#spnluciferweek

[marigarb]

@spnluciferweek Day 1: “Worship”

#supernatural #lucifer #spnluciferweek #mark pellegrino #spn #spn fanart #aaaaa i'm so inspired by this event

[andyevej]

#my poor little meow meow #spn lucifer #i guess this is a really really late submission for #spnluciferweek #? #anyway #supernatural #spn fanart #digital art

[maggot-monger]

lucifer gender symbolism essay masterpost

have you ever gone “huh that’s interesting” about lucifer supernatural appearing as a woman in white a lot of the time? have you ever been watching endverse and gotten A Vibe? have you noticed people referring to lucifer by she/her pronouns for no apparent reason? do you want to spectate while someone online acts deranged about some niche old shit? well do i have the post for you!

this is my thesis on fem!lucifer aka she/her lucifer aka “the devil wears nighties: a supernatural phenomenon” aka whatever else you want to call it. a long fucking essay exploring why i have been so hung up on this concept forever. it won’t be totally comprehensive, but all the sections together are like 13k words long, so it’s uhhh comprehensive enough to be annoying.

the sections are:

mostly non-spn background, context, & caveats

gender in supernatural

the dead nun

women in white

white women

mothers vs fathers

daughters vs sons

jarpad and mark p’s acting styles

sexual connotations of “vessels,” stabbing, and holes

villain gender in supernatural, comparisons

villain gender in supernatural, effects

they are mostly stand-alone, so if you want to skip some parts or skip around, the individual sections should be easy enough to follow.

the full essay is also on ao3 here

notes

my view on spn angels is that they are essentially non-gendered, or gendered in a way that has no resemblance to how humans are gendered. i am not attempting to argue that lucifer IS a woman, or that lucifer is meaningfully feminine. this is all about frames of analysis, that are difficult to avoid due to the non-human characters all being played by human actors who present and are most readily interpreted, typically, in a (binary) gendered way. i don't approach lucifer or any of the other angels as being intrinsically gendered, but as symbolically gendered.

i am focusing on a fem reading of lucifer because the masc reading seems to be more widespread in the fandom. since the more fem interpretation is not the default but is (imo) just as viable, it feels worthwhile to address it directly like this, since it also adds something to how the character comes across/how lucifer reads as a character and an antagonist.

i will sometimes rely on gendered (and sometimes cissexist) symbolism established in spn and modern culture more broadly, and some historical sexist tropes. i have done my best to address these topics with care, but i have sometimes chosen succinctness over thoroughness in being critical of the underlying misogyny and cissexism inherent to some of the symbolism. 

there will also be some discussion of other sensitive topics. i have put content warning notes around the major ones so you can skip those sections if you would prefer.  

this whole thing has a heavy emphasis on kripke era. it is what it is.

pronoun usage for lucifer is going to fluctuate kind of randomly between he and she. i don’t THINK there are any “It” uses thrown in here, but you never know.

i hope that it is abundantly clear throughout this essay that this is not terf shit, but i'm saying it up front anyway.

#spnluciferweek #lucifer #meta #spn thots #spn

[spnluciferweek]

FAQ

Spn Lucifer Week is a 7 day event 2 celebrate our favorite bestworst archangel! Any and all kinds of submissions are allowed, encouraged, and adored

Event Dates:

Saturday, May 20th - Saturday, May 27th, 2023

Prompts:

For each day there’s a theme and then some prompts. They’re there to inspire and to try to acknowledge & appreciate all sides of the character, so please feel free to use one or all, mix-and-match the days, or do something else entirely! You're also welcome to repost your older/pre existing work to the tag, and late submissions will be accepted until Saturday, June 10th. Our only true goal here is to showcase and collect work that focuses on Lucifer, what that is and how it gets done is up to you!

Saturday 20th (also irl Feast of Saint Lucifer!): Worship

Prompts: Demons/Magic/Bite

Sunday 21st: Inhumanity

Prompts: Box/Promise/Dream

Monday 22nd: Cage

Prompts: Temptation/Betrayal/Hound

Tuesday 23rd: Dawn

Prompts: Halo/Shine/Mirror

Wednesday 24th: Fall

Prompts: Wind/Ice/Wish

Thursday 25th: Blade

Prompts: Human/Rest/Watch

Friday 26th: Pride

Prompts: Mistake/Repair/Kiss

Saturday 27th (Also irl mods birthday :D): Free Day!

Prompts: Crack/(Self) Indulgence

Collections:

An open collection for this event exists on AO3 (link) under the title Spn Lucifer Week May 2023. Participants are encouraged to add to it!

Content Guidelines:

Any and all interpretations/characterizations of Lucifer are accepted, as are all ships, but please do keep in mind that he's the point and focus of the week!

The #spnluciferweek tag will be tracked and stuff will be reblogged directly from that there and only there. Feel free to @spnluciferweek directly as well :D

No hate speech, bigotry, or bullying of any kind will be tolerated.

NSFW submissions (including noncon) are fine, provided they are properly tagged & in compliance with tumblr's rules. Underage content is not allowed, and will not be reblogged by this page. Beyond this, please be mindful of common triggers in your work, and tag them clearly and consistently - we will strive to do the same.

Additionally, as one of the the mods won't be 18 until the last day (May 27th), no NSFW content will be acknowledged or reblogged until then.

Ultimately, posts will be reblogged to this page at the discretion of the mods. If there are any questions, asks and messages are open; please feel free to reach out at any time!

Contact us: @godsprettiestprincess @archangelsammy

#mod post #spn Lucifer #spnluciferweek #supernatural #supernatural fandom events #spn event #spn fandom #spnluciferweek2023

[ramseynatural]

@spnluciferweek Day 8: Self Indulgence :) s12 au where it’s me who has him trapped instead of Crowley :) [Canon Version]

#lucifer spn #spnluciferweek #I drew the lineart for this right after I finished the first one and now you all get to see it <3 #this is literally actually the best thing I’ve ever drawn btw. there is nothing higher quality.

[lucifersimp]

lucifer edit for @spnluciferweek!

#spn lucifer #my edits #5x19 hammer of the gods #spnluciferweek2023 #spnluciferweek

[nobudgetarchangels]

late submission for @spnluciferweek: Mirror

self love <3

#spn fanart #lucifer #nick!lucifer #nagaverse #spnluciferweek #spnluciferweek2023

[quietwingsinthesky]

@spnluciferweek Fic 2 of Lucifer Week, for the Inhumanity and Promise prompts!

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship: Mostly gen, with implications of one-sided Lucifer/Sam (on Lucifer's end)

Additional Tags: Episode: s05e12 Swap Meat (Supernatural), Possessive Lucifer (Supernatural), Angel Vessel Sam Winchester, Lucifer's doesn't like people touching his things, Sam is Lucifer's things, Consent Issues, Bodyswap, Unrequited Lucifer/Sam Winchester, POV Lucifer (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Minor Character Death

Summary:

The demon in Swap Meat was eager to summon Lucifer and hand over Sam's body to him. Something tells me this wouldn't have gone over well.

Preview:

”That’s him?” Sam says, or… Lucifer tilts his head and frowns. It’s more of a squeak, really. Not much at all like the furious, beautiful being who’d stormed into his ritual and threatened to tear out his heart. (His vessel responds to just the memory of the encounter. Its heart beats faster while the blood vessels around its stomach paradoxically constrict themselves.)

“Sam,” he says, softly, “it’s been a while.”

#alternate title for this is lucifer has a cruusssh~~ #spn #fanfiction #spnluciferweek #sam winchester #lucifer spn #im not giving gary his own tag i dont care about him. hes there tho. #samifer #<- it counts. enough. #i think i just like writing about when characters are devotedly in love and Weird about it #lucifer especially <3 love it when he is creepy and intrusive without really seeing what the problem is with acting like that

[ladyknightskye]

Lucifer Week Day 2 - Inhumanity

Read Day 2 on AO3!

Title: The Kindest Thing

Pairing: Lucifer/Dean

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Violence

~~~~~

Chapter Summary: Lucifer can’t fight his curiosity about his brother’s vessel.

~~~~~

Excerpt:

Lucifer could not forget hazy green eyes. He could not forget soft lips and desperate pleas.

He was an archangel. He was the third most powerful being loose in the Cosmos.

He was worryingly obsessed with his brother’s vessel.

His demons cringed away from him as his wings swept through the physical plane, and overturned the ratty furniture that filled the abandoned building they called home. Their leader, Meg she wanted to be called, stared at him. “My lord,” she asked in her husky voice, “what troubles you?”

Lucifer was tempted to snap, to destroy every single one of the creatures in this room, but he needed them. “I am merely impatient for my vessel to consent.”

She nodded, her eyes lighting. “If it makes any consolation, your brother’s vessel is just as stubborn.”

Lucifer snarled. He did not want to think about his brother’s vessel. The human vexed him in the worst way, and though he abhorred his current melodramatics, he couldn’t help his reactions.

“Leave me,” he said as calmly as he could muster.

His demons listened.

#lucifer spn #spnluciferweek2023 #ducifer #spn fanfic #spnluciferweek

[heavenssexiestangel]

SPN Lucifer Week 2023 Day 1: Worship

Rating: General

Ship: Lucifer & Chuck-God

Word count: 240

Written for: @spnluciferweek

Prompt: Worship

Tags and Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Angels, Daddy Issues

Summary: A poem written for Day 1 of SPN Lucifer Week, with "Worship" as the theme

Beta: none

Notes: Hello, how's everyone? As I am currently working on a big project, I couldn't write all the fics I had planned for Lucifer Week. So, I came up with the idea to write poems instead. I am not a poet, really, but it was an interesting new way of experimenting with my writing. I hope you'll like them :)

Excerpt:

Worship.

This is what you asked from your children, Father.

Love.

This is what I, your child, gave you, Father.

It wasn't enough for You.

Read on AO3

Please leave comments and/or kudos if you enjoyed this.

If you'd like, you could also donate to my Ko-fi.

#spnluciferweek #spn lucifer week 2023 #my poetry #spn lucifer

[marigarb]

@spnluciferweek day 2: Inhumanity

#supernatural #lucifer #spnluciferweek #Sam Winchester #lucifer spn #spn #fan art #mark pellegrino

[maggot-monger]

lucifer gender symbolism essay part 1: mostly non-spn background, context, & caveats

masterpost

this section is about historical non-spn representations of lucifer as a feminine/female figure, and associations between lucifer/satan/etc and female and feminine entities. my purpose in this section is to connect lucifer supernatural to a bigger cultural phenomenon to give some context to the rest of the more spn-centric parts.

the devil presenting femininely is part of a cultural tradition that i expect kripke, various supernatural writers, and others involved in the making of supernatural were at least partially aware of. there are enough nods in supernatural canon to theology, mythology, and pop culture about the devil that it seems reasonable to suppose that the devil appearing with a variety of gender presentations was not a totally unfamiliar concept to the show’s creators, and might be deliberate seasoning stirred into the character we ended up getting.

part i: historical fem!lucifer part ii: lucifer as a cultural figure and gender norm breaking part iii: some of lucifer supernatural's various other political parallels

HISTORICAL FEM!LUCIFER

whether or not biblical angels have sexes or genders such that using gendered language to describe them even makes sense is a whole topic, but anyway. a lot of the early history of the figure of satan/the devil/the antagonist/etc is as a male figure, or at least written about using masculine terms. i’m going to take the male representations as a given and not go into all that here. i'm focusing on the other ones.

let's start with names. specifically, “lucifer” and “the morning star” (both in relation to the figure we know as the devil and not)

the roman goddess diana is sometimes known as “diana lucifera.” i’m just pulling from cicero’s discussion of that via wikipedia but here:

... people regard Diana and the moon as one and the same. ... the moon (luna) is so called from the verb to shine (lucere). Lucina is identified with it, which is why in our country they invoke Juno Lucina in childbirth, just as the Greeks call on Diana the Light-bearer. Diana also has the name Omnivaga ("wandering everywhere"), not because of her hunting but because she is numbered as one of the seven planets; her name Diana derives from the fact that she turns darkness into daylight (dies).

so, this isn’t about biblical lucifer, but still, the name has connections to a goddess here, and specifically in the context of childbirth (a traditionally gendered process).

the morning star is venus, a planet associated with one of the major roman goddesses, venus, whose femininity is important. this is kind of a circuitous connection; to the best of my knowledge, the reason for the connection between the devil figure and the morning star stems from the planet’s trajectory through the sky-as-seen-from-earth, that makes it look like it is falling from highest heaven downward, which is relevant symbolism. afaik, though, lucifer’s connection to that planet has nothing explicitly to do with any other goddess’s/god’s/other figure’s connection with it, so this is kind of a mood point. nonetheless, the two are connected now, even if they weren’t at origin. this planet is also associated with the goddess inanna/ishtar, as well as various other religious and mythological male figures. 

so, there's that. now for representations of the devil as such ~

the reason i personally hopped onto the fem!lucifer train originally was lucifera, the representative of pride in edmund spenser’s the faerie queene, which i read the semester in college before i first watched spn! so that was a fun convergence, and made me especially excited when spn lucifer was played by women in their first three appearances. here’s part of a description of lucifera:

And proud Lucifera men did her call, That made her selfe a Queene, and crownd to be

this isn’t much, but it establishes her as a regal bitch immediately. she’s an interesting fixture i think, and afaik one of the earliest depictions of the biblical figure of lucifer as a feminine figure.

a lot of medieval paintings of genesis 3 depict the serpent as a kind of naga, with a long snake body and a woman’s face and torso. the serpent from genesis isn’t necessarily the devil, but because a lot of lore connects the two, including supernatural itself, that seems like as much fair game to mention here as most of the rest of this. medieval and renaissance depictions of figures that are more explicitly the devil are often sexually ambiguous, sometimes with breasts and a beard and a mouth instead of genitalia, among other interesting setups.

satan appears in female forms in a lot of folklore. this usually seems more instrumental than anything — as in, satan appears as a hot woman to seduce some guy to evil — but honestly, who’s to say if she just likes being a girl sometimes. regardless of the reason, this creates a cultural image of the devil as gender-shifting. lucifer spn appearing as sarah to nick and jess to sam etc is a good example of this trope.

there have been various other more recent pop culture depictions of satan/lucifer/the devil as a feminine figure, an androgynous figure, or as a woman specifically, some of which are outlined here. others are presented in per faxneld’s article “woman and the devil: some recurring motifs,” which i can’t link because it’s behind an academia paywall but i recommend it if you can get a hold of it. 

probably there are more examples, but i feel like this is enough of a survey to prove my point that historical depictions of lucifer/satan/the morning star/whatever you want to call this figure are not exclusively male and masculine.

tl;dr: lucifer the mythological figure and the appellations lucifer/the morning star are not uniquely masculine, and they have long histories of genderweirdness. depicting the devil as a feminine, female, androgynous, or ungendered figure is part of an established cultural tradition. imo, picking up evidence that lucifer supernatural is being represented as a feminine figure is not a reach.

LUCIFER AND GENDER NORM BREAKING

cw for discussion of irl sexism in religious doctrine (and some mentions of homophobic and transphobic sentiment with religious underpinnings) through much of this section.

so, ok. the intricacies of scriptural feminism are wayyy beyond what i am adequately educated on to speak about in depth. i’m also much more familiar with christianity than other religions, so i will mostly be speaking to that unfortunately. but. i gotta talk about it a little, because it’s important culturally as background for why fem!lucifer is an established trope.

an example of someone who knows more than me writing about this, as a jumping off point: 

Phrasings like ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord’ (Eph. 5:22), and the ways in which they have been used to serve patriarchal ends, make it easy to see why some feminists would later view God as the protector of patriarchy (and, occasionally, Satan as an ally in the fight against it).

— Woman and the Devil: Some Recurring Motifs (Per Faxneld)

this is basically the foundation for a lot of this. god the father is the patriarch, who demands subjugation from men to him, and from women to both him and to men. satan, god's antagonist, might plausibly want the opposite of that.

in john milton’s paradise lost, satan as the serpent certainly uses an anti-patriarchal angle when trying to tempt eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, telling her that there is no reason she should be lesser than adam, or even lesser than god, that eve is smart and impressive already, that god can’t really be all that great if he is jealous enough of his creations to deny them their full potential — and so she should eat the fruit for the sake of knowledge, and of power. this obviously doesn’t go well; milton did not intend this to make eve or satan seem admirable at the time. but idk, i’m not a 17th century protestant. imo what satan as offering was pretty sweet; i don't feel like there's much wrong with it. i got got by milton's trap lol. satan’s motives were rotten in PL, but even so, he kind of identified with eve at the same time as trying to get her to fall: he was basically luring her down the same path he took that led to his own fall. his temptation worked because he and the first woman had a lot in common. while his intentions were bad, the emotions behind them put him and eve in parallel to each other. regardless of whether this was a good or bad thing, it does position satan as someone who gasses up and identifies with Thee woman in PL.

the supernatural lore on temptation and the garden interesting in this context as well. i can only speak to season 5, but within kripke era, lucifer is described as having tempted lilith, not eve — but that is a relevant tie-in as well. lilith is a figure who refused to be subservient to man also, of her own accord, so to connect that to lucifer and temptation aligns lucifer once again with an anti-patriarchal stance. i will also stress that throughout s4-5 the description of the interactions between lucifer and lilith are of temptation, not torture, which parallels the eve story.

(certainly these temptations can be looked at as being anti-feminist as well. personally i'm more into inspecting the parallels between satan and eve or lucifer and lilith (and doing that is the most on-topic direction for the argument i'm trying to make here), but there are a lot of other good frames for analysis of these dynamics as well. just acknowledging that this, like everything else about this character, is slippery.)

lots of disliked and norm-breaking women — and gnc people, and genderqueer people, and trans people — have been described as devilish or of the devil or as worshipping the devil subsequently to demonize them. you can probably think of at least a handful of examples. in a very simplified way, to people who are on board with biblical patriarchy, anyone who isn't is bad news. who else is bad news? the devil. match made in hell.

obviously all of this is super misogynistic and part of a long tradition of religious vilification of women. “women are inferior because eve succumbed to the devil; women are the reason humanity exists in a fallen state,’ etc. my let's-complicate-satan agenda does not extend to trying to minimize the harm that has been done by associating some groups with the devil. the devil is, almost all the time, just a different way of calling someone or something fundamentally evil, and it is not good to go around aligning marginalized people with that figure who do not want to be associated with it. that is something that has happened a lot, to a lot of people’s detriment, and it has been used for a lot of human rights violations — which is relevant here, for better or for worse. 

"for better" because sometimes, people decide that if they're going to be called evil anyway, they might as well embrace the devil, and turn him into a symbol to rally behind. and the devil is a pretty badass symbol, all things considered. people are scared of him — of her — and having people fear you and your allies can be a lot better than being subjugated. 

again, you can probably think of examples of this. a lot of people lean into witch stuff even without being practitioners of witchcraft specifically for feminist or gender-subversion reasons. same sometimes goes for succubi and other demonic entities. lil nas x’s “montero” made ample use of edenic and demonic imagery (including that fucking fabulous fall from grace via pole) to represent queerness. lots of people in the supernatural fandom have Feelings for meg and ruby and other demons who are ostensibly female characters with significant roles on a show mostly about men, etc. there are also examples of satan being good for women in gothic literature, some uses of satan as a subversive rhetorical device for lesbian causes, etc (i’m referencing in passing various things from per faxneld’s book “Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture” for these last). satanism and luciferianism aren’t necessarily concerned with worshiping satan/lucifer, but they do use the names of that figure for their ideologies, which also aren’t necessarily explicitly feminist but do place a pretty heavy emphasis on free thought, self-empowerment, subversion of tradition, and liberation.

tl;dr: the devil has a history of being used to vilify and empower subversive individuals and cultural movements, including feminist and queer ones. as in the previous section, imo this makes interpreting lucifer supernatural’s gendered portrayal as feminine and/or genderweird part of a well-established, morally complicated cultural tradition.

an opinion: in stories where the devil is a (failed) rebel, i think it’s really compelling to give the devil figure characteristics that put them in opposition with the reigning power. there’s something about the devil being a mirror for god as well, of course, but it speaks to at least some versions of The Disenfranchised Experience to have lucifer be Different in a pivotal way. someone who wanted equality/freedom/whatever, but was denied it, and was therefore unendingly punished, but never lost their pride…it isn’t necessarily empowering; lucifer's revolutionary story can be a cautionary one (e.g. “this is what happens if you lean into the bad things people assume about you and let yourself become overcome by hate”), but it’s…idk it’s something. it’s interesting, at the very least. the villain era phenomenon speaks to it; the buttress’s song “brutus” that was circulating on everyone’s spotify discover weekly a few years ago speaks to it…it’s gripping. it’s a relatable antihero or villain story to many, i think. 

(a few people in the tags of this post about satan in paradise lost, which makes no mention of gender or sexism, assumed that the post was about reacting to sexism and/or cissexism, which i thought was interesting and relevant also lol)

SOME OF LUCIFER SUPERNATURAL’S VARIOUS OTHER POLITICAL PARALLELS

[cw for mentions of fascism and other violent ideologies] 

i want to be super clear that My Agenda here is not to use gender to try to make lucifer seem like a better or worse character, morally or in quality. imo whether lucifer reads as more feminine or more masculine or both or neither is morally neutral. beyond that, i fully recognize that supernatural’s lucifer is represented in ways that align him with a range of political metaphors, both reprehensible and sympathetic, that are difficult to disentangle from each other. if i’m going to talk about the character’s implied alignment with subversive movements and marginalized groups, i would feel remiss not to acknowledge that kripke’s lucifer is also explicitly an ecoterrorist — an ecofascist, even. in many ways, this character is written to mirror the way Some People feel that they are entitled to shape the world to their own liking, disregarding human life at their own whim. it’s not for nothing that the actor who plays the most recognizable version of lucifer on spn is a blonde white man; there’s symbolism there that must have been more important to the show’s creators than alternative directions they could have gone with casting purely on the basis of demographics/appearance, and that makes sense. i understand why people would compare supernatural’s lucifer to the boys’ homelander, for example; i’ve written meta about the parallels between them myself. i think the comparison is apt in many ways. 

however, while homelander is a specific villain tied to specific current political and cultural issues, lucifer is more abstract than that, and as such is harder to fit into specific contemporary human ideologies. any version of lucifer/satan/the devil/whatever fits into a HUGE mythology, and when you write a sympathetic devil character — especially one deliberately and explicitly inspired by sympathetic devils of the past — you are inevitably ringing the same bells other sympathetic devil characters have rung before. and supernatural did not shy away from connecting its version of lucifer to that mythology! kripke’s lucifer is, paradoxically, a lot harder to pigeonhole as Bad through a contemporary lens than homelander is because lucifer is part of a myth that touches a huge number of times and cultures, rather than a direct commentary on and product of a particular modern american context. 

the “taking the lives of others i deem unworthy” perspective is bad, but it’s also what hunters do, at a different scale. supernatural from the start has been a show that features situations designed to question the ethics of its protagonists as well as its villains, and lucifer is one of THE examples of that. pretty impossible to build a lucifer based on milton’s satan and not have him come across at least partially as a rebel against injustice (even if he has gone rotten in the process) and everything else that milton’s devil was. hard to do the devil-as-a-woman trope and not make her part of that tradition along with all it entails, misogynist and feminist alike. lucifer spn doesn’t fit tidily into political or identity boxes because he’s written to be harder to categorize than that — that’s part of the horror, and it’s part of what makes the heavy-handed connections to sam (and dean) all the more unsettling. 

so 

with all of that said

let’s get into lucifer’s genderweirdness on supernatural ~ 

part 2: gender in supernatural masterpost

#spnluciferweek #lucifer #spn #spn thots #meta

[spnluciferweek]

Hello everyone! It is the LAST DAY before Lucifer week so here’s a friendly reminder that old work is accepted! You can either repost and add the event tag (#spnluciferweek) or @ us on the old post for it to get reblogged. Adding what day it’s meant to be for is encouraged as it helps with organizing, but not mandatory. I can’t wait to see everything that gets submitted!

#u can ​literally use us to get notes if you want!! such self serving is exactly in the spirit of the week #mod post #spnluciferweek #spn event #spnluciferweek2023

[ramseynatural]

@spnluciferweek Day 1: Worship!! 😈 I mean, that’s what devoted fans are for

#lucifer spn #spnluciferweek