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draconicfaenerd · 4 years

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Obey Me Theory: In Which God is an Asshole and Solomon Might be a Good Guy?

Okay, here’s the deal. I have way too much time on my hands at the moment and was suddenly struck with inspiration, so I decided to cook up a little theory of my own.

Well, not so little. I’ve been writing this over the last few days, and this turned into something bigger than I was expecting.

Alright, here we go.

One of the great mysteries of this game: who the fuck wrote the whole Tale of the Seven Lords series? I mean, it foreshadows so much of the game’s plot twists that it’s absolutely insane! My initial thought was that Barbatos wrote it, especially since he’s the one who has a bunch of time travel/timeline powers that are, frankly, quite frightening. However, this theory leaves one gaping plot hole: how does Simeon know what’s gonna happen in the upcoming volume? Even Mammon and Satan take note of the fact that they have no idea why Simeon would know something like that. Who besides Barbatos could possibly have the power to see the future? Given this game’s penchant for foreshadowing, this is undoubtedly an important question we need to ask ourselves.

And I’d like to make you think about something as you answer that question.

While we know a fair bit about Barbatos’s power, we know practically nothing about the angels’ powers. Surely it doesn’t make sense that the demons have access to this wild reality-bending power that the angels don’t. Unless they actually do. How is this possible? Well, I turn to my knowledge of Christianity for this part of the theory.

According to many people’s interpretation of Judaism and Christianity, God is supposed to be an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing entity. He knows anything and everything that has happened, is happening, and can/will happen in the future. Additionally, He can set everything up so that events happen according to His plan. Pretty difficult to go up against, right? Now, granted, we don’t know a lot about the game’s interpretation of God (yet); there are enough twists on Biblical canon that it is difficult to determine what direction this is going to go in. However, I do expect that God is supposed to be a ridiculously powerful character in-game; maybe as powerful as (or even more so than) Barbatos.

Side note: However, he is not all-powerful, and here’s how I know: he wasn’t able to just erase Lilith. Yes, I’m sure he was powerful enough to kill her, but not so powerful that he could just kill her immediately free of consequences.

But more on this later; now back to my original point. God is the author of TSL. Or, at the very least, is the divine inspiration behind it (where one of the angels or a specifically chosen human is the one to transcribe it). This explains why an angel such as Simeon would have knowledge of the upcoming plot. Another piece of evidence to back up my point: exposure to divinity. One point that pops up a few times in the Bible is the idea that anyone/anything who comes too close to God’s presence directly will perish. A couple of examples of this are the burning bush that Moses faces and the Ark of the Covenant which the Israelites are forbidden to touch. Now, you may be wondering what these examples have to do with Obey Me. The answer is simple: the TSL soundtrack. Remember why Lucifer was so interested in this soundtrack in the first place?

First off, a scene where the Lord of Corruption places a curse on the heroes? I have a few thoughts on that, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. What I’d like to focus on is the mysterious composer and the people who die surrounding the soundtrack. Lucifer tells us on our final night in the Devildom that the record isn’t actually cursed:

But. Well. I don’t trust that. He’s (probably) not purposefully lying to us, but I don’t think this can be a coincidence. I think that TSL was divinely inspired (along with its soundtrack) and for some reason, this particular soundtrack was too much for ordinary humans to handle (we know that MC isn’t ordinary because of their amount of hidden power that has been discussed; more on that later.)

So I’d like to bring up something else. Propaganda.

God has already spread copious amounts of propaganda about the brothers. Why do I say this? Well, I’m going off the assumption that the human world MC comes from is pretty similar to the human world that all of you readers (and me, obviously) live in. Why does this matter? Religious texts. There’s no denying that Judaism/Christian and their respective texts have greatly influenced the course of world history. Which means, in canon, those same texts no doubt exist in the Human Realm. Now, assuming they were “divinely inspired” (another assumption, but one that seems to make sense to me), a plethora of lies were told. First of all, many of these texts paint Lucifer (the Morningstar) as: the original Fallen Angel, The Devil, the Prince of Hell, and the reason why Sin and Death entered the world (meaning he was the one who tempted Eve). In Obey Me canon, Lucifer was the leader of the rebellion, yes, but he is very different from how he would be painted in Biblical texts. First of all, the Devildom was around for a very long time before the Fall (leading to questions on the true power of the realms, but more on that later). Furthermore, Diavolo and the Demon King are more of what we consider to be “the Devil”; sketchy motives aside (which I’ve discussed in other posts), they are the ones that have the final say in the Devildom’s affairs. Not Lucifer. Yes, the brothers might hold the titles and responsibilities of being the “Seven Rulers of Hell,” but ultimately their will is overridden by Diavolo’s. Additionally, I’d like to talk about that last point: sin and death. In the Bible, Lucifer brought sin and death into the world by tempting Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. However, in Obey Me canon, we know this is not the case; death existed long before the Fall. We know this because Lilith’s human lover was going to die, hence why she fed him forbidden food from the Celestial Realm. Then, God was going to have her erased and ultimately sparked the Rebellion against Him.

So. We know that God is plenty willing to pin plenty of shit on Lucifer. But other than causing an abnormal amount of daddy issues, what does this have to do with anything? Well, remember how I noted earlier with the TSL soundtrack that it was supposed to be used in a scene where the Lord of Corruption placed a curse on the heroes? Well, the Lord of Corruption represents Lucifer. So, given the game’s penchant for foreshadowing, it seems like Lucifer is going to place a curse on the heroes (forgive me for making yet another assumption, but I interpret MC and the brothers as the heroes). Given Lucifer’s love for his family (and later MC), this doesn’t really make any sense. My initial thought was that the whole attic debacle was the curse, but that doesn’t really make sense either. But. Remember what I just said about God pinning shit on Lucifer. What if God is the one planning to put a curse on the heroes? Just think about that for a bit, let it sink in.

Now, why would God place a curse on the heroes? We know that He and the angels were able to defeat the brothers before, so they could do so again if the need ever arose, right? And why place a curse on MC, an ordinary human?

Well, not-so-ordinary human.

Remember why Asmo made a pact with MC in the first place? Solomon talks to us about how everyone has magical power within them, and it manifests itself in some, but not in others (this is already suspicious as fuck to me that a power as strong as MC’s wouldn’t manifest itself, but our in-game knowledge of magic is vague enough that I’m not really gonna dance around that right now). Anyways, MC gets stuck with Mammon, Beel, and Levi in the underground labyrinth again, and they summon Asmo and draw out even more power than Solomon can. Pretty strange, right? Belphegor also alludes to MC’s great power with his whole “you have the power to control demons” speech.

So basically we have this incredible power. And, if I’m on the right track here, then we’re a threat to God. As I explain here, Lilith is the reason we were chosen for the exchange program in the first place. Additionally, when you meet her as you’re dying and you reply to her and ask her what she’s doing, she says this:

So… there’s a lot going on in her whole dialogue. Really. There’s so much to dissect. And frankly, I don’t think I can dissect it all. So for now, I’m going to focus on the snippets that stood out to me. “I’ve been waiting for so long, you see. I’ve been waiting for you to come find me.” Um, what? First of all, Lilith’s spirit has been around for several thousands of years, right? Granted, the Obey Me timeline isn’t super clear, but still. Even if Lilith has been waiting around for MC ever since their birth, MC is however old the player is (probably late teens or in their twenties since that’s the demographic the game is geared towards); but even if MC is supposed to be way older than that, their lifespan is a very short time compared to Lilith’s existence. Unless. Unless Lilith has been waiting for longer than MC is supposed to be alive. Unless Lilith knew that someone as powerful as MC would come into existence and… do whatever it is Lilith wants us to do. Still not completely sure about that. (Also take note that Lilith never tells us herself that MC is her descendant; make of that what you will).

Also, she says that she’s worried about all her brothers and tells us to “save them” and that she’ll “lend us her powers.” So at first, I thought she was worried about them emotionally, and that she wanted us to save them by serving as emotional support for them. But we didn’t need her for our consciousness to transfer, and Barbatos took care of our alternate self. So what did we need her power boost for? The answer: something that’s coming up in the future. What exactly? I’m not completely sure. But, I do know that Solomon has an idea of what it is, based on the text conversation with him right after leaving the Devildom.

Now, is it possible Solomon knows because of his pact with Barbatos? Yes, it absolutely is. I know that I’ve said time and time again that Solomon’s pact with Barbatos is going to prove to be crucial in future chapters, and I still firmly believe that. However, if something is happening on the Celestial Realm side of things, Solomon has a connection there which would allow him to know the goings-on.

So for those of you who grew up in religious families, you probably remember a little bit about King Solomon; the “man after God’s own heart” (different translations may say something slightly different, but that’s the version most of us probably heard) who, when he had the chance to ask for one gift from God, chose to ask for wisdom. Now, many clues in-game point to show that there’s a good chance that this Solomon is supposed to be that very same guy. Such clues include his mystical powers and his many pacts, particularly his pact with Asmodeus. Now, remember when Solomon told us near the beginning of the game about the Ring of Wisdom he received? He never tells us about the mystery person who gave it to him, but I personally think he received it from God; since in Biblical canon God “gave him wisdom.” Additionally, remember how he talked about getting drunk off its power at first? That piece of information coincides with my earlier point about how exposure to divinity is difficult for humans to handle.

Also, remember that Solomon is a VERY big fan of TSL. (Enough to impress Levi, and enough that he has that super-rare pendant of the Lord of Corruption’s wing). So, given that God is probably the one behind the creation of this series, it stands to reason that his connection to God has something to do with this.

Additionally, while on the topic of Solomon, there is yet another chat (the one that he sends you on your birthday) that shows that he seems to be well aware of something that you, the player, are not:

As I’ve said before, this game really loves its foreshadowing. So, we’re definitely gonna have to save Solomon at some point: now, I know I’ve called him shady many times before, and he really truly is. But.

Maybe he’s not nearly as evil as I originally thought. He has helped us before, but it’s admittedly difficult to pin down his motives. However, if saving him is going to be necessary to the plot, then Solmare probably isn’t gonna make us rescue a bad guy. Emphasis on probably.

Also… he says “first birthday here in the Devildom”... which leads me to believe that MC will have many, many birthdays with the brothers to come in the future. So. Now that I’ve talked about Solomon, I’d like to talk about Luke.

He sends you a chat that opens up some pretty good insight into the whole situation:

Now, we know that Luke is pretty fond of MC, and we’re led to believe that Simeon cares about MC too; however, this whole “charm that attracts both demons and angels alike” doesn’t sit quite right with me. Now, yes, both the in-game angels care about MC, but that doesn’t seem to quite cover Luke’s statement. But what if… There are other angels that have taken an interest in MC? And I don’t mean romantically, I mean… what if one or more of them know about our power? As I said before, Lilith gave us a power boost for something that’s coming up in the future. Something big. And if MC truly has a special sort of charm that attracts demons and angels alike, they could prove to be very dangerous if, say, there were to be another power struggle between realms. But what does this all have to do with Luke anyways? Remember who Luke works for? Michael. Yes, that’s right, the Archangel Michael. Probably the most powerful angel in all of the Celestial Realm. What does this have to do with anything? Well, after the exchange program ends, the higher-ranked angels (including Michael) are no doubt going to want reports of everything that happened during the exchange program… including information about MC. And really, who better to ask that information from than someone as utterly devoted to Michael himself as we’ve seen Luke is?

And if this is the case… Michael will probably hand all of that information right over to God. Given how the Obey Me God seems to be, this is not good news for MC or the brothers.

Now. Just because we can’t trust God doesn’t mean we should go blindly trusting Diavolo and Barbatos either. In fact, @phairfantooooom does a phenomenal job here explaining just how sketchy and terrifying they really are. Maybe I’ll have more of my own comments to add later if the mood strikes me, but for now I’m gonna leave it at that.

One final word: MC is being used as a pawn in a grander game between the realms for which they have no idea how to play, but they better figure it out fast.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’m losing my mind during quarantine and I really just want the sexy, shady sorcerer to not be a bad guy.

We’ll see. So... what do you all make of this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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captainkurosolaire · 3 years

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Heavy Ammunition

Undone from defeat the Ser now turned into a nightmarish knight of a chipped skull. Began moving his lower-extremities. All them prone and wheezing or unconscious. Silv’a stayed above. Like he always was anyway in his viewing beliefs. Glowering with resentment at Judas. Animosity laid with that one the most of all. If his older age and wisdom didn’t act on intuition his plan would all be foiled. By the most plain of the lot. Execution was being readied to be served up as the thawed bone’s arm began skeletal functioning between.

“Shalt have to disagree with you most unpleasantly. O’ dread, I beseech you to meet red-comet. Often fate can sting like a piercing hornet.” A lute played in string. Before a rocketing crimson-lance of bottom hilt flashfire swept over and sent the puppeted knight being attached and stuck to the wall from impalement. With such a terrifying might.

An obnoxious laughter of jolly a battle-thirstier. As a Roe came inbound following suit with thuds of heaviness. “It’s so difficult to watch my strength within this dinky little hole.” Even though the chamber’s were massive the building wouldn’t be able to contest with his fire which was unfortunately too risky to use with allies. The last squadron of the Crew showed up in a pair five. A lalafell brought in a beach chair and propped it down and sat down just drinking her juice. Now the reinforced firepower had arrived. Facepalming while enthusiastically screaming Silv’a “Really more?!!?! They just keep lining up to die!” Irritation was demonically being infused as his undoing. This Band of Gold was truly an annoying bunch. One falls another to take front and center. It actually benefited them that they were all distant apart and didn’t all arrive at once. The louder gallant voice of Roe heartily broke a shout, “Kid ya’ alive?” Captain mumbled between the floor. Gark quipped, “Kay.” He'd take that as enough. A viera hopped with a spiritedly step before leaping over and coming between the duo of Noble and Captain. “Sorry we’re late. Me-Me wanted a detour, she insisted… You know how it goes.” She bubbly said. The Lalafell kept slurping on her straw with the continent with a massive slurpee. That terrifying um, ‘little’ menace was quite possibly the most fearsome of all the mates. Don’t refer to her by any tiny stature or treat her as such. Captain just murmured <Mmm-hmm> trying to remind, of mortally bleeding out over here and in agony. The short Viera huffed her puffy cheeks before recognizing what she needed to do and began grabbing the duo by the wrists to drag into a corner away from the center again and get into obstruction. “I’ll have to decline you. Those sinners haven’t suffered enough. I’ve grown to want them to see me in succeeding with all this resistance, have a taste and join them would you!” An intense fire came hurling at the preoccupied bunny who’s pink hue sparked defenselessly. Water came raining and doused it effortlessly. Two prayer hands together came with a Sea-Maiden looking Roe woman now intervening. “Gark. I shall contend with the Caster, would you please rid the Knight?” A bone crackling thud of his own collar bone snapped out a muscle knot, “Gladly m’lady.” He’d chivalrously advance with clacks of chain-mail, draconic by the etching making. The material would make the most experienced blacksmith quite impressed. Right when Silv’a nearly cradled this end he foolishly met a dinging bell signaling this was still to begin. Among the Crew. There was a structure of power-hierarchy when it came to independence and also those who excelled better in support or team. Each matey held their own extreme weaknesses and flaws whether personality, or, ability. Some weren’t yet pushed or aware of them. Whilst others with their age nearly were incomprehensible with their battle prowess and room commandment. Far above even their own Captain escapades. Weak or strong it mattered little for the same course required all but the tentatively steer of all roles aboard that’s what ruled reign to spoil in all the hoards. Sheik Sphere jotted down this entertaining showdown for the records. Never losing his passion to share and kindle this with fellow passionate readers or to sing it among those of all. While he never combated harm. He had a unique unwavering charisma to avoid it personally remaining seen as too neutral. This was literature fascinating to savor! The matron Sea Wolf gingerly came advancing in against this most heinous. Her white-shark spectacles were softened with a brow. Almost showing pity for this demon. By some strange sensation she felt too eerily familiar as if something was buried beneath every depth of the surface. Trying to explore it would certainly risk drowning and being sunken to the bottomless sea. Her posing pray set him off, radiating apologies. His demonical outlook would handle this manner. One swift hand motion he’d unleash a wall of icy that rapidly drew forth her aspected water was meaningless to his mastery. While it may be true. Elastically watering the most manipulatively potent she stacked and built a tide large enough to withhold density and overly reach bigger heights than his initial walls. Closing her eyes. “Thine trencherman born salt to sea, I call upon thee, children of the deep!” Intense powerful glowering of her irises came as the ice and water connected, freezing at the surface and spreading rapidly. Before trident’s broke through as two conjured Sahagin Egi’s came bellowing out with their own glowing golden eyes. Their flipper leave the containment, and puncture the demon from midair in the shoulder each. One more elementally made, while the other was scale made and naturally. “Ravage thou land-savages who bring equal pain throughout the sea.” Each of them growing empowered by her boisterous wishes. “He who hurts until one welts, deserves the tide’s sweeping without remorse.” They kept piercing the demonical wizard over and over unrelentingly with a feverishness. His immortality made quite resilient. Organs constantly being gushingly punctured like tarp bait flapping over a boat. Each erupting step of blood from his puncturing and mouth.

He found wherewithal to grapple their trident’s and conduct electricity attempting to fry the Sahagin from the link as the one who was more watery based let go and vaporized it was rapidly reformulating. The scale seemed null too as it didn’t let up. Before lifting up the kabob pierced the treacherous foe and let him go upstream into the ceiling from a non relenting geyser. Pinned he was struggling to contend with this might, unable to get his counter in. Her magic didn’t grow weaker, it was continuously building up and getting more vast. She fearsome conveyed as a magnificent threat he identified. Ever overpowering wrath he began trying to loosen it but he wasn’t finding success. To attempt to resist the current was a foul law he wouldn’t find. He brought upon his ice only for the temperature of the water to become steaming hot. The Inside and entire body was screeching in boiling water. A merging water induced egi found it’s regeneration and binding into the same waters only able to reformulate acidic properties, make the water start melting flesh. Reaching out his fingers he’d point outwardly in the distance before a humongous fallen column pillar broken in half came wedging between him and the hard place and then engulfing the geyser’s source using telekinesis. Which gave destruction to the combined aetherial Egi. Shaking completely before charging at the other Scaly-Egi before the other could pursue. Grappling it’s face and soaring himself with a push of heel electrical aether he’d return that favor of being dismantled against the wall. A trident once again snagged into him and linked the duo close. Regeneration was slow because of the acid as equally contesting the forces. His own palm began to get the same from grappling the jaws of this beastkin. Flame came out of SIlv’a as a response as they would wager against each other two destructiveness. The trident began again creating a vortex of water trying to push and repel him away from the wall or once again setting Silv’a back but his demoniacal fury became even more enlarged and massively maddened. (Previous) << (Voidal Relics) >> (Next)

#creative writing #one day... we'll do every animation #FFXIV #dark fantasy #tw:violence #gif #Sheik Sphere #Bard #Chef #Quartermaster #Gremlin #The last of the roster #Gark #Slafhota Guhtgeim #Me-Me #Whyte #Immortal Age Saga

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co-habit-ation · 3 years

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Spill My Guts Won't Cha?

{TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR TORTURE AND BLOOD}

Jeff was woken from his spot beside Briar's bed by a firm shake. He stood from his spot, his eyes widened to meet his seeming attacker.

Painter raised his gloved hands to show he was unarmed. "HABIT requested you for questioning." With that stated he turned on his heels and slipped back out the dimly lit door. He turned back momentarily to face Jeff. "He's not going to be kind. Give him the truth, so he doesn't have to literally pull teeth."

The calm, detached way that Painter spoke oddly sparked his nerves more than the threat of torture. Though he wasn't close with the two loners that Puppeteer brought in. He knew the Painter voice was usually much more engaged even if it was usually lacking emotion.

Jeff followed after him, focused on the man's tight, stern demeanor. He had so many questions for his former ally, mostly about how he ended up as the keeper of HABIT's Horrors. But he kept his tongue chaste.

For right now he needed to focus on what HABIT would ask him. The demon was a true wild card here. One Jeff knew not how to play around.

He swallowed the bile in his throat. His best choice was to believe his own lies. Whatever he said he had to say it with all his confidence.

Painter opened a door to reveal a stereotypical interrogation room. On the chair facing the door sat HABIT. His hosts face was near split with a grin as he rested his chin on folded hands.

"Good to see you again. So how should I address you? All loving leader of the Horrors? Apathetic teen who just tried to do what he thought was right?" Even as it seemed impossible the demon's grin grew. "Murderer of hundreds of those who trusted you? The leader who left everyone to die as soon as it got too hard? Or how about just Slender's favorite disaster?"

Jeff stood in shock for a moment. He was expecting HABIT to go for the throat it seemed the demon aimed to tear apart Jeff's windpipe.

He only snapped back into his body when Painter nudged him. "Go sit."

Still in a daze Jeff complied. Once he was sat Painter slammed and locked the door. Which entirely woke the elder Horror from his shock.

"You never answered my question." HABIT prompted with a snap of his fingers. "What am I, a humble demon to call the heartless faux God of the Horrors?"

"You can call me Jeff." His eyes met HABIT's with a determined flare. He had ignore the lump that the taunts formed in his throat. Because he had to get back to his mates in one piece.

"Jeff its a bit informal." HABIT shrugged and winked at Jeff. "But I can deal with that. So let's get right to the meat of this meal. Why did you break into my town? Did you finally bend over, let the calamari fuck you into a proxy, and get ordered to spy on little old us?"

Jeff grit his teeth at the implications. His face turned a little pink as he fought through sickness to answer. "I came on my own."

HABIT tutted. "The first question was the important part Jeff. Try to stay on track," He lectured, a sadistic glint in his eyes. The demon's hand suddenly grabbed at a knife in his lap and struck through the uncuffed part of Jeff's wrist.

Jeff bit down on his tongue. The sudden searing pain momentarily blurring his vision. He grabbed for HABIT's hand only to have the demon drag the knife up his arm.

The Horror let out a strained breath. It wasn't as terrible as the initial cut but it still stung inside of his arm.

"Answer the question and I'll take it out Jeff."

"I broke in because there were rumors." Jeff stared into HABIT's purple eyes, he had to make it convincing. He had one shot. He spat out the next part as though HABIT had truly squeezed a hidden truth from him. "There were rumors about you leading out here. Eyeless Jack said you were dead. So I wanted to see if you were really gone."

His heart pounced from his chest when HABIT suddenly began to cackle.

"That's so cute!" Jeff felt his mouth dry as HABIT continued his laugh. "They really thought I was dead!"

The interrogatee felt his tension diffuse, If only slightly. It seemed for the most part the demon believed him. He took the knife from Jeff's arm before he slammed it into the other.

"Its also cute how you think I'd buy that bullshit. Sure, a demon like Jacky would be interested in me or someone who actually knows my past. But you're a lowly human turned Horror. What care could you have about a demon legend?" He scoffed at Jeff. "Especially one far up north from your Warren."

The rabbit demon spat through touching teeth. "Now you're going to tell me the truth in the next twelve seconds." His voice distorted ever so slightly with a growl. "Or I'm going to see how far I can fit your own arm up your ass."

#habit emh #jeff the killer #{author}#tw torture #tw gore #tw blood

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tatyana-dreaming · 3 years

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thoughts on Il Trovatore, pt 2

so, upon revisiting Il Trovatore and listening to it almost exclusively for over a month now, I’ve made some observations.... and also revised my initial reaction of “YOU’RE CANCELLED!!” re: the plot and characters

First, I’ll address what I find the most disturbing: of course, the whole burning people thing. I don’t even have the energy to go into the whole “wrong kid” plot point, because... yeah, nope. (Although “this is your brain on trauma” could actually be a valid explanation of that, if we want to go there.) But you know what, the sad truth is that people have done this shit to other people (and especially women/witches) for ages and especially in the original setting of this story, so it’s only being historically accurate, which I can respect. Kind of along the lines of respecting that Carmen is murdered in her respective opera; it represents a truth in the world (as long as it’s not done in a way in which that behavior is condoned).

What I still have a problem with is Azucena’s label of “Gypsy” (her mother as well) and the inevitable negativity/villainous narrative that comes along with that, which has always been and continues to be harmful to Roma people. No amount of sympathizing with Azucena and her mother (and I believe we are SUPPOSED to sympathize with them!! If you don’t... I won’t even go there.. that’s like watching Carmen and going “good, she’s dead now”) rids us of the fact they are still villains* (or, at least in the case of her mom, a criminal/intruder) and we know how harmful that narrative can be when applied to entire groups of people. Anyways. It is what is is, but as long as we can acknowledge it and spark discourse, I’m satisfied. This was also 1853 and the story was even older, so. Context + Critical Thinking.

*oh yeah, by the way - is it pretty clear that Azucena was behind di Luna finally killing Manrico?? The first time I saw it, I really thought she was a) just flat out psychotic but also b) really a loving mother who didn’t want her ‘son’ to be harmed, but seeing it again and then learning how the opera was originally to be named ‘The Gypsy,’ I got the impression maybe she had orchestrated Act 3/4 to happen the way they did, since it didn’t look like Manrico was gonna End di Luna. What do you all think? Is it obvious to you or do you think it’s supposed to be ambiguous/Azucena is just pretty unhinged and chaotic?

Then, of course, we have the RIDICULOUS Leonora/Manrico/Di Luna rivalry! Or, more correctly, just di Luna antagonizing people :) Somebody give that guy a hug (before everyone is dead at the end and all he can say is “e vivo ancor!“ heheheh oh cruel, sweet, dramatic irony)

Count di Luna really reminds me of Claude Frollo in Notre-Dame de Paris (oh gosh, why do all these stories - Carmen, Trovatore, Notre-Dame) revolve around Gypsy women!? it’s the Threat to the Order I suppose). They are both “vampires” in a way; they are after the immutable radiance - call it what you will (life-fore? joy? love? innocence/optimism? willingness to live? willingness to love?) of their respective “prey” - Esmeralda, Leonora. These types of guys of course don’t actually LOVE these women, they are compulsively obsessed with the idea of them - whether as angels or demons - and the need to possess them. Both Frollo and di Luna are willing to completely deny the actual feelings and agency/sovereignty of being of Esmeralda and Leonora, respectively, to “sooth their tortured souls” (both, of course, blaming their victims for igniting fires within them). These vampires end up sucking the life force out of their prey, whose only option is to withdraw themselves from the living world in order to escape their predator (well, that’s what Leonora did. Esmeralda was unfortunately murdered because unlike di Luna, Frollo’s ultimate enemy was himself and his relationship to his faith... I think Not that THAT didn’t leave a body count of course. Anyways it’s been awhile since I read that book and wow this tangent has gone on quite long enough).

Well, Leonora ain’t about to take that crap. She actually knows what she’s about and she really puts 110% into her game. So what if her boyfriend is really less than ideal?? She knows herself, she knows what she wants, and she’s dead straight about her goals in life (I’m not saying they’re great) and no one can stop her. If I can support Juliet and her actions, I can support Leonora, because a) not only do their stories take place in the same era (I believe?? please correct me if you’re more familiar with the original story that inspired the opera) and b) being women characters in such settings, they really were at the mercy of the men in their lives (read: what happens to people like Azucena who choose to live outside of the suffocation of society - or the cloister) and their main way out was... well... to take themselves out. Which makes me a whole lot more appreciative of Leonora’s plot line, even if I can still be objectively angry about it because no one deserves that shit, period (and yet especially women have suffered through it for eons upon eons, so yes, it hurts). But that’s art - if it gets you thinking or feeling, it’s working right!

And you know what I realized? Leonora and Azucena are the ones who get what they want in this opera. (Okay, di Luna gets to take out Manrico, but that’s not what [cough, who] he really wants). Time to split this into part three and finally get to my realizations with some examples from the libretto because for the life of me I cannot say this all concisely :)

#thanks for bearing with me folks #or just scrollin scrollin scrollin #THIS ONE IS EVEN LONGER JEEZ LOUISE i'm not even done #i might need to learn how to add a read more thing so I don't.... alienate... anybody hahha gosh who is even going to read this #hi nerds if you made it this far... i love you #opera #trovatore

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morallygreyvigilante · 4 years

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Blue Exorcist - Unpopular Opinion

I wouldn’t go as far as ‘hate’...but I really dislike Yukio.

Before I actually get into it, I want to start by admitting that some of the reasons I have for not liking Yukio stem more from the attitudes and actions of other characters rather than things that Yukio himself has said and done (though he does have his moments as well). I would also like to point out that anything I discuss here is going to be based on the events of the anime as well as conversations I’ve had with others who like the series.

Anyone who’s watched Blue Exorcist for, well, three episodes at most already knows that Rin and Yukio are the sons of Satan. This is where my first criticism of his character (or I guess I should say ‘treatment’) comes in.

I’m willing to overlook the whole “demon son and human son” thing, since only one of their parents was actually human so that would always be a possibility. However, when Rin’s powers are awakened at the start he is able to use them instantly (his level of control is a different matter) whereas Yukio didn’t seem to experience any changes until part way through the anime where it was revealed that he did have powers (or, at the very least, the potential to generate the same power as his brother).

Before I explore the power level difference, I’m going to look at their upbringing and the main criticism I have with it. Due to his powers being sealed away, Rin spent most of his life growing up unaware of the existence of demons and - by extension - that he was one. In theory this would mean that Yukio would have also been unaware of their existence since we get hints that his own powers were sealed away by extension when they eventually start surfacing towards the end of the season. But because his brother was technically a demon, Yukio was able to see them.

Now onto my criticism, Rin was more or less able to live a normal childhood while Yukio trained to become an exorcist. Why is that a problem? Let me repeat, Yukio began training to be an exorcist while Rin grew up with a relatively normal childhood. Sure, we find out that it’s mostly so Yukio can protect Rin but still, essentially creating a child soldier to protect his brother...when said brother was believed to be human by most people, and wouldn’t be able to access his powers for a long time...was it really necessary at this stage?

Let’s fast-forward to Rin enrolling at True Cross Academy. This is the part where we find out that Yukio is already an exorcist and that he’s going to be teaching others to become exorcists. I was willing to accept that since well, it’s an anime, there are some things that you just don’t question in favour of enjoying the story. What I can’t ignore is his initial reaction to seeing Rin in his class - seriously? Who pulls a gun on their brother? Especially when they’ve just watched their father die? - sure, the spiel about Rin being a demon could be excused as him bluffing but it does spark some questions; if Yukio agreed to become an exorcist to protect his brother, then why would he pull a gun on him unprompted? Because he was the son of Satan? In that case there should’ve been a gun pointing at Yukio as well.

Also, regarding both of their treatment in the academy setting. Yukio was praised for his skill as an exorcist while Rin was mocked (okay, maybe not that bad but I don’t know what other word to use) for his limited knowledge when compared to his classmates. At this stage I’m going to start drawing parallels between Blue Exorcist and My Hero Academia because there are some similarities here (and in my next point as well). Specifically I’m going to compare the knowledge the 1-A students have regarding their quirks and the knowledge the exwires have about their field.

The students in 1-A gained their quirks when they were aged 4-5 and so they had most of their lives to learn about them and how to use them, just like the exwires had a decent amount of time to learn about the existence of demons before enrolling in True Cross. In both cases, the only exception was Izuku and Rin (respectively). However the experiences of both characters after enrolling in their respective academies was different. Izuku was knowledgeable on quirks despite only having his for a much shorter stretch of time - and therefore having far less control over it - than his classmates. Rin, on the other hand, had very limited knowledge on demons (because he’d spent most of his life believing them to be a work of fiction) and, by extension, his own power.

As he’s the teacher in this situation, Yukio should’ve known that Rin’s knowledge was lacking when compared to the rest of the class. Other than a few instances where Yukio criticized Rin for not studying, he didn’t seem to make many attempts to educate his brother unless prompted to. I want to make one thing clear here, giving Rin extra tutoring would not have been displaying favouritism, it is the teacher’s job to ensure that students are able to keep up. I’m not saying that it was solely Yukio’s responsibility since Rin could’ve made the effort to be more proactive himself, but it should’ve been a consideration.

Yes, I know this analysis is hinging more on Rin than Yukio but I feel it’s necessary. With that being said, the next factor I want to explore is the control Rin and Yukio have over their powers.

In a crisis situation, Rin is shown to have a decent enough control over his power, that control only seems to slip when he is actively focusing on using it - similarly to Izuku in My Hero Academia. The difference between the two characters? Izuku had multiple people to help him gain control, people who were already familiar with the power. Rin on the other hand, only had one person actively trying to teach him, someone who - while arguably being the best person for the job - only had a limited understanding of his power. I’m going to stop mentioning Izuku now because I don’t want this analysis to stray too far from the original topic.

Not only is Rin’s control over his power limited, he also seems to lose control of himself when Kurikara is damaged. Having his powers sealed away has only proved to cause more trouble for Rin than he would’ve had if he’d been able to learn about his powers at an early age. How does Yukio fit into this? Simple, when Yukio’s powers temporarily awaken (largely due to Satan possessing him, but he’s still able to use them for a short time afterwards) and, despite having them for a significantly shorter time than Rin, he’s able to use them with barely any difficulty. This shouldn’t have been possible. Yes, you can argue that he was able to control them due to inheriting more of his mother’s humanity than Rin, but that is still a flimsy argument. His knowledge wouldn’t have been much help here either since having knowledge on a subject and actually using it is an entirely different matter - you wouldn’t be a perfect marksman when using a gun for the first time, regardless of how much you know about shooting.

From what we see in the anime, Yukio is constantly viewed as a good role-model and I’ve long since lost track of the amount of times Rin was compared to him, with Yukio himself occasionally criticizing Rin’s actions or character. Which brings me onto the main reasons I have for disliking Yukio.

Yukio and Rin are both sons of Satan, yet Rin is often viewed as the dangerous one when in reality, it should be the other way around. While Rin inherited most of their father’s power, he doesn’t fully understand it and viewed himself as a normal kid for most of his life. He had no combat training or experience (barring a few fights we see on-screen and the ones that we can assume he was involved in growing up). He only seems to lose control of his powers when he’s actively focusing on using them or when Kurikara is damaged. He is also shown to posses high levels of empathy towards humans (as a result of his upbringing) as well as the demons who don’t seem to have any ill-intentions and are content with living alongside humans.

Yukio, on the other hand, has been training to become an exorcist since he was very young and has an extensive understanding of demons. In a fight between the two of them (not involving any weapons or powers) the only reason that Rin could possibly win would be because he is physically stronger, and even then that would happen if he managed to land a hit. Yukio is arguably the bigger threat yet the other characters always seem to overlook this whenever the topic of conversation switches to how dangerous Rin is.

Characters in Blue Exorcist seem to have a grudging respect (or tolerance at the very least) of Mephisto despite him being a powerful demon and his own loyalties being flimsy at best. Yet characters seem to despise/fear Rin and for what? Being the son of Satan? Yukio is also the son of Satan yet no one seems to bat an eye at it, even though he’d be more of a threat if he decided to switch sides than Rin would be.

Mephisto, while viewed with some suspicion is generally allowed to operate as he pleases despite being one of the most powerful demons in existence. Yukio is often viewed as Fujimoto’s son (despite having no biological relation) while Rin is viewed as Satan’s son (despite being raised by Fujimoto). Yukio was willingly involved with the incident at the end of the season where a gathering of exorcists allowed - albeit, unintentionally - demons to swarm the human world and what was his punishment? He was demoted to the rank he was at the start of the season. Rin lost control maybe one or two times at most before he was captured, both times he was able to either regain control or stop before anyone could get hurt, and what happened to him? He was put on trial (encased in a crystal so he couldn’t even defend himself) and essentially told that he had a year to gain control of his powers and pass his exwire exams otherwise he would be executed.

I mostly just hate how many free passes Yukio gets in contrast to Rin who essentially has to jump hoops just to be allowed to live. Sure, Yukio is typicall more cautious than Rin, but does that really justify the treatment they both receive? No, no it doesn’t.

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minecraftfan11onscratch · 3 years

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Mysterioustale’s Design Board + Character Info

Although it’s mostly for a self-reminder on how to do the chara’s designs, you can use it as well if you wanna make fanart! ^v^

Just credit me for the Mysterioustale AU with a @. Fair warning, though, there’s spoilers abound.

Coraline

8th (and last) fallen human, bearer of the SOUL of Determination.

Weapon: Stick (supposed to be the same one she uses in the beginning of the movie for water witching). Armor: Dragonfly Hairclip.

Has the same backstory as in canon; used to live in Michigan, until her and her parents moved to the Pink Palace because of her parent’s gardening catalog.

Decided to explore Mt. Falls because of the boredom of lacking her parent’s attention, and the curiosity sparked by her neighbors telling her the tale about it. After falling, her goal is initially to escape and go back home, but she gradually tries to do it in a way she won’t kill anyone.

Initially starts as the snotty, attention-seeking jerk she is at the beginning of her movie, but just like in her movie, the circumstances she finds herself in molds her into a more patient, kind girl that feels sympathy for the magic beings trapped in the mountain. Is still snarky all the way through, though.

Dipper and Mabel

The first fallen humans, bearers of the SOUL of Determination.

Have the rare phenomenon of sharing one SOUL since birth (it has a higher chance of happening for twins, but it is lower on fraternal twins like they are). They can be separated from each other without ill consequences, but their SOUL tends to be stronger when they are together.

Weapon: Mystery Book and Grappling Hook. Armor: Friendship Rings.

Their shirt/sweater’s color is cyan because it’s the negative of this one long-sleeved shirt of Coraline. Their designs are also intentionally, slightly invocative of the ‘60s.

Dipper is still the socially anxious, snarky smart guy, and Mabel is still the wild, fun-loving and goofy girl. However, both have low self-esteem and self-love because of a rough life in the Surface, and a dislike for humanity in general. This is why both were wiling to die for Tails to obtain their and six other SOULs.

Ran to Mt. Falls to escape their village.

Layed dormant in their grave in the Hidden Palace until Coraline fell; her Determination woke both of them up and they weren’t aware of their adoptive father’s plans until they heard about it through Coraline’s journey.

Mabel was closer to Amy, and Dipper closer to Sonic. Both equally loved Tails, and miss him so much.

Amy Rose

Guardian/Caretaker of the Hidden Palace, ex-Queen of the Underground and ex-wife of Sonic.

Still has the Piko Piko Hammer, and uses it on the battle at the end of the Hidden Palace. She also has wind powers she shares with Sonic, and uses them both for offensive and supportive purposes.

She’s a sweet and cherry mother figure... Until you present a threat to a nearby kid, or piss her off. Ask Bill Cipher and Sonic. She also loves puns, but not to the exact extent of a certain toony demon.

Despite seeming so cherry and carefree, she’s actually very hurt over the death of the children she treated as her own and couldn’t prevent.

Bakes a vanilla-mint pie, since both were some of the most liked flavors of the three kids she formely raised as her own (vanilla for Dipper and Mabel, mint for Tails).

Sonic the Hedgehog

The King of the Underground, ex-husband of Amy Rose.

Uses in combat a sword similar to Excalibur in Sonic and the Black Knight, and even has a glove to hold it. Shares the offensive wind powers with Amy.

Definitely used to be more like his canon self in the past, and fit in as the cool father figure. Losing the family he held dear in one night, though, was enough to not only humble him, but break him into a miserable shell of his former self.

He still tries to pass by as the same cool-headed, determined justice bringer he was in the past, but it becomes harder and harder everyday to keep the facade.

Has a thing for gardening. Favorite food is still chilli dogs, though.

Bendy the Little Devil Darlin’

One of Snowdin’s sentries (in the most loose term of the word), Boris’ best pal and housemate, perhaps the Judge of the Underground, and knows more than his face lets on.

He is made out of ink, and can turn himself into a pile of bubbling ink and sink himself into the ground to teleport, leaivng behind a stain on the ground. He can carry others, even humans, with this if they sink onto his ink pool. He shares the bullet pencils with Boris and might have skulls to blast beams.

He’s a polite, but goofily cheerful fellow that, in a surface-level, seems to take nothing seriously and prefers to hunt for trouble or fun rather than do his sentry duties. However, he has a serious, mature, and secretly creepy side hiding underneath the veil, and hates making promises. He likes to call anyone a pal, and Coraline/Amy Rose as toots.

He somehow always has a J-pipe on toe, just so he can dance out of nowhere. He also somehow finds a bajillion things to do.

He likes to drink ink. Fresh or old, and if necessary, straight out of the pot.

Boris the Wolf

One of Snowdin’s sentries (in the most loose term of the word), Bendy’ best pal and housemate, painter, and aspirant for capturing a human and becoming a Royal Guard.

He is made out of ink like Bendy, but never figured out a teleporting technique like him. His ink structure does make him apathetic to glass shards, though. He has bullets shaped like pencils stained with ink, and can change a human’s SOUL to yellow.

He’s a bit more blunt, dispassionate, serious and bored than his best pal, but most of it is his dwindling hopes of finding a human, becoming a Royal Guard or making a new friend besides Bendy and Yumi. Once Coraline comes, he displays more cherriness, while still remaining the more level-headed of the rubberhose brothers. He also likes to call people pal, and has a thick Brooklyn accent. His catchphrase is Good Gosh Golly, and his laugh is Wrah Hah Hah.

He’s a painter, but sometimes his art falls on the modern abstract side.

Unlike Bendy, he has a distaste for ink. He prefers normal magic food, mostly sandwiches.

Yumi Yoshimura

Ex-member of Puffy AmiYumi, but still a good friend of Ami, and Captain of the Royal Guard.

She is strong and physically durable to a fault, and is able to survive drops from high structures. Her main form of attack is blue guitars that are launched like spears, and she can turn a human’s SOUL to dark blue.

She’s sarcastic, rough and cynical, and can appear antagonist, especially to a human, since it’s her job to hunt for their SOULs. However, she has a golden heart, and a sense of loyalty and honor, even if it’s for former targets; she stops hunting Coraline down once she wakes her up from Dreamland’s energy.

Her battle cry is Hiyaaah!

Her in-job outfit’s aesthetic is a cowboy instead of a knight. Her casual outfit is partially inspired on both her pilot outfit and her final outfit.

Ami Onuki

Ex-member of Puffy AmiYumi, but still a good friend of Yumi, and The Royal Scientist.

Unusual for her airheaded preppy girl aesthetic, she’s actually quite smart and tech-savvy, able to hack (aka: program) Dreamland and HEART’s structures and build things (even though she doesn’t compare to a certain someone...). She doesn’t demonstrate much physical power, though.

She seems to be peppy, cheerful and optimistic, even if a bit awkward as well. If one interacts with her long enough, though, one can quickly find out that most of her cherry personality is a forefront to hide a lack of self-esteem, a willingness to lie to gain love, and guilt from a failed experiment.

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klove0511 · 4 years

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Welcome to Your Future

Title: Welcome to Your Future Author: klove0511 Artist: ncdover1285 Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: T Warnings/Spoilers: Angst with a Happy Ending, Time Travel, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, season 9/10 Sam Winchester, Mutual Pining, implied unrequited sam/cas, Show level violence, Demon Dean Winchester, Implied/Referenced Suicide (no actual suicide) Summary: When Dean is suddenly pulled through time, he's confronted with a broken little brother a decade older than he should be. With Sam determined to send Dean back to his own time, will Dean be able to figure out where his present day counterpart is and fix things for Sam? Art: Tumblr Story: Ao3

Dean checked his hand, checked the pot in the middle of the table, then glanced at his fellow players. Two had folded already, and he was sure the last guy was bluffing. So was Dean, mostly. A pair of tens wasn't a phenomenal hand but it was better than nothing. He glanced again at his cards, put on a calculated grin and said, "Raise," as he tossed another few bills into the pot.

The guy's eyes did the same dance between Dean, his cards, and the pot, and he took a swig of his beer before he tossed his cards down. "Fold. Congrats, kid."

Dean grinned but tried to keep it out of the realm of cockiness. He'd won fair and square, but there was no need to rub it in their faces. He collected his winnings and straightened the bills, estimating that he had at least $500 in his hand. A good place to call it for the night. No need to play until they got desperate enough to pick a fight. He tossed back the rest of his whiskey and took his leave, relieved when none of the guys looked too disgruntled. It had been a good night, and he wasn't looking for trouble.

The cool night air was refreshing after the smoky atmosphere of the bar. He took a deep breath and made his way to the Impala. He'd drive back to his motel, then check in with his dad in the morning. They were on separate hunts at the moment, and Dean had finished his early. Tomorrow, he'd find out if Dad needed backup in Arizona or if he had another case for Dean to work. Tonight, he'd count his winnings and get a good night sleep for once.

He was maybe ten steps from the car when his stomach lurched, and the world tilted sideways. Throwing his hands out to catch himself, he fought down nausea as his vision blacked out momentarily before resolving into a dimly lit room that he didn’t recognize.

When the world stopped spinning, Dean took stock. He was in a library with heavy oak tables and stone pillars, filled with low half bookcases and a variety of swords. Someone was passed out in one of the seats. Not a public library, then, but some rich asshole's house. His gaze flicked around, searching for a threat or an explanation, before settling on the figure slumped over one of the tables. His instincts tingled. Long hair, but tall and built like a guy. Plaid flannel shirt. Smelled like cheap whiskey. At least a dozen books were strewn across the table, and at the next table over were a bunch of herbs by a beaten-up copper bowl. Dean’s eyes danced over the guy, noting at least two bulges that probably indicated concealed weapons. Make that a rich, armed asshole. And maybe a witch.

He didn't know what a witch would want with him, but he was sure it wasn't good.

He pulled his own gun from the small of his back before slowly approaching. He considered just shooting the bastard, but he could use some answers. Where he was, for starters. He got close, almost close enough to touch, when the guy groaned and rolled his head to the side, one hand fumbling for the empty tumbler just out of reach. Dean stepped back out of the guy's range and flicked off the safety.

The soft click was obviously enough to alert the witch, though, because he froze, hardly even breathing. The hair moved, revealing a beard and a jawline that sparked recognition deep in his gut. But his dad would never let his hair grow that long. And it was hard to tell when he was sitting, but Dean was pretty sure this guy was longer and leaner than John Winchester had ever been. Never mind the spell ingredients. John Winchester wouldn't be caught dead using magic.

"Who are you?" he asked, lowering his voice to a growl in an attempt to intimidate.

If possible, the guy in front of him stilled further. He was statuesque, could have been carved from marble for all he moved. Finally, an eternity later, the guy breathed out a name, reverent and disbelieving. "Dean?"

He didn't recognize the voice, but the guy clearly knew who Dean was. Which made sense, given the circumstances. The evidence pointed to Dean being summoned via some spell this jerk had done. He hadn't heard about anyone summoning a person before, but he learned new things every day.

The guy never answered the question, just turned slowly and sat up until Dean could see his face. The familiarity lurched against his consciousness again. He didn't know this guy, but... he did. He was older, bearded, and broken, but he thought he recognized his kid brother under there. He faltered, lowered the gun minutely. "Sam?" he asked, unsure.

The guy's eyes widened in what might be surprise or fear, but he nodded.

Nausea threatened to overtake him again. Dean may not have an explanation yet for what the hell was going on, but he believed this guy. Sam. He believed Sam. Instantly, he dropped his aim, turning on the safety and holstering the gun in one smooth motion. Still, he was wary. This wasn't his little brother, not really. Not unless school had aged him a decade or more.

This Sam was gaping at him like a fish, or like he was some kind of fucking miracle, which sat all kinds of wrong with Dean. He didn't seem like he was going to start supplying answers on his own any time soon though, so Dean was going to have to take the initiative.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings in light of this new information. "Want to tell me what's going on, Sam?"

Sam swallowed hard and dropped his eyes. "I don't know." He glanced back at Dean with a shrewd look. "What year is it for you?"

That confirmed one thing, anyway, though he was sure Sam was lying through his teeth about not knowing what was going on. "2004.”

Sam started, leaning back in surprise.

Dean waited, cocking an eyebrow. Sam needed to give him something. Some explanation.

Sam's jaw worked and a furrow appeared between his eyes. He gave a weird half smirk that Dean couldn't interpret and said, "Welcome to 2014."

Alone in his room, Sam couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened. The spell had worked. Just not how he'd intended. Certainly not how he had expected it to work. Dean at 24 was a sight to behold, all confidence and cocky attitude, full of easy grins and so much optimism. Dean had thought he was being skeptical, sure, but the second he knew he was talking to Sam he'd dropped his guard. Sam's Dean would never. Not now, not after having met too many doppelgangers of themselves or people they knew. It stung, but it was safer, and he breathed easier knowing that his Dean would have asked for proof that he was really Sam.

It felt good, though, knowing Dean was in the bunker again, even if it was the wrong Dean. Tomorrow he was going to have to figure out how to send him back to 2004, and then go back to figuring out how to find his brother, or, more likely, his brother's dead body. He still had nothing more than a shitty note to go on, and he had already been scraping the bottom of the barrel with this spell. Cas had told him it wasn't likely to work, and Sam just hadn't cared. A slim chance was better than no chance. Of course, it hadn't worked. Had instead yanked his brother (his gorgeous, alive, never gone to Hell brother) from the past. Even younger than the version that had pulled Sam back into the life, the version Sam had been entirely unable to resist.

He closed his eyes and willed away his erection. His brother was dead, and this vision from his past needed to go away before he did something truly inappropriate. Worse, before Dean found out just how bad things got in the next decade of his life and decided Sam wasn't worth coming to Stanford for. Or... No. They'd learned, painfully, that messing with the past did nothing. Warning Dean of all the problems Sam would cause in the future wouldn't do anything good. Wouldn't stop the Apocalypse. Wouldn't bring Sam's brother back. It would just erase the trust that he had maintained in Sam for years, warranted or not, and it had been that trust that kept Sam going after losing Jess and Dad.

Dean sat alone in the room Sam had given him. It was bare and musty, like it hadn't been used in years. He had a lot of questions that Sam hadn't been willing to answer, and honestly, Dean thought they were both probably too drunk for a useful Q and A tonight. That was why he'd agreed to go to bed and figure things out in the morning. The problem was that he couldn't sleep, and the questions circling his brain were getting louder with every lap. Chief among them was what the hell was going on with Sam? Even factoring in the extra decade that Sam had lived, he looked old. Worse, he looked desperate. Dean just wondered what he was desperate for. The question that followed naturally from there was where the hell was 2014 Dean? He should be here taking care of his brother when he was such a mess. Sam hadn't denied that he'd been doing spell work, which, best case scenario, meant that he was hunting again. What had happened to the Sam that wanted out of the life at any cost? Who had turned his back on his family to go to college? Something had gone down, and Dean was absolutely sure he wasn't going to like it when he found out. No matter how mad he was that Sam had wanted a normal life more than he'd wanted his family, no matter how much he resented that Sam got a shot at college and a life that wasn't hunting, Dean had been proud of his brother for making it into Stanford.

The way Sam had looked at him—it was unsettling. Dean wasn't sure where the present version of himself was, but with that look... Well, Dean had suspicions. He wasn't going to get any sleep until he had some answers, so it was time to do some digging. He padded out into the hall, careful to keep his footsteps quiet. Sam had said he was in room 21, and a quick check of his door revealed that Sam had put him in 15. Heading away from Sam's room, he started checking doors as he went. Three rooms identical to his, down to the mothball smell, and then he hit the jackpot with room 11. Weapons were mounted on the walls, the bed was rumpled, as if it had been used recently, and the air was fresh. Reasonably fresh. Ok, it smelled like old pizza and gym socks, but at least it smelled like something besides dust and stale air. His eyes were drawn to the box of magazines on the desk as he flicked on the light, and he knew he was in the right spot. A box stuffed full of Busty Asian Beauties could only mean that he was in his room. Dean's room. Current him's room. Whatever.

There were photos on the bedside table, and he grinned as he flipped through them. He didn't recognize most of them, but he knew why they lived in a prominent place. Happy memories, all of them. It was weird, watching Sammy grow up in stutter stops across the four pictures he was in, and Dean frowned, realizing nothing looked recent. The last picture of Sam was easily years younger than the Sam he'd met tonight. Replacing the pictures on the table, he did a slow inventory of the room. There was a note on the bed, and on closer inspection, there were stains on the bedspread. Blood. Diluted blood, like someone had cleaned wounds here and never bothered to clean up. A touch revealed that it was dry and stiff. Days old at least, no telling if it was more than that. He checked the note.

Sammy, let me go.

He recognized his own handwriting but felt nothing other than confusion. Why would he write a note like this? This place was awesome, and he knew, instinctively, that no matter what else had changed in the intervening decade he would kill to have his own room. The decorative touches spoke of someone who had settled in, who wanted to be here. Not a Dean that was planning on leaving his brother. He frowned harder. How could this have happened? He managed to get his brother back, despite years of no contact while Sam was at Stanford. A decade later and they were still together, living in the same weird mansion with no windows. They had made it. Hell, they had both made it past their thirtieth birthdays, a feat he hadn't even dared to hope was possible.

So why had he left?

Blood on the sheets. Note saying to let him go. A profoundly messed up little brother. A room so untouched it may as well be a shrine to present day Dean. If it hadn't been for the note in his own handwriting, he'd say 2014 him was dead. With the note... Hunt gone wrong? Dean must have blamed himself, so he took off. Which meant it had probably been Sam hurt. Judging by the quantity of blood on the comforter, it had been bad. He cursed himself. He'd probably patched Sam up and ditched as soon as he was stable enough to leave alone.

The thought of patching Sam up in this room, rather than taking him to his own spoke volumes to Dean. They had separate rooms, but this Dean obviously loved his brother as much as Dean did. He shuddered at the thought that maybe that affection had been given voice, and that was why he'd fled.

He turned off the lamp and closed the door. Time to see the rest of this place.

Sam stumbled into the kitchen and was surprised to find it smelled of freshly brewed coffee. It cut through the hangover fog enough to jolt Sam into confusion for a moment, and then he remembered. His brother (not his brother, not his brother) was sitting at the table, contemplating his cup of coffee and picking at a plate piled high with bacon. Dean looked like he was nursing a mild hangover himself, which made Sam wonder what he'd been doing before the spell had caught him.

Dean smirked at him, which Sam ignored, then said, "Interesting place you got here, Sammy."

Sam groaned internally. He should have known Dean would go exploring if he left him alone for two minutes without any answers. Still, he didn't want to give anything away that might screw up the timeline. It would be his luck to accidentally change something and find himself in a future that was even worse than the hell he was currently living in.

When his silence continued past the limits of Dean's patience, Dean made a frustrated noise. "Come on, man. I know last night wasn't the time, but you've got to tell me what the hell is going on. You were wasted and doing spells powerful enough to pull me through freaking time. Talk to me."

Sam sighed and relented, if only slightly. He poured himself a cup of coffee and said, "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't do the spell drunk. Got wasted after it didn't work."

There was a pregnant pause, then Dean said softly, "What was it supposed to do, Sam?"

Sam's heart broke all over again, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and grip the counter to ground himself. "It was supposed to find you. Just not you from 10 years ago."

The silence in the room was oppressive, and Sam waited for Dean to ask the obvious question. When he didn't, Sam steeled himself and turned around to face his brother. Dean was staring into his coffee mug, unreadable expression on his face.

Sam stumbled over his thoughts, wanting to fix this, to make it better somehow. He'd just ripped his brother out of time and then told him that he wasn't supposed to be here. No way that hadn't hurt. "I—Dean, I'm glad you're here. It's good to see you again. It's just—"

"I'm not him," Dean said quietly, firmly. He didn't sound upset, exactly, but Sam had been around Dean long enough to hear the layers of emotion hiding in his brother's voice. "Why did he leave?" Sam shook his head in denial, but Dean continued, "I found the note."

Sam blanched. "Honestly? I don't know." He gripped his mug and moved to sit across from Dean. "I don't know why he left. Or why he just left that shitty note." He paused. "Sorry," he said, as an afterthought.

Dean watched Sam bend over the books, trying to figure out a reversal spell that would send Dean back to his own time. They hadn't really talked at all, and Dean didn't know what to make of it. Sam refused to talk about the bloodstains on the comforter, and he seemed to be telling the truth when he said he didn't know why his Dean had walked. That said, Sam was definitely hiding something. He may not know the exact reason, but he knew a lot more than he was letting on. Unfortunately, the guy was dead set on "preserving the timeline" and nothing Dean had said over breakfast seemed able to dissuade him.

He tried to distract himself from checking out Sam by instead checking out the library. It was tough, though. Sam had filled out over the years and barely resembled the scrawny kid he'd driven to the bus station on his way to Palo Alto and a normal life. Dean clenched his jaw and turned back to the bookshelf in front of him. He recognized a few titles from Bobby's library, but most of the books he'd never heard of. There was no organization that he could make sense of, but that was probably because half the books were in languages he couldn't read. Sam probably could. He'd always had a better head for language than Dean, and with a decade to practice and pick up new ones, Dean would have been surprised if there were any books here Sam couldn't translate.

Peeking behind him, he studied Sam's broad shoulders. They were gorgeous, even if they were tense. Sam had obviously kept himself in shape over the years, and Dean wondered if getting wasted like last night was the norm now or not. Their dad had started going soft in the middle when his drinking kicked up after Sam had left, and it didn't look like that was happening to Sam's waist. But if it was new... It didn't matter because Sam didn't want his help. It had hurt when he'd realized that this morning, that Sam wanted the brother who had abandoned him.

It just didn't make sense. Sam hadn't hinted at anything, really. Just that the blood on the bed had been Dean's, not Sam's. Still a hunt gone wrong then, but Dean couldn't fathom what had possessed him to leave. Dean had been hurt before, plenty of times. He'd even been hurt because Sam or their dad made a mistake. But that's all they were, mistakes. He'd never held a grudge so hard that he'd walk on his family like this. It all spoke to something far more broken than he wanted to think about, because how could things have gone this wrong between him and Sam? Even in his own time, he would do anything to stay near Sam if his brother would let him.

Sam was muttering to himself and mixing ingredients. Looked like he'd found the spell he needed then.

Dean moved over to the table. He didn't do chick flick moments, but he couldn't just leave without saying something to comfort Sam. He cleared his throat, already feeling awkward. "Look, Sam. I—" He sighed, frustrated. "I don't know what the hell would make me walk out on you like that, but I can tell you this: I have always been proud of you. No matter what. Ok? I, uh, don't know that I'd ever have the nerve to tell you that if I wasn't currently Marty McFly." He hoped Sam understood. He knew he was never going to tell that to his little brother when they joined up. Too many emotions too close to the surface, still too fresh for both of them. But this Sam, well. He had distance from college, and it seemed like in the end he'd chosen Dean anyway. It made it easier, somehow.

Sam's eyes were wide, his expression something Dean wasn't sure how to interpret. Sad? Shocked? Relieved? Some bizarre combination of all that and more. Yeah. Clearly their family was still great at communication.

"Dean—" Sam stopped, obviously biting back whatever he'd been about to say. After a moment he started again. "Stanford was never about leaving you."

He pasted on a cocky grin, suddenly desperate to not show Sam how much his leaving still hurt, even two years later. Even if he had already known that it wasn't about him, that it had been about Sam needing to assert his independence from Dad and just the way those two personalities conflicted. Sam always needed an explanation for things; it was part of what had always made him great at research. Dad expected his sons to follow his lead, and Dean could admit that he provided explanations far less often than he maybe should. The difference had always been that Dean trusted their dad completely, and Sam didn't.

Sam had no idea how to explain to his brother how devastating it was to hear that parody of his Dean's dying words, spoken just a few weeks ago. It—He couldn't. Not without risking everything. For a moment he thought about it. Telling this Dean everything. There was no way his life could get worse than this miserable existence he was currently living, after all. But no, there was too much at stake. He might not end up in a worse version of his existence, but the world might. Lucifer, at least, was safely locked away, and Abaddon was dead. They had done that. No matter what he wanted personally, he had to keep the bigger picture in mind. Besides, his Dean had left him a note. While he couldn't fathom an explanation for that, he wasn't going to rest until he had one, until he found Dean.

He swallowed and clenched his jaw to keep himself from spilling everything. The only thing he trusted himself to give Dean in answer was a short nod, and he knew it wasn't enough. But it was all he had, so Dean would just have to deal with it. They could talk it out in a decade.

Turning back to the spell, he continued mixing components, narrowing his eyes as he tried to remember if he'd added the yarrow root yet or not. He surveyed the contents of the bowl. He... had. That powder looked like the yarrow. Moving on, he continued adding ingredients and chanting under his breath. He didn't look at Dean, didn't want to watch him disappear back to his own time, even though he knew it had to happen. With a flourish, he threw in the final herb and watched the surprisingly small puff of smoke rise and dissipate into nothing. It was done.

From behind him, he heard Dean ask, "Was that it? Because I'm still here, dude."

Sam's eyes flew open as he spun to see Dean still standing there, arms crossed and looking deeply unimpressed. "What? How—?" He turned back to his spell book and ingredients. The damn yarrow. Of course. Only.... No, he looked at the bottle, and it looked like he had definitely added it. Sam rummaged through the ingredients for a few more minutes, eyes darting between ingredients, bowl, and spell, until Dean put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sam, stop."

Sam stilled, about ready to throw something in frustration. No wonder he hadn't been able to find his Dean. He apparently couldn't do any magic right these days.

Dean spoke gently. "Look, you're tired, and you're obviously stressed out. Bobby always told us that magic is best done with a clear head, right? If I had to guess, that's about the worst description for you right now. Take a day. Let me help if I can. And then we'll figure out a way to get me home together." He paused, giving Sam a chance to answer that he didn't take. Dean sighed. "I'm sorry it didn't work."

Sam hung his head and leaned heavily on the table. "I'm sorry I keep letting you down."

He could almost feel Dean working to unpack that, trying to figure out what Sam was referring to. There was a long pause, and Sam wondered what Dean was thinking, if he was going to push Sam to talk again. After Jess's death, Dean had been a strange combination of pushy and hands off with Sam, trying to give him space until Sam pushed himself or Dean too far and Dean felt the need to prod answers out of him. It hadn't been overly effective then, and Sam didn't think it would work on him now.

Dean let his hand drop, though, without a word. Sam fought the urge to watch his brother leave the library, instead forcing his gaze to remain on the table in front of him.

Dean avoided Sam for the rest of the day. He prowled through the entirety of the bunker, exploring every nook and cranny he could find now that he wasn't drunk and exhausted, looking for any further clues as to his counterpart's whereabouts. He found the shooting range, the garage full of old cars (notably missing the Impala), the infirmary, and the archives. There was also the herb garden outside that looked like it had been recently plundered for Sam's spells. But mostly there were just seemingly endless dorm rooms, identical to the one he had slept in last night. One other looked and smelled like it had been used in the recent past, but it was just as plain and boring as the rest. No one had stayed there long enough to move in. Dean longed to see Sam's room, but there was a decent enough chance of finding Sam there that he didn't try.

Eventually, though, he found himself back in present Dean's room. It felt like home, even though he hadn't yet laid hands on most of the personal items in here. It still felt right, like it was tailor made to make him feel comfortable. He supposed it had been.

A simple survey wasn't going to cut it this time, though. He needed answers, and Sam was too reluctant to give them up. Looking around the room for the best place to start, he decided to be methodical. Each desk drawer was opened and rifled through, carefully catalogued and replaced before he moved on to the next one. There wasn't much. By the time he was done, he'd been most impressed by just how many shirts he'd managed to accrue now that he didn't have to cram them all in a duffel bag. But he also noted just how many things had been left behind. It hadn't caught his attention yesterday, but those pictures, at the very least, should be gone. This wasn't the room of someone who had decided they'd had enough and moved on. This Dean had left in a hurry. He wasn't sure what it meant, yet.

Further investigation yielded a lot of nothing. It looked more like future Dean had vanished than packed a bag, and Dean was struggling to come up with an explanation. Turning back to the bed, he did another survey. The whole thing was slightly rumpled, like someone had been laying on it. Ok. The blood was everywhere, but maybe more concentrated at the head of the bed. So, wounds, probably in the chest area. Dangerous, if they were deep enough, but there wasn't enough blood here to kill a man. He lay down, hoping by some miracle that looking at the room from his counterpart's perspective shortly before he'd left would provide some insight he'd been missing up to now.

The mattress molded itself to his body, easily the most comfortable thing he'd laid on in his entire life. For a moment he lay still, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what would make him leave a sweet place like this behind. Rolling over, he buried his head in the comfortable pillow, feeling exhaustion and the lingering effects of his hangover pulling him toward sleep, despite the weirdness of the situation. He breathed in deep and promptly gagged, rolling away from the pillow and coughing to clear the putrid smell. "Holy shit. What the hell is that?" he wondered to himself. Another, much more cautious, sniff revealed a lingering rotten egg smell. That was... weird. Everything here was weird. This, at least, was a weird thing he could take to Sam and demand an explanation for.

It took a while, but he eventually found Sam in the library on his third try. Wherever Sam had been before that was someplace Dean hadn't found yet. Maybe this place had magic changing rooms like Hogwarts.

Sam looked even worse than he had at breakfast. His hair was lank and greasy, and the bags under his eyes were darkening into bruises. Dean watched him quietly for a few minutes, keeping himself out of sight. He wasn't spying per se, just....observing. Who knows what secrets this Sam might reveal when he thought he was alone? In this case, just another indication that Winchesters were prone to alcoholism. After Sam poured out his third shot in ten minutes, Dean decided he needed to intervene before his brother wouldn't be able to answer any questions, at least not intelligibly.

"Day drinking? Seriously? I thought you didn't want to be like Dad," Dean said, putting on his most affronted face and voice.

Sam just lolled his head towards Dean, mind clearly already slowing down. Damn it. Sam must have had a few before Dean found him.

He sighed in frustration. "Fine. Look, just tell me why your Dean's bed smells like something died there, and I'll leave you to your liver poisoning, all right?"

A pained look crossed Sam's face, so grief-stricken that Dean almost told him to forget it. But then Sam said, "Because you died."

He continued babbling, but Dean wasn't listening anymore. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears as he tried to process that, and in the meantime the rest of the world took on a surreal quality. In a decade, he would be dead. He always expected to die young, he did, just. Hearing it felt different somehow. Seeing his little brother like this was different. After Sam had left for Stanford and made it clear he didn't want or need his family to contact him Dean had made assumptions. Like how he would probably die in his twenties because he didn't have backup, or how Sam may never even know he was dead. Confronted with a grieving Sam who had been living with Dean for years was something unexpected and much more painful. The thought of Sam not knowing or caring had hurt, of course, but it was a different animal to see him grieving. He couldn't help but put himself in Sam's position. How well would he be handling it if Sam were dead?

Then he came back to the note. Sammy, let me go. He frowned, putting pieces together and not liking the picture that was emerging. Future Dean hadn't packed or taken anything, left those pictures behind too, and those had to be some of his most prized possessions. Left a note. And... had died. Shit.

"Sam? Did—" He swallowed, trying to figure out how to ask if he'd killed himself and if so, why.

Sam's brow furrowed in confusion, clearly not following Dean's train of thought.

He gave up. He couldn't ask. More than anything, he didn't want to know, but besides that he didn't want to make Sam relive it if he had committed suicide. He didn't want to watch Sam reliving it. And it didn't actually explain the smell. The Winchesters were familiar with death and the smells that went with it, and sulfur wasn't one of them. Another horrible thought crossed his mind, and he stumbled away from Sam.

"Dean?" Sam asked, instinctively reaching to stop Dean's retreat.

"How long were we on the road together?" His voice was shaky, praying that it wasn't true. The only things he could think of that involved sulfur in their lives were demons, and he'd heard plenty about what happened after you made a deal with one.

Sam hesitated, reticent as ever to divulge information about his past if it wasn't something Dean had experienced yet, but whatever expression Dean was wearing must have convinced him. Or maybe he just didn't care as much because of the alcohol, who knew. "Nine years. I started hunting again in 2005."

Dean racked his brain. That wasn't long enough, he thought. He certainly didn't have Sam's talents for encyclopedic knowledge, but he was no slouch when it came to knowledge about the supernatural. Everything Bobby or Pastor Jim or Caleb or their dad had said about the monsters out there was stored somewhere in his brain, and he was pretty sure he remembered something about ten years in connection with demons. Maybe he was wrong, though, because if he had died, and his pillow smelled like sulfur, there weren't a lot of other explanations.

"Dean, talk to me. What's going on?"

He couldn't chicken out of this question. "Did I make a demon deal to get you on the road with me?" His words came out in a rush, leaving him breathless and edging ever nearer to panic. No way would he do that. Right? He had accepted that Sam had left them. Had left him.

Sam looked shocked into silence, his mouth working to form an answer. When nothing appeared to be forthcoming, he resorted to slamming the shot of whiskey he'd poured before Dean interrupted him and pouring himself another. When he finally found his voice, it was rough and broken. "Why do you think you made a deal?"

Dean winced at how Sam refused to meet his eyes. He may not know this Sam as well as his own, but he knew how to read body language. Sam's Dean had obviously done some stupid shit in the past. "The pillow smells like sulfur. I know they're pretty far out of our league, but that means demons, right?"

Sam barked a laugh that was in no way funny. Dean swallowed hard, just a little afraid of the person his brother had turned into. Sam eventually knocked back a swallow of his whiskey and said, "Yeah, it does. The pillow smelled?"

Dean nodded and watched as Sam stalked to his brother's room.

Sulfur. But Crowley had no-showed that night, hadn't he? Sam had waited and waited in the dungeon, until finally he accepted that the demon wasn't coming and returned to his brother. Only Dean was long gone, leaving only that note behind. But if Sam had summoned Crowley to the bunker and he'd been in Dean's room... why would Dean's pillow smell? He flung open the door to Dean's room and grabbed the pillow, breathing deep. Gagging, he threw the pillow back on the bed. Definitely sulfur. It didn't make sense, but it was a lead that he didn't have before.

Sam's phone rang, the shrill noise piercing the silent room. Sam flinched at the sudden noise, but he pulled out his phone to glance at the caller ID. Cas. He sighed and dismissed the call. It was the third or fourth call he'd ditched from the angel today, and he knew he couldn't avoid his friend forever. He just wasn't ready to hear the "I told you so" that was inevitably coming his way. Besides, Cas couldn't help. Or if he could then he shouldn't. Sam wasn't sure exactly how stolen grace worked, but he'd seen how weak Cas was these days. He'd even caught the angel sleeping a few times, to his dismay. If Cas offered to fix Sam's mistake by sending Dean back to the past where he belonged, then Sam would have to stop him. Dean needed to go back, of course, but not at the expense of the last of Cas's strength. Besides, Dean wasn't supposed to know about angels for a few more years. If he met Cas, who knows what would get screwed up. Later. He'd call Cas later and fill him in, tell him to make himself scarce until he heard from Sam.

Sam turned back to the bed. Reverently, he touched the comforter, the last place he'd seen his brother's body. He had to check. Drawing close, he sniffed. Yes, buried under the metallic tang of blood and the gun oil smell Sam always associated with Dean there was sulfur. He closed his eyes. That was probably a really bad sign.

For the next few minutes, Sam sniffed everything in the room, finding more sulfur on the chair beside the bed but nowhere else. Crowley must have been in here. Sam could practically see him in his mind's eye, sitting in the chair beside Dean's dead body. The options for why Dean's body had disappeared and left behind the smell of sulfur on the sheets were disappointingly limited. Ok, there was one that Sam knew of, and even thinking about some demon riding Dean's dead body around the world being Crowley's lackey made his blood boil.

He sighed and clenched his jaw in frustration. Before he could fix that he needed to deal with his mistake and get this other version of Dean out of here.

"What did you find?" Dean's voice behind him startled Sam badly, and he spun, eyes wide in panic.

After a moment during which he tried to bury his reaction as far down as he could, he said, "Not much. Just confirmed what you said."

"Sam, what the hell did I do?"

Sam didn't turn and look at Dean, couldn't stand to. This Dean sounded so young. Like it was barely conceivable that he would make a deal to keep his brother close, and he looked devastated at the thought that he'd done just that. Sam wanted to comfort him, but he couldn't find the words. Because Dean did do those things, had made deals like that. Just not the one he was currently accusing himself of making. "You didn't make a deal to get me out of school." That, at least, was a true statement, and it made Sam breathe a little easier. If he had made that deal, then he wouldn't have had anything left to bargain with when Sam died in Cold Oak. Now he just needed to figure out how to break the rest of it to him. Or not. This was still a terrible idea.

Dean made a noise of frustration, slamming his fist into the wall and making Sam flinch hard. "Damn it, Sam, I know I did something. And don't give me that crap about not changing the timeline, because seriously? You want to preserve this? You're miserable and drunk, and I'm dead. Who knows where Dad even is since you won't talk about him. What exactly are you trying to protect here?"

Sam closed his eyes, taking slow, deep breaths in an effort to calm himself. Dean didn't know. He couldn't know. But... he needed to know. Sam was always being told how strong he was, but he knew the truth. He was a weak man who would do anything for the brother he loved more than anything else in the world. "There's always a chance it turns out worse. You understand that, right? If I tell you anything, there's a chance that it all goes to hell faster and worse than it did anyway."

"I don't care. I can't help you if you keep me in the dark like this." He sounded determined, confident. Sam knew it was mostly bravado, but it confirmed his own resolve to throw caution to the wind.

"We should get comfortable then. This is a long story."

Dean was numb, trying to process everything Sam had told him. They had saved the world—that, he finally understood, was the outcome Sam was most concerned about preserving. But the cost had been... He scrubbed a hand down his face. They'd lost so many people. There were holes in the story, of course, and Dean didn't want to ask, didn't want to know for sure, but he was pretty sure their dad was long dead. Sam had stopped talking about him early on. It was good to know they'd killed the thing that destroyed their family, at least. That was something. And they'd met their mom. Because apparently time travel was a thing they did now. Dean was not thrilled to hear that they'd already tried to change the past without success, but maybe this time it would work? Maybe not. Sam had made it sound like there had been a lot of manipulation going on behind the scenes by both Heaven and Hell, and Dean had trouble believing Heaven actually existed. According to Sam it was a pretty shitty place, though. Which was another thing. Sam hadn't said it explicitly, but Dean could read between the lines well enough. At some point Sam had died too.

That was the worst part.

He couldn't imagine it. Sam had implied that deals had been made, people brought back to life, and he knew. If his little brother had died, then he would absolutely make that deal. Leaving Sam dead, living without him, was not an option. It was different with him at school. Dean might be lonely, but he could see Sam on campus whenever he was in California. Had, more than once. It hurt, but not like this. Which was ridiculous, because Sam was sitting across from him, perfectly healthy.

Sam was also patiently waiting for a response beyond deafening silence and complete shock.

Dean tried to pull himself together. "Remind me again why you didn't want to mess up the timeline?"

Sam chuckled darkly. "We're alive. Or, we were. And we saved the world against all odds. That's worth something."

"Yeah. But." Dean closed his eyes again, let himself really feel the grief over losing his brother that he knew Sam had to be feeling right now too. "What happened before I got here? Where am I? You said I died, but you were doing a summoning spell. Where did you think you were summoning me from?"

Sam looked away, chagrined. "I don't know. I was desperate. Considering the sulfur you found, I think a demon took you." Or your body. Sam didn't have to say it for Dean to hear the unspoken caveat.

He nodded. "One more question, then I swear I'm done asking. You never mentioned—" He trailed off, unsure how to ask. "After your—After you left Stanford. Was there anyone—?" He needed to know, though he wasn't sure why. It was hardly important in the grand scheme. Still, the two of them had been together, living and hunting and sharing space, for almost a decade. And Dean hadn't met anyone else yet in this place. It gave him hope that he wasn't sure he deserved to have.

Before Sam could answer, the door at the top of the stairs crashed open and a man in a beige trench coat shouted, "Sam?"

Sam startled badly at the sound of the door opening, but he didn’t look surprised when he heard the voice. Interesting.

Dean followed Sam out of the library reluctantly, keeping his distance.

"Hey, Cas," Sam said.

Dean appraised the new guy. He looked disheveled, tired. Almost as worn out as Sam. His dark hair was a mess, and even from a distance Dean could see the worry on his face dissipate when he spotted Sam. Even more interesting. He didn't think the tax accountant look would be his brother's type, but maybe it was one-sided. The way the guy looked at Sam definitely spoke of something more than simple friendship, anyway.

"You weren't answering your phone." The guy, Cas, sounded out of breath, and his concern was palpable. "I thought—"

Sam seemed to understand, though Dean didn't. "It's ok. I'm sorry I didn't answer. I've just been busy." He gestured slightly behind him, presumably to indicate Dean's presence. Which meant, what? That Sam hadn't wanted to tell this guy he'd done a spell and dragged his brother ten years into the future? Yeah, ok, that was probably fair. Dean wouldn't have wanted to advertise that either.

Dean watched as Cas's eyes tracked behind Sam, searching, and when they finally landed on Dean, the difference was startling. Cas's face was slack, totally shocked. "Dean? How? Where—?" He approached a few steps and stopped short, looking sharply at Sam. "What did you do?"

Dean didn't appreciate this guy taking that tone with his brother and stepped forward, starting to say, "Hey—" when Sam cut him off.

"It's fine, Dean. He's right. You don't belong here, and we all know it." He sighed. "I did that spell. The one you said wouldn't work."

Cas searched Sam's face a moment, then turned to get a closer look at Dean. Dean bristled, uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny. He wasn't sure what the guy was looking for, but he eventually turned back to Sam with a disappointed sigh. "Sam."

Dean watched his brother crumple at that, and it hurt. Sam managed to recompose himself quickly though, something Dean had seen him do too many times in the last 24 hours. He had never wanted his little brother to turn into this hard man who could break with a single word and rebuild himself in moments, burying whatever pain he was experiencing so deep it was like it was never there. Sam was supposed to be loud and angry about hunting and, more than anything else, happy. "I had to do something. We were out of leads."

Cas pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. This is just—I can't send him back."

Sam nodded, as if he'd been expecting this. "Cas, even if you could, I wouldn't let you. We'll figure something out. Obviously, he can't stay, but we'll find something else. I was never going to let you do that to yourself."

Smiling with weary fondness, Cas replied, "I appreciate your concern, Sam, but I'm fine, I promise."

It was such a Winchester line that Dean had to wonder how long this guy had been part of their lives.

Sam ignored it, however, and just continued talking. "I think we have something, though." He glanced backwards at Dean, then back to Cas. "Demons. In Dean's room. I assume the night he disappeared."

"Crowley?"

Sam shrugged. "I assume so. I think—" He turned back to Dean, obviously hesitant about saying the next part in his presence. "I think he had someone possess Dean."

Dean started, surprised. That...would explain the smell on the pillow. It was a horrifying thought though, his body running around with a demon in it. "How do we find them?" he asked, surprising even himself when he spoke.

Sam and Cas both turned to look at him.

"What? I may not know who this Crowley is, but I know I don't want some demon running around in my body. So how do we find them? Demons aren't that common, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Sam and Cas shared a look, then Sam said, "Yeah. You remember how I told you some of what happened to us? I... may have left a few things out." He gulped. "There are a lot of demons out and about these days. They're pretty much the only thing we hunt anymore."

Cas rolled his eyes. "You told him? How much?"

That raised Sam's hackles. "Does it matter? We've never successfully changed history before, why should I expect that we'll start now? And if we did, would that be such a bad thing? Dean is dead, Cas. And I want my brother back. If telling this Dean a little bit of what happens gets me a living, breathing brother, then I'll take it and screw the consequences."

Cas balked. "Sam, you can't mean that. What about Lu-"

"I beat him before, and I'll beat him again if I have to." Sam's eyes glittered with defiance, and Dean grinned, glad to see that some of Sam's spirit was still in there somewhere.

The three of them sat around the table in the kitchen, and Dean couldn't stop glancing from Sam to Castiel and back. "He's an angel? You're shitting me, right? Angels don't exist."

Sam laughed at Castiel's scowl. "Yeah, that's pretty much what you said the first time you met him. Hate to break it to you, but they do. So do a lot of other things."

"Unicorns?"

Sam shrugged. "Not as far as we know, but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've encountered."

"Do I want to know what tops that list?"

Sam thought about it for a second. There were a lot of good possibilities, from the Leviathans to actual dragons. But there was one that still made him chuckle when he thought about it. "Fairies. Masquerading as aliens."

Dean blinked. "What?"

"You zapped Tinkerbell in a microwave, dude."

"You're lying."

"I'm really not. The point is, angels barely even register on the weird scale these days." Sam sat back, relaxing at the normal banter with his brother. He'd missed this. The warm grin Dean sent his way didn’t hurt either.

Grumbling with annoyance, Cas spoke up. "What do we plan to do about Crowley?"

Sam considered their options. There weren't many. "I could summon him again, but that didn't work the first ten times. No reason to assume it'll work now. We might be able to find a locator spell?"

Castiel shook his head. "If there was a useful one, wouldn't we have used it already? You've been through every book in this place twice, at least."

Dean was unusually quiet as he nursed his third beer. Sam smirked a little at that. He hadn't expected to introduce Dean to his favorite beer. He hadn't realized Dean had only started drinking it sometime after their Dad died. Finally, he spoke. "So we look again. If summoning isn't going to work, then we have to find him some other way. I'm sure the two of you will figure it out."

Sam rolled his eyes. "What, trying to duck out of research? Seriously? When I got back on the road with you, you had a hell of a chip on your shoulder about being able to do research too."

Dean shrugged, grinning. "What can I say? I was probably just trying to make you feel useful, Sammy."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

The nicknames fell easily from their mouths, and Sam didn't bother hiding his grin. God, things hadn't felt like this with Dean in too long.

"Come on. Fresh eyes might find something I missed. You and Cas are on library duty, and I'll see if I can find signs of demonic activity that might be Crowley."

Dean tossed another book in a foreign language onto Castiel's pile. "Remind me to call Sam a nerd later. I bet he can read all of these."

The angel didn't even look up, just kept reading the book he was going through, something in ancient Aramaic. "Sam is a remarkable linguist these days, but I am unsure how much is due to his status as a 'nerd'."

Feigning nonchalance, Dean said, "Then what is it due to?"

This time, Cas did look up, his gaze sharp. "Most likely his proficiency with so many languages despite very little time in which to study them is due to his high levels of exposure to archangels and their grace. His fluency in Enochian certainly is. Then again, I am aware that Sam's sleeping habits leave much to be desired. Perhaps he is, as you say, a 'nerd'."

Dean tried to parse Cas's words into something that made sense, because he was pretty sure there was an important revelation in there somewhere. The problem was that the angel was even more cryptic than Sam. Where Sam had simply refused to answer, Castiel answered as though Dean hadn't jumped forward a decade in time. Every damn sentence was full of information that Dean was missing the background for, and it was getting annoying. The angel, of course, seemed to be infinitely amused by it. Deciding to put a pin in it until later—maybe he could ask Sam about the time he spent around archangels or why he didn't sleep enough—Dean flipped open another book. This one was in English, at least, and he settled in to read.

Four hours later, he was ready to throw all the books across the room. Cas was right, there was nothing here. Then again, Sam had been the one to pull these books for them, and as they'd previously established, Sam hadn't been able to find an answer. Dean stood and stretched, then went to find Sam. Holed up by himself in his room, of course. "Hey."

Sam jumped at Dean's voice, and Dean hated it. He wondered if his 2014 counterpart knew how jumpy Sam was, or if Sam did a better job of hiding it when he expected Dean to be around. "Hey, Dean. You guys find anything?"

"Not yet." Dean leaned against the doorframe. "Hey, is there a card catalog or something? I didn't see one in the library, but I figured a giant nerd like you would have some sort of filing system."

Sam looked surprised, but only for a moment. Probably remembering that Dean didn't know everything Sam expected him to. "Yeah. It's just— Let me show you. This place is kind of a maze sometimes."

"What, like Hogwarts?"

Sam shot him a disbelieving look, then said, "Less 'the staircases move' and more 'there might be a minotaur I haven't discovered yet.'"

"Got it. You know, I did find my way around ok earlier. It didn't seem that bad to me."

Sam chuckled despite himself. "Most of the main floor is fine. The basement is where things get tricky."

"Wait, this place has a basement?" Just knowing there was an entire floor to the building that Dean hadn't even found yet set his mind running down a dozen different tangents, at least half of them involving doing inappropriate things to his not so little brother. Maybe there was a sex dungeon hiding somewhere. No. No, he reminded himself. There was no way he and Sam were like that. Sam would have said something by now, right?

Dean read the spell three times before he showed it to Cas and made him read it. "I'm not crazy, right? That'll track a demon, any demon, so long as we know their real name?"

Cas nodded, slowly, rereading the spell. "Yes. This will work. Go get Sam."

Sam wasn't in his room, which immediately set Dean's big brother radar into overdrive. Doing a quick lap of the upstairs rooms didn't yield an overgrown little brother, so Dean ventured into the basement. Maybe Sam was looking something up in the card catalog. Or maybe he was bored and thought trying to find a minotaur in his basement would make a good distraction. "Sam?" he called, trying to remember the order of turns Sam had taken last time.

There was no answer, but that didn't mean much. He'd seen himself how big this place was. Luckily, Dean was good with directions and found the card catalog and library overflow pretty easily. Unluckily, Sam was nowhere to be seen. "Damn it, Sammy. Where the hell are you?"

He could search the rest of the basement, but something told him that would be a waste of time. Trying to think like Sam was harder when his information was a decade out of date, but it shouldn't be this difficult. Then it hit him. There was one room upstairs that Dean had skipped over entirely, assuming Sam wouldn't have bothered to go in there. Of course he was wrong.

Dean's—other Dean's—door was closed, but he knew Sam was in there. It sucked. He couldn't exactly tell his brother not to grieve for him, but at the same time, Dean was here and alive right now. Steeling himself, Dean opened the door.

Sam was curled up on the bed, face buried in the sheets.

"Found something. Cas thinks it'll work." Dean's voice was rough. No way was he calling Sam on the fact that his shoulders were shaking with sobs as he lay there, even if he kind of wanted to. Without even waiting for acknowledgement, Dean retreated to the library.

Sam joined them a few minutes later. He looked even worse than when Dean had found him last night, but he brightened as soon as he read through the spell. Cas had already started to gather the spell components, and in a matter of minutes they had a location.

Dean drove. Sam protested, but he was in no condition to drive. At the very least, this was a way Dean could help. Sure enough, less than an hour into the trip Sam was fast asleep in the passenger seat. He stayed that way until they arrived at a motel in Beulah, North Dakota. Crowley was in town somewhere, hopefully staying put, but Dean figured they could use a base of operations while they looked. According to Sam, while there were signs that a demon was in the area, nothing suspicious had been reported, which meant Crowley was keeping quiet. You know, for a demon.

Sam blinked awake when the car turned off, and Dean tossed him a room key. "You still look like hammered crap, but at least you got some sleep."

"Thanks." The sarcasm in Sam's voice rivaled his teenage self, and it made Dean grin.

"Come on. I figure you can get set up doing your geek thing looking for this Crowley dude, and I'll go grab us some dinner. Saw a roadhouse on the way in that looked good."

Sam didn't disagree, so Dean chalked it up as a win. Maybe his brother had just needed to be on the road again to start taking care of himself again.

The roadhouse was exactly Dean's kind of place. It was full of people and the smell of beer and fried food, and it even had a karaoke stage. Maybe once they were done with Crowley, he'd be able to drag Sam out for a beer or two. Probably not, but Dean could hope. He'd pay good money to see his brother doing karaoke. Speaking of, Dean leaned against the bar to watch the atrocious singing while he waited for his to-go order. What he saw made his insides freeze.

Up on stage was him. 2014 Dean. Or the demon riding him, anyway. Fuck. He considered calling Sam, but quickly tossed that idea away. Sam was too broken up, never mind sleep deprived and probably malnourished. Then again, Dean didn't exactly have a lot of experience dealing with demons. The song ended, and Dean made his decision. The demon had apparently decided that he was going to perform all evening and stayed on stage as the next song started. Perfect. It gave Dean time to grab some gear from the trunk.

Ten minutes later, the demon was booed off the stage and started to make his way outside, following some girl that had caught Dean's eye too. That was when Dean made his move. Ducking out the door first, he waited until the demon exited the building before dragging him around the corner and out of sight of prying eyes. Shoving the guy away from him, he pulled out his dad's journal and flipped it open to the exorcism he'd bookmarked.

"Exorcizamus te—"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the demon said, glaring at him.

Dean paused, then against his better judgment asked, "Why the hell not?"

The demon grinned and leaned in to say, "Because I'm not just some random demon, Deano." Then, without any warning he drew his fist back and threw a punch hard enough to make Dean see stars.

Dean rolled across the ground from the force of the punch and scrambled back to his feet, knowing he had made a mistake. He was way out of his league, and he found himself wishing Sam was here to bail his ass out. Rubbing his jaw with the back of his hand, he said, "Sure you are. Just a black-eyed bitch borrowing a body that doesn't belong to you. Time to vacate the premises."

The demon just laughed at his bravado. "See, that is where you're wrong. I'm not borrowing anything. This body is mine, and I don't mean that in a 'finders keepers' way. Welcome to your future, Dean. I'm you."

That stopped Dean in his tracks. "What?"

The pause gave the demon a chance to launch another attack, and Dean was too stunned to properly defend himself. The next minute or so was a blur until he found himself in a chokehold while his phone rang. Sam. No one else in this decade had his number.

Effortlessly keeping Dean pinned, the demon reached into Dean's pocket, pulled out his phone and answered it. "Thought I told you to let me go."

Dean heard Sam say something, but the response was muffled.

"Sorry, I'm a little tied up right now. Or is it he? Time travel makes pronouns so difficult, don't you think?" Another pause where Sam shouted something at the demon, and the demon rolled his eyes. "Oh, Sammy, what did you think was going to happen? Did you seriously think the Mark was going to let me die?"

Despite the spots that were starting to dance in Dean's vision, hearing this thing call his brother Sammy made something snap inside him. With an unexpected strength, he broke the demon's grip and slammed his fist into his older self's face. Whipping out the runed cuffs he'd grabbed from the trunk, he slapped them on the demon's wrists and said, "You don't get to call him that."

The shock on the demon's face was almost comical, and Dean reveled in his win for just a moment before picking up the phone from where it had fallen. "Hey, Sammy. I got him. We'll be back in ten."

Back at the bunker, Dean and Sam walked into the library, and Sam poured them each a drink.

Dean sipped his and shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you have a freaking dungeon, man."

Sam chuckled.

"Seriously, though. What're you going to do with him?" Asking for information about his own future was probably asking for more trouble, but he had to know.

Sam waved him off. "Don't worry. We, uh, we figured out how to 'cure' demons a while ago. You'll be ok."

"Right." Dean took another, bigger sip. "Dude, your lives are weird."

This time Sam gave him a heartfelt laugh. "Seriously, though, thank you. I couldn't have done this without you."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Yes, you could."

Sam smirked. "Yeah, well, I don't want to."

Feeling like he was missing an inside joke, Dean changed the subject. "So, we got your Dean back. What are we going to do about me?"

Dropping his gaze, Sam said, "I actually have an idea about that. There's a blood spell that our grandfather used to time travel to us last year that should work."

"Seriously? Did you just forget about that?"

"No, not really. But I was trying to preserve the timeline, remember? The way this spell works, blood calls to blood, and the person using it walks through a door next to a blood relative."

Immediately catching his brother's train of thought, Dean said, "Yeah, I doubt Dad would take that very well."

"And you didn't pay me a visit in 2004 that I'm aware of, so—"

"What changed?"

Sam shrugged, then he shot Dean a look that was unreadable. "You."

Wondering again if things were that different in 2014 than his own time, Dean said, "Me, huh?"

Sam smiled shyly, then said, "I just need to figure out how to direct the spell so you don't end up at the wrong end of Dad's gun."

"You're sending me to you?" Dean wasn't sure if he should hope or not, but he couldn't help the lightness in his chest at Sam's fond look.

"Yeah, I am." Sam shrugged again, but Dean could hear the unspoken statement that the future might already be screwed over because of everything Dean had learned. What was one more change?

Finding the answer Sam needed on how to direct the spell wasn't hard, and an hour later they were standing in front of a door painted in Sam's blood while Dean chanted. The sigil glowed, and Dean fell silent.

"I guess this is goodbye, huh?" Dean said, not looking at Sam. He wanted to know, wanted to ask, but his older self was down in the basement, and that guy was going to have to deal with the consequences of any revelations Dean made right now.

"Hey," Sam said, placing a gentle hand on Dean's cheek and turning his face until they were looking at each other. Then he leaned in, kissing Dean hard and dirty. For one shocked moment Dean froze before his brain and body got with the program and kissed back. Too soon, Sam pulled back, leaving them both breathless. Smirking, Sam said, "Go get him, tiger."

Dean grinned and opened the door.

He walked into a bedroom he didn't recognize but which didn't scream "Sam" to him. There was a floral comforter on the queen bed and sheer blinds on the windows. The sunlight streaming through the window combined with the yellow paint to bathe the room in a soft summer glow. It was too clean and small for a motel, but too impersonal to belong to someone. And, contrary to what Sam had told him about how the spell worked, Dean was alone. It gave Dean an opportunity to keep things the way Sam remembered them, if he wanted to, but the memory of Sam's lips on his still burned into his skin, and he knew he wasn't leaving here without seeing his little brother.

There was a choked noise from the hallway, and there was Sam, damp from a shower and looking almost exactly as Dean expected, just a little leaner, a little more mature. A far cry from the broken—but healing—man he'd just left behind. "Dean? What the hell are you doing in my closet?"

Dean laughed and said, "Dude, you will not believe the week I just had." Then he strode over to his little brother and kissed him like his future depended on it.

#wincestbigbang #sam/dean #fic i wrote

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skyguyed · 5 years

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the normalization of abusive behavior in reylo

for those wondering why some people are calling reylo an abusive ship, below the divide are examples and explanations from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi where Kylo Ren displays abusive behavior towards Rey.

This is important because abusive/toxic actions in fiction are often normalized to the point where viewers may not notice abusive behaviors as red flags, or may grow to see abusive behavior as normal, even romantic (or valid precursors to romance).

This post will also discuss the role of fictional portrayals in shaping reality, and why I believe supporting reylo means normalizing abuse.

Thank you in advance for your time and energy to read this.

The purpose of this post

This post (essay, really, it’s gotten pretty long) will examine every interaction between Rey and Kylo Ren, and will point out where and how abuse occurs in this relationship. I will also discuss why this matters.

This post is not meant to police anyone or insult, nor is it meant to incite disrespectful arguments. It is not a call for censorship. The purpose of this post is to help unaware reylo shippers understand where and why reylo is abusive, to help fans recognize abusive behavior, to assess the relationship between fiction and reality, and to discuss why I believe supporting reylo means normalizing abuse.

Trigger warnings for mentions, descriptions, and discussions of violence, domestic violence, abuse, and rape.

Legal definition of abuse:

According to the judicial branch of California,

The domestic violence laws say “abuse” is:

Physically hurting or trying to hurt someone intentionally or recklessly;

Sexual assault;

Making someone reasonably afraid that he or she or someone else is about to be seriously hurt (like threats or promises to harm someone); OR

Behavior like harassing, stalking, threatening, or hitting someone, disturbing someone’s peace, or destroying someone’s personal property).

Read more about Domestic Violence.

What abusive behavior does reylo display?

Kylo Ren exhibits these types of abusive behaviors towards Rey (timestamps indicated when appropriate):

Immobilizing her

Using the Force in the forest on Takodana (TFA, 1:17:32)

With physical restraints in First Order custody (TFA, 1:25:40)

Threatening her with a weapon

With light saber, while she’s immobilized by him (TFA, 1:18:00)

Stalking her

“You still want to kill me.” “That happens why you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask.” (TFA, 1:26:08)

Putting down her friends

“Where are the others?” “You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?” (TFA, 1:25:57)

Kylo Ren called Rey’s parents “filthy junk traders” (TLJ 1:48)

Hurting her friends: Finn, mortally (TFA, 1:54:42)

Not to mention killing his father Han in front of her, who had become someone she trusted.

Entering her (mind) without permission (confirmed by JJ Abrams as an intentional rape parallel in a Facebook post to Daniel Fleetwood, since deleted/made private - see summary here)

This happened twice- once on Takodana when he had her immobilized (TFA, 1:18:12), and then again in First Order custody: “You know I can take whatever I want.” (TFA, 1:27:00) despite her tears, fear, and obvious discomfort and protests

Threatening to expose her secrets (where is BB-8 and the map to Luke Skywalker)

Attacking her with a weapon

Also using the force to attack her (multiple times)

Rendering her unconscious (real world equivalent: drugging or physical violence)

First on Takodana with the Force, (TFA 1:13:32), then on Starkiller Base, by launching her into a tree (TFA 1:51:24)

Trying to manipulate her (into joining the Dark Side)

Snoke may have initiated their force bond, but as soon as Kylo realized what it was, he started using it to make Rey sympathize with him

Kylo Ren feeds Rey only part of his side of the story, painting himself as a victim (leaving out how he slaughtered/turned the other students, and what he did to concern Luke in the first place [re: the “darkness rising in him,” TLJ 1:00:33])

Gaslighting and verbal abuse: “You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing... but not to me.”

“Your parents threw you away like garbage. You can’t stop needing them.” (TLJ 1:12:02) He hangs this over her head, again at TLJ 1:31. And “the truth” at 1:48.

Kylo also literally abducts Rey after knocking her out, although that isn’t on the cited list. And he frames her for murdering Snoke after she wouldn’t join him, which puts a huge target on her back. And um, tries to actually kill her (“BLOW THE PIECE OF JUNK -- OUT OF THE SKY!”)

Kylo’s own manipulation, abuse, and gaslighting by Snoke do not excuse his treatment of Rey. (Finn was abused and brainwashed, too. And he chose to turn better.)

Here are resources for abuse victims.

Why the interrogation scene has clear rape parallels

This is not meant to cheapen or lessen the trauma faced by physical rape/assault victims. I understand that this comparison is upsetting to some people because, since it is presented on-screen as a parallel, it could be argued as much less severe or even be seen as trivializing the plight of real-life victims. I’m not trying to speak for all abuse victims when I say this, but as a person who has experienced sexual violation, I can’t help but see a clear parallel here.

The interaction is highly invasive. Rey is terrified and protests when she is able to. Kylo Ren tells her shit like not to be afraid, etc. (which sounds like stuff abusers say). She tells him to stop (1:27:39) “Get out of my head” and still he proceeds, ignoring verbal and physical protests. This is not a healthy dynamic, and shouldn’t be portrayed as romantic, or as a prucursor to romance. It’s clearly violating, and it’s triggering to a lot of fans.

When we do not acknowledge this scene as a nonconsensual psychological invasion of a person, I believe we are glossing over an extremely vital dynamic in this relationship. The fact that Kylo says to Rey, “I can take whatever I want,” shows an entitlement to her mind and body that he doesn’t deserve, an attitude shared by many abusers. It creates a power difference that forces Rey to fight back to regain control from him. I’ve seen people argue that he was “gentle” but gentle violation is still violation.

But they’re at war.

This really doesn’t excuse Kylo’s actions towards Rey, sorry. And even if they are at war, this kind of behavior he’s exibited towards her thus far does not make a good foundation for a healthy relationship. That trauma, those offenses will still be there.

Also, if they’re at war, Rey has every reason to fight back, so saying that “Rey abused Kylo Ren back” when he’s the perpetrator is a flimsy argument. Her ability to “kick his ass” does not make her immune to abuse. It also shifts the blame for Kylo’s mistreatment from him, to her, which is vastly unfair, echoing the victim-blaming sentiment that’s pervasive in our own reality, that real victims face.

Why do we care if Reylo is abusive? It’s just fiction.

We should care that Reylo is abusive because fiction reflects and influences reality. This TED Talk discusses how fiction changes people by increasing empathy, and changes a person’s point of view. Fiction is powerful in shaping a person’s actions. Reading fiction helps readers navigate a real social world. Additionally, fiction can spark public dialogue and raise attention to real-world issues. Reading fiction has been associated with an increase in charitable giving and voting (x).

Here are some examples of fiction influencing reality:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was the first major US novel with a Black main character, and it “ opened reader’s eyes to the realities of slavery and the humanity of enslaved people.” “Stowe’s candor on the controversial subject of slavery encouraged others to speak out, further eroding the already precarious relations between northern and southern states and advancing the nation’s march toward Civil War.” (x) Conversely, in modern times, it has helped popularize harmful antiquated stereotypes of Black people (x).

Joe Biden attributed historic changes in American views of homosexuality to Will and Grace (1998), which influenced American views on LGBT rights and helped open the door to more programs with LGBT leads.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) popularized BDSM and caused a spike in reported sex-related injuries, and has been accused of perpetuating dangerous abuse standards. A 2014 study showed correlation between the novel’s readers and eating disorders, abusive relationships, and binge drinking.

Star Trek has been vastly influential. Astronaut Mae Jemison (the first Black woman in space) was inspired by Lt. Uhura. The show featured American TV’s first interracial on-screen kiss. Steve Wozniak cited Star Trek as an influence for co-founding Apple (x). Star Trek has encouraged many people to pursue a career in science (x).

Jaws (1974) caused beach attendance to fall the following summer, sparked an increase in shark trophy hunting, and demonized sharks in the public eye. (However, shark research received more funding.)

Six in ten Americans get their HIV/AIDS information from the media (x). Musicals like Rent (1993) helped humanize people living with HIV/AIDS, as well as LGBT people. Rent has also been cited as helping encourage LGBT people to come out.

The Turner Diaries (1978) is a novel cited by white supremacists.

Lolita’s (1955) sexualization of a 12-year-old girl has impact on modern celebrities wardrobe choices and image.

Black Beauty (1877) caused the bearing rein to be banned in Victorian England and inspired animal welfare activists.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) portrayed harsh working conditions for immigrants in industrial areas, and raised awareness and produced public outcry which directly led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, both in 1906.

After the release of 13 Reasons Why (2017), schools saw an increase in student self harm and suicides, and related internet searches.

Psychologist Raymond Mar writes, “Researchers have repeatedly found that reader attitudes shift to become more congruent with the ideas expressed in a [fiction] narrative.” “For example,if we watch a TV program showing a sexual encounter gone wrong, our own sexual ethics will change... If, however, the show displays a positive sexual encounter, our own sexual attitudes will move towards the permissive end of the spectrum.” (x pg 150)

In one study, 19% of respondents said that after finishing a work, a character’s voice stayed with them, influencing the tone of their thoughts (x).

More resources:

100 stories that changed the world

The power of fake gay (and black) friends: We form judgements about characters the same way we form judgements about people.

Readers may change their beliefs and thoughts to match a fictional character’s

The importance of framing in relationship portrayal, an essay by an abuse victim. This essay is very long but it is a must-read. It also touches on the fact that the power of fiction is more than just having fun and our experiences shape how we interpret media.

Abduction as Romance - a harmful trope where the abductor is framed as “a decent guy” at the end. (20-min video, well worth the watch.) Danger is portrayed as a sexy trait, while the disempowerment of women is fetishized. The video also comments on how often white guys get away with it, while men of color don’t. Also, see commentary at the end of the video about what real redemption means.

Yeah, but how does supporting reylo influence reality?

Supporting Reylo means that we’re giving credibility and validity to violence at the beginning of a romance. It’s like saying to a child who got pushed by another on the playground, “oh, they’re bullying you because they have a crush on you.” It’s promoting a fundamental entitlement and disrespect.

Impressionable young people seeing this abuse treated as a desirable dynamic, as conditions that could lead to romance, are being primed to accept this or even emulate this in their own relationships. When we see this treated as acceptable in fiction, we are primed to see this as acceptable in reality.

Why not promote healthier dynamics? Why not rehearse the rejection of abusive behavior?

A look at canon

So, let’s not forget, that in canon, Rey and Kylo Ren are not in a relationship. So, some say, that means it’s impossible for this to be abuse. However, by suggesting that these characters should be in a relationship is harmful because it romanticizes rocky starts to relationships, and physically violent starts to relationships.

More reasons why Kylo Ren is dangerous

While Kylo Ren has been shown in canon to be able to freeze or immobilize people, instead he mortally wounds Finn, who is clearly Rey’s friend and defender, in order to intimidate her and overpower her.

Not to mention that throughout the film, he displays characteristics of an abuser, such as violence towards others, (uh, murder), destruction of property, and other characteristics. It may be argued that these outbursts are symptoms of mental illness. It may also be argued that Kylo Ren is a victim of abuse himself, by Snoke. However, none of this excuses his shitty behavior. Being mentally ill or also an abuse victim does not grant one a free pass to act abusive towards others.

Kylo Ren also tortures and invades and abuses Poe Dameron. Thank god I haven’t seen anyone shipping them. Kylo Ren is an abuser, y’all.

Oh and one more thing? Kylo Ren never uses Rey’s name in the TFA; he doesn’t see her as a person, just an object to overpower, an obstacle to beat down. He doesn’t use her name until The Last Jedi, when he begins to try to manipulate her, rather than indimidate her with force alone. Then she becomes a tool to him. Clearly he still doesn’t value her as a whole person. Again, not romantic. Dangerous and toxic.

Why I’m still against Reylo even if Kylo is redeemed

It’s not a woman’s responsibility to “fix a damaged man.” (It’s not anyone’s responsibility to use romance to “fix” anyone, actually. Romance is not a cure for abuse.) The burden of redemption should be on the villain alone. Kylo had plenty of opportunities to accept help. Additionally, we shouldn’t support abusive behavior as a start or precursor to romance, because that’s a really harmful message to send. And, previous acts of violence are the biggest predictors of future violence, so I’m wary of them entering a relationship without significant amounts of therapy and reform on Kylo’s part.

What do we do from here?

Don’t support Reylo. That’s it. No conditionals. No “well if they change” no “well they’re fictional so they can be written differently” no AUs, no. Please don’t promote a relationship that is based in abuse.

I’m not saying we need to sanitize our fiction of abuse or of abusive relationships. That’s not going to make them go away in real life. I’m not trying to censor or silence anything. I’m trying to make sure that abusive relationships are CLEARLY FRAMED as abusive, and not promoted, normalized, or glorified in any way. (See my previous post discussing this.)

Have fun, but understand that fiction is powerful and influential, and it’s our responsibility to engage with it in a way that supports healthy relationships.

#anti reylo #star wars #anti kylo ren #arop #ok to reblog

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jq37 · 5 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 2

Boggy the Froggy!

Welcome back, ya’ll! We jump back in with our Bad Kids (or 4/6 of them anyway) the very next day. Fabian sends Gilear out on a coffee run on the threat of bodily harm. His mom–who, if you remember is low-key a total badass–tells Fabian that if Gilear doesn’t come back from the quest alive, she’s going to duel him to the death on top of the house. Yikes. At Chez Thistlespring, Gorgug’s parents give him another very detailed sex talk and then remind him that he lives in a world where magic is very real so any and all dreams he remembers should be treated as omens.

At the haunted house, Adaine wakes up having had portentous dreams like everyone else which is doubly concerning I have to imagine considering (1) she is the eleven oracle and (2) as a full elf she’s supposed to trance, not sleep and dream. Luckily for her nerves, she cast Find Familiar the night before and summoned an emotional support familiar which she gave the amazing name Bogariel Frogariel aka: Boggy the Froggy.

Meanwhile (and I needed to switch paragraphs because Kristen is doing the D&D equivalent of playing Twister while everyone else is playing Checkers as she is wont to do) Kristen is talking to Tracker about changing Yes? again because she is filled with doubt about her god of doubt but the one thing she clearly doesn’t have doubt about is her relationship with Tracker because it’s been less than a year and she already sees wedding bells in their future. Wild. She also invites Tracker on the quest, rectifying what I thought was a wild oversight last week.

Everyone meets up and they realize Fig and Riz are missing. They (specifically Fabian) can’t get Riz on the phone (which has never happened before) and all of Fig’s stuff is missing. They head over to Riz’s office to see if they can find him but, before that, Tracker cancels the church of Yes? because, sure.

There are signs of a struggle at Riz’s office, but no blood. They find a picture of Riz’s super-spy dad (Pok) with his arm around someone who appears invisible to them (though the spot is circled in red). They also find claw marks going up to a mirror. Adaine stops Gorgug from touching the mirror which would have driven him insane and had him attack the group. She sees a twisted version of Riz in the mirror which no one else can see until she describes it (suspicious). Then, she dispels magic and the Riz appears in the room…and attacks them (roll for initiative baybee)!

Fabian is flipped the F out. Kristen decides to chill out and drink Riz’s coffee–much to the incredulousness of everyone else (she’s on those chill existential dread vibes). Adaine and Gorgug are stricken by fear but they’re able to snap out of it quickly. Once they’re sure it’s not Riz (the doppelganger is going full creepy horror movie monster with the head twisting and biting and junk), they start going full throttle but Kristen gets a clutch roll and lands a banishment on Nightmare Riz (who was invisible at the time). Also, Adaine finds a gun but no one is down with her packing heat without proper firearms training so she reluctantly puts it back. They confer with Sandra-Lynn and they find out Fig has, for some reason, gone to Bastion City (the capital) and Gorthalax is missing. Also, because Emily is Emily whether she’s present or not, they find out that Fig has decided to multiclass and she is now a bard/warlock with her demon dad as her patron. Those might be connected because, as her patron, Gorthalax can now find Fig at all times.

Sklonda, in the meantime, has been investigating a robbery at the mall. They end up there too because Gilear (who is back from his coffee run) said he saw Fig’s bus in the area. They tell Ragh to meet them there and then head over (Gorgug in the old family car which he buys from them for 30 gold (the cost of a pony)–the amount Adaine suggests after the Thistlesprings reject his insane offer of 1000 gold). Also, Kristen leaves her brothers some gold secretly which is sad and also I think not the best way to handle that, but the intention is good. The robbery was of a gem–non-magical I believe–called the Devil’s Heart. [Edit: And apparently Fig’s doing.] Fabian shows up, tries to be helpful, and then eats glass. Normal stuff.

The group tries to figure out what’s going on with Fig by calling the hotel she’s at and basically doing a straight improv comedy routine, each passing the phone around with a bad story until Adaine just hangs the phone up. Then, they find out from Sklonda that Pok’s partner is a tabaxi (cat person) named Kalina and she is in the empty space in the photo. Sklonda and Sandra-Lynn can see it even though the Bad Kids can’t.

With that information gathered, the group leaves Elmville for the first time on the way to the Hotel Cavalier in Bastion City and, hopefully, Fig.

Detention

Fabian for Intern Abuse

Poor Gilear. Fabian solicits increasingly complicated coffee orders from his friends to make Gilear’s job harder and tries to get them to threaten Gilear on their behalf. Even Sandra-Lynn was like, bro. Lay off the guy. Bad form, sir. (Hilarious, but bad).

Honor Roll

Adaine for Rocking Her Portent Rolls

Adaine had a 19 and a 4 for her portent rolls this session and she used them very judiciously. The first was her 19 which she gave to Gorgug who was about to fail his saving throw and touch the mirror which would have led to him attacking everyone (she has a vision of his beheading her in a rage–sidenote love that Brennan makes her portent rolls actual visions instead of just having the mechanical effect of changing the roll happen). The second was a 4 which she gave to Brennan who was rolling for concentration on Nightmare Riz’s fear spell. What a power move to stare your DM in the face and say, “You roll a 4.” Amazing. Portent rolls are so good you guys. Also, bonus points for coming up with the name Bogariel Frogariel.

Random Thoughts

Fabian’s response to his mom’s ultimatum that she will fight him if Gilear doesn’t return alive? “Damn, guess I have to fight my mom.”

“MAGIC IS REAL AND SO IS MY FROG.”

Brennan describes Boggy as just the most archetypal looking, round, squishy frog and I want a plush of his yesterday. Or a stress ball! It would go with his whole emotional support thing in game. I love that Siobhan picked not the potentially “useful” or “cool” animal. She went full Marie Kondo and was like, “What’s gonna spark some joy?” Boggy also can give her the help action, which is great!

The episode was great even 2 cast members down, but they were missed. On more than one occasion, I was like, “This is more quiet than usual. I wonder why–ah Emily.” We better get her reaction to Boggy as soon as she’s back.

Kristen brings up the concept of patenting a god which is wild. We also get an answer to the question I had last week about Tracker’s cleric status–she still is a cleric of the moon goddess. The moon goddess is just chill with her followers not being exclusive.

Fabian sans Riz is a hilarious mess. For anyone who likes them together as friends and/or romantically there was a lot of Content. Fabian being like, “Idk about Fig but something is def wrong with the Ball because he always answers on the first ring when I call him.” Him canonically forgetting that he has a name other than The Ball (that’s the name in his phone, obv). And, the coup de grace, him investigating RIz’s office, but only for signs of his name. Him trying to Investigate like Riz, rolling a nat 1, and literally eating glass (“I thought I could taste fingerprints!”).

“Coffee’s ordered, is the Ball dead?”

Adaine as everyone is clowning on Fabian for possibly making out with the Hangman: The Hangman is much more human than my bitch sister.

Nightmare Riz, who they still think is actual Riz at this point, pops out of the mirror and Fabian and Adaine’s reactions respectively are, “You can’t do these things!” and, “It’s like 60% of our grade.”

The idea of Gorgug going from a terrified scream into a barbarian rage scream is very funny. Where are the animatics people?

Oh, speaking of people, Fantasy High was trending on tumblr the morning after this stream. Nice job, guys!

The talk that Gorgug’s parents give him about all dreams being significant is something I always say in movies/books/shows like this. You have protagonists who *know* they live in a magic world and they have weird dreams and it’s not until 2/3rds of the way into the story that they’re like, “Wait. My dreams…mean something?” Bitch, what?

Gorgug’s initial coffee order is Hot Chocolate with a shot of decaf.

Everyone is very chill with Tracker coming onto the quest. Adaine just has one rule: No sex in the tent while they’re also in the tent. Kristen asks like she’s offended Adaine would feel the need to say that but like…come on.

At first, I thought the invisibility in the photo was similar to the non-Adaine bad kids not being able to see Nightmare Riz until she described him but they still couldn’t see the woman in the photo after Sklonda described her so not sure what was going on with the mirror.

I went back to the episode where Riz finds the photo of his dad (First Kisses and Last Words at around 1 hour, 27 mins in) and in that photo it’s of his dad and his mom. So either (1) it’s a different photo, (2) Brennan forgot/retconned something, or (3) something seriously screwy is going on. I will also note two observations here. Sklonda mentioned that Kalina doesn’t drink but was holding up her hand in a toast like she was drinking in the photo. That seems too specific a detail to not mean anything. And the second thing is, last ep, we did learn about a servant of the Nightmare King called the Shadow Cat and Kalina (if that is her real name) is a tabaxi so that’s something to think about.

With all the complicated coffee orders flying around, Adaine just changes hers to a black coffee to try and make Gilear’s life a little easier (her original order was a Peppermint Mocha–sans the threat of violence to Gilear Fabian was offering). I do really love that Adaine seems genuinely concerned about the guy. SOMEONE should be. And it’s consistent with her characterization of just being generally well mannered and empathetic.

Kristen getting the banishment on Nightmare Riz is something she did after Ally asked for it and Brennan was like, “lol, sure on a 19 or 20.” Boom. Rolled a 19. Just like in the prom fight. So the lesson here folks is don’t give your players a conditional yes and then expect the dice to bail you out.

Kristen’s existential crisis is so crazy to me because she’s having, like, a prototypical Crisis of Faith™ (and pretty realistically) except, unlike in real life, she has certain knowledge about the existence of gods, life after death, and the means to communicate with those deities in the present day like…I feel like you’re crisis-ing wrong, girl. She’s crisis-ing like she just deconverted from Christianity when I feel like what actually happened is closer to, like, quitting a sorority or realizing you hate your major or changing political parties.

the nature of humanity is just that every so often someone accidentally invents homestuck helioism again

Ragh had a dream matching up with Gorgug’s (but he didn’t realize it was Gorgug in his dream) which means something and I’m sure we’ll figure out what soon enough.

The Fabian eating glass scene is another one where you truly need to see it to understand how great it is. Lou is equally game to have Fabian be the coolest person who ever lived or a huge baby and Fabian running away crying because he has glass shards in his tongue is incredible. Hilariously, he runs into Ragh in the food court who has also eaten glass in the past (“Glass is literally invisible.”) and they bro bond over it so hard (“That’s my boy!”) that Tracker and Kristen are like…are they a thing?

The other crazy scene is the gang passing around the phone trying to convince the hotel receptionist to give them info about Fig. Kristen comes up with the name Teddy Guyger (and Zac and I at the same time are like, “Did you get the name Teddy because you have a teddy bear in your inventory rn?”). Fabian tries to drop his dad’s name. Their first move for some reason isn’t to give the phone to Gorgug who is also a part of the band. Adaine just hangs up the phone like Peppa Pig. Exquisite comic timing.

“I cast bane on Gilear.”

I love the running joke of Adaine having visions throughout the day of her friends in the process of doing dumb BS.

Nightmare Riz going after Fabian’s good eye was big gross. Thanks Brennan, I hate it.

I wonder if what’s going on with Fig is completely different than what’s going on with Riz. Just because they’re gone for the same reason irl, doesn’t mean they’re gone for the same reason in game. Nightmare Fig could be a fun fight though.

As someone whose fave thing in D&D is not combat, I thought the fight in this episode was great. Interesting concept, good chance for in-character reactions, not too long .

Ragh upon meeting Tracker: Check it out: I’m gay. (Tracker: Tight.)

Fabian, who has known Cathilda his entire life: Do maids dream?

In this ep, Kristen and Adaine rolled 2 nat 20s each (Kristen rolled one for initiative also but it was lowered by her modifier), and Gorgug and Fabian each rolled 1. Fabian also rolled a nat 1 (which, again, led to him Eating Glass).

#fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #report card #the report card

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recentanimenews · 4 years

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The Misfit of Demon King Academy – 02 – Anything You Can Do He Can Do Better

This week begins back in the Mythical Age, where Demon King Voldigoad expresses his weariness with endless war between humans and demons. He makes a deal with the human hero Kanon: he’ll sacrifice most of his magical power in order to isolate the four realms and “snuff out the spark of war.” Kanon takes him up on this, and two thousand years of peace follow.

Fast-forward to about a month before the present, baby Anos opens his eyes for the first time, and just as his parents are about to begin considering a name, he says his name—in his stern adult Anos Voldigoad voice. I swear, if I had taken a drink of anything prior to hearing that voice, I’d have surely done a spit take all over my screen! It was exactly the comic sting needed after such a serious and sincere prologue.

Back to the present, leaders and teams are chosen for the team competition in a week’s time. The homeroom teacher declares that no students in white suits can be team leaders, so he proceeds to not only pass her test, but point out that it is flawed to such an extent, a simple adjustment by him doubles its power. He also meets Misha’s big sister Sasha, who does not care for Misha.

In fact, she considers her little more than a “soulless, lifeless doll animated by magic.” Pretty harsh! This spurs Anos to defend his new silver-haired friend, telling Sasha she should be peering deeper into the abyss. When Sasha lashes out with Demonic Eyes of Destruction, Anos easily deflects them with his own.

Anos offers to let Sasha join his team, even though she’s the leader of the other team. Instead, Sasha makes a bet with Anos: if he wins the team competition with just Misha on his team, Sasha will join them. If he loses, he’ll become Sasha’s property. Obviously, Anos agrees.

Just as Sasha and her team are setting up their Castle, Anos has Misha stay back at theirs and then walks right up to Sasha’s. He breaks through their communications and all of the castle’s defense magic, then lifts it out of the ground and launches it into the air.

He catches it with one hand before it falls, than spins it around like a carnival ride before launching it into the forest. That he does all of this without breaking a sweat makes for an utterly awesome bit of ownage. Like baby Anos talking in an adult voice, I simply did not see him treating the castle like a stony volleyball!

In a last-ditch effort to defeat Anos, Sasha decides to unleash Jio Graze, the most powerful fire spell that requires the unique skills and magical power of the entire team in unison. In response, Anos unleashes the weakest fire spell, Grega, though with his superior power it’s more than enough to dissipate Jio Graze and blast the remains of the castle to smithereens.

Sasha, initially ungracious in defeat, promises to one day kill Anos, a threat that amuses him, because killing him isn’t enough to make him die. Since they entered into a Zacht (a magical contract) she can’t go back on her word, so she joins Anos’ team. When he tells Sasha that Misha wanted her on their team, her stance on her little sister softens. When Anos tells Sasha that her demonic eyes are beautiful, she swoons.

That night, Anos brings both Misha and Sasha to his parents’ for another celebratory feast. The super-hyper folks are elated that he’s already brought home “Bride #2”, and Sasha is just as charmed by their extraness as Misha was.

Anos ends up walking the sisters home, and Misha and Sasha notably hold hands the whole time. I’m actually a bit surprised their rift was repaired so easily, considering Sasha didn’t even see Misha as a human or a sister at the start of the episode. Maybe beholding Anos’ power made Sasha reconsider a lot of preconceptions she’s had.

Sasha also makes it a point to ask if Misha likes Anos—and Misha answers plainly and clearly “yes”. Sasha then waits until Misha goes into their house to thank Anos for helping her make up with her, and give him a “kiss from a friend”. Those aren’t usually on the mouth in most cultures, but hey, what’s the harm of a little Demon King Love Triangle?

By: magicalchurlsukui

#Anime #News #RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

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rahirah · 5 years

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Okay, I KNOW you've reblogged that "DVD commentary" meme at some point in your life, so: would you like to do DVD commentary on the opening scene of "My Baby Is A Centerfold"? (Or less detailed commentary on the whole "My Baby Is A Centerfold"?)

My Baby Is A Centerfold DVD Commentary

I wrote this story in 2004, fifteen years ago, so fair warning, I don't recall a lot of the minutiae that went through my head when I was writing it. However, I will do my best!

This was one of the first short stories I wrote set in the same universe as my novel series. I wrote it for the Summer of Spike community over on Livejournal – Summer of Spike was, I believe, the first of the "seasonal" fic communities, and inspired a lot of imitators (including Seasonal Spuffy and Summer of Giles, which are still going to this day) but it only lasted for a couple of rounds. Anyway, someone had recently asked me what happened to the Trio in my 'verse. I already knew that the Trio had started their careers as criminal masterminds while the events of Necessary Evils were going on, and that after NE ends, Warren would try enslaving Katrina in pretty much the same way, Katrina would end up dead, and Warren would try to frame Buffy. Buffy being in a very different frame of mind by this point in my 'verse, while she initially panics at the thought that she accidentally killed someone, Spike and Dawn are able to convince her to investigate first. And of course they discover that Katrina's been dead for several hours, so they call the police and that's when Terminal Line takes place, and Buffy makes first contact with Detective Nguyen, who becomes a recurring NPC and eventually the captain of the Sunnydale PD and is instrumental in Buffy's plan to bring the supernatural out in the open and ANYWAY.

For this story I wanted to do a lighthearted buddy cop sort of thing with Spike and Dawn, and it occurred to me that the Trio would have had to have set up their spy camera system, but since they all got arrested after the Katrina incident, they never had the chance to do anything with the footage. And in my 'verse, some of that footage would have been pretty racy. So what would happen if Buffy and Spike found out about it? The story pretty much wrote itself from there.

I could tell something was wrong the minute I walked in the door. The house had that too-quiet thundercloud feeling about it, and it wasn't just because of the blackout curtains. Buffy was still at the rink, Tara was at her summer job, and Willow was probably asleep (she's not as much of an early riser as Spike is). Normally this means an afternoon of bad TV and junk food with Spike, but the TV wasn't on. Spike always has the TV on.

So this story takes place between Necessary Evils and A Parliament of Monsters, when Spike has moved in with Buffy and Dawn, and Willow and Tara are renting the Summers's basement. It always bugged me that the characters on the show only had to worry about work when the plot required it. When the writers get bored, Buffy can suddenly support a dozen people on a starting school counselor's salary. So while I try not to make a huge deal of it in my 'verse, I do a lot of thinking about how everyone supports themselves. Especially people like Tara, who's sure as hell not getting any money from her family. And with Buffy I wanted to give her a day job that A) she would enjoy, and B) would be flexible with regard to slaying. Which is how she became a skating instructor.

When Spike moved in there was a whole big reshuffling thing, like musical chairs with bedrooms, and Spike ended up getting my old room as an office for Bloody Vengeance Inc., the demon-hunting business he and Anya started. I figured he was probably holed up in there downloading porn or something. Never overlook an opportunity to collect blackmail material is my motto. I dumped my library books on the couch and snuck upstairs with super-Slayer's-sister stealth, which wouldn't do me any good at all if Spike was actually, like, paying attention to his super-keen vampire hearing. Which apparently he wasn't, since I got all the way upstairs without a single physically impossible threat bellowed in my direction.

I had an argument about this with another fic writer once – she felt that Spike threatening Dawn with physical harm was abusive and horrible, and Dawn would be traumatized for life. I pointed out that A) it's canon that Spike does this when he's worried about Dawn's safety, and B) even if you're not a soulless vampire, it's really common for fear in a de facto parental unit to express itself as anger, C) does anyone seriously believe that Spike would ever follow through on any of those over the top threats? Seriously? And D) Dawn canonically blows off said threats and does not appear to actually feel threatened in the slightest. We ended up agreeing to disagree.

Spike was in the office, all right--I could see his hair glowing in the light of the computer monitor. I couldn't see what he was looking at, but whatever it was, it must have been really good, 'cause his eyeballs were practically SuperGlued to the screen. Or maybe really bad, because he looked horrified, not turned on. OK, what horrified William the Bloody? Besides the prospect of squiring Buffy to "Fantasy On Ice?" This I had to see. I rounded Spike's desk and peered over his shoulder. "Hey, mister, you got feelthy pictures?"

If it was Willow? Two clicks of a mouse's tail and whatever was in that window would be closed, password protected, PGP-encrypted, and accessible only through an FTP server in Outer Mongolia. Spike's way better with technology than some vampires I could name, but when he's taken by surprise he still resorts to more primitive methods. He scrambled around in his chair with the panicky flail of a cat falling off a windowsill and slapped a hand across my eyes. "Don't look!" he ordered, about half an octave higher than usual.

This story is full of early 2000s-computer jargon. It's not quite as dated as the show itself, but I give it the ol' college try.

Which meant it was a moral imperative for me to put some of that self-defense training he'd been giving me into practice and kick him in the shins--oh, come on, you'd have done it, too. "Fuck!" Spike yelled. He grabbed for his ankle, overbalanced, and banged his head on the edge of the desk as his chair rolled out from under him. He crashed to the floor, leaving me with a free-and-clear view of the computer.

For someone who's been accused of writing the Everybody Loves Spike Show, I sure have him behave like an idiot a lot.

Now, I want to make it real clear that I'm a sixteen-year-old of the world. I know all about the birds and the bees and the vampires. I've even done a little buzzing myself. And of course I know that my sister and Spike have--well, 'having sex' is way too tame for what they do. Anyway, I know all about The Sex in theory. I also know how sausages are made, in theory. That doesn't mean I'm panting for an up-close at the gooey details of either process. Especially when it involves a grainy RealPlayer file of my very naked sister bouncing up and down on my very naked best-friend-and-platonic-lust-object in Barbie's S&M Playhouse.

I may have written this whole story just to have an excuse to use the term "Barbie's S&M Playhouse."

I may have said something. It may have been 'gleep.' Luckily for my retinas, at that minute Spike lunged up over the edge of the desk and put his fist through the screen. The monitor exploded in a shower of pretty green sparks, and Spike stood there glaring at it all clenchy-jawed and snarly, breathing hard through his teeth. He turned the glare on me. "I swear by all that's unholy, Bit, the next time you sneak up on me like that I'm going to put you in a two-by-three box without benefit of hacksaw!"

Monitors! With! TUBES!!!

I glared right back--no way was he going to make this my fault. "How was I supposed to know you were watching Vampire Pervert Theater 3000?" I snapped. "I thought you were just watching NORMAL porn! Jeez, Spike, if you and Buffy are gonna to videotape your stay in the Satellite of Love, at least--"

I had another discussion with a beta about whether or not Spike would download porn. My argument was "He's a guy."

Spike vamped out and hurled the monitor clean off the desk and into the wall with a roar (and when I say 'roar,' I don't mean 'loud yell,' I mean 'roar') of "WE DIDN'T BLOODY WELL TAPE IT!"

Wow. I never knew monitors were made up of that many pieces. "You mean you taped it without telling her?" I squeaked.

"NO!" Spike flexed his computer-punching hand (bloody knuckles, shards of glass, v. sexy) and shook off the lumpies. "Someone soon-to-be-departed did! I've never seen the sodding thing before in my life!" He looked really bewildered underneath the homicidal fury.

It's really very interesting to go back and compare Early Barbverse Spike to Late Barbverse Spike in terms of what progress he makes (or doesn't make) in controlling his temper over the course of the series. Hopefully I make the progression believable.

"OK, where did you find it?" I asked. I didn't exactly want to say so, but it occurred to me that maybe Buffy had taped it without telling him. Buffy may play it all Sandra Dee on the outside, but on the inside? Pure Gypsy Rose Lee. She had to keep it all bottled up during The Angel Years, and during The Riley Years she had to be really careful not to break him, and now, well--Exhibit A, currently lying in ten zillion pieces on the floor. "Was the file just sitting on your hard drive, or...?"

Spike looked super-guilty all of a sudden. His head ducked down between his shoulders, vampire ninja turtle style. "Mighthaveclickedonalinksomethin'boutSlayers," he mumbled.

"In other words, you were surfing for Slayer porn?" I folded my arms and settled in for some primo foot-tapping. "Don't you get enough of that at home?"

The interesting thing about the Buffyverse is that the supernatural ISN'T really a secret. Tons of people know about it. It's just no one admits to knowing about it. Which makes my Buffy's job a lot easier when she decides to drag it out of the closet. Which is a roundabout way of saying, if you know where to look, of course there would be Slayer fetish websites.

"I was not! I just...happened on it, like, looking for something else!" Spike is the world's second worst liar (Willow is the winner and still champeen) and he could see I wasn't buying it. "And anyway, it's a bloody good thing I did! Christ knows how long that's been out there for any spotty little deviant with their mum's credit card number to--" His eyes went Inuyasha-huge as fresh horror overtook him. "How long has it been out there?"

Barbverse Dawn is a Sesshumaru fangirl for sure.

"I'm more worried about who the cameraman was," I said. Spiders walked up my spine for a second. "I mean, that was your bedroom, right?"

Two seconds later we burst in through the door of Mom's old room, now Buffy and Spike's House of Ill Repute. I dove for the closet and Spike ripped open the door of the big old mahogany wardrobe he'd dragged over from the crypt. (But he didn't go inside, because as everyone knows, it's very foolish to shut yourself inside a wardrobe.) I stared at the crush of cute tops and kicky boots, ooh, I bet Buffy won't miss this one, she hasn't worn it in weeks... "How many shoes does she OWN?" I pulled a box free and the whole Leaning Tower Of Gucci collapsed on me.

My fic is usually a game of Spot the Narnia Reference

"Stop larking about," Spike growled, grabbing my feebly waving hand and yanking me out of the sea of footwear. "By the angle it's got to be around here somewhere..." He did one of those effortless vampire leaps and chinned himself on the top of the wardrobe, peering over the facade of wooden curlicues on the top. "Got the bastard!" He snaked one arm over the rim and jerked something small and black free, and dropped back to the floor with a thump. "What the hell...?"

It was a tiny, palm-sized camera with a little antenna sticking out of the top. Witness the creepiness. "I'm freaking out here," I said, plopping down on the bed. "Someone actually broke into our house and hid that up there!"

Spike snarled and closed his fist, and the camera joined the monitor in Electronics Heaven before I could yell, "Wait, that's evidence!"

"Not any more, it's not."

"It could lead us back to whoever planted it," I said impatiently. "We could have woken Willow up and had her...I don't know, do something technical."

This is why Spike needs Dawn around. She's the criminal mastermind in the family.

"Point." Spike shoved his lower lip out and scowled. "If there's one, there may be more. In fact, there's got to be."

I blinked. "How can you tell?"

He looked guilty and embarrassed again. "Ah, well, you see, the web site said...

For a guy supposedly unable to feel remorse, Spike does guilty and embarrassed very well.

*****

"Oh, as they say, my God." Xander stared at the tiny repeating clip with sick fascination. "'The Hottest Slayer in a Century Meets The Coolest Vampire Ever, and Guess Who Gets Staked! Sizzling Action With Cold, Dead Seed!' And this is just the teaser. You can order a whole DVD, only $49.99. Hours of fun for the whole family."

I am pretty sure that Jonathan got Andrew to write that advertising copy.

"Well, I must say both of you have excellent technique," Anya said with an approving nod. "And Spike has a large and well-formed penis, though personally I prefer circumcised men. But I can certainly understand why you're upset if you're not getting your rightful share of the profits."

"Spike, could you cool it with the growly noises?" Willow asked, her fingers flying over the keyboard. "It's distracting. OK, there's definitely more cameras... six at least. The Magic Box, the skating rink, Spike's crypt...this one's dead... Directory, directory, who's got the root directory...hah! Xander, hand me that Unicode list."

I actually researched what all Willow would have had to do to hack into and take over the camera network. I've forgotten it all now, but for about five minutes there, my skilz were l33t.

"What I still don't get is why someone bothered to break into our house and plant cameras," I said from the opposite end of the dining room table. I was staying as far away from follow-the-bouncing-Buffy as possible. "Especially considering Spike would have ripped their heads off if he'd caught them, and Buffy would have gotten REALLY mean. If you want to make a sex film, why not just go over to one of the frat houses on campus and hire a couple of college students?"

"I hate to say it, Dawnie, but I don't think they were making a porn film." Xander tore himself away from Willow's laptop. "This is surveillance camera footage. Someone's been spying on Buffy, and the porn film is just a happy byproduct."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Willow muttered. She picked up one of the larger camera fragments with a pair of tweezers. "Look, it's all dusty, and the battery pack was dead. This hasn't worked for weeks, maybe months. Do we have any toner cartridges we could break open? I think we could use the toner as fingerprint powder, and if whoever installed these left any prints, and if Spike didn't smudge them all up with his macho camera-crushing..."

This was back when printer cartridges had loose toner in them. I had just come off working for a place where we bough giant bags of loose toner and refilled our own cartridges because it was cheaper, and by God, that stuff got EVERYWHERE.

"Oh, right, blame the victim," Spike groused. "Christ, I need a fag." He stomped over to the kitchen door, and I got up and followed him out to the back porch, which was in shadow at this time of day. He lit a cigarette and stood there puffing furiously, all formal and stiff, and it weirded me out. I mean, Spike doesn't just walk or stand or sit. Spike struts and lounges and sprawls and tucks his thumbs in his belt all "Hi, I'm Spike, and this is my crotch!"

On the other hand, somewhere underneath Spike, Vampire Sex God, is still a guy who grew up when ankles were an erogenous zone. "Spike...are you OK?"

"Didn't want you to see that," he said at last. "Not right. Not proper."

He looked absolutely miserable. Any other time I'd have patted his shoulder, but I figured I'd better roll my eyes instead. I leaned against the side of the house, ultra-cool and sophisticated and untroubled by the certain knowledge of Naked Spike a mere two layers of cloth away. "It's OK. Honest. It's not like I've never seen a naked guy before--"

So in my verse, as in canon, Dawn had a crush on Spike. And she knows perfectly well that Spike's in love with her sister, and doesn't see her that way. And she loves her sister, and wants her to be happy, and she doesn't want to be (as she puts it in another story) "pathetic" about it. So she's tried very hard to squash her crush down and pretend it doesn't exist. But sometimes...

That was a mistake. Spike went yellow-eyed, achieving zero to over-protective in six seconds. "And just who the hell--"

"You and Xander, dope, when we all went skinny dipping after that clambake. Get your mind out of the gutter." Of course vague glimpses of guy-parts decently veiled by darkness and ice-cold seawater and didn't quite, uh, measure up to, well, let's just say I'm going to be comparing my future boyfriends to Spike in more ways than one, but you know, I wasn't going to let this be weird. Spike is a total hottie, and maybe, just maybe there have been a few daydreams. Detailed daydreams. With a sound track and special effects. But there are hotties all over the planet, and not all that many guys you can talk to about important stuff like whether or not you really existed before two years ago, and whether the monks that created you remembered to add a standard-issue soul to the mix, and how incredibly annoying older sisters can be. "On second thought, I'm deeply traumatized. I think I might get over it if you talked Buffy into letting me get my navel pierced."

Spike stared at me, various bits of him twitching. "Dawn--"

I patted his shoulder, because I could. "You're gonna be inhaling filter in a minute. Let's go inside."

When we got back inside, Willow had bit and pieces of camera wired up to the laptop. "Curiouser and curiouser," she said. "The server this camera was supposed to send information to doesn't exist any longer, or at least, it's not turned on. The web site's on a regular commercial server, and the domain name's registered to Horatio Hellpop--pseudonym much? Good news, it looks like the site's only been up for a couple of days--" She broke into a triumphant grin. "We're in!"

"What're you waiting for, then?" Spike doesn't usually use his sire-to-minion voice on Willow, but he was using it now. "Take it down!"

It's not relevant to the tale at hand, so I don't belabor it here, but this Willow is a vampire with a soul. It's a long story.

"Patience, Grasshopper." Willow typed a few more cryptic strings of symbols into the laptop. "Bad news, it's going to take me a few hours to find out who the owner really is. I'll have to hack into Paypal to get his bank account info and track IP addresses and stuff."

I did not research what it would take to hack into Paypal. I have my limits.

Spike began pacing back and forth, tense and borderline vampy, looking like he really, really wanted to kill something. Or someone. "And in that time this berk could run off a hundred more copies and pass 'em out to friends as door prizes."

"Or keep them and sell fifty-seven of them to the list of people I'm downloading now," Willow said. "OK. I've disabled the site and changed the passwords, so no one will be able to order any more." She cracked her knuckles. "Give me six hours and I can clean out Larry Flynt Junior's bank account, ruin his credit history, and send anonymous tips to Donald Rumsfeld that he's a terrorist child pornographer." Willow's a little less scary without her magic, but really? Not by that much. She looked around. "Not that I would ever do anything like that."

I mean really. "Hacker" may be a 90s cliche, but I still wouldn't want one mad at me.

Spike snatched the list of names and credit card numbers off the printer and squinted at it. "Bloody hell. There's addresses all the way from Juneau to Key West." He looked at the list again, and smiled. Need I say it wasn't a very nice smile? "I think it's time to pay a visit to the locals. Could be some of them have an idea who they're ordering from. Harris, you want to take out the rest of those cameras, and--" He turned to Willow. "Will, when Buffy gets home, for God's sake don't let her suss out anything's wrong. If she finds out about this..."

My Spike still needs glasses, but is too vain to wear them. I have a number of canonical justifications for this headcanon.

All of us shuddered in unison. If Buffy found out there would be an explosion of thermonuclear proportions. Spike grabbed his motorcycle jacket and blanket and headed for the front door, and I leaped to my feet and ran after him. "Wait up! I'm going with you!"

He scowled at me. "I think not. You're going to stay here, and distract your sister like a good little minor."

"Uh-uh." I used all of my hey-Dawnie's-tall-now height to advantage. "Look, Spike, all this stuff getting out does to you is make you mad. If Buffy finds out, she's going to be..." I floundered for a minute. " Humiliated, and nobody humiliates my sister except me. I'm gonna go with you, and we're gonna find out who did it and...and... kick their butts with pointy-toed shoes."

Spike glared, but it was the old I-disapprove-on-principle-but-you're-all-right,-Niblet glare, and I knew he'd be caving in ten, nine, eight... "Move yer girly arse, then," he said with an unconvincing growl. "We've got villains to apprehend."

I scooted for the DeSoto before he could change his mind. Maybe he thought that it would be a good idea to have someone soul-having around when he was this mad, just in case. Or maybe, and I really prefer this version, he just wanted a partner in crime because it's more fun that way. Spike flung the blanket over his head and copied my dash for the car, and we flung ourselves into the DeSoto's dark interior just as Spike was beginning to sizzle. "You come along, you mind what I tell you, yeah? I say stay in the car, you stay in the car. I say you run, you run. I say you take that fucking pathetic excuse for music out of the CD player and toss it out the window--"

"--and I ignore you like always," I said cheerfully, turning up the Jennifer Lopez.

"Fine. If anyone dies tonight, it's on your head. Some things are beyond any self-respecting vampire's endurance." Spike slammed into reverse and backed out of the driveway with a screech of tires. I grabbed the door handle. Driving with Spike is always a character-building experience, and today was no exception. "First on the hit parade?"

I scanned the list. "Vernon Blakely, 1583 East Beechwood. What are we gonna say to Mr. Blakely when we get there?"

Spike gazed out through the little clean space in the windshield, obviously pondering which limb he should rip off first, and peeled out like there was a mob with torches after us. "Improvisation is a virtue, Bit."

I had absolutely no idea how they would get the DVDs back. The next several scenes are just me letting the characters take the reins and do whatever the hell they wanted to.

**********

Spike was smoking gently beneath his blanket when the shade-deficient door of 1583 East Beechwood opened to our urgent hammering, and a middle-aged guy with thinning red hair and freckles and a pot belly opened it and blinked at us. He looked like Mr. Weasley gone to seed. "Mr. Blakely?" I said with my brightest, shiniest smile.

The Blakely looked from me to Spike, and the contrast seemed to produce some kind of cognitive dissonance on his part. "Can I... have we met?"

"Only in spirit." Spike leaned heavily against the doorframe, with a smile that was probably supposed to be reassuring, but which made him look like he was sporting fangs even when he wasn't. Spike isn't a big guy--in fact, he's on the smallish side, but he's got, you know, muscles. And this air of being able to rip your liver out. Also did I mention the muscles? "I'm given to understand you made a purchase recently from...ah..." He glanced surreptitiously at the paper in his hand. "...Mad Genius Productions?"

Mr. Blakely looked at me, dubious, and at Spike, nervous. "What of it? If I'd done anything like that, which I didn't."

"We're from the, uh, department of quality control," I chirped. "The DVDs are..."

"Radioactive," Spike put in. "Rot your goolies off just like that. " I gave him an elbow-jab.

"Defective," I said firmly. "Glitches. Pixelization. It's criminal the kind of shoddy merchandise we put out. We're recalling them and giving you a replacement at absolutely no charge!"

Spike held up a jewel case and flashed it under Blakely's nose. "Director's cut. Added scenes. 40% more filth for the price."

Suspicion was gathering in Mr. Blakely's watery blue eyes. "Hey, you're that guy from the video," he said.

Spike heaved a melodramatic sigh. "All right, all right, as you've twisted my arm, I'll autograph it for you."

I honestly did not expect him to say that, but somehow there I was, typing it.

The watery eyes brightened. "Really?"

Five minutes later we were dashing for the car again, with the confused Mr. Blakely waving us goodbye. "So what's he going to do when he discovers he's been suckered for a bootleg copy of J-Lo's latest?" I asked, as we tore away from the curb.

"Long as it's got some bint with her tits hanging out on the cover, I doubt he'll notice the difference." Spike grinned. "There'd just better be some hitting involved in the next one."

**********

"I don't believe there's any such thing as a Department of Quality Control," Mr. Angusson said, looking us up and down. "What the hell kind of scam are you pulling?"

"All we want to do is to replace--" I started.

"Look, missy, I bought that DVD nice and legal, and I don't give a crap if whatever goombah and his girlfriend put on plastic fangs to do it is having second thoughts now. So you and your boyfriend just toddle off and--"

"HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "HE'S SHOWING ME HIS THING! IT'S ALL GROSS AND PURPLE AND--"

I didn't expect Dawn to do that, either. And yet!

Angusson disappeared and reappeared in two seconds flat, chucking the DVD at our heads.

"Better," Spike said as we tore out yet again. "But I'm still feeling a lack in the hitting things area."

Mr. Fishbein retreated a step from the threshold. "I'm not giving you anything, and I'm not letting you in," he quavered. "What do you think I am, stupid? You're a vampire!"

Honestly, it's Sunnydale. SOMEONE has to get it.

Spike rolled his eyes. He's learned from the masters. "Oh, bollocks, you don't really believe--"

"Oh, yeah?" Fishbein challenged. "Step through that door!"

I stepped through the door, grabbed Fishbein's hand and gave him a good hard yank, right across the threshold and into Spike's waiting fist.

"What was that?," Spike caroled, drawing back for another punch. "Come on in and have a cuppa, Spike? Better repeat it, I'm a touch deaf in that ear."

"That was unnecessarily bloody," I said as we hopped into the car and stepped on the gas, one DVD richer.

"He'll live," Spike said dismissively. "Probably. Next?"

**********

I figured I had to give Spike SOME violence, or he'd get mopey.

"Can you see--?" I hissed, trying to get a better view through the front window. It was getting dark, and I was out of practice at sneaking around not-really-abandoned buildings. Spike shushed me and crept around to the door. I peered through the sad straggly thevetia hedge, cupping my hands against the dirty glass. The place was just crawling with innnnnnteresting monsters, all huddled around a crappy old black and white TV. There's some law against demons watching flatscreen color, apparently.

"Oh, my God, are they really...you know....doing it?" The Gorthesch demon bumped a couple of Fyarls further down on the couch and plunged a scaly paw into the bowl of popcorn as they all stared at the flickering screen. "With a Slayer? I mean, I heard about it, but I didn't think even a vampire could sink that low."

"Real vampires don't," the lone vampire in the crowd protested, voice dripping disgust. "Maybe great big Slayer-whipped pussies do, but--"

"Shut up!" came a chorus of squeaky, growly, and croaky voices. Despite the complaints, everyone seemed to like the show. There were tongues hanging out. At least, I hope they were tongues.

"Yeah, it's just gettin' to the good part," a Syvithis demon whispered.

"Oooh! The one with the pommel horse?"

"No, where the Slayer goes down on him in the graveyard and he--"

I actually wrote a PWP detailing all the scenes in The Spuffy Sex Tape. An edited-down version eventually got incorporated into A Parliament of Monsters, when Angelus gets a hold of one of the copies that Spike and Dawn aren't able to track down in this story.

The front door imploded with a crash, splinters flying everywhere, and Spike strode into the room over the wreckage, a gleam in his eye and a really, really big axe slung over one shoulder. He surveyed the assortment of demons with a grin almost as big as the axe and about twice as vicious, ran his tongue over his teeth and and tucked his free thumb in his belt loop, fingers splayed over the merchandise. Just like old times. "Looks like you're right, mate," he said. "We are just getting to the good part."

**********

"OK, I take it back," I said as we headed for home. "THAT was unnecessarily bloody." It was after midnight, and we'd collected twenty-two DVDs, broken and entered fifteen houses and/or lairs, killed or maimed eight demons, broken five human fingers accidentally-on-purpose, and signed two autographs. Spike had definitely achieved his hitting things quota, and it was a safe bet that no one in Sunnydale would be mentioning Spike and Buffy's brief but eventful movie career in public any time soon.

"All right, p'raps the railroad spike was a bit much, but a bloke gets nostalgic." Spike stretched, all luxurious and satisfied, and lit up a fresh cig, trailing smoke out the window. He had a black eye and a split lip and a scrape right across the place where his cheekbone goes all knife-edgy, and the stretching made things creak inside that probably weren't supposed to creak, but he was in a much, much better mood. "He'll grow a new head."

Where did Spike get a railroad spike on short notice? I have no idea. He's just resourceful that way.

"If you say so," I said, a bit dubious. "Doesn't that only happen when you cut the old one off?"

"So it'll take a bit longer." Spike bounced a little in his seat, all hepped up on the old ultra-violence. "Still haven't found the bastard who's selling the things, though. Must be a bleeding criminal mastermind if--" I Wanna Be Sedated beebled from the cell phone in his pocket. (Like I said, a lot better with technology than some vampires I can name. He can even program it, though considering the songs he picks, sometimes we wish he couldn't.) He grabbed the phone one-handed and didn't slow down even a bit as he zipped through freeway traffic. (Well, he is evil.) "Yeh? You must be joking. You must be--fuck. That little--I'll tear his soddin' head off! Yeh, I know. I'll just bruise him a little." He clicked the phone off and stuffed it back in his pocket, spun the wheel and zigged across four lanes of traffic towards the off-ramp, leaving a chorus of screeching brakes behind us. "After I tear his soddin' head off."

"Where are we going?" I yelled.

Spike hunched over the wheel, eyes grim. "Off to see the wizard."

We pulled up in front of one of the cruddy lease-by-the-month apartment buildings over by the UC Sunnydale campus. Maybe it was the same one Dad and I stayed at when he came down from L.A. to take care of Buffy's estate that time she was dead--the second time, I mean, not the first time. Some of the grease spots in the parking lot looked familiar.

It just struck me as I was describing the building that it was almost identical to the one I'd described in Necessary Evils, so I thought I'd better lampshade it.

"Apartment 42B, Will says." Spike sucked in his cheeks and narrowed his eyes, scoping out the disintegrating stucco overhead. "There at the end." He slapped his hands together and bounded towards the stairs like he was scaling Everest. I followed like I was scaling a rickety stepladder. (Hey, lack of supernatural stamina here. I was getting pretty darned tired.) The lights were on in 42B, and we paused outside the door, which was painted in barf-making 80s turquoise. Spike pounded on it with one fist. "Open up! Land shark!"

I heard some rustling and thumping noises inside, and a crash like a bookcase falling over. "Go away!" a strangely familiar voice yelled. "You can't get in here anyway!"

"Yeh? Maybe not, but I can stand out here till you starve to death. Or set the building on fire, or...uh..." Spike paced the catwalk for a second, smoking like a fiend, which I guess is appropriate. I was pretty sure the fire thing was a bluff, since Spike's not usually one for indirect mayhem. He's got the whole hitting things fetish, after all. Then his eyes lit up and he grinned. "Maybe I can't walk through your door, but there's nothing says I can't kick it down and send in my terrible mute minion, Paco." He whirled around and unleashed one of his shitkicker boots at the door. BANG! The whole building shuddered (which sounds impressive, but considering it was probably made out of pressboard and Kleenex, isn't so much). WHAM! A hinge sprung and the doorframe cracked. I buffed my nails and waited--obviously Spike was holding back.

I don't know why more vampires don't do things like this.

"I'm gonna lose my deposit!" the voice inside wailed.

"My heart bleeds. Oh, wait, no it doesn't. Open up, or--"

The door flew open, or tried to (Spike had knocked it kind of cattywompus, and it stuck halfway.) A face peered out, pale and pear-shaped and nervous under slept-in dark hair. Behind it was a barren little studio apartment littered with pizza boxes, comic books, and boxes of DVDs and padded mailers. There was practically no furniture except a mattress and a desk with a pretty sweet computer and home studio setup.

My hand shot out and I grabbed Pasty-face by the ear and pulled, hard. "Jonathan?!" I yipped. Jonathan squirmed and batted at me, but I dug my nails in. "YOU'RE the criminal mastermind?"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he yelled. "Let me go, don't let him kill me, I didn't mean to, it's not my fault!"

"Oh, for God's sake, quit whining," I snapped, letting go. "Spike hasn't even touched you."

Spike took a drag on his cigarette, peeled himself off the railing and sort of glided over, all slouchy and menacing, with the angle of the floodlights leaving black caverns where his eyes should be. Jonathan squinched in on himself. "You just don't learn, do you?" Spike asked, soft and pee-your-pants scary. "How long've you had those cameras on us?"

Jonathan backed away with a panicky shuffle. "They're not mine! They were Warren's, and they haven't worked since the police confiscated all his computer stuff! Honest! I just happened to have some files I'd saved for, for--"

"Wanking material?" Spike asked, excessively sarcastic.

"Research!" Jonathan reached the wall and sat down very abruptly. "I didn't mean anything by it! All I wanted was to raise some money so Warren and Andrew could get a better lawyer! Someone who knows about demon-related cases, like Goldberg & Osbourne, or Wolfram & Hart. I didn't think you'd ever find out, and I'm really, really, really sorry, please don't kill me, please, please, PLEASE don't kill me--"

Goldberg & Osbourne is a real law firm in Phoenix, AZ, known for being sleazy ambulance-chasers. A joke that only I ever got.

"Didn't mean anything by dragging a lady's reputation in the dirt?" Spike roared (and again, by roared, I mean, well, roared). He grabbed Jonathan by his Robotech jammies and hauled him up nose-to-nose--Jonathan's one of the few guys Spike can look down on. "Well, maybe I won't mean anything when I rip your balls off and stuff them in your eye sockets, how's that?"

"Why?" I asked, grabbing Spike's arm. I realized I'd been wanting to ask that question for a long time. "Why, Jonathan? I mean, I get Warren and whatsisface--they had grudges against Buffy, but you used to be--" Well, not her friend, not really. "She saved your life! You gave her the Class Protector award! She let you off the hook when she turned Warren over to the cops--you were an accessory to murder, Jonathan, and she let you go! I don't get it. Why are you helping them?"

Jonathan yanked his pajama top out of Spike's grip and pulled himself up like he'd taken a dose of Insta-Spine. "Because they're my friends," he said, very simply, meeting Spike's yellowing eyes head-on. "And I know they're not much, but they're all I've got. Whatever else happens, you've got to stand by your friends, right? Or what's the point?" He sighed, squared his shoulders, and looked up at Spike with a little smile. "It's a fair cop. I guess you'd better do whatever it is you're going to do."

I wanted Jonathan to redeem himself a little bit, kinda?

Spike stood there looking at Jonathan, head cocked in the His Master's Voice pose he gets when he's trying really, really hard to figure out the motivations of the souled. And I knew what was going through his head. Spike was looking for a reason not to kill him.

See, Spike doesn't have a soul. He doesn't do good stuff because it's right. He can't. He's not wired that way, as he puts it. But he can do good stuff if there's a reason--like if it helps him somehow, or makes someone he loves happy. Or if it makes him feel, for a minute, like he's a man and not a monster, which is a feeling he really likes. And that's the cool thing about Spike, the thing I really love about him, and I think probably the thing Buffy loves too: not the cheekbones or the attitude or the mad combat skilz or what's under those jeans, but that he does like that feeling, and so Spike looks for those reasons. Looks real hard. Harder, I think sometimes, than some people with souls.

I'm just sayin'.

"Right," he said at last. And he hauled off and punched Jonathan right in the nose.

"YEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOW!" Jonathan fell over, clutching his face, and gore splattered everywhere. "By dose! You broge by dose!"

But still, well, evil.

"Just be glad that's all I've broke," Spike said. He wiped his knuckles on his t-shirt instead of licking the blood off, which was a pretty big compliment, really. Congratulations, Jonathan, you've graduated to Not-Food! "Christ, where's the fun in beating the shit out of a pathetic little wibbling sod like you?" He pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket (that's another moderately cool thing about Spike: he carries pocket handkerchiefs) and tossed it to Jonathan. "Grab the goods, Bit. It's time to call it a night."

Jonathan sat there snorfling blood into the hanky while I ferried the DVDs and Jonathan's hard drive out to Spike--I figured Willow could check it out for contraband and return it, so we weren't stealing it exactly. As we started down the stairs with the last armload, Spike turned back to Jonathan, almost amiable. "Word to the wise. I don't forget what your friends put Buffy through. If you want to do your pals a real favor, maybe you ought to remember that while I'm out here, and they're safe in stir, no one's likely to get eaten accidental-like, eh?"

Now this! At the time that I wrote this, I had NO IDEA that Warren would come back and cause trouble later, and that Spike would, in fact, end up eating him. Indeed, by the time I wrote "The Lesser of Two Evils," I had completely forgotten that I'd written this line, and when I stumbled upon it when re-reading a couple of years later, it was this totally serendipitous piece of foreshadowing. Sometimes writing is so cool!

Jonathan stared at him, and nodded a little. And we left.

**********

It was past two o'clock when we got home. We locked the DVDs in the trunk of the DeSoto, which had been the closet for a lot of other skeletons in its day, and after a short consultation on how to best avoid Ordeal By Buffy, we strolled into the house as if we were coming in from a late patrol and nothing in the universe was wrong.

Willow was still tapping away at her laptop in the dining room. "I'm just tracking down the copies on eBay," she whispered, "and sending out fake cease and desist orders from Mad Genius Productions. Buffy's in bed. She doesn't suspect a thing." She noted our alarmed glances and added, a bit huffily, "Don't worry, Xander took care of the the subterfuge part. Did you get him?"

"Yeh, he's got." Spike rolled his head and rubbed back of his neck. "Battle of the ages. Christ, I'm glad that's done with." He eyed our crumpled list of victims thoughtfully. "Wonder if I could fake a business trip to Juneau."

"Don't press your luck," Willow said drily.

"Someday I'm going to sire someone with a minimum of respect for their elders," Spike growled.

Willow grinned, smug. "And they'll bore you so much you'll stake them inside forty-eight hours. Shoo. Buffy's waiting for you."

So we headed for the stairs, and as I put my foot on the first step, I heard Spike heave a big sigh behind me. "Thanks, Bit. Couldn't have managed without you." When I looked back, he was staring at the toes of his boots, all awkward and embarrassed. "I just hope this hasn't... hasn't..."

"Spike, I'll always think of you as my brother." I waited two beats, and added with a perfectly straight face, "My brother with the enormous schlong."

I got three whole steps before Spike came after me and chased me all the way upstairs.

This story is the second of three I wrote ("The Road to Byzantium" and "A Dark and Stormy Night" are numbers one and three) which has Dawn moving on from her crush and into a more grown-up friendship with Spike as a major theme, and hopefully it works. And they all lived happily ever after, at least until I got another idea!

#btvs #fic discussion #thenewbuzwuzz #spuffy #fan fiction #dvd commentary

16 notes · View notes

lachalaine · 5 years

Note

3, 9, 15, 18

Wrath //

accepting . @valorandheart

3. How quick are they to resort to violence?

She has a healthy measure of a what you’d consider to be a hair trigger temper tbh. Very quickly and at the snap of a finger will she fly into a rage, but only ever if she is purposely ( even slightly ) pushed or prodded into reaching that particular conclusion. In a situation like that, where she is at all made to feel disrespected or antagonized, you get maybe just the slightest flicker of a verbal warning, but if it’s unheeded - then she has every damn excuse in the book to just up and sock you in the jaw for even thinking about testing her.

She is often the first to strike a punch yes, but that’s because she doesn’t believe in playing nice. Whatever her attempt at words will fail in saying, perhaps a trip to the ER will instead communicate flawlessly.

However, even despite her intense flurry of rage, she’s not entirely what you might consider to be mindless or irrational when it comes to it ( a sharp contrast to her usual persona with literally anything else, i know ), because I just think anger sort of flips a bit of a switch inside her head really. It brings out the aspect of herself that is — more calm. But a calm that isn’t normal. It’s not at all a calm that’s genuinely tranquil, but more built on being very, very precise; intelligent, contemplative and built up by the knowledge of having a lot of near death experiences.

There is a spark of a very keen intellect somewhere in there before she starts nuking both place and offending person to smithereens, but it’s not a question of whether punching them in the face would be worth it or not ( because it’s always going to be worth it to her, if it means sorting someone’s shit out ). Rather, it’s merely a question of how exactly she plans to get in exacting the ramifications of their aggravating her.

9. Is there a line they will not cross when it comes to violence/insults?

For violence, she doesn’t do torture unless it’s on people that she genuinely considers to be a threat to her - otherwise known as those she intends to eventually kill. Like, genuinely they have to be dangerous in the sense that ‘if I leave them untouched, they will hurt more people in ways I could have stopped’. For that particular type of crazy, she deals with it differently.

Thus, your regular street thugs and perverts all get to keep each and every one of their limbs. Unless they intend to go beyond just your usual disrespect, she’ll stop at just your regular beat up until they pass out, and then call it a day. For how angry she can get, she does have a meager sense of rationalization left to her in those moments as well; in the sense that she knows when her violence is too much. Too much in the sense that she’s so blinded by rage that a man is a footstep away from near death. Such a thing can actually happen too, when her demons and sadness get the best of her.

She’s learned to control it just a bit, by taking her anger during those moments out on inanimate objects instead. Her living room has had to be fully refurbished two now, just in the past three years, for the absolute wreckage she’s caused in there. But sometimes - just sometimes, she slips. And she tries to get away before that happens, but it doesn’t always work out. About three times now has she so severely lost her temper that she’s thrown at least four men into a coma.

But her anger was never at them. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and happened to not take ‘no’ for an answer.

Quietly does she pay for their hospital bills, shuffling money anonymously into bank accounts if the victim had had family that were distraught. At the end of the day - she draws the line at violence that comes without good reason. She draws the line at violence that was not warranted - especially not to that degree.

Her guilt - more then the demons - is the worst thing to consume her; and she can never escape that one.

In terms of insults, she just strays away from insulting people with names that might pertain to their sexual habits. Slut, whore, and the like are all completely off the table. Because really?? Let the person do their thing, it’s no ones business but their own, go away, shoo !!

15. What’s the worst situation they’ve ended up in before, due to violence?

The worst one… has to be the third and latest time that she’d lost control of her rage; one of the moments the same as I’d been referring to earlier.

Canonically speaking, you could say maybe it was around a year a half ago now. She’d had — maybe what you might consider a fit. Just a gradual one. A build up where there’s no really specific trigger but just. Just everything inching its way towards her until she can’t function as rationally as she would have liked. Fits built up out of sleepless nights, memories, a recurrence of self hatred and despair and guilt.

Fits built up because she’s reminded of her mistakes, embittered anew by the man that’d caused them. And yet more then even that, would be her bitterness for herself.

Now these particular ‘moods’ as you might call them - have become a regularly recurring state of mind at this point. She can’t escape it, and half the time it creeps up on her until she can’t ignore it anymore. Such are the consequences when you refuse to deal with your shuttered feelings properly.

Now as much as possible, she deals with them by taking it out on her furniture, sheltering herself away so she can feel her feelings and not allow anyone else to get caught in the aftermath of it. Sometimes she takes to a punching bag, sometimes all the breakable vases and plates and slammable doors she can get her hands on. Yet this fit had happened when she wasn’t even home yet, and in fact nowhere was she near it. When she didn’t have that kind of security or stability to keep herself in check, but did have a large group of men hassling her instead.

They’d been hard to deter even when she’d initially been in the club with them, and to a certain extent had she’d managed to avoid most of their prodding. They’d behaved themselves after the first warning, because she was in her element and the bouncers and her colleagues were keeping them in check. They’d been especially overprotective of her that night, because they’d known in the day leading up to things that she wasn’t quite okay. There was a healthy sense of fear and respect and care in their gazes that night, and whilst Jackie had appreciated it - to a certain extent…. it also made her more antsy.

She’d felt like a bomb in that moment, with the pressure rising up beneath her skin. Like she wasn’t comfortable and needed to release some of it, and she didn’t want to do it there, not when everything and anything just seemed to be getting on her nerves even more.

She’d had very little sleep those nights. Had been running on copious amounts of caffeine and quiet frankly just wanted to have a breakdown, if only so she could get some relief. So she went off to the nearby pier after work, just for a brief moment, in hopes that maybe the silence of it all would grant her some semblance of relief.

But instead, she got six grown men tailing her at three thirty in the morning, eventually cornering her by an abandoned alleyway as she’d been making to leave and effectively blocking her way out.

And maybe her reaction had been partly out of some sense of fear for herself. A healthy sense of fear, I think, for no matter how strong she’d known herself to be - in that moment, she had felt overwhelmed. By all the feelings she’d suppressed; the stress and the exhaustion and the blatant disrespect as they’d tried to move in on her because not one of them knew how to fucking quit — !!

Again. She doesn’t remember what happened.

She never does.

Ultimately, I think her snapping was because of that fear, that idea of being boxed in against her will once again - but also it was conjoined with a terrifying and heart aching sense of need.

A need to prove herself. That she was strong and capable and she didn’t have to be forced into anything she didn’t want. The need to stop the situation and make sure it’d ended, before it went full throttle into a situation she couldn’t control. And the very idea that her freedom would be infringed upon in anyway, whether it be a mindless grope or a man who thought he could force himself on her — really, she wouldn’t take it.

She couldn’t.

That thoughtless little prod against a very, very, V E R Y sore spot brought out the absolute worst in her.

Imagine her surprise when she finally came to again, in a moment where she was repeatedly punching an unconscious man in the face so severely that he was absolutely unrecognizable, to find that she was actually crying while doing it. She’d had blood on her hands and on her clothes, on her face and beneath her nails. She’d snapped both of a mans wrist in but a split second and smashed another ones jaw with her elbow so severely he’d needed to have it completely reconstructed. Broken legs, broken ribs, broken teeth, repeated cranium blows against hard concrete and steel. One punctured a lung, one acquired amnesia, another three had gone into full coma’s, though only one of them remains that way until today. Two are still receiving physical therapy.

The other she’d strangled so badly the only way he can eat is through a tube.

Eventually when she’d come to, there’d only been one of the men awake. And he’d been cowering and whimpering, sobbing himself to pieces while he’d lain there with both broken leg and two broken wrists.

The only thing she can remember of that night is how tired —- how so dreadfully, dreadfully tired she really was.

She couldn’t find it in her to even be angry anymore.

Long story cut short ( like I didn’t explain it all already dshabdhsba ), Jazzele eased her way out while Jackie finally passed out, and while she didn’t raise a hand against them, she did — ahem — assist, in wiping most of their memories of that night.

Jazz is the reason she made her way back home that night too. When she came to, she was in her filled and bloody bathtub, still in her underwear.

To a certain extent, I do think that Jazz has influenced Jackie’s handling of these situations. She dulls it down for her even more then Jackie could ever do on her own, that she always considers it a regular mental problem now.

It’s number her overall empathy to feel. As a security measure.

Because if Jackie were to ever feel that in its entirely again, she’s not confident she’s strong enough to survive it.

18. Was violence a big part of their childhood?

Violence was never a part of her childhood. Not in the least! Even when she was being bullied as a kid, no one actually raised a hand against her besides throwing chalk on her clothes and dirtying her up, it was all just mostly taunts and emotional damage. Honestly, she was really sensitive as a kid, you know? Soft and shy, always got so scared of yelling too. It made her uncomfortable, and she would end up in tears and hide beneath tables because she couldn’t take it.

She was so damn soft back then, it almost breaks my heart to think about it. Because she looks back on it too sometimes and feels like she’s lost a great deal of her sense of purity from back then. Her light, her frailty, her delicacy….

Not that she wants to ever be considered frail but.

You know. Sometimes girls want to be taken care of too, sometimes. Even if she can handle it on her own and she tells herself she can handle it on her own, and she’ll be stubborn about handling all of it, everything, all on her own until she’s old and grey and lying on her death bed —- !!!!

( really now OTL )

More then anything though, really – she just misses that bit of her that didn’t feel like she had the whole weight of the world on her shoulders. That little bit of her who could still share her feelings with her parents and her friends - heck her stuffed bears! - just tell them what makes her happy and makes her sad, just being able to talk about personal things and not feeling like she was on death row just for saying it.

Not feeling like a shadowed figure was out to literally steal her soul the moment she’d debated uttering a single word of it. To anyone.

Even to a bear.

But maybe just — in another lifetime, you know?

she just would have liked to keep that piece of her too.

#valorandheart #&& waste time with a masterpiece (answered asks)#&& chatelaine on the decks (jackie headcannon)#/ dahsbhdbsahdbhsabd #/ it got even LONGER then i expected it to oh my god #/ the worst violent situation bit?? UHM.#/ I HOPE IT MAKES SENSE #/ anyway dhsabdha i've had this drafted since like two weeks or a week ago??? and only rewrote everything tonight dhbsahdba #/ IM SORRY FOR THE LENGTH THANK U FOR SENDING BBY #/ I CRIED A BIT #/ BLESS #tw violence

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greenxscarves · 5 years

Note

ghost hunter / ghost emily au ;0c

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it *rubs hands together* Nyehehehe

Jack picks Emily up as he’s helping some distant cousin help clear out the house of a recently deceased grand-uncle or something like that. It was an old house that belongs to someone in the Morrison clan.

By ‘picks Emily up’ I mean he snags an ancient looking pocket watch because he’s seventeen and Aesthetics(tm).

Weird shit always happened before, but after he gets the watch, things get worse. So much worse.

He gets about a dozen people to bless the watch and try to cleanse it.

It works for about a week and then the activity starts up again. It can range from everything from knocks to falling items and things being pushed off counters and things going missing. He’s half convinced a ghost-cat has followed him home.

He picks a university to attend and moves in early. Like during summer session early due to a campus job he acquired.

Within a week he’s met a guy at the library and they go on a few dates. The activity finally dies down and Jack thinks that maybe this new boyfriend(?) is good luck.

Six months pass and he starts getting sick more and more often. He learns his boyfriend is into some... weird things, but hey he won’t judge.

The activity picks up again. Threats/warnings are left scrawled in mirrors, sometimes in steam, sometimes in blood. He feels hands and shoves and a book has been pushed off the bookshelf more than a few times when the boyfriend is over. One was even chucked at his head.

Winter solstice comes and shit hits the fan. Blood magic and occult rituals and some unnecessary chanting and a few too many knives for Jack’s comfort. If he thought having a boyfriend who was in a cult was bad, he really didn’t like that it was a demon-worshipping cult and the demon was his boyfriend.

Apparently the ‘I want to hold your heart in my hands’ was not an awkward figurative statement of affection.

Jack manages to Not Die due to sheer dumb luck.

Demon (ex) boyfriend is still out there.

The rest of the cult, not so much. They’re not as lucky as Jack.

Ready to put this behind him, he goes to sleep of this shitty dream.

He is not ready for the Red-Head floating above his desk.

Fast-forward twenty years.

After that initial demon hunt, Jack pursued the paranormal researcher stuff. He finished college, met Ana Amari and then proceeded to start a business with her.

They’re both very serious about it. Most of the time.

Ana sees ghosts. Always has been able too. The tattoo she has was an attempt to stop seeing them.

To actually pay the bills, they run a small curio shop. They live in one of the ‘haunted capitals’ of the world so they cater to tourists and the like. They do have a ‘real shop’ in the back for those who actually practice or hunt.

Emily is not bound to the pocket-watch. It’s just where she returns to if something goes wrong.

She was a ‘witch’ who died of an ordeal by water. Aka a dunking, but years before it was standard practice.

Jack calls it a hipster witch-drowning. Emily couldn’t stop laughing for an hour. Ana was ready to kill both of them.

She actually was a witch, but the magic was not what got her killed. She has hundreds of years of knowledge, so while she’s not like a walking library, she is sort of like a walking Spark Notes.

Emily is pretty much by Jack’s side constantly. He usually has the pocket watch tucked into a jacket or hooked to his wallet. If not the pocketwatch, then something small that Emily possesses. Her preference are hats. He prefers things he can tuck away securely.

Jack attracts supernatural shit

All three of them hate being called ghost hunters.

Other mediums have offered to exorcise/guide Emily to the other side.

Jack politely declined. Emily was less polite.

They use the bluetooth earpiece to not look completely mad when talking to Emily. People just assume they have a research aide or something.

Mostly they investigate low-level things. Jack can count on one hand the number of times he and Ana have run into something that legitimately unnerved either of them. Ghosts and spirits and supernatural creatures are usually fine.

There have been two demons that Emily and Jack have encountered. The first was his uni boyfriend. The second was a research trip they agreed to when Ana left to visit family.

Emily does not like Jack dating. Mostly because he attracts weird people. Or things. If she has to stealth explain to Jack one more time that his date is not human, she’s going to scream.

The current person of interest scares the shit out of Emily. She won’t say why and she doesn’t stick around when he shows up.

Emily helped Jack study during uni.

She also bullied him into taking some classes she was interested in. It’s how he ended up with a few weird minors in things.

Her ability to interact with the real world is pretty mercurial. Jack and Ana have experimented with ways to change this. She can almost consistently use a computer now. Jack low-key regrets it.

Cryptids are counted among the paranormal.

Emily gets a little too excited about mothman.

Whatever Emily possesses sort of functions as a talisman against low-level spirits. She’s very territorial so no hitchhiking ghosts for Jack and Ana.

Emily really wants them to go hunting for bigfoot at least once.

She also wants to ‘swim’ in lake Champlain. Jack refuses to have another Nessie incident.

#txt msg: soldierwatch #soldierwatch

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minijenn · 6 years

Text

Universe Falls Preview 4

Ya ya ya controversy and cavitching aside, here’s the last one. Filled with snark and spoopy ghostie stuff. Woooooooo. Enjoy!

As her father had instructed, Pacifica led Dipper to the so-called “problem room”, which, even upon an initial glance, was exactly what he had been expecting. It appeared to be some kind of lounge, just as stately as the rest of Northwest Manor was with hand-crafted hardwood furniture, walls lined with paintings hailing the family’s allegedly proud history, and mounted animal heads, and a large roaring fireplace that cast the entire room in a shadowy, almost blood red glow.

“This is the main room where it’s been happening,” Pacifica informed as they stepped inside, her usual confident manner somewhat diminished in place of fledgling fear.

“Yeah, this looks like the kind of room that would be haunted alright,” Dipper concluded as he pulled the journal out and turned to the fortunately extensive section on ghosts. “I wouldn’t worry about it though. Ghosts fall on a ten-category scale. Floating plates sounds like a category 1, which is pretty far from being anywhere close to dangerous.”

“So what?” Pacifica asked with a teasing smirk. “Are you gonna bore him back into the afterlife by reading from that book? Or are you going to pretend to stab him with that cute little toy sword of yours?” she asked, nodding to the Ancient Sea Blade he had securely strapped to his back.

“First of all, it’s not a toy, its real,” Dipper corrected, half tempted to draw it and show her. “And secondly, I only brought it with me as a precaution. If it really is a category 1, then the most I gotta do is splash that sucker with some anointed water,” he said, holding said small bottle of holy water up. “And he should be out of your probably-fake blonde hair.”

“What was that about my hair?” Pacifica scoffed, glaring at him disapprovingly.

“Shh!” Dipper quickly interupted her as he pulled a small, ghost-tracking device out of his backpack, one that was already beeping in response to the apparent supernatural activity in the room. “I’m picking something up.”

The heiress simply sighed in aggravation but all the same she hung back, allowing him to investigate further as he followed the readings the device was giving off. Dipper stopped short in front of the fireplace as he briefly glanced up to the large painting of who appeared to be an 1880s lumberjack until the device’s signal suddenly went dead. “Ugh, come on, stupid thing,” he muttered in annoyance, beating the side of it until it began beeping once more. “There we go. Huh?” He was met with immediate confusion as he glanced up again, only to find that somehow, the lumberjack in the painting had suddenly disappeared from the frame in what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds at best. Something that Dipper already knew well from experience, was far from normal. “Uh… Pacifica?”

The heiress didn’t even heed him as she instead let out a frightened scream on the other side of the room, one that was quite warranted given the pool of blood she had just spotted near her feet, one that was being fueled from above. Both her and Dipper let out shared gasps of shock as they glanced up to see blood, thick, dark, and real, swelling from the seemingly dead mouths and eyes of every single one of the taxidermized animal heads on the walls. A steady, unnatural gale-force wind started to swirl around the room as bright, sinister flames began bursting out from the confines of the fireplace, almost as if they were trying to latch onto Dipper and Pacifica as they rushed to meet each other near the center of the room. The danger seemed to escalate more and more with each passing second as the animal heads, still dripping with unexplainable blood and blank, unseeing eyes glowing a sharp, warning red, began to raise their voices in a deep, unearthly, ominous chant.

“ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS!”

On and on this mysterious mantra continued as the objects in the room began to take flight, books, furniture, and antiques all rising into the air before they haphazardly glided around the appropriately terrified pair. “Dipper, what is this?!” Pacifica cried about the incredible din surrounding them, her trembling hands held close to her as her long hair whipped about in the hurricane winds.

“I-it’s a category 10…” Dipper replied, absolutely shaken. After all, the last time he had witnessed a supernatural disaster this dire or intense was when he had watched his own body be taken over by a vicious dream demon while he floated outside of it, distraught and helpless. And while this haunting was nowhere near as immediately catastrophic as that had been, it was still every bit as deadly, a fact he was starkly reminded of as his only real option for taking care of it, the vial of anointed water, abruptly shattered right in his hand.

“ANCIENT BLOOD AND BLACKENED SKIES,” the animal heads changed their chant into something new, but every bit as dark and sinister. “THE FOREST DARK SHALL ONCE MORE RISE!”

“What do we do?! What do we do?!” Pacifica practically screamed as she grabbed Dipper by the suit jacket and shook him desperately.

“I-I… I don’t know!” Dipper answered truthfully, realizing that he was actually quite unprepared for something of this caliber.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Pacifica shot back in disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of supernatural expert or something?!”

“Who on earth told you that?!”

“Uh, the town newspaper did!”

“Whoa, really?” Dipper paused, rather pleasantly surprised to hear this. “That’s… actually pretty awesome.”

“Focus!” Pacifica snapped harshly. “We’re about to be killed by creepy dead animal heads and flying furniture, remember?!”

“Don’t worry,” Dipper assured as evenly as he could, given the circumstances. “It can’t possibly get any worse than this!”

Of course, he was immediately proven wrong as the fire violently sparked up again, forcing the pair to dive under the nearby table to avoid getting burned. And they did so just in time as, out of nowhere, a powerful black skeletal arm emerged from the flames, still completely consumed in them as it smashed down onto the ground. The rest of the charred skeleton subsequently pulled itself out of the fire, something akin to skin and clothes forming around the bones as they formed the visage of a large, burly man, the lumberjack from the painting himself, who was clearly deceased based on his rotting, grisly form. A sharp, deadly axe had cleaved his head, the obvious cause of his death that still remained in his undead form. And his manner was every bit as outraged and heated as the burning inferno he had emerged from as he belted out his first proclamation in a deep, rumbling voice.

“I smell… a NORTHWEST!” the ghost growled, blue flames igniting in place of where hair and a beard would normally be as his one remaining eye shot open. Dipper and Pacifica made sure to remain hidden out of the ghost’s view under the table as he began to storm around the room, another axe materializing in his hand as he dragged it threateningly across the floor with each torturously slow step. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Hurry!” Pacifica whispered to Dipper sharply as he frantically flipped through the journal for answers. “Read through your dumb book already and figure out a way to get rid of that… thing!”

“I’m looking!” Dipper retorted just as harshly as he pulled out his blacklight. “And its not dumb, ok? This book is gonna save our lives! Alright, here we go; Advice:” Hoping that the category 10 ghost page would hold the key to ousting this great, newfound threat, he held the blacklight over the page, only to get the lone, disconcerting message of “Pray for mercy!” instead of anything tangibly useful. “Aw, seriously?!”

Matters were only made worse as the table, their only real cover from the ghost and his deadly axe, suddenly hovered away, leaving them directly in the menacing specter’s line of sight, much to their shared horror. “You should not have come here!” he shouted, not even hesitating to swipe at the pair with his weapon, which they only barely dodged.

“This way! Hurry!” Pacifica exclaimed, grabbing Dipper by the arm and quickly pulling him up before they rushed out of the room. The ghost was in hot pursuit, his fiery manner sparkly with murderous intent as he relentlessly chased them down the mansion’s maze-like halls, ready to strike.

#close to the ep but like?#if it ain broke dont fix it?#jen writes #universe falls #uf preview #northwest mansion nightmare

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thercoon-blog · 6 years

Text

Liliana, Crumbling Oppressor

Let’s move on to another one of the nu-Origin five walkers, one that takes on the role of Persecutor in our Karpman Drama Triangle. Here we dive into the seriously mentally ill persona of Liliana Vess, whom I can find numerous mental health parallels in history, most notably in John Nash, the famous Mathematician. In order for the Drama Triangle to arise, a person must take on the role of Victim or Persecutor. Our first example of this occurrence is between our focus character, Liliana, and future Victim, Jace Beleren. Persecutors typically blame everyone else for everything, insisting something is their fault. Persecutors are typically controlling (Liliana has successfully bent the Gatewatch to her desires), blaming, critical, oppressive, angry and superior (we know Liliana has a serious god complex stemming from her dabbling in the dark arts). Each participant in this triangle takes on their role by acting upon their own selfish needs – something Liliana has done since day 0.

Let’s begin.

Liliana grew up on the most important (arguably) plane in the multiverse, Dominaria. Her father was a general and ruler, possibly for the Forward Order (a load of chaps fighting some dark force, possibly Belzenlok’s cabal). She had a name for herself as a bit of a hussy (that’s slang for hoe), and because of daddy’s extremely high ranking profile, this would inevitably bring on family meetings of “you’re bringing shame to my name”. Liliana cared little of her reputation, so from her absolute origins, we’re told she pretty much doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than herself. We also discover she’s a somewhat gifted sorceress/wizard whatever you want to classify her as. Possibly a cleric, I guess? She learned the healing arts from a lass called Lady Ana, similar to Gideon’s Hixus, however being the blasé cleric that she was, she thought necromancy would assist in her healing career. It’s an odd parallel to draw between two opposites but then I know nothing of the dark arts or restoration so who am I to judge her conclusions. She wanted a shortcut to be better, because that’s just Liliana. The shortest and simplest solution is always best, a self-destructive behaviour that will follow her and essentially rule her life from this point onwards.

Her father’s enemies corrupted her brother Josu with some sort of curse. Now this is where a crackpot theory comes in. If indeed her father’s enemies were the cabal under the rule of Belzenlok, then it ties one of Liliana’s four demons into her storyline long before she makes her pacts with them. One might posit that Liliana’s life had already been woven by a scheme spanning her entire life. This leads her to a test by Lady Ana, which in turn leads her to the Raven Man. That leads her to Bolas, who then brokers the deals with her four demons, including Belzenlok, which then follows on to the Chain Veil storyline where the Raven Man then takes charge of her future interests. So whose scheme is Liliana’s life led by? Bolas, or this mysterious Lim DulRaven Man? Anyway, Lady Ana tells her she needs to acquire Esis root to cure her brother. Her father’s enemies have conveniently burned down the grove where this tree grows.

She learns this when a curious man appears with the information. He then encourages Liliana to use her necromantic powers to revive the tree and make a potion out of it. Seems legit. It is at this point we can conclude Liliana is quite young and naïve, since undoubtedly a present day Liliana would have easily seen past this and probably let her brother die before raising him as a servant. Unfortunately Liliana loves her shortcuts, and loves to prove people wrong, so despite warnings from Lady Ana, she uses it on her brother. It cures him, but basically turns him into a shambling horror.

Pause.

A late teens early twenties girl, with little to no care for reputation or anyone but herself, zero desire for strict rules and guidelines, has taken her first massive shortcut. This in turn has forced her to witness her own family in a state of undeath, then forcing her to kill said undead brother. This is akin to you saying “damn the doctors” and giving your big sister cancer with the “best intentions”, then being forced to euthanize her. That is entirely fucked up, and very much easy to gloss over as a reader interpreting fantasy fiction. She sparks, and ends up on Innistrad – plane of zombies, stitched abominations and general gloom and doom horror. If any plane epitomises a person’s past nightmares, it is a perfect fit for Liliana. But she embraces it instead of running away. Despite her trauma she remains headstrong, it seems.

She studies under vampires and liches, becomes a master necromancer, but she stops short. They recommend she joins them in death fully to master necromancy, but the trauma of what her brother became stops her from fully committing to her path. She is not entirely without sense, and like Tezzeret, is living life by pure instinct for survival.

Eventually Sorin discovers she’s on Innistrad, and Sorin is a very old, very powerful and very solitary planeswalker that suffers no fools. He utterly stomps Liliana, to the point he deems her too paltry a threat to deal with. He allows her to be a guest on his home plane and play nice, or he’ll kill her. Just ask Nahiri how that goes. So the plane she’s adopted as her home is now yet another metaphorical set of rules that will remind her of her father. She returns to Dominaria after she’s confident she’s powerful enough to take on the Raven Man, but he miraculously escapes. Yet another failure for Vess.

Between then and Ravnica, it’s revealed that the mending happened, and Liliana is no longer all powerful, or immortal. Being the vain, shortcut taker that she is, she mixes up with Bolas and brokers a deal with a demon for more power. She uses that deal to make another, and another until her soul is eventually beholden by no more than four demons. In exchange for youth and power, she must serve the demons, and this is where she gets her tattoos from, eternally reminder her and everyone else that Liliana sold her soul for life eternal.

After some time, Liliana becomes mixed in with Bolas’/Tezzeret’s Infinite Consortium, sort of as a freelancer I suppose. After Jace defects from the group, Liliana is tasked with tracking him down. She befriends Jace and his accomplice Kallist (whom Jace will later swap consciousness with), and then has an affair with Jace. She stays loyal to Jace through a number of bizarre happenings, including ye olde consciousness swap story. It’s then revealed she was using Jace in order to remove Tezzeret as the leader of the Infinite Consortium. Liliana had sold her soul to Nicol Bolas of all people (just ask Tezzeret how that went), and this was one of her many tasks.

Liliana is altruistic. She dislikes rules and regulations, but now finds herself under the thumb of a 25,000 year old elder dragon planeswalker, and four demons that lay claim to her soul. In true Liliana fashion, she has ideas on how she can most easily escape said deals in the bluntest ways imaginable, but she hasn’t quite had the push to get her ego that big yet. Enter Kothophed and the Chain Veil.

Kothophed calls in a favour, and Liliana must obey. She’s sent to retrieve the Chain Veil, and ancient artifact from the now extinct Onnake civilisation on Shandalar. On her way, she’s attacked by one of Garruk’s Packleaders and kills it. My main man Garruk witnesses this, and decides she’s a target. Liliana retrieves the Veil and then Garruk attacks. Using the surprisingly powerful artifact, Liliana very easily sends Garruk on a Shandalar escape trajectory, and begins to muse at how much power is at her fingertips now. She wanders to a fortress on a random plane and utterly annihilates it, because the best way to test an artifact belonging to a race that is now entirely dead is to use it to wipe out another. She considers, and the urges to release herself from the thrall of Kothophed is too great, so she planeswalks and blast the demon to high hell. Her tattoos begin to bleed, which disturbs her somewhat. In true “simplest solution is best” she resolves that in order to make this pain stop, she’ll just kill the rest of her demons.

So, Liliana has gone from accidentally killing her brother with good intentions, to an egotistical maniac hell bent on returning her old power to her by any means necessary, even if it means permanently scarring her young but otherwise immortal body. That includes senselessly dispatching a demon that had a claim to your soul. Long term plans are not Liliana’s strong suit. Unlike Bolas, Liliana is a very short sighted, short term planner. What makes Liliana different from every other oldwalker is that she simply wants to be left alone to her own devices. While she doesn’t initially crave for the rule of planes or infinite power and wiping out all other rivals, she does want to live forever and be beautiful at that. She just wants to do what she wants as and when she decides to do it. Liliana Vess of origins is what we’d call a sociopath. Liliana Vess of post mending is what we call a psychopath. The key difference? Sociopaths don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. Psychopaths do, they simply don’t care.

Concerned by the bleeding of her tattoos, the Chain Veil, and her fate thus far, she returns to the plane of the Onnake. She resurrects the body of an old wise man who knew of them. The town is none too pleased with a necromancer, and do what any other old time populace would do: they chase her into a pile of wood (a barn) and burn it down. The man she raised begins speaking cryptic riddles about Liliana while preventing the flames from taking her. Just as she’s about to release her body to the sweet abyss, the corpse is revealed to actually be the Raven Man. He uses what appears to be the same potion as the one Liliana used on her brother, and her tattoos all turn the same colour and she is healed. In typical grateful Liliana fashion, she thanks the Raven Man by stabbing him and planeswalking away with the Chain Veil. I mean, stabbing your saviour is a bit of a dick move.

Liliana, enthralled by her experience decides to annihilate some more demons because she doesn’t have a better idea right now. She heads back to Innistrad to kill Griselbrand but can’t find him since he’s stuck in the Helvault. Garruk shows up and tries to splat her, but Innistrad isn’t short of local meatshields, so she sends a few dozen zombies to keep the guy occupied and escapes. At this stage Garruk is simply a nuisance in comparison to her other problems. Like a big, meaty bad penny with an axe the size of a tree. She heads to Thraben for answers while its under siege by the duo Gisa and Geralf. Mikaeus the Lunarch has already been killed in the battle, and so with her usual respect for the fallen, Liliana raises him from the dead to get her answers. She learns of the Helvault.

Flavourfully black cannot do anything to artifacts unless your name is Geth. It can however demand sacrifices. Liliana casts a spell that forces Thalia, the acting commander of the defence of Thraben, to either sacrifice her soldiers, or crack open a cold one the Helvault. Being the white-white character she is, Thalia smashes open the vault and all the demons (and Avacyn) are freed. Oh and Nahiri. Yeah, you can blame memerakul on Lilana kind of. Liliana tracks down big old G, slaughtering everything in her path (including angels, Liliana really hates angels). Using the Chain Veil, Griselbrand is no more. Easy? Nope.

The Chain Veil starts whispering to her, and this is when our all-powerful necromancer begins to remind me of the woes that beset John Nash. Now John Nash was a peculiar bloke in the beginning, but he was also a mathematical prodigy. This led him to massive success in his field, but the guy strived for more. Eventually people began approaching him for some pretty wild and exotic uses of his services, and wanting more to his life than occasionally teaching and working on cryptography, he agreed. This went on for many years, until eventually he was committed. It turned out that all these years, he had been working for people in his mind, doing jobs that didn’t exist, even imagining up his own roommate who he talked to and about to others frequently. He was utterly convinced that these people were real for years. Imagine having a best friend for a decade and then being told he didn’t exist. After stints in an out of psychiatric help, he maintained his sharp intelligence, but was besieged on a daily basis by his own brain, trying to convince him these people were real and these tasks he wanted to work on were a fabrication. Now, John Nash wasn’t aware of this until somebody else told him and convinced him. He had work colleagues, doctors, and a wife. Liliana has nothing, nobody. She’s hearing voices from the Chain Veil, she keeps seeing this Raven Man, so she’s convinced that the spirits in the Veil are real, and the Raven Man is some kind of planeswalking capable asshole of some kind. Like John Nash, Liliana is powerful, driven, and convinced of herself.

She heads back to Shandalar to find her own answers. She’s then confronted by an angel guarding the entrance and basically melts the thing, all the while it mumbles than Liliana has become a vessel of the Onnake spirits wanting to release themselves. She then has a vision of the Onnake’s extinction event, again seeing the Raven Man as an architect of their destruction. She indicates to the spirits talking to her that she’d quite like to learn such a spell. Her cockiness only grows from this point. She reaches the alter where she found the veil, but her own body refuses to put it back. She raises an Onnake skeleton to obey her command to return the artifact, but it also refuses to comply. Upon de-animating the skeleton, it throws the veil back onto her. By now Liliana should probably recognise when her body is being hijacked. An Onnake spirit materialises in front of her and tells her she’s the vessel of the veil of deceit. She tries to kill the spirit using the Chain Veil, and at long last realises that the thing is slowly damaging her body. Mentally defeated, she planeswalks away. For once, Liliana accepts her fate. Briefly.

She heads back to Jace to manipulate her Victim once more, trying to persuade him to help her kill her two final demons. Back to that old chestnut. He’s angry with the way she dealt with Garruk at this stage however, as he and Nahiri have separately tried to help the cursed beast master. She invites Jace to dinner, but it’s interrupted by Gideon begging for help on Zendikar. Jace immediately accepts, and then Liliana moans how he’ll spare time for his friends but not his wife – in essence. She’s furiously jealous that somebody else can manipulate him to their every whim. Jace informs her bluntly, that Gideon asked nicely, whereas Liliana tried to seduce him. Liliana’s façade begins to crumble from here on, and when a chronically narcissistic person loses the power of their fake front, things begin to unravel. They begin to see a need to reaffirm their role to themselves and others. As a necromancer and narcissist, Liliana is beginning to develop a god complex, and the combined presence of the Chain Veil and the coming Emrakul are only too keen to feed it.

Back on Innistrad Liliana is sulking in her mansion. Jace tries to escape two werewolves after arriving on the plane, and Liliana uses some zombies to drive them off. Jace informs her that he’s searching for Sorin, and being a human of pure survival, Liliana warns Jace that that may not be such a good idea. Jace goes to the manor, goes a bit insane, and then returns to blame Liliana for everything that happened. He tries to break her brain a bit, but the Raven Man that is quite obviously inside her head protects her and tells her to kill Jace. As it happens, the Raven Man is quite afraid of Jace, because of course he’s a mind mage, and might find him lurking inside Liliana’s head should he delve too deeply. Liliana then tries to get some generic geistmage to exorcize the Onnake spirits from the Chain Veil with a witchbane orb, but unsurprisingly it does sweet F.A. Honestly at this point she’s desperate, and I think even she didn’t believe it would work, but she’s willing to try anything to escape attachments to anything. Vess just doesn’t like to be tied down, unless it’s with Jace’s cloak. Giggity.

Emrakul arrives, and the Gatewatch and Thraben are under attack by masses of Eldrazi horrors. Convincing herself that she doesn’t need Jace, Liliana tells herself that she needs the Gatewatch to need her, so that she can use them to kill her final two demons. Realistically both of these are true. She’s desperate, but also an Oppressor. A team of four young neo-walkers are probably just as easily impressed upon as she was when she was younger. Equally four mages with their own specialties are a handy tool for killing demons and not getting your hands too dirty. That is how an Oppressor sees these people – tools. Liliana raises a colossal army of zombies to drive back the horrors and Emrakul, she even thinks so highly of herself that she can take on the titan, calling herself Innistrad’s “Last Hope”. As it turns out, she quickly learns that the Chain Veil isn’t quite that powerful, and Emrakul begins to overpower her. The Chain Veil as well as the Raven Man pretty much begs her to escape with her life, thinking that they can’t possibly win against this thing. Multiple personality disorder aside, Liliana chooses her own fate. Miraculously Emrakul uses Tamiyo to seal herself into Innistrad’s moon and the whole group survives. Jace asks Tamiyo to join the Gatewatch (she thankfully declines) and instead, as second choice, they ask Liliana to join. That worked out well didn’t it Vess? She agrees to their childish terms, knowing full well she has no intention of following their code unless it happens to coincide with some demons.

Liliana is short on patience however, and has a subtle distaste for wasting time on things that don’t concern her. The Kaladesh story comes to fruition, and Liliana notes a possibly entry into the good books of the highly impressionable and entirely chaotic Chandra Nalaar. The arrival of Dovin Baan triggers Chandra’s fury at the Consulate on her home plane, and Liliana plays on it. She takes Chandra under her wing, concealing the usual Oppressor tendencies, and instead takes on a role of Rescuer. She encourages Chandra to share her story, and then tells Chandra she should take revenge on Baral, Emperor Palpatine style.

They come across Tezzeret and Liliana pretty much flips her lid. She tells Chandra that Tezz is dangerous (and we know he’ll do just about anything to survive, same as Liliana), and they need to retreat. The rest of the Gatewatch arrive and scald Liliana for flying off with Chandra so fleetingly. Not wanting to risk her importance in the group, she heads back to her favourite tool and vouch man Jace, convincing him and Gideon to come to Kaladesh. Basically Jace will stick up for her when she does Liliana things. Who needs to convince a team themselves when they can have the defacto leader do it for them?

They join forces with the rebel scumrenegades and take on the consulate, blowing up some ships, confronting Tezzeret in the arena, only to have him escape and rob all the inventions from the fair. Liliana dispatches some troops rather too permanently for Gideon, he moans, but she snaps back at him as though he were a naïve child. You were like him too Vess, at some stage. She says she needs to strike at Tezzeret directly, because he won’t fight fair. She reveals that she’s a little more than weak in the knees for Jace, and wants to hurt Sucker-T for hurting Jace all those years ago. Liliana has somehow grown empathy. She heads off with Saheeli and finds Rashmi, the creator of the planar bridge, and brings her back to the renegades. The Gatewatch are now aware that Tezzeret has interplaner travel tech.

She convinces Gids to let her take on Tezzeret, as a cunning distraction for the Gatewatch to destroy the Planar Bridge. Suddenly she opts to use undead minions to “scare away” the consulate soldiers instead of killing them, leading us to briefly believe she’s taking the Gatewatch’s non-lethal approach some serious consideration. She makes it to Tezzeret and they then commence the most underwhelming planeswalker battle in the history of Magic™. Tezzeret initially believes Bolas sent Liliana to check on his progress. He then informs him He then tells Liliana Bolas is hidden on Amonkhet, where her third demon Razaketh is located. Before she can finish him off, the Gideon-Chandra missile hits and blows the whole fucking spire to bits. Tezzeret escapes with the core of the planar bridge. Liliana then suggests they head straight to Amonkhet to take Bolas on without giving him chance to prepare. What she actually means is, come to this god forsaken plane so I can kill my demon and escape while you all get fisted by the most powerful (known) planeswalker in the multiverse.

On Amonkhet more Chain Veil shenanigans ensue. Liliana gets eaten by a giant worm, but reveals to the Gatewatch that she used the Chain Veil to decompose the worm from the inside. What actually happened was the Raven Man assumed control over her body to prevent her death, using the power of the Chain Veil to kill it. They come across the gods, and the city of Naktamun, and she takes note of the mummified servants. She also derides the gods, as the only gods she knew were hubristic planeswalkers. She should know, she was one of them pre-mending.

The Gatewatch continues with the story, while Liliana… gets fed grapes and uses the mummified servants to her advantage. The Raven Man returns, warning her that she had gotten soft. The voice inside her head has noticed her change from egotistical psychopath to egotistical psychopath with a developing conscience. Jace approaches and he vanishes again, hoping to avoid his cover being blown. They follow one of Liliana’s shades and discover Razaketh’s true involvement in the afterlife and the plane itself. The mummies set upon them and they escape.

The gate opens when the Second Sun rests between Bolas’ horned statue, and Razaketh is revealed. This demon is vastly more powerful than the previous two. He can assume direct control over Liliana’s body (it’s become the town bicycle at this point). It’s a brutal reminder that Liliana is never truly free until every person involved in her soul’s enslavement is ended. He toys with her, but the Gatewatch come to her aid. They distract her long enough to raise some undead crocodiles and tear apart and eat the demon. It’s noted viscerally that Liliana actively relishes the act of consuming the demon via the animals she has raised, and brings us back to the harsh reality that despite all the pretence, Liliana is still cracked mentally. Bolas appears, whips the Gatewatch’s collective asses, and gives Liliana the option to betray her friends and await his command, or die. Liliana is a being of selfish desires, but most importantly, the raw desire to simply survive. She escapes, with other members of the Gatewatch as witnesses to her betrayal. A harsh reminder that she is not allowed attachments to potential Rescuers, and any attempts to do so will be met by harsh consequences. It’s also a blunt reminder that she is still at the mercy of Bolas and her remaining demon, Belzenlok.

She planeswalks to Dominaria to kill her final demon. As a writer, I am fully aware that the death of Belzenlok may not yield the results she hopes; in fact things may only grow more complicated for our psychopathic Oppressor. She is so singularly focused on one goal; she cannot see the forest for the trees. The only solution to the actors of the Drama Triangle is to deprive them of their payoff. Liliana’s superiority is crumbling, her authority is waning in the face of multiple actors within the group, and the blame has shifted significantly since their encounter with Bolas. Liliana’s role as an Oppressor is coming to an end. Three solutions remains – she leaves the triangle as a better person, she becomes a Victim, or, most likely, she ceases living.

#MTG MTG Story Dominaria Liliana Vess

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