liking alcohol)

Also!!! Rosie!!!! The fact that he DOES have the capacity for genuine friendship, however twisted, shows that he has the potential to cultivate even more relationships like those, perhaps in a healthier manner even.

That said, it will be HARD.

He will fight TOOTH AND NAIL. He is the embodiment of it gets worse before it gets better. He's gonna fuck up SO MUCH MORE before that even becomes a possibility. Because in order to get him to actually consciously make the decision to become better, he has to have remorse to work with. Right now Alastor feels none guilt about just about anything hes done up until this point. He's a monster and he knows and loves that about himself. He DOES have a moral code in there somewhere, its just wildly different than anyobody else's and he hasn't broken THAT once. He needs to be put in a position where he DOES.

Because for someone like him, redemption can't be an accident the way it was with Pentious. It needs to be an intentional goal that he has to work towards with the same kind of intensity he's put toward evil. And given the set up they have for him to betray the Hotel, I genuinely hope that's the catalyst. I hope its right after Charlie goes out of her way to do something genuinely meaningful for him (Like passing him a message from his Mother, because she sought her out while she was in Heaven. She knows how much he cares about her at that point, and made the effort to make contact and see if she could get smuggle a letter down for him. Maybe it even causes her some trouble too just to add fuel to the fire.)

But if that remorse were to begin, I think it would eat him alive. In the same way pain feels magnified when its not a frequent thing, Alastor has never felt guilt before so its crushing to him.

Alastor is also not the type of person to sit around and mope so after figuring out what the fuck is happening to him, he would be the type to force himself through whatever he thought necessary to deal with it. And the way to deal with it is to put himself through Charlie’s program.

He has to see his Mom, and he has to make things right.

And that fucker is driven.

[glasyasbutch]

playlist: daykez (good ending)

please god please ms narrative let this be the canon one

link to playlist on spotify

explanations below the cut

1. In the Middle by Dodie

You said you’re into closure, shake hands like you’re supposed to / I’ll be in the middle while you two get along / You’ve got so much in common, talk about your taste in women / I’ll be in the middle while you two get along

PALADIN 👏 SANDWICH👏

Very first song that got added to the playlist. It's also the opener on sloppy seconds. Because for a brief moment in time (the like 4 days between Kez asking Daybreak if they wanted a third and Day deciding who he was gonna sleep with first) they were one and the same universe. And no matter whether you're here or in the sloppy seconds au. Know that Day and Break and Kez were all doing it together freak style. amen.

2. After Midnight by Chappell Roan

'Cause after midnight / I'm feeling kinda freaky, maybe it's the club lights / I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don't mind / I love a little drama, let's start a bar fight / 'Cause everything good happens after midnight

Very last song that got added to the playlist. This is much more a Kez song than it is a Day song. Like, first of all, if you really wanna get into this go on Morgan's blog for the full Kez playlist and explanations post, but Kez grew up with a lot of Good Child Expectations that they (pretty literally) ran away from. So the underlying theme of "fuck you mom I'm so much happier this way" is. It's potent. It's rich.

But also, and this is going to be a theme for the entire first half of the playlist, something about Kez's love being carefree and reckless and impulsive was what made it so special! And this song really encapsulates that.

Plus, you know, "I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don't mind" canonical nod to Break, and "let's start a bar fight" canonical nod to Day and Kez's second trip to the club (the first one was incredibly uneventful and boring because Day had never been to the club before and so he spent the night full bodyguard mode and it was awkward and tense and NO fun despite Kez's best efforts. And then the second one, uh. Go check the next song.) It's simply them!! IDK!!!!

3. For My Eyes Only by NEW CITY

I can't share you with nobody else, nobody else / I can't watch you love somebody else / Girl, just lock it up for me / Everywhere she goes / I'm watching everywhere she goes / I want her for my eyes only

Just because Day and Kez weren't exclusive doesn't mean they weren't possessive. That second trip to the club I mentioned in the last song? Aha.

Day was being stoic and focused like a good paladin, making sure Kez didn't get into any sort of harmful trouble, and some?? random stranger????? Decided that Day needed to loosen up. Started flirting with her in FRONT OF KEZ??????? Which simply couldn't stand. Kez requested for them, SO politely, to "back the fuck off. She's mine." To which they responded, "Seems like you weren't doing that good a job of keeping her."

So a punch got thrown. And Day's warning voice was kind of hot, which this other person decided to comment on, so a second punch got thrown, and then No More, because Day was grabbing Kez by the hips (nothing else to grab, backless shirt you see) and hoisting them over their shoulder and carrying them out before they could get kicked out.

They only barely made it through the back door before Day was adjusting his hold on Kez to press her up against the wall and -

4. Holliday by The Weekend Run Club

I'm not stubborn and there's nothing you can do to change my mind / I'm not special I just like to get attention all the time / My heart is my sleeve, do you like what you see? / My heart is my sleeve will you know me?

This entire song is so lovely to me. It's the silly, impulsive type of love thing again, running outside just to hold your lover in the rain because no one else is and its a brand new experience you can share together, just the two of you. It's so. Augh.

But then the CHORUS!!!!! Absolutely, Day is a stubborn little shit, and absolutely, Kez is an attention whore, and absolutely, they are baring their entire fucking souls to each other and begging the other person to really, truly see them past their fronts and flaws, and to love that version of them, and then actually getting that. It's like nothing else.

5. Wine Song by Nicole Amine

The way you grip my tongue / Pour you down a little more, and my lips go numb / I, I, I never wanna run dry, dry, dry of you my love

i think morgan sent me this one. cannot truly remember. (went back and checked, yes she did).

I originally had "Champagne" by Cassadee Pope on here and then had to take it off bc even 5 years later it's still branded Tovra to me. But this song serves a similar niche of alcohol metaphor for love, used to represent being silly and stupid and reckless and tripped up and a little in over your head in love. And also getting drunk in the club together tb so h.

This song is ALSO the sister song to Joni Mitchell's "Case of You" on the in-progress bad ending playlist. This one's about being so in love it takes you over, gets you drunk. "Case of You" is about having fallen out enough that even when you're trying to get drunk, it stops affecting you the same way. I love being evil.

6. Because The Night by The Midnight

Come on now try and understand the way I feel under your command / Take my hand as the sun descends, they can't touch you now / Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to lust / Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us

Yes, yes, they were at the club together, and doing all that self indulgent shit, and they happened to fall in love. We know this. I like this song because it feels almost defiant about it. It's not like, oh, we happened to fall in love despite all the silliness we were getting up to. That is the love, and no one can take that away or undermine or overwrite it.

One of the verses has the line "love is an angel disguised as lust" and that's also sums it up very well I think. Day and Kez (and Break) first got together bc Kez wanted to get railed by two giant hunks of guy, dykestyle, and then they kept following that, because why the fuck not, it's fun and it feels good. Then somewhere in there, a switch flipped and they realized they weren't doing it just to have a good time anymore, but because they were deeply in love, and they wanted to embrace that and each other.

7. How Good it Is by Morningsiders

I never knew / How good it is to be young and admired / How good it is to feel your fire / How good it is to be your lover today

Morgan said it very succinctly when she said that the core of daykez was them being young, dumb, and full of you know. Together.

Day had been in love before. Day had been in love with Break for hundreds of years. Love was not new to them. But Day knew love as something that was patient and measured and slow and old, and Kez showed them a way for it to be frantic and fresh and young and, god, it was so different, and it was so good. Day never knew childhood, but Kez gave them youth. They were young together. They were young together.

(And also, bonus item, the way this singer accentuates the word "To-Day" really makes me bite and chew and chew and bite.)

(Second bonus item, this song also has a sister song off the same album on the Bad Ending playlist. Probably. I might take it off so I'm not gonna get too into it rn.)

8. NFWMB by Hozier

Nothing fucks with my baby / Nothing can get a look in on my baby / Nothing fucks with my baby / Nothing, nothing, nothing

Oath of the Shield Paladin vs. Abjuration Wizard, whose subclass can be more protective, FIGHT!

And! and!!!!!! Yes, most of this playlist so far has been about them being silly and stupid together in their down time but let us not fucking forget!!! A good portion of their love was forged in adventures, in fights to the death and quests that shot them up to folk hero status, which really fits the biblical, mythical imagery of this song.

Like .... "When I first saw you, the end was soon" Day and Kez literally met each other when they both showed up to save a town from being wiped off the face of the earth by a titan. LIKE!!!!!!!!

9. The End of All Things by Panic! at the Disco

Whether near or far I am always yours / Any change in time, we are young again / Lay us down, we're love / In the coming years many things will change / But the way I feel will remain the same / Lay us down, we're in love

Holding hands as you stare at the shattered remains of the woman you both fell desperately in love with and promising that you still have each other, we haven't lost each other, and one of us is going to have to go away for a while, but we'll get her back, and she might be a little different, but she'll be alive and ours again, and it will be okay, and hey, by the way, don't know if you noticed, but we did it, we saved the world and we're heroes now, and everyone knows, so that'll be new, and strange, but we'll face it together, like we faced everything else together, we haven't lost each other yet.

10. radio friendly by molly ofgeography

Burnt autumn lеaves and a week fall away / Oh love dear not grief, nothing good ever stays / You know I believe I can keep you today / Hum this summertime tune, baby press play

So I'm going to shamelessly cherry pick a few lines from the artists explanation of what this song is about to start us off: "it's about how everything ends, but that's ok. ... good stuff has to end, too ... sometimes the best thing to do is say hello, i love you, goodbye. tralalalala."

This song, to me, is about something that we haven't really touched on Much but sticks out SO much to me in the Daykez timeline. Namely, that while Day was gone for that year sculpting Astral, Kez kept moving. Kez kept moving, and doing, and living, and growing, and Day didn't, because his entire job with Astral was to live in the past. Day came back to a Call that was entirely different than when he left it, and he was clearly the odd one out, and he didn't know what to do with that besides … float.

This is for those first few years of retirement when the visits were infrequent and short, and everything felt like it was slipping away, but neither of them wanted to say it. For Day's internal conflict, choosing between hoping this was just a temporary thing and it would all settle down and go back to the way things were, once Kez was done worrying about other stuff; and accepting that he chose to go with Astral instead of Kez, and because of that, it was actually already done for.

11. Are You With Me? by Air Traffic Controller

No one can imagine something bad is gonna happen / It just wakes us from our most delightful dreams / Yeah, everything was fine until you stopped to look behind you / Now you're wishin' you could build a time machine, you're wrong / I just decided to be happy / Are you with me?

Spoiler alert: Day wasn't.

Okay, so, yes, of course, it's very Kez to laugh and drink and drug trip their way through things in the name of pleasure above all else, and on a surface level, that can be what this song's about. But more than that, Morgan and her scholars have talked about Kez in the aftermath of Break's death like ... actively choosing not to grieve because they couldn't afford to grieve.

Callie and Arthur were new parents, with a son to take care of, they needed her. Thorn had half her face ripped off by the planar rift and was recovering, she needed her. The reporters and the brand managers and the biographers and the politicians and the HOA in the area they were building their new tower were hounding everyone at every turn, and they had made themself the face of the Call, even these strangers needed her. And, on top of all that, Day was basically unreachable in the Aegis demiplane, and it was going to take a year no matter what, so what would be the point in thinking about them just to get sad. He had so much to do! He wasn't going to grieve! He just decided to be happy!

And then Day came back to that choice and had to face someone who, to him, felt like they had already forgotten what they were and what they had lost and it just became ... incompatible.

12. Creatures in Heaven by Glass Animals

I don't think I realize just how much I miss you sometimes / We were so young and in love / We were just creatures in Heaven

A rare Kate find, and a late addition to the playlist bc I needed this one to also be 20 songs to match bad end and sloppy seconds. This song makes me want to eat my own shirt.

There's just . There's SO much. It didn't make it into the selected lyrics but the repetition of that "here in the moment, free in the moment" after describing the most desperate clinging romance ... It perfectly sums up the feeling of the first half of this playlist (young and dumb in love together) and then says "and it might be gone, and I regret none of it, because it was exactly what I needed when it happened, even though it hurts now to remember. Also. "You held me like my mother made me just for you, you held me so close that I broke in two". Don't even get me started on the fucking sculpting implications here.

13. Lovesong by Adele

However far away, I will always love you / However long I stay, I will always love you / Whatever words I say, I will always love you / I will always love you

2 years in love without a second apart, 2 years barely seeing each other, each having bigger priorities and swearing they'd get back to each other in time, 22 years without a word, and still neither of them fell out.

I'd had the original version by the Cure on here for a long time, and then at the very last minute swapped it out for the Adele cover. Something about the slower guitar and vocals without anything else feels more ... intimate. And also mature. I think it works particularly well for the absolute expanse of time that Day and Kez spent apart, growing older without each other, while still loving each other fiercely.

14. Beam Me Up by P!nk

Give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it / I'd probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face / Would you beam me up?

Courtesy of Morgan. Sort of a flipside to "Lovesong", which is about that promise that their separation isn't forever, this one's about the possibility that maybe it is. It's asking for that moment to reconnect, sure, but it's almost afraid of it. It speaks about it like it's a dream, a dream they're never going to stop having, but that will only ever be a dream.

It's easily the saddest song on this playlist (this statement is now false after the addition of the next song), and the one that could most easily be swapped to the bad ending one, but I stand by my decision to put it here. The uncertainty if it will work out again and the willingness to face it anyways is what makes their potential (🙏) reunion so sweet.

Also. "I'm tired of being a fighter, I think" for them in retirement from adventuring is SO!!!!!!

15. All We Have Is Now by The Modern Electric

Every beat, every beat of your heart, is one less I've got / Honey you should be here, but you're not, oh / There'll come a day when it's all over, baby all we have is now, now

Bekah delivery!!!! I was gonna wait to add this to the playlist until we'd done the Day + Callie lifespan conversation in game but I got impatient.

One of the main things that, ironically, made Day pull away from Kez was the knowledge that Kez was going to die and Day wasn't. Day couldn't bear to see Kez grow old without her, so she left entirely.

But the longer they were away, the more they were aware that they wouldn't ever get that time back, and it ate and ate and ate away at them until they went crawling back to Kez to face all the discomfort and anger and grief, because they realized they were going to feel it no matter what, and better to feel it warm in Kez's arms instead of touching the cold marble of their headstone.

16. maybe, i'm afraid by lovelytheband

Maybe all we are is fools with hearts who try too hard / And maybe that's just fine as long as you're here in my arms / Dancing in your party dress / You were singing me some Frank Sinatra as you wept / Maybe you're just too good, maybe I'll run away / Maybe I'm over you, maybe I shouldn't stay / Maybe I just don't care, maybe I talk too much / But baby, I'll be there, yeah, baby, I'll be there

courtesy of bekah, it actually makes me want to throw up on the floor! it fucks me up so bad!!!!!!!

This is the song for their in-game fights and whatever this reunion apology ends up being, and where it could go if they're willing to be terrifyingly, horribly, vulnerable. They've both made mistakes, and there's a lot of "maybe"s to be said about who did what, and when, and to who - and they're going to get said, don't get me wrong - but in the end, does any of that really matter? Really all it is, is that they're both just afraid of losing each other. The only thing that really needs to be said is "I'll be there".

15. All Over Again by Zolita

So break my heart, rip it out / We'll have better luck the second time around / There's no doubt that I'll fall for you / Again, again, again

SECOND CHANCES SOMETIMES WORK BABY SOMETIMES THEY FUCKING WORK!

This is the point at which we slip into speculation. This is where it really becomes "the good ending", rather than just, Daykez as it has been. Maybe whatever the hell is happening now is the breakup, maybe it's gonna get worse from here, but the hope is that at the end of it all, they come out of it more in love than they have ever been, because (Rallie take notes) they're going to start over, dump the memories and the ghosts, and get to know the new person that each of them has become and fall in love with THAT version this time.

16. Yes, And - by molly ofgeography

Forgive me, are you trying to forgive me? / Are you trying to forgive me? / Are you trying to? / Are you sorry? Do you love me? / Can we try again?

Yes, Molly gets two songs. I like her. Is that a fucking crime. Plus this one's a duet. So I literally had to.

Mostly this one is here because it's about making and following through on a choice. Day and Kez hurt each other, more than anything, through their passiveness. Through waiting and assuming it was on the other person to do something first and then making up reasons in their head why the other person didn't. And so there's something really really powerful in saying, no, this time, they're actively choosing to be in love again. They're choosing each other. It's going to hurt and it's going to be hard but they both want it and so they're going to choose it and work for it and. Yeah.

17. Always Starting Over by Idina Menzel (If/Then OST)

You promised to love me, a promise you have kept / And I won't be sorry that you said to leap and I leapt / I won't regret what I did then / Though it hurts more than I could imagine back when / All the same even so, I would love you all over again

From Morgan, this is a very happy song, along similar lines as the last one. They know they fucked it up, they know they made mistakes, but as long as there's even a sliver of hope that it's going to work out, they will throw out their hangups and their mistakes and their anger and start over so they can get back the good thing again. It's all worth it for the chance to start over with each other.

This is a very happy song, ignore the next three paragraphs.

"Fuck you for making me think that this life would be fair" - That particular line REALLY sticks out to me, as the sort of representation of the "it's Kez's fault" monologue (which certainly won't come up in game and cause huge problems). This monologue, for the uninitiated, essentially revolves around the idea that losing Astral, and also leaving the Aegis, is really mostly Kez's fault. Day had been through death and re-sculptings with Break/Astral so many times before, and they were never like this. Because before they had only had each other, and this time, they also had Kez. There was a new piece; a new, lovely, optimistic, mortal piece, that they had both decided was worth their heart, and who now couldn't be there when it all started over, and it really mucked the whole thing up in an irreparable way. Fuck you for making them fall for you, Kez.

"I'm through with fighting, what the gods have to give I'll take and I'll live and be bold" - This line is making me feel some kind of WAY knowing Day and Kez are quite literally retired god hunters, and that trying to hunt god is what caused all their pain to begin with. Is it maybe so bad to just (sorry Theo) live quiet and take what they're given. Maybe it's not worth it to go against fate anymore. I mean, the narrative wrote them a real good love story the first time. Let her write them another.

"My love, our life is over, but I'll make you one last vow to start over, and over, and over somehow" - Also feeling super normal about this one, knowing full well Day gave UP his ability to start over infinitely to love Kez. Just. So normal. Btw.

^^^ Don't worry about all that THIS IS A HAPPY SONG ON THE GOOD ENDING PLAYLIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

18. Valerie by Amy Winehouse

Since I've come on home, well, my body's been a mess/ And I've missed your ginger hair and the way you like to dress / Won't you come on over? Stop makin' a fool out of me / Why don't you come on over, Valerie?

One of the first songs, got added at the same time as "In the Middle", and it's closing out the playlist because it's really very quintessentially Daykez to me.

Like, initially, I added it at a point in time where they had had their first fight (in the spell set-up room) and then made up, but hadn't yet delivered my nuclear bomb evil monologue. And yes, obviously, this works for that, of Day admitting that it's been too damn long he's missed Kez and he just wants her back.

But more than that it's so. There's no animosity in the lyrics. So many of the songs on here are about "oh, we're mad and we fought and we did shitty stuff and we made mistakes, but we're moving past it" and they're good! They're good, and they're accurate.

But this one doesn't do that. The entire thing is just one great big "I knew you once, and now I'm just missing you, I want to know you again." It feels to me like the thing Morgan said in the explanations for "Landslide" that made me scream and cry and kick a hole in the wall about how Kez got the evil monologue. Other people might talk how mean it was, but we don't need to think about that here, that's not the important part. The love is.

Come with me, take my hand, listen to this song. We're going to think about the love that stretches across the distance and lasts and lasts and lasts until you can get back to the source. It doesn't matter how long it's been. It doesn't matter what happened in the space in between. We don't need to talk about it anymore. Just come over here and be mine again.

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

makoto? 👀

Thank you for the ask!

What I like about them

I love Makoto's arc of realizing she's just a tool of adults who don't care about her, and its not worth it to compromise herself just for their approval. It's very powerful and relatable. I also like her confidence and intelligence. She really is like an honorary second leader to the Phantom Thieves who keeps them grounded. Without her the Thieves probably would have been found out a lot sooner. Akira can be...a little reckless, lol.

Also. She's hot.

What I dislike about them

Ok, before I get into this rant, let me first say: Makoto is one of my favorite Thieves. She's slowly lowered in my internal ranking of them over the course of the past year as I've soured on where her arc ended up and other Thieves overtake her as I grow to better appreciate their arcs, but I still love her, and I say all of this as a Makoto stan.

That said. Literally everything about her becoming a cop. It's not only an insult to Akira's trauma and a flat-out contradiction of the game's core themes, but it also walks back any progress Makoto makes in her character arc. Because, let's face it, Makoto can be a bit of an authoritarian. She's very uncompromising and stubborn in her point of view. Her confidant wants you to think that her friendship with Eiko expands her worldview, but in then the entire situation resolves with Makoto being Right and using her Fist of Justice to force Eiko into doing what Makoto thinks is best. Like a cop would. What happened to Makoto's flaw of being too stubborn and close minded? The narrative ends up taking Makoto's side and saying she was right all along. She doesn't learn anything.

I should probably write a more in depth analysis of her at some point because it is SO frustrating but I'm really tired of the fandom taking it out on her when its the writers' fault for screwing up what was intended to be her character arc.

Favorite moment

Her Awakening, no contest. One of the best Awakenings in the whole game.

Least favorite moment

Any scene that revolves around her dream to become a cop. Especially when the game forces Joker to support her in that goal after everything he's been through.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

This is probably obvious by now, but I want to see Makoto realizing her dream of becoming a "good cop" is fundamentally flawed and changing her career goals accordingly, deciding to reform the system in a way that doesn't turn her into just another cog in the machine that nearly ate her up in the first place.

An interesting AU for this character

AU where she hates the police.

Jk. Sort of. There was art I reblogged the other day where Makoto is a cop and Haru is an underworld crime boss and they fall in love and I think that is very very sexy I would totally read a fic about it. Here it is.

A crossover

I'm bad at thinking of crossovers so I'm just not going to try.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favorite ship)

Makoharu!!! It's my second favorite Persona 5 ship after Akeshu. I Love Them. Their friendship in the game is really sweet, I love how Haru is able to get Makoto to relax and loosen up a little, and how they're both ruthless but in contrasting ways. They're like opposites and yet the same (haha, like akeshu). They're just so cute and wholesome. And the Aesthetic is perfection. I adore their showtime.

Other ships?

Makoann is cute.

BROTP

Makoto and Akechi, also Makoto and Ryuji. The Potential of both of those friendships is tragically untapped in canon other than Makoto and Ryuji's Showtime, which to be fair, is amazing.

NOTP

Makoto x Joker. I don't hate it but I also don't ship it to the point I haven't romanced her despite her being my waifu. Yeah I know I'm a weirdo. I plan to romance her on a future playthrough ok.

An assortment of headcanons

She plays animal crossing and has her island organized Just So. The Thieves make fun of her for practically running a military state with how organized it is and how stale its aesthetic becomes with everything made of metal and stone. Haru helps liven the place up by planting flowers all around the island.

Makoto becomes like a surrogate older sister to Akane and becomes the kind of person for Akane that she wishes Sae had been for her.

Makoto and Haru go to the same college and become roommates (oh my god they were roommates).

send me some p5 characters

[memecucker]

Tell me more of this Ice Cream Man comic. Comics have always seemed like a difficult medium for horror. So much of it relies on visuals, so a single weakness in the art can being down the whole story. Especially in modern comics where things may be handled by 2-4 people who don't always communicate with each other.

So I’ve only read four of the volumes currently out but if you want a stupidly simplified summary of the premise- The Ice Cream Man is a horror anthology series with mostly self-contained stories (youre still supposed to read in order and there are plenty of connections between stories but each issue is its own full narrative) wherein the eponymous Ice Cream Man (also known as Rick, because he’s also an actual ice cream truck driver) is a malevolent entity with near godlike powers who torments the inhabitants of a mid-sized town relentlessly. His overt participation in the stories varies greatly in that sometimes he seems to trap souls in a special version of Hell where they endure an endless loop of their most traumatic moments and sometimes he whispers to someone enough they become a murderer and sometimes he just outright kills someone.

But what makes the comic special imo (and I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert on horror comics) compared to lots of horror media I’ve seen recently is how the Ice Cream Man relishes in a very specific type of despair, he doesnt inflict terror on people rather he wants to see them crumble from the inside. So in the issue where he whispers to a girl and drives her to become a serial killer, the goal isnt to feed on the fear of her victims or something like that, rather the object was the emotions of her father and his simultaneous (and somewhat contradictory depending on how you view it) feelings of having lived a wasted life while also having boundless love for his daughter and to see how those pillars of the father’s psyche respond to the revelation of his daughter’s actions.

And I dont wanna spoil too many things but Issue #4 is one that seems to stay with a lot of people (so maybe think about checking it out if you want fresh eyes) and in that the first half of the narrative is a very human drama where you have this protag guy who goes to the funeral of his friend that had suddenly died of a disease and while at the funeral runs into his friend’s deadbeat dad (who had kept his distance during the actual ceremony out of guilt) and unwittingly ends up getting some drinks with the aforementioned deadbeat dad at the latter’s insistence. While having drinks protag guy (who is married with a pregnant wife) starts to loosen up about his feelings and asks the dad guy how he was able to leave his family while quickly mentioning that the question was not own of judgement but of understanding because protag guy has been feeling that between his boring job and his marriage and upcoming family life that his own life has been taken away from him and he’s just feeling incredibly empty and keeps thinking about how the dad abandoned his friend’s family many years ago and fantasizing about doing it himself. The dad then gives a recounting of what he did after he left and a pretty touching rebuttal to the friend entertaining similar ideas because they have a heart to heart where the dad talks more about how he basically had very similar feelings and that he thought leaving his family would bring him to a new world of possibilities when in fact the world is full of locked doors and abandoning his wife and child he hadn’t opened possibilities but shut off the most important one which was a relationship with his child. And like its all very sweet and touching and the protag has a change of heart and stuff but Rick the Ice Cream Man had yet to make his appearance yet and when he does its by revealing that he has captured the soul of the deceased friend and despite him being a perfectly innocent person subjects him to an eternity in hell cycling through various tortures before finally settling on one that was most ideal- to make him a little kid again and have to spend the rest of eternity reliving the singular moment his father had walked out of the family home for the last time over and over again with the feelings of trauma never lessening. Right after the living deadbeat dad had such a touching sequence of how deep his guilt is and how he wants to stop others from making the same mistake.

And if youre reading anything metaphorical about infliction of trauma in a general sense thats intended because something I really enjoy about the comic is the amount of symbolism that gradually unfolds. Like I wont be giving multiple examples of this but one quick one that doesnt involve much spoilers is how the Ice Cream Man is an ice cream man in the first place. Because what do people say to little kids that only want to eat ice cream? That its gonna rot their teeth. And Rick the Ice Cream Man wants to see people rot, whether the rot is from something “good” or “bad” doesnt matter because it can be jealousy or it can be compassion as long as they break and become covered with insects (which visually feature very heavily as well like this is not a comic for “maybe the curtain’s are just blue” types).

So yeah, I recommend it. Not every single story I’ve read is like what I described above. Like some stories have fantastical or historical settings and also some are “horror” in a very loose sense like Tale’s From the Crypt comics (which btw I’m certain Ice Cream Man is heavily inspired by also if you haven’t check out the original EC Comic’s Tales from the Crypt stories like you’ll be surprised how good the writing is considering its from the early 50s but those were pre-CCA and the CCA was an utter blight on creativity oh yeah this is supposed to be a parenthetical remark) in that its more “weird stuff happening” than something actually “horrifying” and some that I’d say are really more existential and maybe tragic than “horror” per se but yeah whatever memecucker reccomendation

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Arnav, Khushi: Choti Si Duniya

#3 Old Habits

On most days Arnav and Khushi were happily married, with ample amount of laughter, space, sex, healthy banter, mild arguments, partnership and friendship filling their days.

On some days they just took the breath away from the other by simply existing, thrumming in the evergreen Rabba Ve. And on other days they were quiet, with one of their past demons returning to haunt them while the other supported the best they could.

And on the rarest days their arguments would take an ugly turn. It wasn’t a difference of thought, but rather crossing an invisible line of trust. Old habits, which despite maturity and therapy, flared up.

Unfortunately, Arnav crossed it far more than Khushi did.

“You’re forgetting she’s my sister Khushi Kumari Gupta! How could you not tell me she’s dating my manager.”

“She is also my sister Arnav, and Di told me not to tell you-”

“I don’t fucking care-”

“-that’s exactly why she told me not to tell you. And Aman ji is a good man for Di.”

“I don’t care, you still don't know Aman.”

“I’ve known him for six years! And for your kind information, I am a good judge of character Arnav-”

“-no you're not. If you were a good judge then things would've been different.”

“What do you mean by that.”

“Forget it.”

“Don’t forget that with this judgement I chose to marry you.”

“Oh really? With this judgement you brought fucking Shyam back to the house. I told you it was a big mistake but no - you thought he had changed.”

Khushi stormed into their bedroom, packing her clothes for a week. How dare he accuse her for not understanding Shyam! Yes, she had made a colossal mistake regarding him, but bringing it up after five years?

Just because he couldn't handle Di having a boyfriend?

Khushi breathed hard, fought her tears and zipped up her suitcase.

“Khushi, I’m sorry.” Arnav panted, having run up the stairs. His panic grew at the suitcase.

“Then why did you bring that up.”

“I was angry, I didn’t... you know how I am regarding Di.”

“I do Arnav, but that does not excuse you bringing up that up. I would've never brought him to the house if I knew he killed Di’s child.”

“Of course, I know that. It’s just... I shouldn't know about Aman and Di after they’ve started dating.”

Khushi sighed. She understood his overprotectiveness, especially after the Shyam fiasco they were all at edge towards Anjali. Frankly if it had not been for Aman, Khushi would’ve confided in Arnav.

“I get it, but I’m leaving for Bua ji’s for a week... if I didn’t know you, I would've never forgiven you for what you said.”

“Khushi you know I didn’t mean it.”

“And you know that anything related to that man is... has never been my fault.”

“I know Khushi but don’t go.” He held her hand.

“Arnav, I’m not in the state to forgive you for what you said. I want to calm down, take a little break and talk to you about this. So first, go and talk to your sister and please let me go.”

Arnav’s temper ticked. He hated Khushi leaving home. Leaving him.

“Running away from things don’t fix anything.”

“I’m not running away Arnav, I need space.”

“I said I’m sorry.” He yelled.

“And that is not enough!” She matched his pitch, grabbed her suitcase and headed for the door. Except he shut the door on her face and pulled her away.

“You can’t leave,” He warned. Khushi snatched her hand away from his.

“Or else?” She challenged.

“You know what I’m capable of,” His mouth hardened into its cruel, familiar straight line. And Khushi’s heart broke, again.

“Every single fucking time,” Khushi swore and threw her bag to the floor, angry tears rolled down her cheeks. Arnav faltered, his grip on the door loosening.

“Khushi main-” Khushi stopped him and stepped away.

“Enough Arnav. Main kya? You didn’t mean what you said? Didn’t mean to hold my hand hard enough to hurt? Didn’t mean to bring up the past? Didn’t mean to break my heart?” Khushi folded her arms, analyzing his face.

“But it still hurts. And you do nothing to fix it. I wonder, where does this come from?”

“I don’t want you to leave me.” He said.

“I didn’t leave you when things were worse, when you couldn't stand being in the same room as me-” And despite the years, the memories filled Arnav with guilt and Khushi with pain. He looked away, unable to meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” His voice had lost its strength, “I wish I could change-”

“Hume uss baat se koi farak nahi padta. I have never asked you for an explanation or your regret. I’ve left these behind. But you haven't. Your habits haven't.” Khushi wiped her tears, struggling to keep her composure.

“You know, let’s talk about this. Because I’ve heard all of this before and we never really addressed how you broke my heart. And the fact that you can say all this despite all the therapy we've been to...”

Arnav sank into the green chaise, head in his hands. Khushi, always having the bigger heart, kneeled by him and grabbed his face. He was crying. Her heart truly broke.

“Talk to me Arnav. Why do you say these things? It’s been so long, and trust me when you shut the door and grab me I still get scared, it still breaks my heart despite everything. It will never be okay-”

Arnav held her hand, whispering his sorries to her.

“And what do you mean by ‘my sister’. Don’t you know how long it took me to make this family my own. Arnav, my world changed overnight. You know this. Tumhara, mera... you make me feel like this is not mine. That this house, this-”

“No Khushi, everything is yours. Yeh ghar, Di, main-” He choked.

“Then why do you work so hard to push me away? I know you're concerned for Di, even I was first worried when I learned she liked Aman ji. But she's happy with him.” Khushi said.

“I can’t... Di was happy with Shyam. I can't see her go through pain again, when I know that I could've prevented it.” Arnav confessed.

“Arnav, things would've hurt irrespective of everything we did. Or maybe because of it. The problem was not that we couldn't protect her, it’s that we took away her choice. Our decision to tell her the truth depended on it our convenience to lie about him.” Arnav agreed.

“And Aman ji is different. You know him for twelve years and if he turns out terrible despite that, then we’ll support Di the best we can and murder him.” Khushi cracked a smile and Arnav chuckled.

“I’m sorry Khushi,” He said, wiping her tear away.

“You should be. I mean, yes, I should've known better about trusting a man who didn't hesitate to kidnap you-” Arnav tsked at her.

“You were barely in your twenties. I shouldn't have brought that up.” He huffed.

“But you did.” She smiled sadly. Arnav stopped himself from saying 'I didn't mean to'. If he didn't, he shouldn't have. So he attempted at pouring his heart, saying things he meant.

He often resorted to pulling people’s mistakes when they made a decision without his input to prove they can't always make the right choice.

“Because I believe I’m the only one who can take the right decisions for everyone...” Arnav scoffed at the irony of his sentence. There were times when he had succeeded but despite his best efforts he did hurt Khushi where it hurt most.

"I always think it’s right to use any means to stop you from leaving me, especially after a fight. Cause I think I’ll fix everything later, as long as you're in front of me.” He confessed.

“Except it fixes nothing. It just... Arnav I feel like I have to cut a part of myself to be with you after such things because I love you, I love you so much that I can’t bear to not love you. Aur aise harkatein ke baad... it gets difficult to love you.” Khushi began to cry.

“It kills me to not be able to love you.” Arnav kissed her forehead, holding her tight in his arms. Her sobs racked against his chest, breaking his heart to two.

“Khushi please don’t... how can I fix this? I feel like any sorry isn't enough.”

“Let’s talk. Like this, always.” Khushi sniffled. Arnav nodded, pressing another kiss to the top of her head.

“And... if I want to leave,” Arnav’s grip tightened, “know that I’m always coming back. Except I just need space to process things.” Khushi broke the hug, and caressed his cheek.

“Ok, I’ll tell Mohan to drive you to Bua ji’s. I won't- can’t, you know I won't be able to leave you there.” Arnav smiled, holding her hand against his cheek.

“I’ll talk to Di about everything and we’ll work on this.” He pointed to themselves. Everything was worth a shot.

“And I will never keep anything from you.” She promised, acknowledging her own mistake.

“Ab jao, otherwise I won’t let you go.” Arnav turned away, dismissing her. Khushi pressed the most loving, forgiving kiss against his cheek and left for Bua ji’s.

---

Aman and Anjali watched Khushi leave for Bua ji’s. She had and bid everyone goodbye - Aarav choosing to stay home, afraid of the cheek pulling at Lakshminagar. But promised to FaceTime his mum at every single minute.

Arnav, had not come down to see her off. Anjali was worried sick. Aman tried to placate her.

“Aman, you have no idea the problems Chote and Khushi faced because of my first marriage. I did not... I always ruin everything. My blind faith nearly destroyed my brother’s happiness and yet again-” Aman placed his finger against Anjali’s lips, shushing her effectively.

“No Anjali. You are not responsible for ASR and Khushi bhabhi’s lives. Your faith in your husband was admirable. If the narrative was different, you would've been lauded for your trust in him. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.” Anjali didn’t agree. Aman grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close.

“Anjali, look at me. Take deep breaths. Ab, listen. Yes, you affect ASR’s life - why wouldn't you, he's your brother, your support, your heart. But whatever happens in his life is a result of his actions. Same applies for Khushi bhabhi. Yes, they might have fought regarding us, but not because of it.”

“But Aman-”

“No buts, if we were to break up - because, of course, ASR affects your life too - would you hate ASR?” This time Anjali grabbed Aman’s shoulders in response to his questions.

“I would never hate my brother Aman Mathur. And no matter how much I love him, I would speak to him but not give up on you like that.” If they were not in  Shantivan, Aman would’ve kissed her senseless on the spot.

“It’s taken me a lot to fall in love, and I’m not going to change that-”

“Then that resolves everything Di.” Aman and Anjali jumped apart on finding Arnav leaning against a wall, a soft smile playing on his lips. These few minutes said a lot about Aman and Anjali’s relationship that he wouldn’t have been able to have assessed without a calm mind.

“Chote.” Anjali nearly ran into her brother’s arms. Arnav hugged her tight, happy and relieved at the same time.

“It’s ok Di. First of all, as Aman said, you’re not responsible for anything. Everything will be fine between Khushi and me. And next time, you can tell your brother everything, I wouldn’t sack Aman for being your boyfriend... even if I’m tempted to.” Anjali pushed him against his shoulder and the siblings grinned.

“Thank you Chote. This means the world to me.” Aman smiled affectionately at the duo.

“There’s nothing to thank me. It is your life. But if Aman hurts you-”

“-then feel free to do anything with him.” Anjali quipped.

“Precisely. Even Khushi is on board with murder.”

“Do you both realize I am here.” Aman cleared his throat.

“Yeah, that saves me the time to separately give the shovel talk. You are truly efficient Aman.” Anjali laughed and headed towards Aman, who was more than happy to receive the threats.

He was officially welcomed to the Raizada's.

---

Madhumati and Garima had long learned what interference could cost in both, Khushi and Payal’s lives. With Shashi’s recovery they realized that if they had let both the daughters take decisions they saw fit, a lot of misunderstandings would've been avoided.

So when Khushi arrived with her bag and a call came from Payal apprising the Guptas of the situation at home, the Guptas needed no answers from Khushi nor were in a hurry to send her to Shantivan.

For this home would always remain as Khushi’s.

Madhumati didn’t prod about the untouched jalebis (although she did have a good mind to use her belan on her beloved damaad), Garima busied herself with her hour long chats with her grandson on the phone and Shashi gave Khushi the space to talk.

Time definitely allowed healing and perspective.

---

It was one of those days when Arnav was restless. Neither tending his plants nor working gave him relief. Perhaps it was because there were three more days for Khushi to come home?

He paced across every square inch of his mansion - the Prakashes and Raizada's knowing well to steer clear from Pacing Singh Raizada.

“Wassup Nannav? Missing Khushi bhabhi? You want me to send her a message? I’m heading there to grab some samosas.” NK grinned, as if he hadn't seen his cousin pining for Khushi in the past four days.

“Nothing.” Arnav gritted. He knew therapy was working. If not, NK would’ve been six feet under. And maybe Lavanya would’ve murdered him for it, but that was a small price to pay.

“Everything’s alright Chote?” Anjali stepped in, slapping NK behind his head.

“Yes Di, I ju-” Arnav stopped. The air sweetened, goosebumps broke and a sudden wind hit him. Oh, it was one of those days.

“Chote-”

“Nannav,”

Arnav ignored them and walked towards the door, nearly running by the end of it.

There was Khushi, in a red salwar kameez, house keys in hand.

They looked at each other as a strong breeze washed over them. A few strands of her hair flew and she softly smiled, before her chin wobbled and a sheen of tears betrayed her joy of coming home.

Oh, the one to cry at the drop of a hat!

Khushi ran up the few steps and nearly jumped into his arms as he engulfed her in his embrace. They remained in the intimate hug, sharing a few discreet kisses and whispered promises, oblivious to the audience.

“Di, how does Nannav always know when Khushi ji’s home?” NK asked.

“Old habits NK bhai, puraani aadatein.” Anjali smiled.

---

A/N: This was the longest CSD one shot! Here's your slice of angst but happily ever after - just let's say I was in one of those moods.

Choti Si Duniya is going to be a series of one shots of Arnav & Khushi’s life post the end of the show. These are going to be snippets inspired by certain gifs. I hope you liked it - do share your views!

[sons-of-the-morning-star]

DISCLAIMER FOR ANY SENSITIVE READERS: This series is going to deal with heavy topics like abandonment, death, guilt, grief, and a lot of other stuff; this first chapter in particular is probably going to be pretty heavy for the same reason.

I will be writing this is present tense and will be constantly be saying, "if this was a show, this would happen or this is what we see," both because I originally thought of it as a show and because this is a screenplay, but more narratively cohesive.

Got that? GREAT!!!

Let's dive in!!!!!!!!!

Chapter/Episode 1: Union- Part 1

We start off in darkness with the sound of crackling fire in the background. One by one, a red light shines and silhouettes five figures, all standing in a circle as they face each other. If this was a show, the camera would be behind one of these figures as he and the other figures eye each other.

He starts a fire in his hand and two figures bristle while the other two back away-

An alarm clock blares out and we cut to a dark bedroom in a hotel suite, like the sound of the alarm woke US up, along with the character sleeping, who groans as his alarm keeps blaring.

After MAYBE the fifth chime, he sighs and slaps the alarm clock off, his arm slipping down his nightstand and droppong to the side of his bed.

His hand curls into a fist as the door is knocked on.

"Mr. Wagner? Are you awake yet?"

Yes! We start with our boy Lucius Wagner!

Lucius loudly humms, "Mm-hm" and sits up.

"You have an interview at nine', a meeting at a quarter to noon, and a conference at five'. Looks like another busy day."

He hears the person- man, woman, it doesn't matter- walk away and stands up from his bed to pull the curtain to his room back only to wince when the light hits his face.

It's too early for the sun to be so bright.

Despite being tired and not wanting to write to people because he can't talk, Lucius gets ready for his day.

Back to what we'd see if this was a show: the camera would be on Lucius as he stares out at the city before he takes a deep breath and turns away. Jump cut to the camera behind and away from Lucius as he turns and walks to the bathroom, turning on the TV before he starts getting ready, more specifically the news.

The camera stays on the TV as we learn Lucius, despite his young age of 22, is running for senator just like his human father did, but he is more successful because not only has crime rate already decreased, but any political opponents he goes against stepped down within minutes of the debate or conference he's in. With no evidence of bribery or any other scandal involved, as criminals are being found dead, one being brought up in todays broadcadt, Lucius is on his way to becoming Sentator of not only Massachusetts, but of the United States as a whole.

We do a transition from Lucius's room to the scene where the camera zooms in on the TV screen as it shows a body under a blanket and we hear the click of a camera and the lens shutters close and open.

On the streets, we now follow Damien Thorn as he gets as close as he can to the scene and the body. He has been investigating these 'accidents' since the arrival of everyone's favorite new politician, who has never spoken a word on camera, never said anything to or against his opponents, and never spoke during interviews. And somehow he's running for senator. Since it seems fishy to him, and because he keeps getting a sick feeling in his stomach when he sees Lucius on the news, he decided to start digging by tracing the criminals who have died and anyone who stepped down from conferences.

The body he is investigating today is a fisher from the town Lucius grew up in, who was charged for numerous cases of assault and fraud.

He is stopped by a police officer when he tries to cross the police tape.

"Sorry, that's close enough."

"It's for the paper. People want to know what's going on."

"They don't need to see this."

Damien scowls as his eyes go black, uttering a "sorry" as he stares the officer down.

The officer's face goes expressionless and just as he lifts the tape, the announcer gets a breaking report.

"This just in! An earthquake near the United Kingdoms has caused the south western quarter of England and Wales to be flooded and taken out to sea!"

Cut back to Lucius in his room as he chokes and gags on his toothbrush; if you've ever hit the back of your tongue while brushing your teeth, you'll get why he gags. He walks out, mouth kind of full of toothpaste and his toothbrush in his teeth, and sees an over head view of the map, showing just how much of England has been wiped out.

For context, here is what was taken out, circled in red⬇️⬇️

Lucius's eyes widen as he takes out his toothbrush.

I'm not good with fractions, but a third or fifth of England is now gone. And-

"While it is right now unknown how many are injured or missing, authorities have reported countless victims were lost in the catastrophe."

Lucius turns off the TV and finishes getting ready, a time jump/transition of Lucius going to the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste and then transitioning to him looking up from washing his face, like he leans down to spit out the toothpaste wearing no shirt and with some shower head, but when he leans back up, he's in a black dress shirt, about to tie his tie, his hair is tidy, and he is rubbing his face dry with a towel.

Part of England gone. Just like that.

It's a pretty shocking thing to imagine, with possibly hundreds or thousands of people being wiped out in the blink of an eye and the cause somehow being an earthquake.

Seems sort of fishy, if you ask me.

Lucius tries shrugging it off as he leaves his room, dressed to impress, and heads out for breakfast and his interview.

Cut to a pair of men walking on the sidewalk, the white-blonde haired one panicked and finicky while his red haired partner is swaggering beside him with a briefcase. The more brightly dressed man keeps "oh"-ing and whimpering , which is driving his more darkly attired kind of insane.

An angel and a demon.

If you've seen Good Omens, you KNOW who there two are

"Angel, stop muttering. You sound like you're summoning Satan himself."

"What if we can't find him? And what if he says 'no?'"

"We'll make him say 'yes.'"

Aziraphale looks down at the briefcase and then nods.

"And just how are we going to find him?"

"We found the antichrist once. We can find him again."

Aziraphale stops and gives him a withering look.

"Another one. We can find another one."

SPEAKING OF THE DEVIL'S SON!!!

Just as the two continue, they bump into a certain photographer that makes Aziraphale shudder like he's just gotten into an ice bath and Crowley smell either blood or smoke.

This wasn't what Crowley had in mind, but it's a start.

"Oi! 'Scuse me!"

Damien turns as he keeps walking. "Sorry, I have to hurry to..."

Aziraphale now starts trembling and Damien gets a sick feeling in his stomach, not like with seeing Lucius, like he has an air bubble in his stomach or really bad period cramps.

Crowley narrows his eyes behind his sunglasses and steps closer.

"Where you off to so quickly?"

Damien fights a gag as he continues to back away. "I-Interview. Wagner's see-seeing someone. Im-Important for the news."

Crowley steps closer and pulls Damien close by his color, making Damien pale and fall to his knees.

"Lucius Wagner?"

Damien nods.

Aziraphale and Crowley exchange glances before looking back at Damien, Aziraphale taking the briefcase away so Damien can recompose himself.

Cut to Lucius in the middle of his interview, which is being recorded on the news. So far he has been asked the basic political questions and he gave the correct answers to get people to love him. Then comes in ANOTHER breaking news report.

Part of California, Arizona, and New Mexico has also been flooded, but there aren't as many people missing as England.

"Mr. Wagner? How do you see yourself helping the families that are now broken by this tragedy?"

Before Lucius can answer, two people catch his eye.

Like when Damien saw him, Lucius gets a sick feeling in his stomach until he sees two young men, one scowling with wavy blond hair and the other with brown hair and the giddiest smile on a boy.

Suddenly, a member of the crowd pulls a gun out and shoots at Lucius, who throws himself and the woman he's interviewing with to the ground.

The blond smirks and the brunette grows angry.

The shooter gets a look of pure despair on his face as he drops to his knees letting the police drag him away.

Lucius is escorted away instead gets a call.

His schedule has changed completely. He must now go a military base, where a private jet is waiting for him to take him home; his address is classified to the public, so no one knows where he lives.

Cut to Lucius walking through a crowd as he tries to get to his jet, trying his best to wave at the paparazzi and camera people.

"Mr. Wagner, if you'll let me ask you-"

The man who asked grabs Lucius's arm and the two meet eyes. You know that part of the forst Lucius game where time freezes and you see your target with the screen tinted red? Lucius and Damien met eyes and time freezes entirely as they stare at each other and feel the growing urge to kill each other.

They don't hear anyone or anything. They only see each other.

Both are wide eyed as they realize who or what the other is and glare at each other.

Luckily, a body guard punches Damien away and helps Lucius to the jet, where he takes his seat and lets out a breath as he loosens his tie and tips his head back.

"So sorry for all that, Mr. Wagner, sir."

Lucius looks over to see someone like an air flight attendant and writes them a message.

'Don't worry about it. I've had worse happen.'

"Well, at least you're headong home, after all this."

Lucius nods and leans back once more, getting comfortable for his flight to home sweet home.

It's a relatively short flight, mostly because we'd see a timelapse of the sky and Lucius napping in his seat before we cut to him in his house.

Being a senator in the running, Lucius is on a very nice house, one he keeps clean and well furnished. Think Lucifer's penthouse in the shiw Licifer, but it's an actual house and doesn't have a wall of alcohol, just a small cabinet in his parlor and shelf in his fridge.

He turns on a light and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Crowley sitting in his living room.

"Hello, Me. Wagner. Nice flight?"

Lucius recomposes himself and raises an eyebrow as he holds a hand out. 'How did you get in here?'

"Just a bit of miracle work from a demon. Takes one to know one, right?"

Lucius takes a seat as he writes a message, showing it to Crowley with narrow eyes.

'I don't exactly know who you are, but you don't have the right to make an accusation like that.'

"You're one of the sons of Satan, I'm pretty sure I do."

'My father was Charles Wagner.'

"Ah, yes, the loon that killed your mother and his own staff while you were sent to the nut house."

'He tried to kill me.'

"Eye for an eye, you prat."

Lucius's eye twitches as he snaps his pen in half, eyes going red.

Crowley only smirks and removes his sunglasses, revealing his snake eyes, befire putting them back on; the lights Lucius has are bright.

Lucius settles and grabs another pen from the coffee table and writes a new message.

'Antony J. Crowley? It's about time London's famed has paid the US a visit.'

"You would think." Crowley leans forward until his elbiws are on his knees. "Look, you're not going to like this, but there's something we need your help with."

Lucius gets up and shakes his head before leaving a messge on the table, and to go the the kitchen to get a drink; like hell he's dealing with CROWLEY sober.

'I don't know if you've noticed, but I have a country I'll be running soon. I don't exactly have time to help you or your pet angel.'

Crowley snarls and follows Lucius to see the young man about to take a sip of a drink.

"Don't you think it's weird that parts of England and America are just gone? That the ocean just took them away and an earthquake was the cause?"

Lucius pauses and lowers his drink slightly, eyes on Crowley as he nods and gestures for the snake eyed demon to continue.

'I'm listening.'

And that will be it for part 1 of Chapter/Episode 1!!!! Man, was this fun to write!!!! Like I said, this is just part 1 and I will be continuing with Chapter/Episode 1 Part 2, I promise!

Sorry for all the yelling, I'm really excited!!

Thank you all so much for reading this and I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season!!!

[may-shepard]

"You don't tell John"

Currently freaking out about @monikakrasnorada’s td12 meta, on the heels of @shamelessmash’s tld extravaganza, absolutely entranced over @221bloodnun​’s work on The Woman in Green, and still alarmed and concerned about Doyle’s The Parasite as an s4 intertext.

Is there a mind control theme running through BBC Sherlock, that is lowkey coming to fruition in s4?

Further thoughts on @monikakrasnorada’s idea about the hospital scene in hlv:

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If we read Mary’s words as mind control / hypnotic suggestion, then Sherlock is being programmed here not to tell John that she shot him.  

Does the theory wash?

Well, let’s take some gun surgery to the chest a stab at it and see.

The scene ends in a rather strange fashion, with another close-up on Mary’s face:

Sherlock’s eyes drifting shut:

And then him waking up with an apparent gap in time:

We never do get an answer to the question of whether he promised not to tell John, or what he said to Mary, if anything. We get the scene with Janine, and then, the moment Janine leaves, he retreats into mind palace to try to figure Mary out, or so it seems. He starts with this:

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Mary at her most Woman-in-Greenish. He tries to deduce her, but he gets the smokescreen, the fact of the lie, the cloud of “liar” floating around her. 

There are many potential reasons for this, but what if he can’t get further because she’s put the whammy on him? And what about “you don’t tell John,” which is still first in his thoughts when he conjures up Mary?

Has he told John? Has he tried? A partial answer in the next moment, as John fills Lestrade in on how Sherlock’s doing:

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Sherlock has said nothing coherent, apparently, which is...really strange, especially since he was perfectly articulate when talking to Janine.

Also, does this sound like Sherlock to you? The man who was so high off his tits in tld that the room was literally turning around him, but he could still recite a speech from Henry V? 

What if he’s tried telling John, and he can’t?

After Sherlock escapes from the hospital and we have the bolthole montage, there’s this:

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The scene leads us to believe that Sherlock is protecting John from the truth. Or, if you’re into this sort of thing, he’s protecting Mary (barf) by setting up a confrontation where she’ll be forced to agree to be a client (barf). The narrative implies one or the other. 

BUT does it?

What if Sherlock is doing everything he can to tell John what’s going on, planting clues, and setting up a sting operation in which Mary will reveal the truth, because it’s the only way he can let John in on what happened? What if he’s risking his life to convey this urgent information to John, because he can’t use the words?

Here are a few things Sherlock says during the confrontation at Leinster Gardens (via Ariane de Vere’s transcript):

SHERLOCK (over phone): Only the very front section of the house remains. It’s just a façade. (He draws in a breath.) Remind you of anyone, Mary? A façade.

...

SHERLOCK (over phone): Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972. Her gravestone is in Chiswick Cemetery where – five years ago – you acquired her name and date of birth and thereafter her identity. (She starts walking slowly along the corridor.) SHERLOCK (over phone): That’s why you don’t have ‘friends’ from before that date.

[so he’s been doing research, and he can reveal that she has been living a lie, but what about that central truth? That she’s the one who shot him?]

SHERLOCK (over phone): It’s an old enough technique, known to the kinds of people who can recognise a skip-code on sight ..

[he knows what sort of person she is, but will he say it? that she shot him?]

SHERLOCK (over phone): How good a shot are you? (She reaches inside her coat, pulls out her pistol and cocks it, holding it down by her side.) MARY: How badly do you want to find out? SHERLOCK (over phone): If I die here, my body will be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it. Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that.

[Certainly this is enough for John, sitting at the end of the corridor with his hair all floofed out, to figure out what’s going on. Between the two of them, Mary and Sherlock have already told Sherlock that she shot him, by implication, kind of sort of. I wonder if that’s enough to break the spell? Still, Sherlock never says it directly. Instead:]

(She nods her agreement, still looking towards the shadowed figure at the end of the corridor. She can see one side of the popped coat collar protruding out of the shadows.) SHERLOCK (over phone): I want to know how good you are. (Softly, encouragingly) Go on. Show me. The doctor’s wife must be a little bit bored by now.

[the business with shooting the coin]

SHERLOCK: And yet, over a distance of six feet, you failed to make a kill shot. (He holds the coin up to show the hole shot through it. He looks like hell – shaky on his feet, sweating and breathing heavily as he continues talking.) SHERLOCK: Enough to hospitalise me; not enough to kill me. That wasn’t a miss. (He smiles slightly.) SHERLOCK: That was surgery.

Okay. He comes very close to saying that she shot him. He implies it. But it’s not a direct statement. 

Previously, I always read the Leinster Gardens deal as Sherlock (for some reason) feeling like it would be somehow be more convincing or effective for Mary to reveal herself. I understood the whole setup as some way for him to involve Mary in the scene, so that John would believe it, or maybe so Sherlock would be there to do some sort of damage control. I was filling in the blanks with a story that made the most sense to me. 

What if it’s much simpler than that?

What if Sherlock didn’t tell John because he couldn’t, because Mary programmed him not to?

Later, during the Watsons domestic, Sherlock again does not directly say that Mary shot him. He talks around it, in the hypothetical:

SHERLOCK (looking at Mary): When I happened on you and Magnussen ... (He takes a couple of noisy, strained breaths, bracing his hands on the arms of his chair.) SHERLOCK: ... you had a problem. (The camera pulls back across the floor of the living room towards the door.) SHERLOCK (offscreen): More specifically, you had a witness.

...

SHERLOCK (voiceover): The solution, of course, was simple. Kill us both and leave. ... SHERLOCK (in 221B in the present): However, sentiment got the better of you... One precisely-calculated shot to incapacitate me ...in the hope that it would bide you more time to negotiate my silence.

And then follows that stuff about her saving him (barf). (I would love it if this were also a result of hypnosis and mind control...because YUCK.)

Sherlock’s speaking much more directly about the shooting, but the cat is rather out of the bag at this point, anyway? Sherlock didn’t tell, but John knows, so there’s a bit more wiggle room? Maybe?

To sum up, a possible reading of this part of hlv is that Mary uses some kind of mind control mojo to seal Sherlock’s lips, but he undoes that spell by working around it. He sets up an elaborate scene in which Mary will basically confess to having done the deed herself, meaning that Sherlock doesn’t have to do it. Once what’s happened becomes clear to John, it loosens the hold of the mind control mojo on Sherlock, so that he can talk about the shooting a bit more directly, although he never states the bald fact of the matter. It’s John who does that: 

JOHN (quietly): She shot you. (Sherlock pulls a face, half-nodding his agreement.) SHERLOCK: Er, mixed messages, I grant you. 

I give you Mr. Punchline, who always has the last word...he seems a bit confused still, doesn’t he?

[Question: There is that weird light effect, like a ceiling fan deal, going on in the hospital  threat / mind control scene between Mary and Sherlock. Someone, in a meta I cannot for the life of me find now, noted that that same effect appears at some point during s4? Anyone know? Could be important.]