(Slight TW/CW for injury)

With how their whole positivity/negativity thing works (and that they're the only ones who can mortally wound each other), what if Dream and Nightmare aren't able to physically touch anymore?

Imagine, in the past, the brothers' main love language was physical touch (hugs, play fighting, etc). But after they ate the apples, the negativity and positivity act like poison to the other as a defense mechanism.

Any prolonged contact will burn Dream and make Nightmare's corruption boil and melt. It is extremely painful for both of them.

Imagine how this affects them in Parallel Synthesis.

When after all the fighting, after they've settled on a truce, after they've found peace and are able to actually be brothers again,

there will always be that one thing they can never have back.

Btw this takes place during the lunch meeting mentioned here! The stars and the gang decided to have an outdoors lunch :]

Dream and Nightmare belong to Jokublog

disgustingly fandom-brained ask: in the fionna and cake au, who is betty- yue or suki? yue is very self-sacrificing, and her ultimate sacrifice grants her more autonomy through becoming a deity. suki however is a redhead, is a sort of badass historian/antiquarian like betty, and shares many of betty's non self-destructive traits. suki's exposure to jazz music makes her moves less predictable, i.e. betty. sokka is simon, toph is fionna, momo is gunter

JFC 😭😭😭 there’s so much happening here

okay first of all i think zuko is guntzie (although i am specifically referring to original gunter aka the little dino boy. master evergreen is like if ozai wanted to destroy the comet instead of harness its power for further destruction, i guess? but yeah orgalorg!gunter would be momo u right)

toph IS fionna though i hate to say it bc toph gets away with her wanton destruction bc she’s twelve so it’s charming (i love fionna but she’s terrible, muriel). but yeah they both move through the world feeling depressed and stifled until they are granted access to the “real” world and in the process realize that their insular existence is a lie, but because they have all this pent up energy and rage aren’t fully cognizant of the consequences of their callous violence (at first). and the progression between fionna&simon and toph&sokka is also paralleled as it goes from "who the hell is this loser nerd" to mutual recognition and understanding and beautiful best friendship.

sokka as simon is such a crazy connection to make bc i never would’ve thought of that but it’s literally so true. sad depressed lonely clown times. (is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world…) i’ve said before that i think sokka would also struggle with existing after the end of the war because he’s spent so long living for other people that he doesn’t actually know how to live for himself, as a person and not as a sacrifice. like if he felt like his services weren’t needed yeah he’d probably try to kill himself too. but if simon of all people can somehow learn to value himself and believe that he is worthy of existence then okay maybe sokka can too (i doubt it, but maybe that’s because simon’s acceptance felt too easy to me, so i see sokka reaching that revelation even less). neither of them is able to register the impact they have on other people because their self-esteem is too low to actually process that they mean something outside of what they can do. and no one suspects that they’re not fine because of course they’re fine they’re great in fact. (also what gene yang did to sokka in the comics IS as egregious as simon becoming ice king. to me.) yeah… im gonna be thinking about this so much now. thanks a lot

as for betty, you’re right that both suki and yue have obsessive, self-sacrificing tendencies because they are both mirrors of sokka and thus have a lot in common with him and each other (it’s about duty it’s about sacrifice it’s about eschewing selfhood and committing to a life of servitude for the good of the community) so they both have equal claim to being betty but i would say that yue is more bettycore because she literally does sacrifice herself to become a cosmic entity, and although she doesn’t do it for sokka specifically (and in fact does everything in her power to avoid sokka, which is the opposite of what betty does, although ahh does that make ice king hahn? much to think about), she does kiss sokka during her transformation. but then again suki literally chooses to stay behind in prison for sokka even though she’d already been there for months by that point. they’re both obsessed with sokka but their duties are not “saving sokka” specifically so it’s not the same as betty who throws away her whole life for simon. but yeah i think it’s yue. i mean she’s literally a princess. and she haunts sokka. and he feels responsible for her “death.” she’s both alive and not. but either way it’s crazy. you’re insane for this.

the fact that the line “between your folks' divorce and that haircut on ya, i'm really not sure which one's the bigger shonde” works so well for both zuko @ azula and azula @ zuko literally tells u so much abt them and their relationship ....

i think my ultimate ideal dream piece of entertainment media would be if hideo kojima made a dune video game

cybervampire au

Cybervampire Megatron feeds on Soundwave

Behold the yet worse pinnacle/ditch of my fall from grace.

I once made a drawing of cybervampire/not dead terrorcon Megatron (like it happened to Airachnid) for an exchange (it's horror type/dead dove I guess because of depiction of mild torture) and now it spawned an AU in my mind.

My old deeply rooted inclinations stemmed new branches and I intend to indulge into them to the worst/best of my ability. Thus, you'll be seeing this my otp, as well as other transformers content, painted in black with the fluids dripping of those thorned stems.

I love vampires, and my mind told me vampire Megatron was as alluring as vampire Airachnid. Furthermore, there's my fascination with Megasound/Megawave. In vampire lore, there's nothing as intimate and sensual as drinking blood, and then it's the perfect pathway to sexless/asexual creatures to get into a sort of not organic erotism (as well as other erotic/fetishist practices but I'll explore that dungeon later on), as I do not embrace the popular fan concepts of humanization (as in organic/primal-instincts derived attributes) in interaction between Cybertronians in love-like relationships.

In this Cybervampire Au, Megatron got infected during the events of "Thirst", but not killed. Then he's some sort of living terrorcon, a vampiricon if you wish (I can imagine Miko naming him like that), just like Airachnid, but, given his tolerance to dark Energon and his synthesis with it, he's now even mightier, and not infectious unless he kills. I explain this as Megatron's systems/biomechanism being somehow different, hence why dark energon works in him conversely to other bots. Given that the coalesced energon that Knockout made contains dark energon, getting infected by its resulting chemical disease/mutation also works out differently in him.

On another regard, the plot of gothic horror where vampire masters control zombies finds its parallel, since Megatron was already able to do that.

As for the Megasound element, I've already suggested the innerent deepness that can be attributed to the act of blood/energon drinking. Specially when its given willingly. The symbolism, the possibilities of sensorial play.

When circumstances lead to this, Soundwave is, of course, honoured to be source of food to his Master, and he submittes himself to an extreme regime of fueling: Only the most refined and purest energon enters his body, so he'll be in optimal condition, therefore high quality and scrumptious food to his Lord. Perhaps he eventually becomes too invested in it, while consciously ignoring the veiled zealousness. No one should take the responsibility but him. No one is more qualified, or as committed to Lord Megatron as himself, therefore is only befitting that his life is laid to him in more than a sense. Everyone else is dubious, capable or prone to betrayal, or inefficient idiots, and like the hell he's letting anyone else have that sort of intimacy with Megatron. Every time Megatron gets overtaken by hunger and tries to take a prey he would be like: "no, my Lord, that scum is suboptimal and inadequate. Here's my neck"

I intend to create and write several works into this Au, with a collection of short stories in Ao3.

About Job and coffee (GO2 spoilers)

This is a synthesis of several theories I've seen and some of my own. There are several hints throughout s2 about what is important:

- Gabriel arranges the books by the first letter of their content. The playlists released by Amazon have messages in the first letters of the songs. First letters are important.

- As @cassieoh pointed out, the coffee is, specifically, Oat Milk Latte with Almond Syrup. OMLAS

- Omelas is a city in a story by Ursula Le Guin where everyone is happy and comfortable for the price of one child being kept in misery.

- The story about Job reflects this. Job is good. Job is God's favourite. He loses everything (but not what matters most, thanks to A&C's deception).

- There may be a parallel between Aziraphale and Job. Aziraphale also loses everything at the end of s2. Earth, his bookshop, Crowley.

- We don't see the full conversation with Metatron. Others already pointed out his manipulation techniques and that the coffee might be poisoned. I don't think it is poisoned, but I think the other option offered was in the name of the coffee shop. So predictable that nobody picks death, right?

- (I already made a post about this but I'll mention it again) the Book of Life was mentioned several times, but never used. I think that was the other option: Aziraphale and/or Crowley would be erased as if they never existed. Apocalypse 1.0 would happen (and one of them would be lonely for 6000 years)

- Erasing things from existence is important, too. We saw Nina erasing the Eccles cakes from the board, and they're never seen again where Aziraphale put them in the bookshop (noticed by @ariaste)

- Writing is also important. We see Aziraphale writing a script for what people will say at the ball and we see them saying it against their will. Metatron could do that, too. We can’t be sure about anyone saying anything here... (again @ariaste has a deeper theory about this)

- So what does it mean? Is Aziraphale recruited for the position of the child in Omelas? Is he being tried like Job? Did Metatron erase God since we don't hear God's narration anymore? Did Aziraphale and Crowley talk in a timestop and swapped places as @lonicera-caprifolium suggested? I guess we need to Wait and See. But the plot is much deeper than it looks on the surface.

All my fics here are COMPLETE + HAPPY ENDINGS. (I also have many ficlets!) 💘 = I suggest you start with one of these

Season 2: * Synthesis - How Lena avoids the rift

Season 3: *💘 Darkness in All Things - Worldkiller Kara AU * Echoes of the Forest - Something odd happens in the dark valley

Season 4: *💘 No One and Nothing - Red Daughter causes an accidental reveal, shifting the events of season 4

Season 5: *💘 Even Though You're Kryptonian - Lex tries to keep Kara and Lena apart. (Some exploration of Krypton's culture, blends into season 6.) * Iridescent - Kara shows up on Lena's balcony... and she's dying. * So I Kept Pretending - Kidnapping AU * Paragon of Invention - Crisis rewrite * It's a Metallo Life - Metallo Lena follows Kara back to Earth Prime * Retribution - If Mxy had visited Lena instead of Kara * The Parallel Effect - After Lena's betrayal on Mount Norquay, something strange happens.

Season 6/Post: *💘 Inauthentic - A pink kryptonite story... but it's not what you think! * Of Songbirds and Home - What does “home” mean for someone who drifted across galaxies? A Kara character study. * The Observatory - Did kryptonians ever wish on stars?

Other: * 💘 The Medallion - Archaeologist Kara meets Lena as she searches for the Medallion of Acrata to stop her brother from killing Superman. * A Sea of Green - A canon-compliant Lena character study

Finnegrin: Facing the Shadow

So while I don't see there being any significant parallels between Callum and Viren (in fact, quite the opposite), Callum does indeed have important parallels with one other villain, that I haven't seen written about all that extensively. And that villain is Finnegrin.

Which is particularly interesting because, unlike Viren, Finn has no redeeming qualities to speak of. He's a pirate, through in through, unscrupulous, willing to engage in torture and even slavery, and is openly looking after for nothing but his own benefit.

And yet he parallels Callum so perfectly because he's his Shadow.

The Shadow represents the darker, hidden, and sometimes repressed aspects of one's personality. It is not necessarily evil or even negative characteristics; the Shadow is made up of all the things the Hero doesn't like about themselves or the world, good or bad.

Finnegrin is Callum's Shadow, because he embodies the unchecked freedom and agency that Callum values, but without any grounding in empathy or morality. Finnegrin represents unrestrained, unchecked freedom, one that prioritizes agency over empathy.

Callum realizes this right away, seeing right through Finnegrin's musings of freedom:

But the reason Callum sees this is because he is, on an unconscious level, aware of how similar Finnegrin's drives are to his own. And it terrifies him. Which is why his first impulse is to reject his Shadow:

Then his second is to try destroying his Shadow:

But wiser people know that you cannot suppress or defeat your Shadow. Attempting that can only lead to disaster. A Shadow cannot be conquered, and our war against them only strengthens them. It is an inescapable part of oneself. The only solution is accepting the Shadow. The only solution is balance. Integration. Synthesis between Shadow and the Self. Only then is it deprived of its power over the person.

Callum does have a real dark side, and Finnegrin is the perfect Shadow for him. Unlike the cold, rational, aloof evil of Viren, Finnegrin is an uninhibited, charismatic, primal sort of evil. He is sadistic in how much he enjoys toying with Callum's emotions or torturing Rayla. He's pure instinct, acting on whatever impulse he has in a given moment. Rather than overt opposites like Callum and Viren, the pirate mage represents a corrupted reflection of Callum’s core inner drives.

And in the end, Callum comes to accept this.

The Ocean Arcaum is accepting that there are depths you can't see, parts of yourself you can't understand, and things you can't control.

Where does he go from here?

Now, unfortunately, just because he accepts his Shadow here, doesn't mean he won't slide back to resisting it. People don't grow linearly that way. Which is why in 6x01, Callum has slid back into his instincts. Almost immediately, when confronted with what to do with Aaravos - another Shadow for Callum - Callum immediately seeks to destroy him. This repeats the counterproductive mistake of fighting his shadow rather than integration. Ironically, this path leads Callum to an even darker mental state.

However, while he looks to be repeating his mistakes, there is still hope. Hope that when he faces down his darker self again...

...he'll break the cycle.

During the peaceful period following the reformation of Spherus Magna (and the conclusion of the... tumultuous events shortly after) much previously obscured information about the Matoran universe came to light. The actions of the Makuta and Order of Mata Nui, the nature of the Red Star, the machinations of the Great Beings. But for certain scholars, one unanswered question continued to nag them in the back of their minds.

Why was Karzahni given the Olisi?

For much of the Matoran Universe's history, Artakha and Karzahni were mythical figures. The Smith and the Physician. Synthesis and Dissolution. A reward for good work and a punishment for poor. Brothers who competed for a legendary prize before the dawn of the world.

(For the record, said contest never actually happened. There was a minor debate between the Great Beings during the planning phase, and they were designed by two teams working in parallel, but by the time the twins were constructed their purpose was already decided. It's not the only instance of the Great Beings' actions being exaggerated into an epic myth by the GSR inhabitants.)

According to the former inhabitants of Karzahni's realm, the Olisi was used to torment the titan's subjects accoring to his capricious whims. Flaming chains to break the body, a rictus-grin mask to break the mind. But why? Karzahni wasn't cruel in the beginning, so why would the Great Beings grant him that mask? Was it meant to be anesthetic, granting Matoran sweet dreams as the titan operated on them? Perhaps it was a replacement mask, his original mask discarded alongside his Duty?

Recently, the answer was found in a laboratory near the site of the old iron tribe. The Osili was a diagnostic tool. Matoran commonly develop amnesia after severe stress or trauma, and it's not as though a turaga or other Matoran could accompany them to give patient history. By using the Osili to sort through alternate lives, Karzahni could learn who a Matoran was, where they were from, what injury befell them, and what they would do after being repaired and sent home. It's a pretty elegant solution.

...Except, that's not the whole story. It can't be. Using the Osili like that is like using a sword to chop vegetables. Surely there's a better tool for the job, a better job for the tool.

Though Matoran stopped being sent to Karzahni's realm relatively early in history, stories about the Osili spread across the world. Mask makers, of course, attempted to reverse engineer it. A true copy was never made, but there are two confirmed cases of new masks made from these experiments. The mask of Foresight allows the user to glimpse a few seconds into the future and see the actions of those nearby, and the mask of Augury allows the user to know the percentage chance of a specified event or action occuring. Though it's unconfirmed, it is theorized the Calix and Sanok were also inspired by the Osili. These masks all have hefty drawbacks or limitations, but they are all incredibly powerful and versatile in the right hands. And they are all methods to divine the future.

And they are all pale imitations of the Osili.

There's another mystery about Karzahni. See, construction on the GSR and the constructs within began while the Dreaming Plague was at its height. It's become clear that the Great Beings didn't fully understand what caused it, nonetheless, they gave psionic shielding to many of the original constructs. Tren Krom was excluded, obviously, but shielding was given to the Mata Nui intelligence, the first generation of Makuta, members of the Hand Artakha, as well as the titan himself. The Order of Mata Nui later instilled this same shielding into their own members.

But why wasn't Karzahni shielded?

It's debated how Karzahni's lack of shielding factors into the Osili's hypothetical capabilities, if at all. Scholars can talk about the troubling implications, but Karzahni is long dead, the Osili presumed destroyed. It feels like they're making shadows to be frightened by. To look on the bright side, progress has been made on restoring the former inhabitants of Karzahni's realm. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Reportedly many of them are finding it easier to sleep at night, no longer tormented by nightmares. Or dreams of any kind, for that matter.

necro elysium: director's cut

in which i tell you bonus things about necro elysium (yuck!!).

genesis:

i'm not exactly sure how i came up with the idea, other than it was probably 2022 and i had been playing a lot of disco elysium. i was also thinking a lot about mercymorn, as is my terminal condition. i'm sure i talked a lot to ave about it. i also know i had a conversation with ama, where i soft-pitched a disco adaptation where certain skills would be in cristabel's 'voice.' it seemed like an interesting way to dissect lyctorhood. posts had been circulating about the parallels between harry du bois and harry nonagesimus, but, i'll be honest with you, i think i have very little capacity to write either harrow or gideon. but writing mercy seemed a) something i could pull off, b) a way to gesture at the harrow/mercy parallels without requiring me to leave my zone of interest, and c) there is something about mercy that seemed much more in line with harrier. i think they are both porous, both lacking a certain kind of filter, i felt like if mercy was given a disco skillset, it would really wrestle within her. augustine, i think, would be a bit more a kim. something that at least made pretenses of cohering. (more on augustine later, ofc.) possibly this was also, bc, for the purposes of this fic, i am a subscriber to cristabel having quite a big personality. also, following the release of nona, which gave us some cristabel (!!!) but also kind of dashed my cristabel oct is an e-girl (at least pre-res), I was keen to try and bring my cristabel characterization in closer synthesis with what was now in the text. also, once i realized the obvious semi-pun of "necro elysium," i knew i'd have to write it, if only for the wordplay alone.

anyway, i wrote 1,000 words, dashed off a bit of fanart, and then rolled away.

the skillset & mechanics:

as my fanart attests, the first mercymorn disco skills i pitched were not where we ended up! exclamation and discontent merged into indignation; scrutineer felt distinctly covered by the perception skills; i really wanted to keep acupuncture, because it was by far the funniest, but as i wrote the fic, anatomy was getting significantly more play and i waffled on merging them.

i wanted the skills to still retain a lot of the disco roots, but we weren't trying to have perfect fidelity. we were also integrating the presence of cristabel (more on that later). still, i wanted to be true not only to mercy's 'build,' but also the fact that she is a baby lyctor at the moment of the fic. because she's a just-ascended scientist, her skills are very blue (disco's "intelligence" set) coded. i initially also wanted to give her a skill called "scientific method," but didn't want to upset the balance of skills 'speaking' & so i hope some of mercy's methodical inclination come through in other ways. i planned for her to have very low artistry (a canonical disco skill), but the staging opportunity didn't present itself.

it was important to me that mercy failed some checks, because that feels true to the character & the spirit of disco elysiums checks & how harry interacts with his world. you will notice that mercy fails maybe ever composure check. this was absolutely intentional.

as for acupuncture, it clicked into place once i recategorized it from a 'blue' skill to mercy's sole 'red' (physical) skill. i very much see acupuncture as anatomy applied. canonically, we know mercy & cristabel contributed spirit magic to the megatheorum (see also: the eighth house's reliance on soul siphoning). her pivot to an anatomist also struck me as something born out of repression and grief, and so acupuncture is there to sort of illustrate this shift. the beginnings of a 'brute force' skillset she will continue to grow. in any event, it let me not kill my darling and keep both anatomy and acupuncture in, which felt right.

the art:

now we have to talk about the art because i'm always talking about this art. this art! when i was 80% of the way through the draft, i pitched the wonderful ama/smapis on drawing something for the fic. this was mainly bc ama is one of my favourite tlt artists ever & her mercy and disco elysium art rules. she was beyond kind enough to indulge me, at which point i sent her the draft & left it all in her immensely capable hands.

ama dignified my very silly fic to a level i couldn't have imagined! you may note that also encoded each of mercy's skills to different bodily systems (circulatory, muscular, skeletal, digestive, etc. are all accounted for), which is? genius?? her artistic vision elevated the whole thing & made the synthesis between lyctorhood and whatever's going on in harry's head so much more rich and meaty and nuanced. i cannot praise it enough. it's so good. i gaze lovingly upon it every day.

the unwanted guest:

"You can't admit what's happened here because you're fixated on this idea of the soul as inviolate and inviolable—this perfectly solid, impervious thing, the diamond sitting in the glass of wine. But souls are permeable. When they rub up against each other, they bleed—they mingle—they contaminate each other."—Palamedes Sextus, "The Unwanted Guest"

i started writing & had the thematic beats of necro elysium in 2022, long before we knew "the unwanted guest" was a glimmer in tamsyn's eye. but can you believe? can you believe how prescient i would've looked if i had a) finished a tlt playtext fic and b) also finished a fic about soul permeability? alas, it was not to be. but the publication of "the unwanted guest" did make me want to return to necro; it gave more weight to the reading i was using disco's format to impart.

i will say my personal reading is not that mercymorn is pious because that's cristabel as-a-nun inside her. i think mercymorn is pious because she was literally resurrected by her friend who literally has god-tier powers. when thinking through cristabel's skillset, i was thinking of aspects of mercymorn's personality where cristabel's would be most at home, would maybe latch onto, emphasize. i think of her as a bold and underline, as a different inflection into the lyctor's personality. some were obvious: now that i knew cristabel was a nun, piety was a clear fit; joy was another non-negotiable, as it was the guiding characterization of cristabel we get in harrow the ninth (john saying the saints were to be named after their cavs, augustine calling her a "twerp" and likening her to a child also, through the dark prism of augustine's mind, implied to me someone more exuberant). then i also wanted cristabel's "master of the sword" characterization present and to put the cannibalized cav swordfighting skills in purple (psyche), which is mostly "cristabel" coded skills, but also is, for me, anything gained through lyctorization. hence death's presence.

when we finally meet cristabel, a little, pre-res cristabel, in nona, she's much more utiliarian and practical than the cristabel i had spun out pre-nona. drawing from the way she counsels john, rigour seemed like the driving force. someone who achieves mastery through hard work, through discipline, but also joy is also v present in any sword-fighting scenes to balance it out & suggest that cristabel mastered swordplay partially out of duty & partially out of sheer joy.

one way my fic's use of disco elysium's skillset departs a little from disco elysium's is i wasn't as concerned with creating hyper-distinct voices for each skill. this is partially due to my own limitations and partially because some sets are meant to be, as i say, inflected with cristabel's personality & thus coherent to each other (hence: the whole climax where her voice comes together across traits). one could argue, this is to illustrate the permeability even between these seemingly separate traits. one could also argue i was just not very imaginative.

whatever souls are made of:

i also wanted to note that i sort of see all three of tlt fics in conversation with each other, but whatever souls are made of especially mirrors necro elysium. astute readers (lmao) will notice i hit some similar beats or ticks. is this because of my own limitations?? maybe! but also i do have readings of these characters i'm attached to & am interested in furthering.

i think there's something sort of fun and pleasing and characterizing about how much of whatever souls are made of, which is filtered through augustine, is collaged of references and quotations. it's also a cacophony of voices, but for augustine they're cribbed and for mercy, they're positioned as a fracturing internal monologue. i do think this is consistent with augustine's performative and also deceitful relationship to lyctorhood and the repression surrounding it & to mercymorn's more tortured self-image and inescapable emotional honesty.

the bigger parallel (if we can generously categorize it thusly) is that alfred and cristabel say very similar things to their necomancers. again, i have a beat!! but i hope people will forgive the symmetry for its slight differences. alfred says to augustine that he 'never wanted to be without' augustine (possibly, also, a longing to be included); cristabel hopefully speaks with a bit more righteousness, 'i could not have you stopped...least of all [by] myself.' cristabel's, i hope, adds in an element of someone who believes in mercy's 'greater' destiny, to the wider divinity of the world john is building, who believes that it is loving to propel someone forward. this is also, ofc, connected to how pre-res cristabel propels john forward. is that ethical??? is it good??? maybe not, but it is love. it is a kind of love.

okay this is much too long!! but tysm for reading. i received a few very, very nice asks about other specific parts that i am keen to blabber about, but i will do those in separate posts to give us some breathing room. everything will be in my fanfic tag.

but tysm for reading the fic & ty to the few kind anons who indulged me in this director's cut. <3

Its been a while since ive posted anything Parasynth, so I thought id make these polaroid-inspired drawings to make up for it!

As an added bonus-- I have nicknames for the guys! I actually made these a while back, but I figured id post them here for organization purposes, and so its easier to differentiate when talking about Parasynth.

The nicknames + my reasons behind choosing them listed below the cut!

Blue "Polaris" - Also known as the "north star", polaris is the only stationary star in the night sky, commonly used as a compass for navigation. A star that symbolizes stability when you've lost your way.

Dream "Apollo/Pol" - Named after the Greek god of the sun, music, medicine, and archery, twin brother to Artemis. Went with this because of the twin thing and sun symbolism, plus the healer and archery association.

Ink "Opal" - Opal is a gemstone that shines with rainbow colors. A true opal gem also has a base color of white, which fits with Ink's whole thing. Ink also calls others "pal" so I thought the name would be a nice reference to that.

Axe "Condor/Kon" - A large scavenger bird, related to the vulture. One species of it is the largest flying bird in the world. A condor's head also has no feathers, which kinda reminds me of Axe's skull.

Nightmare "Artemis/Arte" - Named after the Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt, twin sister to Apollo. Chosen for the same reasoning as Dream's nickname. Artemis is also the goddess of wilderness and wild animals, which fits with the gang (in a "they're a group and they are dangerous" way).

Killer "Shrike" - A cute little passerine bird that is known to impale its prey on sharp things, usually thorns. Shrikes are also known as "butcher birds". I think it fits with his vibe, plus shrikes have these black markings over their eyes that remind me of Killer's eyes.

Dust "Owl" - A nocturnal bird that has eerily silent flight and large eyes that reflect light in the dark so it looks like its glowing. I was in between this one and "Kestrel", but I feel like Owl fits Dust's general vibe better.

Cross "Cypress/Cy" - A tree that symbolizes longevity and endurance, but also mourning. It's also associated with protection and strength. I was looking for stuff that was associated with the goddess Artemis and the cypress tree was one (also the gang as birds and Cross as the tree they rest on).

Error "Oregano" - An herb that has a very strong bitter/peppery taste and smell. It's known to have antiviral properties and other benefits, but it is best used in small amounts. I also chose this name to parallel Opal (rock VS plant).

Swap/Blue belongs to the AU Community

Dream and Nightmare belong to Jokublog

Ink belongs to Comyet

Horror/Axe belongs to Sour-Apple-Studios

Killer belongs to Rahafwabas

Dust belongs to Ask-Dusttale

Cross belongs to Jakei95

Error belongs to Loverofpiggies

ok tumblr deleted most of my tag essay on this post, so i've recreated and expanded upon it in its own post.

so the op of the post made a great point which really touched on why i've been feeling that i had a fundamentally different takeaway of season 9 compared to the rest of the fandom. i have a lot to say in response to this, not in argument but in support and synthesis of it.

i'll start with dean at the beginning of season 9: he has a great struggle in 901 regarding gadreel possessing sam, more so than any other struggle he's faced when saving sam's life, which points to me as him being aware of and conflicted about sam's history of possession. he understands this is crossing a line because it's similar to lucifer and meg, and so accepting gadreel's deal is violating sam to a length dean hasn't gone to before. dean by and large is the one who has this particular ethical problem (shown throughout the first half of season 9), not sam. hell, dean is the one who leaves sam once gadreel's out, without even waiting for input because his self-loathing is that strong.

sam, on the other hand, is more textually concerned in his 912/913 arguments with the lack of trust ("i can't trust you, not the way i thought i could") and dean's selfishness ("you did it for you"). this is an ongoing conflict sam has with dean, since the beginning of the show. dean doesn't trust sam to make his own decisions and therefore makes them for him, without sam's consent or knowledge. sam wants to be trusted to stand on his own, and he wants dean to put the same faith in him that he puts in dean. this is the core of sam's needs; the violation of autonomy is just an externalization of these needs and this conflict.

and i don't entirely disagree with the connection between going behind sam's back to keep him alive against his will and a rape narrative. both involve a lack of consent and a violation of agency. however, it really doesn't stop there, and it's a lot more complex than that.

and that's what rubs me wrong about more common interpretations of season 9 that i've seen. because this isn't really what the season is about. this violation on its own isn't the point. or if it is on the surface, it's equally about sam lying to himself about what it's actually about. he's consistently left out of major decisions regarding his own life and then lied to about it "for his own good," and he wants the right to choose his own path.

except, as we learn, that's not true. he lied about it. because the point of the whole season is that sam and dean are the same. they will make the same decisions to save each other over and over again. the point of the whole season is that sam has been lying to himself.

i said this in another post, but i think a big reason sam was able to lie to himself about this fact is because he's had the opportunity to let dean go on several occasions. he's been unable to save dean the way dean has saved sam. he fails where dean succeeds. sam has been forced to endure a grief that dean has never had to experience because dean always brings sam back. and so because sam has endured these experiences maybe he's more comfortable letting dean choose death in the abstract—the hypothetical. but in reality when it comes to that point, sam can't actually follow through, because he's just as dependent on dean being there for him as dean is dependent on sam.

and that's what season 9 is about. sam has been lying to himself about this reality from the start. this is why 1019 parallels 311 regarding how insane sam is about dean. it's reiterating the facts we've known but with a new perspective, now that sam is done deluding himself. he needs to accept that he was lying to himself and to dean, and this is what allows season 9 to close and for season 10 to begin, because season 10 is a response to sam's realization. he chooses dean over everything else in a monumental display of hypocrisy and genuine understanding of himself and who dean is to him.

seasons 8-10 should be taken as a single, cohesive unit, and the show goes to great lengths to enforce this. season 9 mirrors season 8, and season 10 acts as a response to and therefore a continuation of season 9. you can see this in the way charlie's death mirrors kevin's (one brother's lies and deceptions leads to increasing stakes that could have been avoided through honesty and openness, which culminates in the death of their beloved ally, and the deceptive brother blames himself for that death because his own unethical actions led to it), or how both of them undergo a change in their physiology as a result of godlike power entering their bodies which mutilate them from the inside and have fatal consequences (sam with the trials, dean with the mark of cain) which can only reasonably be resolved with their deaths (and they both even enter the final stages of this conflict by going to confession). also the plot structures of seasons 8 and 9 on their own mirror each other very closely.

this is all very important because it outlines the purpose of each of these two seasons. it's about them being fundamentally betrayed by their brother, causing that brother to become desperate and feel rejected and unloved, only for them to get what they need out of each other to reaffirm their love. they have to function as a unit, because otherwise both season's primary conflicts (as in, the conflicts established in the first half of each season) are left unresolved. instead, sam gets what he needs from dean in 823, which means that in return dean gets what he needs from sam in 923, thus closing the circle that was opened in 801.

dean reaffirmed that sam is the most important person in the world to him in sacrifice, that he would choose sam over every single other person on earth—this is what sam needed to hear, because it's the foundation of the conflict in season 8, since sam thinks dean chose benny over him and this sent him spiraling into a suicidal depression and self-loathing. so season 9, consequentially, is about dean getting what he needs from sam: he needs to know that sam will do anything in his power to save dean, which is a conflict that began in season 8 (with sam not searching for dean in purgatory) and is reasserted in 913 when sam tells him that he wouldn't violate his agency if the situations were reversed.

and this is exactly what dean gets in 923, when sam says he lied about all of that. dean gets the affirmation that sam's love for dean goes beyond petty ethics, which translates to "dean is more important to sam than anything else in the world" where the "anything else" includes sam's own moral boundaries. this is important to dean because dean eschews his own moral boundaries for sam's sake and safety over and over again throughout the series, and this is a major source of his own character development (see: 122, 203, 214, 222, et cetera et cetera). sam repeatedly denies that he's the same way, and has proven at least once that he wouldn't do the same, so this is an important affirmation for sam to give and it's why dean had spiraled into a suicidal depression and self-loathing (look, another parallel).

so season 8-9 are mirrors of each other, and they have to be mirrors of each other in order to work structurally and for any of the conflicts presented to be resolved. season 10 then is a response to this which shows the consequences of those dual resolutions: aka, sam acts just as unethically as dean does in the rest of the show, except this time knowingly and intentionally instead of subconsciously as he has been doing up to now (see: 1001, 1003, 1004, 1018, 1020, et cetera et cetera).

in order for all of this to work, the conflicts in season 8 and season 9 have to be equal. i.e. dean has to violate sam and his ethics as badly as sam violated dean and his ethics. it also has to be suitably Bad because it's revisiting a conflict that's existed in various iterations across the entire show. this is why it's also deeply important that 923 dean's death also parallels 222 sam's death, because it highlights how this conflict has always existed and how sam and dean are similar to each other. they both make the same choices under pressure and go to equally unethical lengths. which is why season 9 couldn't end until crowley told the audience that sam was trying to make a deal with him to bring dean back to life, specifically after dean begged sam to let him die. the point, then, was never about the violation itself: sam disregards dean's right to choose death just as much as dean disregards it. the season is about how sam and dean are at their cores the same, and it's about sam becoming aware of that reality and then actively, consciously choosing it. which is what sam reiterates across season 10, as a response to his choice in 923.

he only realizes that this is a Bad Thing in 1101 (i.e. after the response has run its course) when he says they both have to change. and the "both" is important because they are the same, fundamentally. sam isn't innocent of this violation of agency and obsessive deception of his brother, and he needs to understand that before actionable change can be made, which is what season 10 is all about.

and there's something poignant that can be said about 1023 being titled "brother's keeper," because this episode is about sam playing the role of brother's keeper, only for it to blow up so spectacularly in their faces that it causes the apocalypse 2.0. it forces sam to recognize that his original conclusion (that dean was right, and that he was lying) was not actually the correct and moral way to continue living. the significance of 1101 only reveals itself in the foundation laid by seasons 8-10, because these are the seasons about sam discovering just how down bad he is for his brother and accepting it wholeheartedly. season 11 then seeks to fix what seasons 8-10 broke, which is of course the entire fucking planet.

and this is the problem: the first apocalypse was caused by the absence of love, and the second was caused by too much love. their love is a destructive force that has world-ending consequences. that's the point of these seasons, what it all comes back to. in receiving the exact type and strength of love they needed from each other, they ended the world. and this is the conflict they need to resolve in season 11, or at least try to. because their love for each other can, has, and will destroy the world, over and over and over again. this theme can't exist unless seasons 8 and 9 mirror each other, unless season 9 is about sam's hypocrisy.

without that world-ending love, they couldn't have started the second apocalypse. if sam weren't a liar, he would have respected dean's choices, and he would have let dean die. if sam truly cared about bodily autonomy, dean would have died in 923 when he begged sam to let him. but he doesn't; that's not the point of the narrative. of course the violation of autonomy is important, because it provides the foundation for the conflict. but the violation is itself a metaphor, a triple whammy of symbolism: the possession is a metaphor for violation, and the violation is a metaphor for betrayal (as seen through the lens of deception).

the point of season 9 is not that dean metaphorically raped his helpless little brother; rather it's that the violation of agency goes both ways, and sam is a hypocrite for trying to maintain his autonomy while stripping it from dean. it's a continuation of season 8, which thus compacts his guilt over "abandoning" dean in purgatory and his self-loathing and fears of not being good enough or worthy enough of dean's love, which thus causes him to act recklessly and injuriously toward himself and dean. it's not a positive conclusion by any means; like i said, this is what causes the second apocalypse, and it's only after they've ended the world twice that sam finally sits down and says maybe they were wrong about this whole thing. maybe their love is too destructive.

in 912, sam says: "something's broken here [...] we don't see things the same way anymore."

in 1101, sam says: "this isn't on you. it's on us. we have to change."

sam goes from blaming dean to blaming both of them, because he realizes that they're both equal partners in their toxic, fucked up love. season 8 and season 9 allowed them to become equals by giving each other the affirmations they desperately needed to achieve true enmeshment, and season 10 is the consequence of that unhealthy relationship.

the point was never that dean violated sam. he does that over and over again throughout the series without destroying their relationship. the point is that sam is willing to violate dean all the same, and he had to face that reality head-on and accept it to resolve the conflict between them and give dean the affirmation he needed, just like dean gave sam the affirmation he needed in 823. the violation was simply a vehicle through which the conflict could come to a head, and the most provocative symbol this show could possibly use was the metaphor of sexual assault and rape, given sam's history with it via meg and especially via lucifer.

i've probably written enough now. the tl;dr is that season 9 invokes what can be interpreted as a rape metaphor not to vilify dean or even really to continue sam's ongoing rape narrative (though the violation that occurs in season 9 uses this as a foundation for the conflict and that's important to understanding the gravity of the situation), but rather to give appropriate stakes to mirror the primary conflict of season 8 and provide grounds for dean to get resolution for the conflict that began in 801 and continued through 923. god i hope this makes sense because now i've written this essay twice and i'm so miserable because of it.

my apologies if any of this is repetitive or meandering or lacking in any way; i tried really really hard to recreate my original essay and also provide more evidence and groundwork for my argument but obviously i'm sure i've missed some details and overlooked structure in many places. if you read this far, i love you and please talk to me about seasons 8-10. i'm losing my mind

So fun fact, Brandon confirmed yesterday that Zellion is the same Zellion as in Sixth Incarnation of Pandora, an unpublished sci-fi novel which he wrote very early in his career. This novel is first-person, and we happen to have a reading from it, so we’ve seen inside Zell’s ol’ noggin already. And wow, he really does fit the mold y’all crafted for him perfectly:

From the moment the first primeval Neanderthal picked up a sharp rock and used it to eviscerate his prey, man has sought ways to use his surroundings to augment his own abilities. Not that much has changed over the millennia. Peg legs had become prosthetic limbs, and spectacles had been replaced with cyborg optronics. But the main ideas remained constant: displeased with what fate allots us, we bend nature before our will, becoming more than we were intended. Among all of God's creations, only man takes offense at his lowly state.

Along with our drive to change ourselves, there comes with true human paradoxical form the uncomfortable fear that we have gone too far. Through the ages, we have fabricated horrors to match our increasing supremacy over nature. Monsters, golems, mad robots, and horrors haunt our collective technological unconsciousness. Twisted mixes of flesh and metal, obscene misuses of nature and her creations. We push ourselves to be better and better, more in control and dominant. But at the same time, we sweat and worry that this time, we've gone too far.

We finally have. I'm the final step, the ultimate synthesis of what is natural and what is profane. One last grand adulteration. I'm the culmination of our feats, a Frankenstein's monster for the modern 23rd century. I am without parallel in life or imagination. I am Zellion.

Zellion is a living memelord. All hail.

Unraveling the Tapestry of Cellular Energy: A Comprehensive Voyage through the Electron Transport Chain 🧬⚙️

Prepare for a deep dive into the labyrinthine pathways of the Electron Transport Chain (ETC), where molecular machinations weave the intricate tapestry of cellular respiration. In this odyssey, we'll navigate the complexities with surgical precision, leaving no nuance unexplored.

1. Prelude at Complex I (NADH Dehydrogenase):

The ETC's overture commences at Complex I, where NADH, a product of glycolysis and the Krebs cycle, surrenders its high-energy electrons. Traverse the serpentine route of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and a succession of iron-sulfur clusters, witnessing the orchestrated dance that propels electrons toward the enigmatic ubiquinone (Q).

2. Interlude with Succinate (Complex II - Succinate Dehydrogenase):

As the symphony progresses, Complex II takes the stage with succinate as its protagonist. Succinate dehydrogenase, fueled by succinate from the Krebs cycle, orchestrates a parallel electron flow. Behold the ballet of electrons navigating iron-sulfur clusters and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), converging upon ubiquinone (Q) in a seamless choreography.

3. Cytochrome Waltz (Complex III - Cytochrome bc1 Complex):

The narrative crescendos at Complex III, the cytochrome bc1 complex, where Q takes center stage. Through a series of mesmerizing redox reactions, Q gracefully shuttles electrons to cytochrome c. This transient dancer becomes the ethereal messenger, ferrying electrons with finesse towards the climactic rendezvous at Complex IV.

4. Grand Finale with Complex IV (Cytochrome c Oxidase):

In the climactic finale, Complex IV, personified by cytochrome c oxidase, awaits the electron ensemble. Watch as electrons, guided by a cascade of copper and iron centers, engage in a captivating pas de deux with molecular oxygen. Witness the alchemical metamorphosis as oxygen is humbly transmuted into water, marking the zenith of our electron saga.

5. Proton Symphony and ATP Synthesis:

Simultaneously, the proton symphony unfolds as protons, displaced during electron transit, accumulate in the intermembrane space. This sets the stage for a grand energy transfer. The finale crescendos with protons flowing back through ATP synthase, a molecular turbine, culminating in the synthesis of ATP—the lifeblood of cellular energy currency.

References:

1. Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K., & Walter, P. (2014). Molecular Biology of the Cell (6th ed.). Garland Science.

2. Nelson, D. L., Cox, M. M. (2017). Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry (7th ed.). W.H. Freeman and Company.

3. Berg, J. M., Tymoczko, J. L., Gatto, G. J. S., & Stryer, L. (2019). Biochemistry (8th ed.). W.H. Freeman and Company.

Jon and Sansa are the only two main characters who are given the exclusive "anti-love" talks by their "mentors" and both of them are sceptical of this advice. And people expect me to believe their parallels are nothing but coincidences. Right. (this one of the MANY parallels in their arcs).

What I find striking is that their parallels aren't just random things but often specifically related to the concept of love, marriage, children or even rulership. Their arcs are presented in parallel ways, they contain direct mirrors or puzzles pieces, they correspond in a way that suggests a synthesis down the line related to those themes.

Other characters also share parallels, sometimes they suggest a future connection or cooperation, other times they suggest conflict, sometimes there are no direct connecting points and it's just an invitation to compare and contrast. It's always a matter of context.