Breaking News!! This fish monster is rad as hell!!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘  𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑  𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘

BASICS. FULL    NAME  :  Augustus Alexander Wang  NICKNAME  :  August and Gus ( in general ), Auggie, Ice Prince, and Guggie ( by Aurora ). Aug and Lestat  ( by Jack ),  NAME    MEANINGS  : Augustus is  Latin for  the great / the magnificent.  Alexander is also Latin and means defender of mankind. From what I know, Wang in Chinese means king.  HISTORICAL    CONNECTION ?  : Though, his dad did think of the Roman Emperor Augustus when they named him, they liked the meaning. It seemed to fit him. They weren’t wrong, he was an emperor and he still has that energy.   AGE  :  22. Like Aurora, he can’t age past 22. He wouldn’t have minded either way.    BIRTHDAY  :  5th  April ETHNIC    GROUP  :   Augustus is half Korean and half Brazilian.  NATIONALITY  :   British LANGUAGES  :   fluent  in  English and French. Conversational Latin. Broken Korean. Learning Urdu. SEXUAL    ORIENTATION  :  demi-heterosexual ROMANTIC    ORIENTATION  :  demi-heterosexual RELATIONSHIP    STATUS  :   Single and doesn’t want to mingle. He had only one serious relationship in the past with Aurora Shams from 2017-2019.  CLASS  :  Upper  class,  Wealthy but not private-jet kind of wealthy.  HOME    TOWN  /  AREA  :  London till he was 10 and Vancouver till he was 17 CURRENT    HOME  :  Los  Angeles PROFESSION  :   Drummer, songwriter, model, and student.    PHYSICAL. HAIR  :  long  and  wavy.  Chestnut brown. Here is an example. It goes down his earlobes in length.    EYES  :  piercing, almond-shaped eyes. Naturally brown, but he wears blue or green contact lenses.  NOSE  :   a Greek nose, straight without bumps. FACE  :  Oblong shaped, sharp and chiseled cheekbones, strong jaw. Masculine features. Example.  LIPS  :  not  full  nor  thin, heart shaped.     COMPLEXION  :  pretty pale. Example is same as the face section.  SCARS  :  one on his chest. TATTOOS  :  a very small ‘10/17′ on his left rib.   PIERCINGS:  earlobes HEIGHT  :  6′5″  or  195cm.   BUILD  :  Inverted triangle. Broad, tapered shoulders. Muscular. Defined, sculpted abs. Long limbs. Broad chest. He was naturally towards the muscular side with broad shoulders and chest. He’s never been on the skinny side. Example one and two   USUAL  HAIR  STYLE  :  he lets his hair do their thing, he styles them a little, but he prefers a messier vibe.  USUAL  FACE  LOOK  :  He looks generally bored. His eyes have a piercing look that seem to be drilling into the person before him. Like he can see right through you. There is an insolent smirk tugging at his lips like he thinks you’re amusing. Almost proud, like he thinks he is above you. There is depth and intensity in his eyes that stare skywards in thought. There is also mischievous, radiant glimmer in his eyes.   USUAL    CLOTHING  :  prince charming meets rockstar. Lots of jackets, darker colors, boots, necklaces and rings. Here is his wardrobe.      PSYCHOLOGY. FEARS  :  claustrophobia and the fear of ending up alone. He always had this creeping feeling that he’d be alone in the end and that he was always meant to be alone.  ASPIRATIONS  :   he doesn’t have any set aspirations. They change every now and then. However, his goals are just to keep his found family happy.  POSITIVE    TRAITS  :  extremely charismatic, intelligent,  academic and studious, alluring and attractive, quick-witted, charming and captivating, articulate and eloquent, adventurous, desirable, analytical, brilliant, friendly, enthusiastic, adaptable, observant, kind, mellow, competent, extremely caring and protective over those closest to him, clever, loyal, clear-headed, confident, humorous, courageous, imaginative and creative, a visionary, refined tastes and manners, daring, dignified, ebullient, deep, remarkable, surprisingly he’s very forgiving, forthright, gallant, logical, gentlemanly and sophisticated, perfectionist, popular, self-reliant, shrewd, witty, suave, curious, and resourceful.    NEGATIVE    TRAITS  :  egocentric, self-obsessed, idle, indifferent, selfish, defiant, arrogant, argumentative, rebellious, kinda lazy, stubborn, distracted, doesn’t really care for morals, blunt, can appear insensitive a lot, is insensitive at times, no filters, can be cold for those he doesn’t care for, emotionally immature, deflects emotions, suppresses his feelings, sorta detached, kinda pessimistic, and unknowingly self-sacrificing because he thinks it’s fair and he deserves it.   MBTI  :  ENTP  (  Ne  dominant,  Ti  auxiliary,  Fe  tertiary,  and  Si  inferior  —  this  means  she  can’t  use  Ni,  Se,  Te,  and  especially  can’t  use  Fi). He  perceives  the  world  by  connecting  dots,  thinking  of  never-ending  possibilities,  looking  for  pieces  of  a  puzzle,  and  finding  meaning  in  abstract.  He  makes  judgments  on  if  what  he  perceives  fits  his  internal  logic.          ZODIAC  :  Aries sun, Gemini rising, Sagittarius moon.  TEMPERAMENT  :  sanguine choleric  ANIMALS  :  parrots and cats because they’re both intelligent but little pieces of shit who enjoy making your life hell.  VICE  :   it’s either his ego or how he ends up detaching himself FAITH  :  currently, he’s Mu.slim. He was born protestant, became an atheist when he was 13, agnostic at 14. Bud.dhist at 15. Taoist at 16. Confucianist at 17. Mu.slim at 19. Doesn't practice it though.     GHOSTS  ?  :  yep.. AFTERLIFE  ?  :   yep REINCARNATION  ?  :  he guesses so. Went  through  it, but doesn’t remember. ALIENS  ?  :  hell yeah. POLITICAL    ALIGNMENT  :  liberal. ECONOMIC    PREFERENCE  :   upper class or upper middle class is good with him.  EDUCATION    LEVEL  :   MSci in Physics from the University of Cambridge. Is opting to specialize in astrophysics soon. FAMILY. FATHER  :  Edward Wang, owner of a chain of fine dining restaurants  MOTHER  :  Elisa Violeta Wang, psychiatrist, deceased  STEP MOTHER :  Chaeyoung Wang, lawyer.  SIBLINGS  :  Cassandra Wang, athlete EXTENDED    FAMILY  :  he is not close with his external family and doesn’t know his birth mother’s family at all. They never wanted him.  FAVOURITES. BOOK  :   Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Galactic Dynamics by James Binney, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Mukarami, Slaughter house Five by Kurt Vonnegut, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. MOVIE  :  Scott Pilgrim vs The World 5    SONGS :  All You Want - Dashboard Prophets, Tokyo Smoke - Cage the Elephant, Where is My Mind? - The Pixies, Sparks - Coldplay, Lithium - Nirvana, and Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra     DEITY  :  none.  Let him argue with one and ask for proof of their deity-ness. HOLIDAY  :  Halloween. It’s dramatic and fun. MONTH  :   October, because he met Aurora and Jack this month in 2017. SEASON  :  spring  and  summer. PLACE  :  he doesn’t have a specific place, but he prefers European architecture.  WEATHER  :  cloudy and windy. Sunny if it isn’t too hot. SOUND  :  drums and percussions, the sound of aurora and jack’s laugh, guitars, violins, the sound of wind roaring, music boxes, and the clinking of bangles and jewelry.  SCENTS  :  sage, rosemary, and damascus roses. TASTES  :  chocolate, strawberries, chilies, and fried food.       FEELS  :   the feeling of hitting the drums, wind in his hair, the cold night air, warm morning sun, grass against his fingertips, silk, and touching long hair.   ANIMALS  :  cats and dogs. NUMBER  :   8 COLORS  :  white, cherry red, pink, maroon, wine red, black, and silver. EXTRA. TALENTS  :  he is an extremely talented drummer, good at guitar and the piano, he is talented at songwriting, composing music, he’s exceptionally good at mathematics and physics, analytical skills, storytelling, knows a lot of facts, near photographic memory because he remembers all important historical events with dates and details, academic writing, and brainstorming ideas.  BAD  AT  :   cooking, not very good at driving because he gets distracted, doing one task at a time, playing videogames, actually listening to what people say, being humble, and actually being a good leader.  TURN    ONS  :  this is a complicated question. He needs a very strong emotional connection to feel sexual attraction towards someone. And he only felt it for one person in his whole life. But, what sparked that attraction was a brilliant mind and the ability to connect with his mind on a very different level. It’s not going to repeat with anyone else.  TURN    OFFS  :  literally everyone else. He’s not sorry, but I am. HOBBIES  :  playing the drums, writing and composing songs, reading, solving problems, listening to music, watching shows, getting people to do weird shit, and annoying people.      AESTHETIC  :  crowns, drums, broken drumming sticks, abstract art, the vast space, chess boards, album cases, thrones, the echoing sound of pianos, Greek sculptures, galaxies and nebulas, early morning sunrise through curtains, libraries, equations scribbled on napkins, empty museums, unmade white sheets, polaroid cameras, conspiracy theories, VHS tapes, antique books, cobblestone alleyways, night skies, cluttered books, calloused fingers, crumpled composition pages, guitar picks, vinyl, telescopes, and planets.      Basically: abstract, chaotic academia, cryptid academia, dark academia, indie, kingcore, light academia, musical academia, science academia, spacecore,   QUOTES  :   it’s weird but i can’t decide which one fits him.  FC  INFO. MAIN    FC  :  victor han  ALT    FC  :  n/a. OLDER    FC  :  he can’t age past 22, so he doesn’t need one. YOUNGER    FC  :  none  yet. VOICE    CLAIM  :  both speaking and singing (his accent is posh British with a slight hint of Canadian) MUN  QUESTIONS. Q1  :    If you could write your character your way in their own movie , what    would  it  be  called ,  what  style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about ?    A1 :  The same answer as Aurora, The Tale of Solis et Lunae that stars him alongside Aurora, Lunae, Jack, and Tate, plus more. A cosmic adventure / fantasy / coming of age / superhero / the reluctant hero / the chosen one.  His role is of Aurora’s best friend and her greatest support in emotional and supernatural dangers. He is the time traveler who ascends time and space, so he often also gives her insight and information like the sage. It’ll  expand across dimensions, worlds, and different states of existence. The scenes would be cinematic with a strong soundtrack. I imagine him to have some scenes like Quick Silver in the X-Men movies.       Q2  :   What would their soundtrack / score sound like  ?     A2  :   He would have a 90s grunge or spacey dream rock sound. It ties in with the end of the last answer because i see him in one of those scenes with 90s grunge or maybe classical music ?    Q3  :      Why did you start writing this character  ? A3  :    I made Augustus just a bit before Aurora. They were a two part deal. I don’t know when it began, I just had this image of a tall, long haired boy with piercing, intelligent eyes who’s a smart-ass and likes being a know-it-all nuisance. This character has been the same since he began in 2019 and refused to change. He was always a drummer, he always had the same fashion sense, the look, Gus was always half-Korean, he always had long fingers he wore rings on, and he was always Aurora’s best friend/partner in crime. He remains unchanged and that's why I wanted to write him. This very vivid image of this boy was something I had to pen down. And just my luck, I found a fc who looks exactly how Gus looked in my head.   Q4  :    What  first  attracted  you  to  this  character  ? A4  :   Augustus is just extraordinary. It’s something I always felt about him and Aurora and I don’t see any of my other characters coming anywhere close to them regardless of how much I spent time on them. But with Augustus, his entire image and looks and personality — down to his wardrobe and jewelry was always so vivid in my head. Like I knew this very chaotically handsome boy who was going to turn the world upside down.  His story is interesting, but what interests me more is his perspective on his story. The way he looks at his life and how he is quiet and doesn’t show his pain. How confused he always is. How much he aches but never seems so. The way he loves but doesn’t say even a quarter of the intensity he feels. And how sometimes he believes he deserves suffering because it makes sense to him. I also love the connections he makes and the way he loves so deeply and profoundly but underneath the surface. His connection, love, fears, and hopes with Aurora and Jack for their respective reasons are extremely beautiful.   Q5  :      Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.  ? A5  :  Augustus is unknowingly self-sabotaging. He let go the only relationship / love in his life that made him feel like real love just because he thought he didn’t deserve it. And because when he was provoked, it made “sense” to him. He bottles his emotions and pain so much despite their intensity. He never shows how much he really cares and really hurts. And how sure he is that he’ll end up alone without friends and that it makes sense to him. Q6  :      What    do    you    have    in    common    with    your    muse  ?   A6  :    Here’s a fun answer, because I bottle my emotions like him. I also interact with the carefree way he does even if I don’t feel peachy. He’s smart and witty and really hot and I don’t even have that going on for me. So, yikes. Only of Gus’ bad things I share.  Q7  :      How  does your muse feel about you  ?   A7  :  Gus loves interacting with people so he’ll definitely show up to annoy me. Maybe, he might think I’m fun to annoy? Or maybe, we’ll have a similar sense of humor. I think he won’t dislike me. Not sure if he’ll like me. I think he’d think I’m funny in a strange sort of way.  Q8  :      What    characters    does    your    muse    have    interesting    interactions  with  ? A8  :    Aurora, first of all. They have this same brain wave-length thing going on where they’re partners in crime and bffs forever more. He knows how she is feeling and what she’s thinking even before she utters it. If she is about to sneeze, he’d get a tissue ready. He can tell if she is hungry or sleepy with one glance. She can do the same, so they sorta have this weird understanding of each other.  Jack is this older brother figure Augustus loves. He won’t admit it, but he kinda wants to make Jack proud of him. He also wants to provide love and care to Jack that he thinks he deserves but never got. They’re his family now and he’ll never be alone or sad again. He annoys Jack a lot but behind it all, he just wants Jack to think he is needed and he belongs. That if he thinks Augustus is reliant on him, then he has this family he has to protect and care for. He can’t stand the thought of Jack feeling unloved, forgotten, alone.  Tida is another one. There’s this great respect and adoration Gus has for him. Almost like he looks up to him in some ways  He also has a lot of hopes and expectations attached. He feels Tida is everything that Gus himself lacks. He is the ideal boyfriend, kindest person, shows his emotions vividly, and is like a warm and cozy blanket personified. He is probably Tida and Aurora’s biggest supporter and first one to know. He can’t be happier than he is that Aurora found someone as good and perfect as Tida.   Taewon is one really fun character. Their two-way frenemy jealousy spans over years and started in Cambridge when they were both in love with the same girl they claimed to be best friends with. Though, trying to be calm, Augustus was constantly provoked and hurt, made to feel inferior and constantly in fear of his relationship being broken by Taewon’s schemes that he couldn’t say out loud. This dark period ended with a fist fight and baggage of guilt they both carry to this day for hurting each other and the one they claimed to love. Today, they’re way past that and frenemies who have funny quips and arguments for each other. They say they dislike each other. But if the lighting is good, one would be the photographer of the other. Q9  :      What    gives    you    inspiration    to    write    your    muse  ? A9  :  Music  helps  me  imagine  scenes  with  perfect  visual  details.  Any  scenes  from  shows  that  remind  me  of  my  storylines. Q10  :      How    long    did    this    take    you    to    complete  ?   A10  :  I don’t remember. It was many days and I didn’t count because it was in bits and pieces.

I was gonna send a joke earlier asking who is a flat earther but for the sake of being civil, what do the general education rates look like across countries? ie is eugene a flat earther

gjkksdf

okay so fun fact the bitter snow universe is actually geocentric - everything in the profane realm of the cosmos is orbiting around the planet (ki) because ki exists at the point where ri ni’n rooted into the profane realm when she grew and that everything in the profane realm kind of rippled out from there. so like you have ki and then the sun/moon, the stars, other divine manifestations hanging out as celestial bodies - eg char malách’s primary manifestation is as a bunch of fiery nebulas that are known on ki as a constellation (the ‘nine songbirds’), etc - along with normal stars and planets and assorted accretions of matter spinning in their own little systems but also all ultimately circling around ki. and trillions of miles out around the outskirts of the universe there’s... squirmy crawling unpleasant cosmic things. scavengers and parasites eking out a living on the very edges of reality. 

so i think the flat earther crackpot conspiracy-equivalent here is the heliocentric model of the universe ALKJSDFJKL

there are Some arguments about the shape of the planet but i think it’s like. a genuine debate. which scholars take seriously because well we know it has some curvature but is it a sphere, is it a dome, is it roughly flat and we just haven’t found the edges yet, were the abralians right and is it bird-shaped? etc. so like yes eugene might be a flat earther but if he is it’s because that’s what he was taught in school as a child gkjsjkd it’s got a much different vibe 

as far as education goes i think like... north of ingvarr, the whole hvassjarn peninsula plus like arendelle invests pretty heavily into public education. ingvarr prizes intellectualism as highly as it prizes martial ability and joining the battalion also means you’re getting a rigorous formal education; quintonia is one of the magical capitals of the world and has had a very strong culture of scholarship and intellectualism at least since amaranta’s time and of course under rosalia - rosalia does not approve of hoarding information or knowledge and i think has really pushed the quintonian parliament to invest even more in education because she’ll be damned if she lets ignorance take root in her country jskdflkg. and this sort of cultural attitude trickles up through the rest of the peninsula as well.

elsewhere - in corona’s corner of the continent and throughout a lot of the central plains i think it varies a lot more widely and education tends to be more of a pay for play. corona i think of as having public schoolhouses for all young children but then once you hit your teens you either get an apprenticeship or your parents pay for you to continue schooling and only really wealthy, aristocratic people (or people like cass who get sponsored by someone) get to receive a formal education past the age of about fifteen or so; equis, eldora, vinovia, astros, pittsford, hudor, i think all of them have fairly similar systems where education gets more and more expensive and exclusive the older you get. pre-conquest saporia and modern day marne both had/have cultures that really strongly emphasize practical skill-building in your childhood and youth and then have deep pools of knowledge and learning that are freely available but concentrated in cities, so if you want to learn mathematics or arts or literature or poetry or alchemy or philosophy and so on you need to travel to the nearest city to do so. so like Over All in these regions - most kids are learning basic things like how to read, rudimentary history if they’re lucky, life skills like sewing and cooking (unless they’re wealthy enough to have servants to do those things for them), dipping their toes into mathematics but, like, the average commoner is going around with an elementary school equivalent level of education, unless their parents were rich enough to put them through more schooling. so there’s some big disparities. 

in azoth if you’re rich you’re well-educated and if you’re not you’re lucky if you can read, and i think azoth is at the most extreme end of the scale in terms of education inequality. citrifola is a barely functioning country - it’s mostly wilderness and insofar as it has an identifiable government the government is a joke - so there’s virtually no formalized system of education and everything is learned through apprenticeships or passed down in families and the overall quality of education is very poor. antares has some of the finest schools on the continent and finishing one’s education in antares’ universities is a reeeally widespread practice for academics throughout the central plains. aphelion i think used to have an excellent educational system, albeit a very theocratic one, but that crumbled as the desolation spread and a tremendous amount of cultural knowledge and expertise was lost in this gradual societal collapse.   

currently vibing in a two-week lockdown, can you share some of your favorite fics? i need some new things to read, and I've got too much time on my hands-

Aw man, same! The rest of my actual Spring Semester got turned online… Let’s see…..Fic recs for the pseudo End of the World (Courtesy of AO3, arranged by most prominent ship!) Keep in mind that my descriptions are shorter and written mostly for comedic effect than the actual fics, so if something looks interesting Click it! Get more info about it! Don’t just take my word! I tried my best to get a lot of variety of fics and topics and tropes, as well as authors that might not be as well known! Uhhh here are the links to lists I’ve already made for various other reasons check out my Fic Rec Masterlist!

I also am including various of my fav authors masterlists for funsies!

jungle321jungle’s || Max-isTired’s || TrashficParlour’s || Lefaystrent’s || Mine!

Completed Fics

A Deal in which Virgil tries to summon a familiar and gets a Circle King instead. And he’s really pretty. (Anxceit)

Love Like You in which Virgil decides to give up looking for a romantic partner and considers adopting instead. He finds more than he’s looking for with a set of twins and the man who watches over them (Anxceit)

A Dragon’s Tail in which Logan is cursed to be a Dragon by his best friends stepmother, Virgil is struggling to learn a power he can’t control, Patton who’d rather marry a servant than the Prince, and Roman has no clue what is going on but the Prince he’s supposed to be saving can probably kick his ass. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

A Game of Vice in which Remus kidnaps Roman and turns it into a game of who can come save him from his lonely tower. (Logicality, Prinxeity) 

double down with the paradigms in which Logan tries to explain away his own OCD while dealing with the emotions he has for a certain Pre-Vet. Excellent depiction of OCD, made me cry, 300/10 would read again. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

It Takes Two to Tango in which Roman begs his brother, Logan, to let him go back in time to meet a famous dancer. Falling in Love was not part of the plan. (Prinxiety, Logicality)

A favorite star in the heavens in which everyone has at least one soulmate. They’re luckily enough to have three each. (LAMP) 

Forgotten Forests and Magnified Myths in which Logan finds out very suddenly that he has the passive ability to talk to dragons. (DAMP, Remilie)

Sense5 in which five people in different countries are suddenly psychically linked together and uh…yeah fun times. (DLAMP)

Stray Hearts Are Subject To Change in which black cat hybrid Virgil plans to die very heroically in an alley and Roman completely messes up that plan by being a decent human being. (Prinxiety, Logicality)

Hidden In Shadows in which Virgil is the boogieman every adult warned you about but he doesn’t actually enjoy being scary. Good thing the three Sanders kids aren’t scared of anything. (Not so good for their very confused Dad who isn’t sure what to do about their new imaginary friend)

Paved with Good Intentions in which the dark sides agree to send Virgil to the light sides as a way to get Thomas to listen to them more. Now if Virgil can just get along with the Light sides enough to actually start making some progress…

Absent Gods and Silent Tyranny or: How Logan Learned to Stop Over Thinking and Love Everyone in which Logan is a morally grey scientist who just works for supervillains because they pay well. He doesn’t expect someone like Virgil to change that.

Series

Clouds and Moss AU in which the sides are gods and its very gay and very good. (Intrulogical, Roceit)

Colors in which Logan is an excellent Dad, Virgil is an amazing son, and the world is very colorful. (Logicality)

Labeled in which Logan is a famous superhero, Patton is a doctor, and they adopt the would-be super villain and everything is soft and lovely and I cry at the purity. (Logicality, Remilie)

Fbi!au in which the sides work for the fbi and I diligently reread these series of oneshots for a daily dose of serotonin!  (Logince, Moxiety)

Growing Old is More Fun with You in which Patton is a PTA dad and so is Deceit and they have a “rivalry”. (Mociet)

Gilded Cage in which Roman is forced to dance for the fairy queen whenever she wants it. (Prinxiety)

Renegades! in which the sides live in a dystopia and fight the government while being completely in love with each other. (Prinxiety, Logiciality) 

Love and Other Fairytales in which a couple decides to keep their changling and their actual son, a child is cursed gifted a voice that makes people do whatever he says, a boy makes a rotten deal for the sake of his friend, and centuries before any of this, a fae prince is tricked into an endless sleep by his brother. 

The Vampire Hunting Vampire in which Virgil was turned into a monster and LPR slowly convince him he’s not as bad as he thinks he is. Through cuddles. (LAMP, DLAMP)

Wasteland, Baby! in which there are things in the woods and Patton gets,,, intimate with them. On purpose! (LAMP)

Destined in which Damian has successfully ignored his Soulmates for five years and he planned on doing it for much longer but on his twentieth birthday fate intervenes with a second soultrait that forces him to come face to face with all of them. (DLAMP)

Old Gods in which Gods sometimes walk the earth and Remus is pleased to hear that people are still making offerings to him– wait that is not a goat. And other fun stories!

Sit back and watch the world go by in which Virgil is a human abducted by alien smugglers, befriends Patton, breaks out, and everyone fears humans as space orcs, almost as much as Virgil is afraid of them. 

Teaming the Pieces Together in which Thomas is a pokemon trainer and eevees just…click with him.

Tales from the Dark Sides in which the author provides a lovely hub of works where Virgil is abused by OC dark sides and DLMPR are there to help patch him up.

Uncle Emile and the Super Nephews in which Emile gets custody of his six nephews and tries to bond with them. They in turn try very hard not to tell him they have superpowers.

Cuffed Universe in which Remus is a cop chasing after a hacker, Logan breaks the laws and Virgil would just like tO KEEP ONE JOB WITHOUT ONE OR BOTH OF THE OTHERS DRAGGING HIM INTO THEIR SHIT. (Analomus)

Ongoing Fics

The Origin in which space travel via Thomas Sanders’s ship SS Revelation gets more complicated when the Planets themselves turn out to be entities who aren’t all on board with humanity spreading to the rest of the solar system. (Remile) 

Delicato in which Logan and Patton are music professors with very different conceptions of music, and Virgil and Roman are students in both their classes who just want them to kiss already. (Logicality, Prinxiety)

Coming out of The Shadows in which a small mutant child Virgil is treated as subhuman because of his uncontrolled ability to manipulate shadows up until a scientist buys him. (Royality)

Falling Stars At My Command in which Roman wishes on a star and Patton reaps the benefits while Logan unfortunately gets dragged along for the ride. (Royality) 

Sugar in which Patton has three sons and no free time to bother with a relationship while he’s trying to manage bills. At least until Roman walks into his life. Sugar Daddy anyone? (Royality) 

A Man, a Snake, and a Rat in which Logan, Deceit, and Remus become college roomates (Intruloceit) 

a.s.h.es, ashes (We all fall down) in which after Logan almost dies during one of his recuse missions, him and his partner start to dig into the superhero agency they’re employed by and stumble into something far bigger than they expected. (Logicality, Prinxiety, LAMP? LAMP)

Keep him safe in which Detective Logan falls for the owner of his new favorite bakery while his partner Roman falls for the gang member they’re chasing. Ft: emotions, a pet rat, dealing with delusions 101, trauma, and family so gooey it literally makes me melt whenever it updates. I love this fic so much. (Advertises as Logicality and Prinxiety but theres so much LAMP I can’t not put it down here)

Multitudes in which Virgil works at a coffeeshop, pines over the customers that come in, and wonders why they all tip him so well. (LAMP)

Songbird in which the only thing keeping Virgil’s parents alive is his voice: the moment the (new) King gets tired of listening to him its off with all their heads. And Virgil’s okay with that, he is…. Until three visiting nobles leaving him wishing for his freedom for the first time since he was ten. (LAMP)

Shatter in which Logan gets fed up with not being listened to, and takes some poor advice from Rage, which ends with the entire Mindscape being turned upside down and inside out. Now its up to Deceit fix it all. (aka the author decided it was about high time Deceit got some love and appreciation and I’m out here living for it.) (DAMP)

Incredible Cosmic Power in which Virgil awakens some genies by accident and they refuse to let him go back to living a relatively normal peaceful life. (DLAMP)

Plea for my New Self in which Vampire Virgil decides he wants to start over again, and goes back to college to work on coding. There he proceeds to do reckless good with his absurd amount of wealth and a “fuck it” attitude. Actually one of my favorite things ever okay. I love this one so much. (DLAMP)

Your Wish Is My Command in which Thomas accidentally rubs six lamps and becomes the glorified babysitter to six jinn who definitely don’t trust him. But its fineeee. (DLAMP)

6 Dads in which Deceit, Emile, Remus, Roman, Thomas, and Remy make a relationship work and their children aren’t sure how but go along with it anyway.

Rebel Rebel in which Thomas, a well respected man, visits the Imagination, for some pleasure business as a one time thing. Except that he keeps coming back. Maybe maybe falls in love with one, two, thr– all of the men who work there. 

A New Kind of Experiment  in which Virgil runs away from home, and ends up kidnapped by merman, and somehow he doesn’t mind that much.

Becoming His Own Hero in which everyone has to juggle their superhero lives with their regular lives and sometimes…its just hard.

don’t wanna be a tragedy in which brothers Roman and Remus get a house and subsequently find out its totally, completely, 100% haunted.

Don’t You, Forget About Me in which the author recreates Breakfast club and does it spectacularly.

Heart’s Heroes in which Patton may be a villain but that does not mean he wants to see the child heroes of the city dead.

Mortals and Fae in which Deceit barely escapes the wrath of his town when they all turn against him. Dying, he stumbles into a fairy circle hoping that with his name the fae make his death short and sweet. Big Shock for him when he wakes up with a Fairy Prince swearing to protect him.

Sanders Family in which Thomas adopts six kids and has no regrets about it.

How Not to Go About an Important Inspection in which after a devastating betrayal the crew of the USS Bifrost is docked for repairs and the crew just wants to go back to being a normal family but Command is insisting on an inspection to ensure nothing so…drastic occurs again.

Symbiotic in which certain Vampires have a vemon that leaves with victims craving getting their blood drunken. Deceit, one of these Victims, continues to burn bridges because that’s easier than admitting he might need help dealing with this. 

To Be Written

Ghost Hunt

Photograph

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot/prologue.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 50-100k

Unnamed Fairytale AU

Concept: This will be a Cinderella-esk AU where Mai is Cinderella and the Davis twins are the handsome princes.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 50-100k

Meraki

Concept: Meraki (v.) To do something with soul, creativity or love; to put something of yourself into your work. This something I've been wanting to write for years but recently I've been unable to shake from my head so I’ve started planning it out properly. The basic idea is that after Naru goes back to England, Mai takes up singing and becomes a star big enough to go over to England. It's been done a couple times in this fandom but I want to put my own spin on the trope.

Progress: 200 Words Written; Planning progress 15%

Predicted Wordcount: 30-70k

Hyper-graphic Catharsis

Concept: Unlike the above trope, this fic focuses on Mai as a song writer, as opposed to a solo artist. Basically, Mai starts writing songs based on the psychic dreams that she keeps having even after Naru is gone. Bou-san finds them and says that they fit the vibe his band is going for and asks to use them. They end up hitting it big time and make it overseas where they see Naru and Lin again. The “where” for where they end up in a little up in the end and this one is really in the early early stages.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 10%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-60k

Nepenthe

Concept: Nepenthe (n.) Something that makes you forget grief or suffering. What if Yasu and Mai's families were family friends and so when her mother passed away, she was taken in by Yasu's family. How would they go about meeting Naru and the rest of SPR? This thought came about when I was thinking about how much I adore the concept of Mai and Yasu as best friends and I thought about how I can see his mother doting on Mai, his younger best friend who had no-one else to rely on.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 20%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-60k

Eccedentesiast

Concept: Eccedentesiast (n.) Someone who hides pain behind a smile. Mai's father was a killer. Some of her earliest memories are of watching people enter her home and never seeing them leave. When a case begins to get too close for Mai's comfort how will she react? Will she trust the team with the information on her past that no-one else knows or will she keep on pretending.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-40k

Bilingual

Concept: What if Mai was fluent in English? Just how much more would she have noticed about Naru and Lin because of their carelessness in thinking she wouldn't understand what they were saying?

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-60k

Automatic

Concept: Idea born from a tumblr post; a little girl who grows up thinking all doors are automatic but actually she’s haunted by a really polite ghost

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-15k

Library Adventures

Concept: Idea born from a tumblr post; Mai and Naru meet in this theatre turned bookstore - Naru’s secretly investigating the ghost under the radar with a team (since it’s not the type of place where you can just “stop” for any period of time) and Mai is an exchange student of something who he keeps bumping into? Maybe she even makes friends with the ghost haunting this place and doesn’t realise it?

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning Progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 30-60k

Cemetery Nights

Concept: Adapted from a tumblr post; I can just see Mai needing to make money, so she braves the cemetery and works hard. Meanwhile this ghost hunting team is called in and her boss forgot to let her know, so now she’s stuck in their ‘base’ confused as hell about these 'terrifying and dangerous spirits’ that she hasn’t encountered “and I’ve been working here for a month!”

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-40k

Haunted Hotel (Or Love Hotel?)

Concept: Idea born from a tumblr post; The team are off to investigate another location – this time a  hotel. The twist? The hauntings of this hotel has its patron on their way to see the ghosts (and an alarming number of them are hoping to do more than just see them).

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

Messages from Afar

Concept: When Mai starts highschool, she starts having her "dreams". She has no idea what they are, and honestly they freak her out, so she reads up about how to deal with that and finds out that writing things down can sometimes help with that sort of thing. So, she starts recording them in the form of stories on blogs. At some point, Naru stumbles across them and recognises that, oddly enough, some of those dreams would fit as perfect pieces of information he's never uncovered in some past cases, and upon noting the dates, realises they fit into his timeline perfectly. So he get's curious and reaches out to speak with her about where her ideas come from, and tries to subtly find out more. Meanwhile, Mai is just curious about this internet (friend?) man she's met that seems very smart, very irritating, and super intriguing.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 20%

Predicted Wordcount: 30-50k

Charmed

Concept: A ghost hunt adaptation of the Barbie movie: A Princess Charm School that takes some elements and adds new ones for a twist.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning Progress 15%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-40k

DGM

Calling you... what?

Concept: A continuation of Rescue.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 1-5k

Playing The Game

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

Who's Beneath Who?

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

Highest Bidder

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

Shots Fired

Concept: Idea born from a tumblr post; The Chief of Police is married to a Mob Boss, and they have to keep “just failing” to catch each other. When one of them hits the other in a shootout, it’s followed with “Oh I’m never going to hear the end of this…”

“So how was your day at work?” “YOU FUCKING SHOT ME! THAT WAS MY DAY AT WORK!”

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

OHSHC

Shatter

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-30k

Gum

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

MCU

Explosion

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-10k

Star

Concept: A continuation of the original one-shot.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 50-60k

Effects of Magical Deals

Concept: A continuation of the end of Death.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-15k

Danger; The Other Standpoint.

Concept: Danger from Bucky's perspective.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 2-5k

Born of Another Tribe

Concept: What if Tony's mother was an honorary Wakandan, found when she was young and raised there until the day that she left to explore her original homeland, raising Tony with the knowledge that he too was born of his mother's clan and welcome on Wakandan soil, though he'd never been? How much would Tony's life change? Would he still follow the same path of life or would things change in ways that no-one could ever imagine?

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-60k

Cosmic Adventures

Concept: I'm actually thinking of turning this one into a series and basing each one-shot on a different character. Basically the idea is that when Tony was 20, he had a major breakthrough in space travel and created his very own ship that he used to begin travelling the universe. It will be completely AU from the original MCU and will focus on watching him go through different planets and make allies along the way that he wouldn't have if he'd stayed on Earth.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-10k per instalment in the series

Raised in Knowhere

Concept: Tony was taken by accident by a group of skrulls when they escaped from Earth at a young age. Unsure what to do, but kind beings that they are, they took him in and raised him like their own. Join him as he travels the universe with different knowledge, ready to make new friends.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 20-40k

One Piece

Eudaimonia

Concept: Eudaimonia (n.) The contented happy state that we feel when we travel. I've been reading a lot of One Piece fanfiction lately and I've always been fond of the ASL Whitebeard trope and its various forms. But there's a distinct lack of Papa Shanks instead of Whitebeard so I thought about this; What if Shanks took Luffy with him after all?

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 50-100k

FMA

Monachopsis

Concept: Monachopsis (n.) a subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place. Ever wonder what things look like from the perspective of an outsider looking in on Mustang's command from a military point of view? Particularly in the case of Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist and his many insubordinate moments that seem to be passed off without question within Mustang's place of work. Join the temporary members of Mustang's team as they quickly learn that just because Edward Elric can do it - it doesn't mean they can. 'Just what makes him so special anyway?'

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

Orenda

Concept: Orenda (n.) A mystical force present in all people that empowers them to effect the world, or to affect changes in their own lives. What if Ed is actually really good at diplomacy and had been doing things behind the scenes to help but Amestris at peace with the other countries during his time away? What happens when he ends up the centre of peace talks between Amestris, Xing, Creta, Drachma and Aeurgo as they try to bring about an age of peace? And how will Mustang, Fuhrer of Amestris, and his loyal team react to the sudden appearance of Ed after nearly four years - and in a setting of politics no less!

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 50%

Predicted Wordcount: 40-80k

Bluffing

Concept: When Mustang's team starts holding a weekly game of poker to "increase camaraderie", the team find themselves amazed at just how bad the older Elric seems to be at the game. At least, until they found themselves penniless when a stroke of luck hits him and he manages to win a detrimental round. However after four months of a weekly poker night and the fifth time this happens, they start to wonder... Just a crack style idea i've had in my mind. I don't often plan out One-shots but I though that this could be something fun for a change of pace and I can definitely see Ed doing this and when they figure out he's been playing them this whole time, he can express his disappointment at how long it took, pointing out that the was a genius and probability was hardly Aeurogian alchemy.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 10%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-10k

Style

Concept: Ed goes away to a foreign country and comes back wearing a completely new style of clothing. Turns out that while away a clan adopted him and gifted him their wears so he had no choice but to use them (because he wasn't completely cold heart okay?).

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 5-15k

Merlin

Powerful

Concept: A continuation of the end of Disaster.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 5%

Predicted Wordcount: 1-5k

Apoplectic

Concept: Apoplectic (adj.) Overcome with rage; furious. When the newest squires joins Camelot, they find themselves watching the interactions between Prince Arthur and his manservant and decide that in order to earn the favour of their Prince, they would make his life more difficult. After all, the Prince hates his insolent manservant... right? Things do not go as he plans however.

Progress: 0 Words Written; Planning progress 1%

Predicted Wordcount: 10-20k

What would you change of Infinite earths?

Holy shit! So much. Like I basically created a new plotline so strap in folks.

First of all: Oliver Queen doesn’t die in order to save Earth-38, you know who does? Kara Danvers. (like in the comics) and it’s not because of the shadow demons or anything, but the Anti-Monitor shows up, and physically kills her himself.

AND THEN! 

Lena is finally introduced into the greater arrowverse and meets everyone on the Waverider and sees that Kara is dead and just fucking loses it, realizing that none of this she had planned, that even though she said it, she never really wanted Kara dead and it sends her spiraling because she lost her best friend.

So as a result, the Monitor sends Clark, Lois, and Iris to look for another Kryptonian to replace Kara as a paragon where they bump into Brandon Routh!Superman, and that scene basically stays the same. 

Lena however, is working overtime with Alex, Barry, and Oliver to try and find a way to bring Kara back, while Kate goes and finds Conroy!Bruce (who ends up being Earth-1′s Bruce) and learns the truth of his disappearance (I don’t know what yet, but I’m gonna go with Bane put him in the back brace).

Then! Episode two ends with Lena realizing that there is a way to bring Kara back via the Lazarus pits and Oliver disagrees, saying that it isn’t worth it if Kara loses her soul in the process. Meanwhile, new of Earth-2′s death comes in the form of E-2 Laurel joining them, which deals a crushing blow to Flash. 

Lex taunts Lena and tells her that she has become exactly like him, except she was able to cause the death of a Super and Lena decides to take the book of Destiny and hide it away. and that’s the end of episode 2 (mostly Batwoman focused)

So at this point, Kara is dead, the team is grieving, Earth-38 and Earth-2 are gone and Pariah shows up to tell Barry about the cosmic treadmill, stating that he is the only one who can undo the Anti-Matter wave. We get the sad scene between him and Iris, and the sad scene between him and Cisco and Caitlin (and Cisco still gets his powers back and this is important). So we flash to the cosmic treadmill, where E-90 Barry Allen is on his last legs, so Barry takes him out and replaces him, running so fast that it looks like he disappears, but really he travels between universes!

Meanwhile, Lena goes to Alex and tells her about the Book of Destiny which Clark finds out through J’onn. Clark and J’onn and the Legends try to stop her but it’s too late, Lena has attempted to bring Kara back and we look over to see if it works and...it doesn’t. Lena wasn’t the right person. (or is she?)

Meanwhile, all the paragons are trying to save as many people as they can before the multiverse explodes, but they are caught off guard by Harbinger’s betrayal, and she has brought the Anti-Monitor with her. Pariah sends the Paragons away along with Cisco and the Book of Destiny.

The cliffhanger is the same, except we get a scene of Barry traveling back to minutes before Harbinger brought him to Earth-38 and this is where we learn that Pariah sent the other Paragons into a different universe as well (and Oliver’s a paragon goddamn it!)

During the Arrow episode it’s very Oliver focused because he will die at the end of this episode. like spoilers but not. Barry tells them what he remembers and the Paragons also tell him that they remember too. Oliver figures out that they are in a limbo, a sort of pocket dimension keeping them safe from the Anti-matter universe. Sara takes the Legends and Oliver back to the Dawn of Time and Oliver steals the Book of Destiny, using it to rewrite and collide the remaining universes into one, taking on the Anti-Monitor and dies to save the Multiverse.

Meanwhile, Cisco vibes the rest of the group to the Anti-Matter universe, where they use the cosmic tuning forks to vibrate at the same frequency as the pocket universe they were placed in so Oliver’s plan works.

Basically the Legends episode remains the same except Beebo is actually a machination of Psycho Pirate and Kate shows up, with Kara in tow. Lena knows the truth now and she ends up taking part in the final battle and just as the Anti-Monitor is about to Kill Kara again, Lena steps up and takes the hit instead. SACRIFICING HERSELF FOR HER BEST FRIEND AND REDEEMING HER!

The Paragons make one final wish using the book of Destiny and we see a small universe get created, Oliver and Felicity reuniting and growing old together with Mia. (she gets vibed back by E-2 Laurel for GA and the Canaries)

and then obviously the Justice League is formed and instead of the Monkey being heard at the end of the credits, we get a scene of Eobard Thawne’s lightning making an appearance.

Thats my fix it fic, (obviously I think having three Kryptonians is pretty OP, so I changed it to Tyler’s, who I don’t think is that strong, and Brandon’s who gets killed off at the end of the Flash ep anyway)

Also, if we were gonna get a Luthor heavy crossover, let it be Lena so she can redeem herself. 

Do my changes make sense? Probably not, but I like them.

If you wanted me to stick to canon, that’s a different story. 

Chuck Mead Interview: Hit It, Get It, and Quit It

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Context isn’t everything, but it can often shape the mood of a record. Such is the case with Close To Home, the new one from Nashville-based Americana artist Chuck Mead. Recorded in the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis and produced by Matt Ross-Spang, Close To Home is a record of true stories and legends, featuring with some Memphis stalwarts, exemplary of the loose expansiveness of the Home of the Blues as opposed to the concision of Music City, laden with Mead’s quintessential sense of humor and just enough sincerity to evade corniness. 

On Close To Home, there are songs of devotion that tackle both moods: For instance, “My Baby’s Holding It Down”, Mead’s sweet tribute to his wife who looks after his home when he’s on tour, is a non-traditional juxtaposition with a song like “Daddy Worked The Pole”. That one’s about a man who got a job hanging telephone wire so his wife wouldn’t have to work the kind of pole that normally comes to mind--until she started stripping so he didn’t have to work. “Billy Doesn’t Know He’s Bad” and “There’s Love Where I Come From” occupy two sides of the same coin, the former an exasperated look at a sociopathic outlaw and the latter an ode to inclusiveness, both songs in it for the good guys. The distorted country rock of “Big Bear in the Sky” references Native American lore; the title track tackles the eerie prescience of songs on the radio. But as serious as Mead gets, he’s also having loads of fun, with the bayou grooves of “Shake”, barroom piano of “Tap Into Your Misery”, and reggae blues of “I’m Not The Man For The Job”. Perhaps the most ramshackle is the old-school hillbilly burner “Better Than I Was (When I Wasn’t So Good)”, which ends with a snippet of the recording of the song itself. “Did that sound drunk enough?” asks bassist Mark Andrew Miller with an appropriate drawl.

I spoke to Mead over the phone last week about Close To Home, and my main takeaway was that his personality was reminiscent of the album itself. Friendly, engaged, unafraid to tell me when I was wrong about the record, and possessing of a penchant for quotes, quotables, and non-sequitir, Mead was a delight to talk to. He’s coming to City Winery on Thursday for The Cosmic Honky-Tonk Revue, a co-headlining tour with Jim Lauderdale and Jason Ringenberg, all backed by his band, the Grassy Knoll Boys. Read the interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: What about Close to Home is unique to you as compared to your previous records?

Chuck Mead: The lion’s share of what I record is in Nashville, so going to Memphis to do it is a departure. To put yourself in a different place--and there were a couple of songs we had been playing for a little while that took on a different dimension just because of where we were and the studio we were in, the Sam Phillips Recording studio he built in 1962 when he left Sun [Records]  and had enough money to do what he wanted to do. My buddy Matt Ross-Spang is a great producer and is the manager for the place now doing a lot of great work. Just tapping into the spirit of Sam Phillips, where anything can happen.

SILY: The title of the record is taken from the idea of songs that “hit close to home.” Were you playing with the idea that home is not as much a concrete place as it is a feeling?

CM: Yeah, I guess you could say that. You’re always close to home. Home is where the heart is...on the bus! Sorry, that’s a Frank Zappa quote. But it’s true, nonetheless. I think you hit on something. But that particular song [the title track] is about how some weird song on the radio explains exactly what you’re going through. How does that happen? Man. That thing you said last week that came true. It makes it seems like there’s some order in the universe when probably there’s not. It seems like it happens a lot. I don’t want to get too spacey or hippie-dippie about it.

SILY: You mentioned working with Matt. How did the record have a different instrumental vibe than your previous ones?

CM: We never had someone coming into play like during this one. Don Herron who used to be in BR549 played some fiddle. Critter Fuqua from Old Crow Medicine Show came in and played accordion. It was still very Nashville-centric, but because we were in Memphis, we got Rick Steff to play the keyboards. John Paul Keith came in and played guitar. It lent more of a local flavor to it. It led to a slightly different vibe, which is great. Doing the same thing every time would be pretty boring, don’t you think?

SILY: And the album within itself has a nice variation--speaking of which, how did you decide upon the sequencing?

CM: You know, I don’t know. I just went through different sequences the songs were in, and it just seemed to flow the best the way it came out. It’s not like we were trying to tell a long story or anything. The songs seem to go together even though there’s a lot of different kind of things on it, and I guess that’s just because it’s us.

SILY: I want to ask you about a few specific tracks. First up: Is “Big Bear in the Sky” literally about stargazing?

CM: Well, no, it’s about that particular constellation. Many different cultures have a legend that they put a bear up there in the constellation. This particular story is an Indian legend from up in Canada. Originally, the song was for the Bear Family label out of Germany. [Founder Richard Wieze] asked me to write a bear song for their 40th anniversary.

SILY: I like the juxtaposition in the track “My Baby’s Holding It Down” between “holding it down” and “holding me down.” What’s the difference to you?

CM: Well, she never holds me down. She’s holding it down because I’m not there. But she’s not holding me down at all--though she could probably kick my ass. People who travel a lot, the people at home have to take care of stuff. And when you’re home, you have to take over, because they’re holding it down the rest of the time. She’s also probably holding down her anger. [laughs] But not really. People suck it up and they get through life. That’s just kind of what that song’s about. She doesn’t need me around. I guess I’m kind of nice to have around sometimes.

SILY: It’s about your wife, presumably?

CM: Yeah. I wrote it with my friend Paul Cebar, who also travels a lot and has been married about as long as I have. But you can write only so intimate a song. It’s general. It’s a tribute to significant others who hold it down a lot.

SILY: In the song “Better Than I Was (When I Wasn’t So Good)”, at the end, when you say, “Did that sound drunk enough at the end?”--

CM: That was Mark Andrew Miller who said that. [laughs, then imitates] “Did that sound drunk enough?”

SILY: Was that the type of thing you simply left in because it was so funny?

CM: Well, yeah. When we got the rough mix of it back, and that was in there, we thought, “Well, that’s gotta stay.”

SILY: Let’s talk about “Billy Doesn’t Know He’s Bad”. In so much of traditional music, you have murder ballads where the murderer has a clear intention and a lot of agency, and here, it’s a song where you have a lot of empathy for this murderous outlaw who doesn’t know why he’s doing the things he’s doing.

CM: No, I don’t have a lot of empathy. It’s a comment on sociopathic people. They think everybody thinks exactly like them, but they don’t care. They don’t know they’re being bad. They don’t know they’re assholes. I’m not excusing anything. Billy was an asshole. He lit up his neighbor’s house for no reason! It was a comment on someone like Jesse James or Billy The Kid who were kind of glorified for the way they lived their lives. Jesse James robbed and killed people. He’s a sociopath. You try to be understanding of it. When I wrote that song--Logan Ledger and I wrote that song--it seemed like it needed something. Mark Miller said, “Hey man, I think I have a good bridge for that.” So he comes up with that middle part that takes it to a whole new level of people trying to understand the way they are, nature, and nurture. It really ties it all together. I was really happy to have that happen. It’s kind of different. Those songs aren’t usually about that. It’s usually about a guy who kills his girlfriend because she’s pregnant or something.

SILY: Do you think the instrumentation of that song was an intentional contrast to how you’re viewing the character and subject matter?

CM: No, that was just kind of the way it came out. We went through it a bunch of times. I guess Rick added a Mellotron on that song to make it more dramatic, which helped out the bridge. In that sense, I guess you’re right. But it was one of those things that evolved in the studio. When we were originally working it out, it was just us four. That’s the thing that can happen in Memphis that doesn’t always happen here in Nashville, though that’s less true as time goes on. A lot of people own their own studios and cut their records so they can take as much time as they want. I don’t have that luxury. Usually, you just go into a studio and bang it out because everybody’s so damn good. In Memphis, you like to kick it around a little bit. That’s why we were able to chase that one around the room a little while.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the cover art of the record?

CM: I’ve been working with Jim Herrington for a long time. He’s my best friend. He’s done all of my solo records. He did the first couple of BR549 records, too. He’s photographed tons of great people over the years, and he and I have this consistency of getting something slightly noir that doesn’t look like your average album cover. Probably one of my favorite things someone said--there was a review of the record where the guy didn’t know anything about country or Americana but was drawn to the record because he thought it looked like Bryan Ferry. He liked the record, and he said, “It’s the most curious record you’ll hear all year.” For him, I guess. I don’t seem so curious. But it’s a tribute to the mysteriousness of Jim Herrington’s photo.

SILY: How are you adapting these new songs to the stage?

CM: Just goin’ out there and playin’ ‘em. [laughs] We’ve been playin’ ‘em over in Europe. Just bangin’ it out. We really did it pretty much live right there in the studio. More than a few songs, that was the vocal I was singing while we were cutting. Of course, we did overdubs where necessary, but there’s a certain liveness you want [in order] to capture the spirit of what’s going down. But when you start playing them after a while they do take on a certain dimension?

SILY: Extending a part or jamming.

CM: We don’t do too much of that. Sometimes, we’ll cut loose. We’re not a jam band to play a song for 30 minutes, although there’s nothing wrong with that. But I like to hit it, get it, and quit it.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

CM: I��m reading a Lightning Hopkins biography right now. That guy recorded a lot of songs. [laughs] He’s one of my favorites though. I just finished this novel called Country Dark that was pretty damn good, about people up in Kentucky. Listening--I’ve mostly been listening to a lot of Jim Lauderdale and Jason Ringenberg. Gettin’ ready for the tour. We all have records out. Of course I like Margo Price’s record.

Album score: 7.1/10

Do you think we were supposed to be getting MOC!Dean vibes from how excited Dean was to have the Colt back? I mean, he got pissy when the First Blade was taken from him to, though he ultimately ended up giving that to Cas, but y'know... willingly. Idk where I'm going with this, just something I thought of...

Yeah, idk if it was meant to be exactly like Dean and the First Blade but he was definitely being a bit obsessive about it :P Once you sleep with something under your pillow you cross a line where if this was the sitcom version of the show the next day he’d walk into the library and Sam and Cas would have hung an intervention banner :P 

I mean I don’t think we need to go over Dean’s detailed history with the Colt, either in actions or emotionally how much was connected to it and the obvious security a kill-anything weapon has to your well-being (a rare feeling for him although 12x18 proved that could be preeetty useless when not applied properly anyway)… but he was also personifying the gun and he does this with the car and I guess in a way it’s stuff he puts a bit of himself into. 

(I watched 9x10 recently enough to still be laughing at Crowley calling the car Dean’s phallus on wheels - I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of what Baby is to Dean, and 11x04 showing her as a protective womb and somehow almost cosmically attuned to him as a friend is way more accurate, if we don’t go with her being a representation of his soul. But hands down she is feminine and not just because he calls her so, but symbolically. But the Colt. Definitely a phallic representation for Dean.)

But his weirdness about the gun got him in trouble in 12x18, that the bad guys got the better of him, and, well, the dude in 5x09 who complained why do they not put their weapons on a bungee? Highlights the problem of relying on a kill-anything weapon (and pfft now I think about it like this - WAS that foreshadowing that they gain and lose the Colt in one episode immediately after that because Dean dropped it after Lucifer threw him across the field? :P)

I think the problem is this is such a coveted item, it’s its own curse. And I just spent a moment trying to think of what other thing in pop culture I could compare this to aside from the obvious of the One Ring and realised I was thinking of season 3 and the Colt. So. Uh. I feel like there’s a very obvious comparison to some item that was only got through stealing and was its own curse but my brain is ALSO now just saying, hey, rabbit’s foot in 3x03, and at this point I give up. My brain is a mess of Supernatural and I can’t remember anything else any more. 

Anyway, it’s not something spelled out in the text like that, but right before the Colt comes back into play, like bungee guy and his warning about losing weapons, we have this:

SAM It’s a hell of a luck charm.

BOBBY It’s not a luck charm, it’s a curse! She made it to kill people, Sam!See, you touch it, you own it. You own it, sure, you get a run of good luck to beat the Devil.But, you lose it, that luck turns. It turns so bad that you’re dead inside a week.

SAM Well, so I won’t lose it, Bobby.

BOBBY EVERYBODY LOSES IT!

(Lol to “beat the devil” I hate this show sometimes)

Obviously Colt didn’t make it AS a curse - he made it to kill demons and lock a Devil’s gate shut… But from the outset it has the problem that because it can LOCK the gate it can also OPEN it. So the very earliest we see the Colt is two demons coming to get it from Samuel Colt; it’s a beacon of potential and Colt may have used it for good, but there’s an immediate reaction of interest to use it for bad, because it’s power, and power, of course, corrupts. (Like the ring of power, or the First Blade comparison, as two items specifically about the corrupting influence of dark bad power) 

But still. Once it’s there…

SAMUEL COLT (nods) Not bad. (Samuel opens his jacket so Sam can see the colt in his holster) You don’t want it. It’s a curse. Believe me.

SAM Great. Then let me take it off your hands.

Sam actually is given the Colt (and that scene now to me feels like 9x11 riffed off it a LOT - Dean taking the Mark from Cain feels almost identical in mood, only Sam taking on this “curse” was a lot more benign, unless of course it somehow twists time and fate up to make the Colt so much of their problem in the future). Anyway, he takes it to Dean seemingly with permission and no hard feelings from Samuel Colt, and so it’s sort of got a sense of ownership to them, but not exactly the strongest, especially as it may have just been on loan.

Best I can guess, based on the Elkins connection, after they disappeared back to the future, Elkins the bartender came out and saw the ash and had no interest in it, but did see the Colt and took it, then when Samuel Colt came to town it was like no i never saw no gun, and Colt assumes Sam took it (and hey he did want to pass on that curse :P) and that’s it. Elkins passes it down through his family, Daniel Elkins sort of can’t believe what he’s got, and maybe for all we know was a hunter because having the Colt invites trouble and his family had a history of it and had to learn the hard way.

Dean steals the Colt from him in 4x03, and fails to use it while discovering how their family is well and truly cursed with Mary’s deal. 

John wanted it from Daniel Elkins and never got it from him while he was alive because I bet Elkins did not want to share that curse and had some fear about what it would do to John - the Elkins family having it is sort of like Bilbo having it all the time in the shire - he messes around doing party tricks with his magic ring, but the plot doesn’t come for HIM. 

Vampires eventually steal it, John steals it from them, he gives it again to Dean, but retains a loose ownership of being the one who’d be mad about wasting bullets, even if Sam and Dean wave it around and shoot it a few times, John reclaims it and gives it to Azazel. Azazel gives it to Jake. Sam steals it from Jake, Bela steals it from Sam, gives it to Crowley who gives it to Dean, and then immediately steals it back from him and gives it to Ramiel. Ramiel is killed for it by Sam (unintentionally) and Mary steals it, for Mick who gives it to Sam, who gives it to Dean, who Cas steals it from, who loses it to Dagon, who melts it and the poor ghost of Samuel Colt, haunting miles of railroad in the middle of Wyoming, suddenly has his spirit freed and goes up to Heaven at long last like, finally :P 

Pretty much everyone who either steals it or has it stolen from them is killed for it or because of this struggle - losing it is a safer way to not die, so Dean dropping it at the end of 2 time travel escapades, or after attempting to kill Lucifer, sort of means the gun falls off the radar, in a kind of threw it into the deepest ocean way, where it stops being on the board. But the curse is clear and the power struggle for it. 

I think this sort of desirability of it as an item IS the curse, and Dean is best placed of anyone in the world to know about it because he’s been not just connected to the story all along, but also with the time travel things, especially 4x03, intimately connected with its  history in a really weird way. He was the one who shot the phoenix, after all, even if Sam got the Colt in the first place. Dean being the last “true” owner of the Colt is a nice way to end it, in that Dean is the centre of the universe way. But also that Sam brought it to him and Mary stole it for them - the family history, the family curse… (I still think Samuel Colt’s journal was in the Campbell library because there was a family connection)

Also it’s great Cas stole it and shot it and had a part in that - also mirroring Eileen’s attempt to shoot Dagon, which makes me feel like she’s part of the family and should marry Sam >.>

ANYWAY all that said, I think that’s the curse/pull of the Colt, the sort of “my precious” feeling that would come from it. It’s an object soaked in blood and in the supernatural world that seems to leave a mark. I think the gun was actually almost bonded to their story or to Dean, and he would have the Gollum-like intensity over it because it’s been his for hundreds of years all through its existence, in the “i’m my own grandfather” way time travel messes with things. And I think that it wasn’t EVIL per say but the “curse” had a truth to it that Samuel Colt couldn’t even begin to understand what he’d created, and what it would become. And all the people who died for it - all that power and all that swapping hands? If ownership puts a bit of something into a thing like Dean personifying Baby until she looks out for him in turn like 11x04 showed, then think of the gun going through all those hands, and all the evil or desperation they poured into it while coveting its power.

I don’t think it necessarily drove Dean mad in the way if we had a longer arc with it it MIGHT have Gollum’d him like the First Blade did but for the 3 episodes he owned it, it definitely seemed like a danger and I think this is why he was susceptible to it. I think 12x18 in a way might be a great thing to rewatch for Dean and the Colt - how it influenced him in that time, that he was sloppy and filled with bravado… I said in my notes for that episode that he was happily waving his phallic gun around that represented a sort of power and therefore virility he doesn’t normally feel - a GOOD feeling about himself, self-confidence and self-assuredness, and so Dean hooking up felt a natural part of exercising that power. But it made him reckless and vulnerable and so he ended up being the damsel tied to the chair and thrown in a meat locker. Sam, who had a tearful reunion with the Colt and saw it in a completely opposite light to Dean, as a dangerous, cursed tool, as Samuel Colt said and Sam knows full well, had a clarity about it.

I think if Sam kept the Colt Cas probably wouldn’t have stolen it, and the Colt would still be un-melted, because a totally different story would have been told.

But it got to Dean. It probably wouldn’t have CHANGED him long term, but the immediate personality effect was all over 12x18 and it suddenly filled a huge part of the emotional drama of 12x19 where Cas stealing it became a Cas or Colt situation and they were weirdly paralleled closely together (as well as that weird sexual side to Dean owning the Colt that 12x18 explored, being used with the Colt being in his bed, and Cas stealing it from there…) - if it had been some other McGuffin and not The Colt with all its history I think Dean also would have been a lot more chill in 12x19, and not be betrayed, and not waver even for a second to seem like he was messed up enough to be weighing the worth of the Colt against Cas in the first place. 

I don’t think if the Colt hadn’t been melted it would have had a long term affect on their relationship even if Dean would have been upset about Cas taking it…

I am still wondering if they’ll develop that Cas nearly died FOR Mary to steal it and if Dean would ever clearly be made aware that the BMoL stole it from Ramiel and that’s why they were there and what Mary was doing.

I want more on the cursed family history and whether they mention the Colt or not in that, it just existing for a moment in this season has dragged up more than enough of that…

Okay I have way too many thoughts about this ask I went way off point with. 

But yeah, I don’t think the Colt ACTUALLY would have been like the Mark of Cain and First Blade to Dean, but metaphorically that’s the emotional impact it had, with the family history and HIS history with it being the Mark, and the Colt of course being the Blade.

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