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alastanor · 3 years

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In less than a week my feed has been plagued by the "hot takes" of entitled fans of the Hazbin and Helluva universe.

As a result, I know I promised some analytical information regarding what we know of Hazbin's version of hell thus far, which will be included in this post. But there will be some other things added as well to address some of the more frequently expressed "concerns" I have seen being (rather rudely) expressed in posts.

Some of the things I will be talking about in these posts, so while I will be utilizing quotes or things said in @total-mal 's very well articulated response post, I recommend going to read that response post in it's entirety. Like... now.

The complaints I tend to see typically fall along these lines.

So in this post I will be addressing these things and other things I typically see.

Story

As was very well put in the aforementioned post, the series of Hazbin barely has an hour of content. Yet for some reason people complain that it's a mess. How?

The Pilot itself is meant to establish the setting, who the characters are, what their relationships to each other are, establishing dynamic, and establish the premise of future story that is meant to follow. All of these things the pilot did exceedingly well. A pilot is NOT meant to drop dozens of hours worth of world lore and future plot points in one half hour segment. It is supposed to hook people into being interested in and watching the follow up episodes. Which, considering the rather quick cult following that preceded the pilot debut, I would say it did that and more even without the world lore dump people are demanding.

No story is going to give you every facet of the characters and the world they inhabit in the first episode or the first novel. No story worth it's weight in salt, that is. Any good story teller will tell you that content needs to be put on an IV drip as the story progresses, or else you will lose the majority of your audience's interest.

Helluva Boss is it's own standalone project set in the same universe as Hazbin, but it's job is not to provide lore for Hazbin. The kernel of lore we got from episode two was great. But that is very likely not going to be the norm every episode. Nor should anyone expect otherwise.

The comics were also their own projects, meant to strengthen an already existing narrative with Hazbin and establish both Angel and Alastor's motives for joining the Hotel. They are not meant to expand on the lore. Their existence could also very likely be overlooked by fans who only pay attention to what is popping up on Youtube or on their Twitter feed.

As for Addict, that began as a fan-created song Vivzie liked enough to animate into a music video which expanded on Angel and Cherri's relationship. It was not meant to be an entry to any Vivziepop Hell lore.

Hazbin is a story driven by its characters. This is why the characters are the focus and take up the majority of any screen time given to any entry of Hazbin. Mal puts it very well:

World

So this is where we will be getting into what we know so far about the world of Vivzie's hell.

So Vivzie's hell is, from what we understand, loosely based on Dante's inferno with other inspirations and deviations mixed in. For example, there are only seven circles of hell as opposed to 9.

In Dante's inferno only circle two through five are after the Seven Deadly Sins. Whereas in Vivziepop's version of hell, every circle is for one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

From what we understand so far, Pride is the top circle, or Ring. Sinners, AKA those who were alive prior to becoming demons, are only allowed to exist in Pride.

We do not know what "can only exist" means. As this doesn't imply that sinners can't leave Pride. Simply that they cannot exist anywhere else.

And also from what we understand, the big marker that differentiates each of the circles is the colors of the sky.

Pride, from what we have seen thus far, has a red sky.

While Greed has a green sky.

This is further confirmed on Twitter, however whether it was confirmed by Vivzie or one of the other official Twitters, I cannot recall.

Now, I know there are quite a few who keep asking this question.

And there are many who seem to think that this little detail means that the fact dump from official Twitters means the story and lore are ruined. This is actually false. Especially when you consider that Sinners are not a finite population. Nor is their influx a small trickle. So expanding Sinners into other parts of hell is only a temporary solution to a more overarching problem. It may slow down the necessity for purges, but it would also increase the number needed to be purged each time a purge was necessary. Further, it is doubtful that Lucifer would be keen on the idea of angels traveling deeper into Hell just as it is doubtful that he sees a reason to be exceedingly merciful to sinners- the creation he detests and is more or less what brought him to Hell to begin with. It also would erase any place to escape for Hell-born demons.

So in this regard, no. Nothing is ruined. People just aren't paying attention. The devil is in the details, after all.

As for what the difference is between circles and rings, perhaps this will shed some light.

Rings seem to be segments of a circle that separate sinners by the subcategory of their sin in each circle. Whether or not Vivziepop's version of hell follows this, I personally doubt it. Ring and Circle, from observation, seem to be used interchangeably. So the two could very well be the same thing.

The other bits we know are lore facts Vivzie has given previously that may no longer be true as the world exists now. For example, previously Alastor was scared of dogs. But more recently, Vivzie said that is no longer true and Alastor simply just does not like them. So any older facts should be taken with a grain of salt until they are reconfirmed.

Switching gears on the world, there have been complaints popping up that Vivziepop's hell is not "hell-y" enough because there is not enough fire and brimstone.

To take a phrase from total-mal once more, there are countless alternate depictions of hell as hell being other people instead of the place itself. The phrase exists from Sartre's No Exit, but has been revisited numerous times in other media depictions of hell to display that the definition of "punishment" can be broadened to a much larger spectrum than originally imagined.

In the Hazbin universe of Hell, punishment is the constant threat of physical and emotional harm from those around you, not unlike being in prison or living in a ghetto. You have the increased potential to be abused or taken advantage of if you show a moment's weakness.

And while some in the demon hierarchy might have it better than others, there is still the constant threat of being killed or overthrown by someone stronger or someone just wanting to prove themselves.

In the Hazbin universe of hell, you wear clues to your life, your sins, and your death on the outside for all to see (and in some cases, manipulate). You are thrust into a demon hierarchy one wrung up from the lowest class, unless you are lucky and strong enough to become an overlord. In which case, then you are two wrungs up from the lowest class. And your punishment is living every day with the constant threat of those around you. Of always needing to have your guard up because someone will take advantage of you or worse. That isn't even mentioning the annual threat of the purge.

Livestreams

This is another one that I see get mentioned and awful fucking lot in the complaint/concern/hot take posts.

There are always complaints about how the livestreams are useless, serve no purpose, or are just "jerkoff sessions." Mind, these same complaints almost always seem to come from the same people complaining about having no information about the show or having no lore surrounding the universe or the story.

Nevermind that Vivzie and the cast are all under NDA and cannot disclose much that isn't already known about the show and, where VAs are concerned, cannot do any voice lines that go beyond what has already been said in the pilot lines.

The Livestreams serve SEVERAL purposes, however. One of those purposes is to drum up interest surrounding Hazbin and Helluva, as well as to advertise and to disclose any lore that they have permission to disclose to the audience. Something to whet their appetites as they wait for the small Indie studio A24 to finish production of Hazbin's first season in the middle of a pandemic. Because that last bit people seem to forget is still ongoing.

Without those livestreams done by Viv and the cast, many of the impatient fans in this fandom would be practically breaking down the door on Vivzie's DMs demanding to know where Hazbin is or why she seems to have given up on it. Or at least, more than what is currently going on now anyway.

People need to calm down, let the Devs do their job, and pay more attention to the details given in what we have thus far. Vivzie has done a GREAT job at eluding to the bigger picture in her details. Particularly where her characters are concerned. And I for one am here for it.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fandom #hazbin hotel info dump #hazbin hotel discourse #hazvin hotel discussion #helluva boss fandom #helluva boss discussion #helluca boss discourse #vivziepop fandom #vivziepop #hazbunnies #entitled fans #impatient fans #toxic fans

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quwarichi · 3 years

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heard from your mother au - The Ripple Effect

this is my early birthday gift for @schmuzz1 Ever heard of the ripple effect? you probably did but let's go over it once more; the ripple effect is like if you took a rock and threw it into a lake. Where the rock would hit and sink a ripple would be created, and from there it would only grow bigger and bigger, taking over more space, until the water settles again.

HFYM is the ripple effect ficsonified. The premise is simple, for those who watched the episode Despair in the last season of Supernatural. Castiel confesses his love to Dean, gets taken by the Empty. He wakes up in 2003 in a motel room, without his memories and only a memory saying “Don’t do this, Cas” which helps him figure out his name is Cas, and that he’s a hunter. Simple.

Then he meets Dean.

Now, we’ve all read various pre-series fics, haven’t we? It’s a token when giving fans a time-gap that we don’t know much about, they’d try to fill it as best as their imagination limitations will help them. So what is so special about HFYM?

In a word; Cas.

Meet this angelic being, who without his memories fully believes his humanity, and drives around the US not looking for answers, exactly, but just trying to help out to the best of his ability. By putting Cas in a setting pre-series, and letting the readers know that this Cas is their Castiel, the story already kicks into gear with a race to see when and how Cas will affect the story.

We didn’t know about angels until season 4. We didn’t THINK there was a better way to kill demons other than the Colt until season 3. Characters and themes that we would’ve taken years to get to know in the show are being used and constantly appear throughout what HFYM would call season 0 (or is that just me? make some noise). But Cas changes all of that just by being. For this next part, I recommend you stop reading this post if you haven’t read this fic, go read it in its entirety, and come back here after you’re done and had time to adjust.

We good? Good.

Pamela Barnes, the love of my life and a five-episode cameo in the Supernatural show. In HFYM, she acts as Cas’ best friend most of the time, teaching him the highs (hehe) and lows of having what they all figure is a really developed psychic ability. Bringing Pamela in chapter 16 was not only a brilliant use of character but a ripple effect. But I get ahead of myself. To understand why Pamela is suddenly there, we need to identify the biggest ripple of them all; Dean fucking Winchester.

Dean and Cas, from the start, develop a sort of kinship. It’s reminiscent of their first meeting in Lazarus Rising, where Castiel rescues Dean but also has its own charm. Here, Cas has no idea he’s an angel, and that’s why humanity is so strange to him. Dean views Cas as a weirdo that is not to be trusted, and later as a weirdo that he can kinda trust but make sure to watch his back around him.

In a way, they’re mirrors. Cas’ effortless way of creating acquaintances highlights just how isolated Dean is from people because of John’s influence. Whenever they’re together, Dean finds himself surrounded by others too, but apart it’s clear that Cas (to much of my, and probably his, surprise) is the social one.

Quoting the fic tags: “like maybe if he [Pre-series Dean Winchester] got a boyfriend he would have calmed down” is the very abstract explanation of the ripple effect. By being isolated for so long, without even Sam to keep him company, Dean couldn’t develop properly, resulting in the Dean we get in season 1. But ripples (courtesy of Cas) reach him and that’s where it all comes together. By meeting Cas pre-series Dean is given two things; one, no more isolation, time to grow sunshine. Two, a romantic subplot.

Now I don’t know how much you know about media - but romantic subplots are usually very character forwarding if done right. The best thing about the romantic subplot in HFYM is that it’s not immediate. Fuck no. It’s built on months of friendship and a bond forged in hunting, in putting each other’s lives in the other’s hands like it’s nothing. When they finally get together (I did the math, they get together when the story is like, halfway over. 52% to be exact) it makes sense because you watched them forge the bond and thus pushing their character development further. Romantic subplots are one of the best ways to push a character to their limits (looking at you, chapter 49) and then break those limits. So the biggest ripple was basically Cas and Dean thinking “huh, lemme smooch” and then doing it instead of eye fucking for twelve years.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, exactly. The biggest ripple effect that Cas did with Dean is that when season 1 starts (did I mentioned this was a canon rewrite? We love multitasking), when Dean goes to get Sam for Jericho and everything is put into hyperdrive, Dean is different. It affects how people around him act, especially Sam. The first season is very Sam-driven, but the main character will be changed by changing the “supporting” cast. It doesn’t help that Cas ripple effect number 2932#: Save Jess has definitely quelled the grief-rage thing that Sam has going on in canon since she’s not gone, and is actually around them for a while before leaving to work with Bobby and Jo. Sam immediately notices that something’s different about Dean, but he can’t put a finger on it. Requoting tags: “he would have calmed down”. Gone is the aimless rage and loss that makes him reckless and drinking too much. Gone are the women chasing days because he’s in a committed relationship. Heck Dean has a bit of self-esteem now, having bagged that (points at frog-shirt wearing Cas) and it affects the story in the way he and Sam interact.

Sam can feel that Dean’s hiding something from him (Cas) and it makes a rift between them because he doesn’t get who’s this hunter Dean hangs out with that is definitely replacing Sam in Dean’s eyes - the same guy who used weird powers to save Jess from a demon. Dean is still hurt over Sam leaving for Stanford and anxious about him finding out about Cas and John and everything. Basically, take season 1 brother dynamics and throw a live grenade in the mix. That grenade is Cas, btw.

Ripples, man.

Cas affects the story - he gets Dean to get back in touch with Bobby because he’s looking for an explanation for why he heals from mortal wounds like it’s nothing, why he doesn’t need sleep, and why he’s never hungry. Bobby connects Cas to Pamela, thinking Cas is an odd psychic, and Pamela becomes inherently important in the way that she helps Cas control his powers and provides his first real… non-platonic experience (off-screen, dw they’re friends) that later helps him discern what Dean is to him. Through Bobby, he also meets Ellen and Jo, in the Roadhouse. He goes on hunts alone, and finds a knife that helps him save a possessed girl named Taylor who is later a part of an actual episode (Hookman) and there’s recognition, she’s not just a standby person and that connects with Jess’ storyline, that connects with Sam’s storyline that connects with Dean’s storyline. By being him, Cas creates ripples everywhere he touches because he’s not supposed to be there.

The otherwise undisturbed surface is broken because Cas is there to break it and create ripples that connect with each other, all unknowingly, and the way it’s constructed is incredible.

I could add more about Dean’s bisexuality journey or realization, or how lack of trauma makes Cas a lot more narrative-free but it could all come crashing down on him if he remembers the past, or how Sam and Jess are so interesting like yes girl flesh out the revenge reason we see in three episodes, but this is getting long and I could always make new posts about this fic that I love so much.

Happy birthday, Jenn, you’re an incredible friend and writer and I’m so lucky to have found you in this mayhem of a fandom.

Go read heard from your mother (she don’t recognize you) on ao3, you magnificent people.

#happy birthday jenn #i couldn't think of what to get you so i wrote a fic meta about your fic that gives me life so thank you #i tried really hard to think about what drew me to the fic and ripples was the answer so here have some ripple effect drama #could i have written a fic? yes but fic meta is something that can be so personal sometimes #love finding themes in here that you probably didn't think about when you wrote this totally 50k fic #love you so much babe i hope you enjoyed this #heard from your mother au #hfym au #fic meta #destiel #spn #destiel fic

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alexcabotgf · 3 years

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tag 9 people to learn more about their interests

TAGGED BY: @punishebe (thank u sm angel 🤍 🤍 🤍)

MUSIC

fave genre? rock of all kinds (classic/pop/indie/alt/punk etc)

fave artist? bands: fleetwood mac, the gits, counting crows, the 1975; solo artists: stevie nicks, joan jett, phoebe bridgers, halsey, lana del rey

fave song? you missed my heart by phoebe bridgers

song currently stuck in your head? male fantasy by billie eilish but also that our god is an awesome god gospel for whatever reason

5 fave lyrics? i have so many faves so these are gonna be the first ones i can think of off the top of my head

it hurts me to be angry / kills me to be kind — bob (cousin o) by the gits

you couldn’t have / stuck your tongue down the throat of somebody / who loves you more — moon song by phoebe bridgers

and she wonders is this real / or does she just want to be queen — the highwayman by stevie nicks

rulers make bad lovers / you better put your kingdom up for sale — gold dust woman by fleetwood mac

so you pull down the shades and you shut off the lights / because somehow we mixed up 'goodbye’ and ‘goodnight’ — possibility days by counting crows

BOOKS

fav book genre? mystery/thrillers but boy have they been disappointing me lately

fav writer? not to sound uneducated but i don’t think i have one. i haven’t read enough books from one singular author to consider them my favorite, the closest one would be gillian flynn since i’ve read and liked all of her books but idk

fav book? once again i don’t think i have an all time favorite standalone book, but the two favorites of 2020 for me were sleepers by lorenzo carcaterra and white oleander by janet fitch

fav book series? the millennium trilogy by stieg larsson

comfort book? probably something i used to read as a kid like the sisterhood of the traveling pants series

perfect book to read on a rainy day? either a hard hitting contemporary or a thriller

fave characters? i don’t have many favorite book characters but an all time fave would be miss lisbeth from millennium trilogy

5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart? here are some that have stuck with me (even tho i haven’t read some of the books they’re from,,,,anyway)

for you, a thousand times over — the kite runner by khaled hosseini (leech rally haven’t even read this book but i think about this quote at least once a week)

for the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. they may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change // what woman here is so enamoured of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman’s face? — the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house by audre lorde

always learn poems by heart. they have to become the marrow in your bones. like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your soul impervious to the world’s soft decay — white oleander by janet fitch

i’ll take care of you / it’s rotten work / not to me. not if it’s you — anne carson’s an oresteia ofc! a classic!! that i haven’t yet read lmao

a painful truth, and yet we must endure // he’ll have my hatred anywhere he goes — oedipus at colonus and oedipus rex respectively, transl. by david mulroy

TV AND MOVIES

fave tv/movie genre? drama, horror, thriller

fave movie? a few years ago i would’ve said girl interrupted but i’m not sure if it'd hold up at this point so i’ll have to go with my all time favorite franchise which is scream <3

comfort movie? anything that i have fond memories of watching (e.g american honey, empire records) or anything i used to watch as a kid (e.g lotr)

fave tv show? prison break. those bald men running around just make me feel a certain type of way

most rewatched tv show? probably house md but desperate housewives is a close second

5 fave characters?

gale weathers — scream

michael scofield — prison break

lisbeth salander — millennium trilogy i know i’ve already used her for fave book character but noomi rapace’s portrayal is chef’s kiss

tauriel — the hobbit

and of course i have to include my wife, the loml alex cabot — svu

tv shows or movies | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging (i usually binge older shows but prefer when only 1 episode is released per week) | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once

TAGGING: @joanna-lannister @xavierdalon @retrodame @henry-cavill @hannahhunti @moonlight @sonosions @anyataylorjoy @simmonsjemma @anistonjen + everyone else who’s interested in doing this!

#tag games #punishebe #ro tysm for tagging me this was FUNNN #the only reason it took me this long to complete is because of book quotes #listen i might not be able to tell you what my five favorite book quotes are but i can easily tell you fifty fic quotes that made me want t #i have a separate folder for that with like 200 screenshots godbless #*made me want to lie down

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mayonnaisetoffees · 3 years

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Mayo's Fic Recs

List of my favourite fics below the cut; this list is a WIP and completely personal taste; a mix of fandom classics and lesser knowns

Please remember to leave comments and kudos for the authors and podficcers!

*shows particular favourites

Fandoms currently included: Spn, Merlin, Les Mis, BatFam

Fics That Changed Me Fundamentally

Loaded March*** by Footloose. Merlin | E | 1.26M(Series)/ 35k (First part) | 188k hits (First part)

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can’t keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn’t good enough, either. Except he is.

You can read all about my thoughts on Loaded March here, here, and here. Basically this fic series is beautifully written, has absolutely delicious UST, has found family, magic, and high stakes. It’s been part of my life for almost a decade now, I made friends through LM that I still have to this day, and it genuinely changed me as a person. Plus there are 78k of Extras to itch that I Finished Now What scratch. Parts 1-5 have been podficced and you can find them in works inspired by this one in each part.

Down to Agincourt*** by Seperis. Supernatural | E | 1.12M(Series)/ 154k (First part) | 73k hits (First part)

The world’s already over and they’re already dead. All they’re doing now is marking time until the end.

S7!Dean is transported back to the aftermath of where 5x04 The End left off. Much like LM, DtA was one that I avoided for a while. I didn’t think it would be my thing. I’m not usually into End!verse, it sounded so bleak from the summary, and it sounded so long for something I wasn’t sure about. If you’re reading this and nodding along? You are as much a fool as I was. Yes, it’s the end of the world. But it’s not over yet. This is a beautiful journey in what it means to be yourself, how to survive the end of the world, a How-To for Coups, and a study in food as a love language. I only read this fic this year, but like LM, it has genuinely changed me. Map of the World has been podficced.

Supernatural

Let’s start with the current hyperfixation. All of these are at least passively Dean/Cas unless otherwise stated. I've split into ones from my first time around in the SPN fandom and more recent ones because the vibes are actually really different and it took me some time to adjust (Not in a bad way! In a time has passed they have grown as characters way)

Old-School SPN (AKA the Classics my first time around)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Home in Motion* by nomdeplume13 M | 232k | 48k hits

Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of dean's life: Fatherhood.

Did someone say kid!fic in canonverse? This is perfect. Canon divergence from the end of S6. Cas saves a baby from a neglectful mother and gives him to Dean to raise. They all move in with Bobby. Great OCs. Bobby considers Cas his son. Listen everything I say here will not be able to begin to encompass how much I love this fic. Just trust me on this one.

Named* by RC_McLachlan M | 95k | 95k hits

Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that isn't the worst part of Dean's week.

With a summary like that, need I say more? No but I'm gonna. This is one of the funniest fics I've ever read, but it doesn't take any emotion from the serious moments, if anything it heightens them. There are so many quotes from this I think about all the time. It was written in 2010 and so there's a bit of misogyny/character assassination of Anna in places.

Second Childhood by CloudyJenn (read by exmanhater) G | 16k (1h30) | 10k hits

"Dude, I can't do this whole thing by myself," Dean said with far more desperation leaking into his tone than he liked. It would just be too much to make it through hell and death and Lucifer only to have Castiel bail on him because of a frigging baby.

They beat the Apocalypse (OG-S5) and then Sam gets de-aged by a spell. I've listened to this so many times I know it by heart, it's an ultimate comfort fic to me.

Defy Any and All Expectation* by Tenoko1 (read by Tenoko1) M | 138k (14hrs) | 37k hits

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord. Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected. But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time. Alternate Season Six.

So this is a re-written version of Tenoko1's The Path We Choose which I don't think is around anymore. By the time I was reading the re-write as each chapter came out, I knew every single line of TPWC and it wasn't all that much shorter. It's such a perfect canon divergence because they are all 100% in-character. If you're into podfic, you already know what an absolute gift 14 hours is, but if you have never tried podfic before, Tenoko1 is a fantastic place to start. Her voice is soothing and energetic and her Cas sometimes comes to mind when I'm reading fic in Misha's place (sorry Misha)

His Fucking Kids 'Verse by 8sword M | 96k(Series)/ 3k (first part) | 26k hits (first part)

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

Emma survives and Dean and Cas are raising her and Claire. This fic series will make you laugh, make you cry, and (nowadays) make you wish Emma had survived to be a part of Wayward Sisters.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 22k | 37k hits

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Dean breaks his legs, and honey!Cas brings home some kittens to foster. It's achingly sweet and also painful because you know Dean wants to fix Cas but there's nothing to fix. It is tagged for ableism for this.

Tripping* by Hatteress E | 49k | 78k hits

That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn't afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean's life.

Alt!S5 and it is beautiful. Also any fic with Missouri is an automatic win.

Broadway Musical by Grifitings M | 12k | 79k hits

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at. Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

Jimmy deserves a sainthood and frankly I don't even want to hear about crack if it's not on the level of the Host yelling at Cas not to touch the butt.

Classic AUs (AKA AUs from my first time around)

Try Something Tuesday by almaasi E | 48k | 144k hits

Dean Winchester teaches a third-grade class. He's new to this whole ‘bisexual’ thing - but by pure happenstance, he meets Castiel: a particularly dapper male librarian who moonlights as a substitute teacher. Dean's curious and Castiel is willing, so why the hell not? Except, fate never intended it to be one-time-only...

This was one of the first spn fics to really really stay with me and it never really left.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by ChasingRabbits E | 127k(Series)/ 8k (Part1) | 29k hits (Part1)

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

This series. If you've ever felt unsure or out of place or anxious or just really felt like no-one understood you, this fic is for you. I first found this series when I was coming to terms with my queerness and I genuinely think it was invaluable. Also I am a sucker for the go for a dinner at Cas's family and end up storming out trope.

Play It All Night Long by janie_tangerine (read by Tenoko1) NC17 | 43k (4hrs)

The rom-com-ish one where Dean hosts a late night radio show, Castiel is a regular listener of his who starts calling one day and ends up calling more often than not and Dean finds himself liking it. This, until one day Castiel calls for not exactly petty reasons (just before Dean's brother Sam is visiting with his girlfriend for spring break) and things get very, very crowdy at his place. He also doesn't know it's just the beginning of it. Also features Gabriel, Chuck, Andy, the Roadhouse crew and a huge amount of music quoted. Especially Bob Dylan.

Again, this podfic has got me through many a night of insomnia. Cas calls in after a particularly shitty day and it all goes from there.

New-School SPN (AKA post-2014)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara E | 57k | 28k hits

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says. Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away. Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

There is a reason you will see this recced time and time again. It healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing.

So Says the Sword* by komodobits E | 85k | 73k hits

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected

I saw ssts mentioned in like every single If you're getting back into the fandom READ THIS rec list. For good reason. It's described as "canon-adjacent in that seasons one to three happened exactly the same, but when Dean goes to Hell, he is not raised by Castiel". It's one of the most interesting concepts I've read and it's one of those fics where the writing style will stick with you. Castiel POV in a way you've never read before.

Aching in the Absence of You* by sobsicles E | 95k | 9k hits (in 5 days)

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back. He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales. "Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time. By nightfall, Cas is gone.

If you don't already know sobsicles, I am delighted to introduce you to the person who will smash you to pieces with a hammer to put you back together Kintsugi-style. This one is post-finale but without 15x18 (it'll make sense as it goes). Cas says he's going to leave again and again Dean doesn't ask him to stay. Full of lines so beautiful they'd make Shakespeare weep, Sobsicles has this way of writing that is so evocative and paints such a clear picture. Fair warning, if you're Dean-coded, this might be A Lot.

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)** by sobsicles E | 108k | 25k hits

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next. ~~~ Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want." "What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before." "Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out." "Easier said than done."

Yes, two sobsicles recs back to back. This one I read first and it still holds such a special place in my heart. A sign of a good fic is being able to picture it perfectly. The sign of an amazing fic is that when reading this I was so in Dean's shoes I could feel a pool cue between my hands and Baby behind my back. And I sobbed like a baby in this. It has probably my favourite ending ever. It's genuinely beautiful. If you don't read another on this list, read this one.

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara M | 52k | 14k hits

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean. (A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

The ultimate Cas character study and interwoven with poetry.

So There It Is, I've Said It All by PorcupineGirl (read by Ceewelsh) G | 4k | 13k hits

"Why, do you have something you need to say to me that you don't think I'll like?" I think I'm in love with you. "Yeah. I guess so."

Dean figures out he's in love with Cas then can't stop thinking it. This is genuinely beautiful and if you've ever had trouble actually saying the thing you're thinking, you'll relate to Dean here. I recently did the podfic for this.

you won't find this place alone by amidsizedfrog G | 9.5k |

When Claire said she was dropping out of college to pursue hunting full time, Dean said, “right,” and left the room. Or, the cross-generation conversation about formal education, choosing your own path and figuring out what it looks like to find a family. Or, in other words: "But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell-attitude, and I'll figure it out." - Dean Winchester

This is a beautiful look at education in the hunter world, and I love anything that looks at Dean and Bobby's relationship and this does it perfectly. Also best cameo ever.

Seek to Know You Better by ahurston E | 33k | 23k hits

Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love. As if they weren't already.

This is perfect. It has a lovely slow pace like it has the vibes of an indie film if that makes sense? Like it's two guys going from place to place talking. It was an instant favourite.

Newer AUs (AKA more recent AUs)

And This, Your Living Kiss* by opal_bullets M | 57k | 69k hits

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

When I asked which fics were absolute must-reads for someone who'd been out of the fandom a few years, this was said repeatedly. But what really got me to read it was everyone actually told me more about what it meant to them than just the summary. It's a study in poetry, a study in learning who you are and who you used to be, and a reminder that it's never too late.

The Graveyard Shift* by riseofthefallenone, PurgatoryJar E | 620k | 175k hits

Dean’s favourite coffee shop, The Graveyard Shift, is only open after the sun goes down. Which is perfect for him, because that’s exactly when he craves coffee the most while doing the overnight at the fire hall. The coffee shop’s owner is pretty perfect too, but it’s kind of a bummer that Dean never gets to see Cas during the day. In a world where the supernatural live more or less in peace with the rest of humanity, it’s a little impolite to ask Cas just what he really is - or what his dark past entails.

A fantastic magical realism fic - magical creatures live and work with humans. Gabe and Cas run a coffee shop, Dean is a fireman, and the burn is slow and delicious and the intrigue kept me reading for like a week every single spare minute.

Painted Angels by WinJennster E | 106k | 162k hits

Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

The first part of this I actually saved back when I was first in the fandom but I never got around to reading it (I had a To Read folder of 100+ fics that I absolutely dove into when I got back into spn) and the rest of the series finished in 2016 so I'm counting it in this section not the other. On the one hand, I wish I'd read this when it first came out. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and so visual. On the other hand, I think I appreciated it a lot more now than I would have seven years ago. The parallel of me coming back to the old fandom that I loved dearly with Cas coming back to see someone and places he loved so much really hit. (Although coming back to the spn fandom was much easier and much less heartbreak!)

Finale Fix-Its (yeah fuck you Dabb that this has to be a whole category)

The Goldenrod Revisions by aethylas M | 66k | 15k hits

A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.

Script format re-write of 15x19 and 15x20 into a 5-episode finale fix-it. As far as I'm concerned, this and chocolatecakecas's American Pie fanvid are the Supernatural finale.

break the skin (to break the barriers)* by sobsicles M | 30k | 9k hits

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. ~~~ Dean is silent for a long, tense moment, then he gruffly says, "It's not for banishing the angels. It's to summon them. So, it doesn't—it's not to get rid of 'em, but to draw 'em in." Mitzi can't help but glance up at him at that. His voice is so heavy with so much unexplained pain, and she doesn't understand why, or what angels have to do with it. She knows religion can impact people. She's very aware that it can get complicated, and that it can be a huge source of pain for someone, but Dean sounds grievously wronged, somehow, as if it's a truly personal thing. She pushes through, focusing back on her job, clearing her throat before murmuring, "Well, I guess we all want angels to visit us sometimes." "Just the one," Dean mumbles. "Your guardian angel?" Mitzi asks. Dean breathes out, "Something like that. As close to one as an angel will ever get."

Therapy through getting tattoos and telling your life story to someone who obviously doesn't think it's real. Outsider!POV not just done well, but done literally the best.

Kingdom Come by ahurston E | 17k | 10k hits

Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.

I don't know if this counts as finale fix-it as it's more fuck the finale we're ignoring that. There's just so much love and care in this fic.

The Family Business by chai_lattes M | 16k | 5.5k hits

It's all over. It's been weeks since Chuck's defeat and Cas' return from the Empty. There are no threats on the horizon, no apocalypses to stop, but there's something that keeps the Winchesters from being happy. Something that's maybe always been there. On their way back from a hunt, they find John Winchester, back from the dead.

If you're anything like me, you start rubbing your grubby little hands together at the tag John Winchester's A+ Parenting like yes let's address this! This is one of the best examples of John coming back and how it jars with the life that they have built. Also Claire and Jack getting to share screentime!

Merlin

If I have a forever fandom, it's Merlin. I've always kept one foot in this fandom, and it introduced me to fandom, and most importantly to podfic which kinda had an impact. All Merthur unless stated.

Canon-Verse

Seven Magpies by syllic (read by lunchee) E | 33k (3hr15) | 58k hits

Arthur opened his eyes a minute later to the sight of seven magpies streaking across the top of the clearing, their shapes dark against the white clouds and the muted grey of the sky. He tried to remember what it was that seven magpies meant—he'd had a nurse who had sung the rhyme to him as a child—but couldn't. Arthur wakes up somewhere he doesn't recognise, but where he clearly belongs.

Okay so this is an AU but it's Canon-AU so it's going here. Fantastic role reversal fic that you will be thinking about for weeks.

and from your grace, i fell by TheDragon (read by Ceewelsh) T | 4.6k (41mins) | 13k hits

“Where’s Merlin?” he asks the maid. “Where’s that idiot of a Court Sorcerer?!” “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I thought you knew,” the maid replies, not daring to look him in the eyes. “He’s taken ill.” “And he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself that he would be unable to attend today’s council meeting?” Arthur questions, voice full of acid. “He hasn’t woken since he collapsed two days ago, Sire,” the maidservant says, blissfully unaware that what she’s saying the power to stop Arthur’s heart in its tracks.

When I first read this, it had me completely transfixed. I could not stop reading. It was so raw and so full of emotion. I was then lucky enough to get TheDragon in our exchange, so I did a podfic for it and it's probably the most proud I've been of one.

Modern AU

The Student Prince* by FayJay (read by FayJay) M | 145k (15hrs) | 696k hits

A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love...

A classic is a classic for a reason. I'm also pretty sure this introduced me to podfics so like special place in my heart x2. Did you know if you filter AO3 by hits on Merlin, this has 426k more hits than the second result? Now that is a Fandom Classic.

Drastically Redefining Protocol* by rageprufrock (read by lunchee) E | 46k (5hr30) | 269k hits

In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

As I always say, if this can happen to me and I still love the fic, nothing is going to change that. Arthur hides from his duties in a cupboard and gets stuck in there with a chainsmoking med student.

Fundamental Imperfections by Starlingthefool (read by bravenclawsome) M | 12k (1hr35) | 123k hits

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing. (Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

This fic has everything: Charles Dickens, long distance texting, Morgana choking a Sherlock cosplayer with his own scarf. This is the ultimate comfort fic and I compare all fics to this even when they're incomparable. I never read the sequel because it was WIP and I was waiting for it to complete, it hasn't been updated since 2015 and apparently ends on an unhappy note, so if you're going to read the sequel you have been warned.

Les Mis

Modern!AU

Overzealous Oddities by YassHomo e/R, Courf/Cosette/Marius, Comb/Ép | G | 6.4k | 4k hits

Courfeyrac: Remember when I smashed our tv and we laughed about it? Enjolras: No. Courfeyrac: Let me rephrase Courfeyrac: I've smashed our tv, lets laugh about it.

I love me a text fic and this is in my opinion the best one around. Just look at that summary. I have quoted that so many times.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young* by GingerNinjaAbi E/R, Courf/Jehan | M | 99k | 42k hits

Perhaps somewhere in between all the cups of coffee, shots of tequila, sunny March days, terrible lumpy jumpers, love, cigarettes, drunken nights and the desire to change the world they'll all leave Paris with a degree in something. Or not. Grantaire's money is on no. But he's a pessimist who's hopelessly in love, so perhaps his opinion shouldn't count.

The ULTIMATE modern!AU tbh.

Tagged by Salomonderiel E/R, Courf/Jehan | E | 155k | 28k hits

So there's this artist. He could probably be compared to Banksy, but he's a lot more... cynical. He shares rooms with a poet who braids his hair with flowers, in a flat near Covent Garden they rent from a short-tempered shop keeper with a penchant for fans and who'd do anything if you mentioned Poland. Sometimes, the three of them will go and deface public buildings in London whilst completely smashed off their heads. And then there's this, shall we say, 'revolutionary'. He has a band of other revolutionaries, who all meet at this cafe by Borough Market. He shares rooms with his best mate, a philosophy student, spends too much time with a flirty guy who has a thing for poets, goes boxing with a guy in a red vest, wants to punch the wet sop who drools on the blonde waitress and is getting tired of this guy who keep breaking his laptops through sheer dumb luck. Thank god the hypochondriac's there to keep an (slightly too) attentive eye on their stress levels. The revolutionary thinks the graffiti artist's work is a waste of space. The artist thinks the revolutionary's campaigns are a waste of time. And all the while, the poet and the flirt drool over each other in the background...

This is perfect and it's funny and it's beautiful and it rips my heart out multiple times.

Canon

To Be Free by kjack89 (read by Ceewelsh) Gen, Cosette/Marius | T | 3.8k (32mins) | 375 hits

Three blows from a bayonet had transfixed Combeferre’s breast, followed by a fall from the barricade as he rapidly lost first blood and then consciousness. But neither of these, it seemed, was enough to kill him, as much as later he might perhaps wish that they were.

I read this because it was on a list kjack89 did of their favourite fics which don't necessarily have the same hits traffic. It's nothing I would have usually read (canon era, not e/R, MCD) but I am so glad I gave it a go. It's a study on what if Combeferre had survived the barricades too and the guilt. This stayed with me for days afterwards until I eventually messaged kjack89 to get permission to podfic it.

BatFam

Canonish (I don't know differences between canons but these are all they're superheros fics)

Robins United by laceymcbain (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | T | 49k (6h15)/ 19k (2h25) (First part) | 103k hits

Bullets, knives, a three story fall, even a fucking crowbar hadn't managed to keep Jason down permanently, but Dick Grayson (and the rest of his "family") was going to kill him with kindness.

The ultimate batbros series. Also if you haven't heard reena_jenkins' podfics before, you are welcome. Pre-pandemic I took a lot of public transport and reena_jenkins kept me sane.

batcoons by drakefeathers (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | G | 6k (49mins) | 14k hits

Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)

This is funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a really good character study.

Here Comes the Sun by batsy_rocks Clark/Bruce | T | 19k | 20k hits

Clark Kent is a kind-hearted reporter working in the big city. Bruce Wayne is a stressed dad of four with no idea of what he's doing. Then they meet.

Bruce Wayne is a Tired Single Dad™. It's genuinely such a sweet fic.

#fic rec #spn fic rec #merlin fic rec #les mis fic rec

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insingersfall · 3 years

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Are dreamers descendants to fallen angels?

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the origin of dreamers, especially in relation to Ronan’s faith and his anxiety about creating life - a job he feels should be exclusive to God.

This is going to be long so the short story: Maybe dreamers are descendants to fallen angels?

Here’s my long ass thesis on why I think so:

Since CDTH I’ve seen this quote a lot:

In a wider sense it doesn’t have to mean anything, just a powerful ending to Bryde’s cheesy monologue about Ronan being too good for basic humanity, but I immediately read it literally.

- do you long back?

And just two pages afterwards we get this:

Coincidence? I think not.

Bryde knows what Ronan is and where he comes from - the sky.

The question of “what am I” is something Ronan struggles with during the entire course of TRC and a vital part of his storyline.

And it’s always this:

Not who am I, What am I.

During the first four books Ronan struggles both with this huge existential dilemma of “what” and with more mundane questions regarding “who” he is. I think Ronan’s coming of age-arc, especially the “why do you hate yourself”/ “I don’t” - scene in TRK is one of the most moving scenes in YA. I read that as being about “who” he is. And In CDTH he’s older, he’s figured a lot of shit out. There are no negative feelings left about him being gay for example. Not in relation to his family, himself or to his religion.

But he still has a lot of negative feelings and anxiety about being able to create life. He still struggles with his identity as a dreamer alongside his identity as a catholic.

Ronan being religious adds so much to his character and this is why I can’t help but read A LOT into the religious symbolism. And it’s there.

Maggie herself posted this a while ago to clear up why Ronan gets so mad in BLLB when the copy of him dies. It clarifies multiple things - that Ronan is very much stuck in toxic masculinity and refuses to show vulnerability while also being very vulnerable, as well as how the situation mirrors his suicide-attempt, which is obviously triggering. But for this theme I want to highlight these two paragraphs:

“First, the setting. Adam is not religious, but Ronan is, and St. Agnes is a place he goes with the broken remains of his family. Now Ronan takes Adam — someone Ronan has only just allowed himself to admit internally that he likes, a lot — not just to the church, but to a private part of the church Ronan frequents on his own. “

And

“But to Ronan, it’s not just a copy. It’s a person who just happens to look like him. Remember that Ronan has spent his life loving dreamed people just as hard as real people. Ronan has spent enough time with Matthew and Aurora to know that even though they came from dreams, their feelings are real. They are not disposable. This other Ronan is really terrified, really in pain, and really dying.

And the real Ronan killed him. He’s killed someone.”

This is one of the very few times Maggie has explained something that isn’t explicit in the book. As we know Maggie is a major spokesperson for “the only things canon are the things in the book” but here she adds additional information. Why? Because it’s really, really important to Ronan’s character. Both the religion and his feelings about creating life. Especially these two combined.

He hates himself for a lot of things, and he hates himself for the ability to create -and therefore take away- life. Something only God is allowed to do.

Well yes Adam, maybe there are two gods in this church. Or something like it.

So - fallen angels? What does that mean really?

The story of fallen angels differ a lot from religion to religion, I’ll focus on the Christian tradition since that’s what our lord and savior Ronan Lynch would like. There isn’t a lot of Bible stories about it, it’s more of a tradition arising from later accounts in religious texts and poetry.

The Devil is a fallen angel who together with a bunch of other angels rebelled against God and was expelled from Heaven to Earth.

In some older interpretations the “angels” on Earth had children with humans and created giants, who in time became demons. Or, if you’re writing YA fantasy with a religious MC, maybe these descendants of angels became dreamers.

Lucifer rebelled against God because he too wanted the power that God possessed.

“Lucifer apparently became so impressed with his own beauty, intelligence, power, and position that he began to desire for himself the honor and glory that belonged to God alone. The sin that corrupted Lucifer was self-generated pride.”

I sure think that sounds like Bryde, and it sounds a lot like the sin Ronan fears God will judge him for.

And on the subject of the Devil. Who in this series is often referred to as a “devil of a boy?”

It’s our man, Ronan.

A quick search of the word “Devil” in the Raven Cycle (1-4) led me to a number of passages, mostly as part of a saying, but at some occasion to specifically describe someone, or as a direct reference to someone.

Ronan, Niall, Kavinsky and Aurora. Dreamers and their dreams.

Coincidence? I think not.

The same search in Call Down the Hawk I would say really confirms this recognition of mine. It has for starters this wonderful paragraph:

But it also broadens the parable to all of the Lynch brothers.

The upper quote about the three brothers all being handsome devils is the only time not even Matthew can avoid the metaphor. A character who up until then has only been compared to an angel.

Contradiction? No, not in the question of descendants to fallen angels.

A creature who are - by definition - both angel and devil, savior and sinner, companion of God as well as a child of Satan.

We don’t know for sure yet how one becomes a dreamer. But we do know that it in some way it’s inherited. In some peculiar way from parent to child. From one devil father to one of his devil sons, the one he created together with another one of his creations. Because Ronan therefore is a clone of Niall? Is Hennessy a clone of her mother? Kavinsky one of his parents? Maybe the next two books will tell. Regardless I still like the idea that they all descend from the first angels on earth, mixing with humans.

I also just have to mention that Ronan not only dream of the sky, but also on multiple occasions dream about flying. Not as a bird, but with his own wings.

So what do I think this will mean in the big scheme of things?

Not a lot honestly! I’m not even sure I’m arguing that this will be a plot point.

But I do think the paradoxical identity in descending from something so torn between good/evil is fucking perfect for Ronan. Someone who’s constantly torn between his own fuck-ups and wanting to do the right thing.

Who creates marvelous life in form of magical animals, angelic brothers and light where there needs to be light, but who also creates monsters, horrors and dangers.

Who wants to protect the world from climate change and protect the people he loves from danger and for all we know might instead accidentally end the world.

Who turns to God and fears hell at the same time as he’s presenting himself to the world as a devil of a boy.

I just think it’s beautiful, whether Maggie has a storyline planned with this or not.

So I��ll just end this thread with the upper picture and with the quote describing Ronans’ birth.

#ronan lynch #cdth #call down the hawk #mister impossible #the dreamer trilogy #pynch #trc #the raven cycle #maggie stiefvater #my post

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k00275774 · 2 years

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Project “Movement” Statement

I started this project with the idea of body movement as exercise. It was inspired by my boyfriend Jeff who is a Strength and Conditioning Coach and Personal Trainer.

I started with Graphic Design (GD), I have created a pattern that reflects exercise movement, and I’ve made a stop motion animation of it coming together.

In the meantime, I was developing my idea further by researching the effects of exercise on the brain, more closely I looked at Dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with reward or positive feedback, and its release. I started to research artists who work with or similar idea, and my favourite work is by Vasily Kandinsky. I made a quick drawing using markers and then adding water to make colours mix. Within photography I explored this area thoroughly.

I reimagined my 2D water on paper with markers into a 3D concept of light diffusion and colour, using fairy lights, glass of water and my camera to capture the resulting display through photos and video. I’ve made a video of Jeff doing exercise and took series of photos to create a narrative. I made a compilation of videos captured previously. I projected that film in the church gallery. While I explored other photography techniques like pinhole camera, long exposure, analogue film I also experimented with scannography, inspired by Sian Aldridge and Mike Parillo I made beautiful abstract patterns to reflect dopamine explosion using a scanner. I scanned my results several times in the high-resolution printer trying different layouts. I edited photos in photoshop and inverted the colours. I loved the result so much that I have entered my work into a competition.

Moving on to animation, using two different techniques I created two animations, one Claymation stop motion, and hand drawn animation using the photos I took earlier. I found Claymation more enjoyable than drawing methods. To show dopamine release after work out I came up with a clever idea of using sweets as props. I wanted to show the mood by making first part of it in black and white and as the music /exercise starts colour comes back following the “snow angels” in jellybeans as dopamine.

Back to GD, after gathering more material from photography. I have made the mood board /analogue poster and digital posters using some photos I made which I overlayed in photoshop and added my favourite quote “Build Don’t Talk, as it fits my theme perfectly.

In conclusion I want to say that I enjoyed all 3 electives and I understand all 3 by doing my own independent research and experiments. I worked my idea through photography, video, animation and graphic design. I did my best to complete all 4 tasks for animation however as the time was getting closer to an end, I had to make a compromise, I did 3 tasks. I wanted to give all 3 electives a fair shot, so I decided to go back to GD and do more work. I feel that I have given my attention equally and made some nice work in all electives. While doing my project I also entered in 2 photography competitions

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halseyhazzard · 3 years

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The Redemption of Judee Sill

Halsey Hazzard, fall 2018

for a writing class on pop culture criticism “So much sensationalist bullshit has been written about Judee Sill (by people who never knew her) focusing on her days as a hooker and a junkie.” So begins Pat Thomas’s interview with Tommy Peltier, a longtime friend and collaborator of Sill’s, in the liner notes to the recently and lovingly compiled “Songs of Rapture and Redemption: Rarities & Live.” He’s not wrong; in nearly all of the writing on Sill, her music, an inimitable blend of gospel, folk and country at once bluesy and baroque, plays second fiddle to the stranger- and sadder-than-fiction story of her all-too-brief life. Her eponymous 1971 debut and 1973’s Heart Food were met with praise from critics and her fellow songwriters alike; in 1973 Steve Holden called Judee a “most gifted artist, one who continues to promise almost more than I dare hope for.” Unfortunately — for Sill and for those who loved her, and for those of us who love her music — much of that promise never came to pass. She died in obscurity in 1979, leaving behind an unfinished third record and quietly ascending to the pantheon of young, brilliant musicians who died too soon.

It’s hard to write about Sill without relying on sensationalist bullshit. I suppose in writing this at all I’m contributing to the problem, but like so many others, I have joined the ranks of Sill’s devoted disciples, compelled to tell and retell her story to rectify fate’s perceived cruel disservice to a great talent. What emerges is not always a faithful portrait of the complicated artist Sill was, but rather a shifting and sometimes contradictory fable that cements Sill’s status as a legend — not, as she might have hoped, as “an extremely famous or notorious person,” but rather as the subject of a “story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.”

The story goes something like this: Judee Sill was born Judith Lynne Sill to an average, unhappy middle class household in Los Angeles in 1944. She fell in with a rough crowd, got married, committed a series of crimes, got addicted to various drugs, went to jail, got married again. Eventually she cleaned up her act, put the gospel licks she’d learned in reform school to good use, and became the first act signed to David Geffen’s Asylum label. She put out two albums of intricate songs that married earthly desire and longing for heavenly salvation, populated with lonely cowboy types and vigilantes that sometimes seemed strikingly similar to Jesus. For a few shining years it seemed like Sill had made it. It soon became clear (the story goes) that fame was not what fate had in store for her. Until 2003, when Rhino issued Judee Sill and Heart Food on CDs for the first time as part of its Handmade series, Sill was “[u]nlamented and all but forgotten.” These are the words of Barney Hoskyns, who in a 2004 Guardian profile declared “[t]he tragic Judee Sill is well overdue for (re)discovery.” Since then, interest in Sill’s life and music has steadily increased thanks to a series of posthumous reissues and releases: 2005’s “Dreams Come True,” a two-disk set of unreleased recordings mixed by Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Wilco); Live in London: The BBC Recordings 1972-1973, released in 2007; and “Chariot of Astral Light,” an intimate collaboration with aforementioned Tommy Peltier recorded in the ‘70s and finally released in 2004.

In a review of the 2004 Intervention reissue of Judee Sill titled “The Judee Sill Cult Continues, This Time at 45RPM,” Michael Fremer of Analogplanet writes, “sometimes "legends" are created and nurtured simply by tragic circumstances. In Judee Sill's case add wasted talent and unfulfilled great promise that add up to a movie worthy story.” Sill’s life has yet to inspire a movie (although a seemingly-deserted IMDB page indicates at least one attempt at a documentary), but songwriter Laura Veirs’ “Song for Judee,” renders the Judee Sill legend in sparse yet cinematic detail. In it, Veirs’ voice echoes on top of warm, jangling guitars, the apparently upbeat melody betrayed by the sadness of the story it tells:

“You wrote “The Kiss” and it is beautiful

I can listen again and again

You never really got a break

From the car wrecks and the pain”

The crux of the Judee Sill legend is captured in these lines, which immediately identify Sill’s work with the tragic events of her life. Sill’s music is mentioned in Veir’s lyric but once, and only glancingly; it’s not even clear “The Kiss” is a song, or “Judee” a songwriter. Veirs’ appreciation for her music is given is as pretext for why the listener should care about Sill’s life, but it’s clear the main attraction here is tragedy. The rest of this atypical ode is not praise, but a retelling, addressed to Sill herself, of key moments in the legend of her life. What emerges is a tellingly concise fable that identifies Sill with the lonely phantom cowboys who populate her lyrical landscape.

Veirs appears to have lifted her narrative and several phrases from the BBC documentary. She mines in particular the commentary from Peltier, who says Sill was his best friend and shares the insights that would come to compose Veirs’ chorus: “You loved the Sons of the Pioneers and the Hollywood cowboy stars/you were just trying to put a hand to where we are.” She also borrows, nearly word-for-word, an introduction Judee gave during one of her London radio performances in 1972, describing her time “living in a ‘55 Cadillac, five people sleeping in shifts.” This almost creates an intimacy with Sill, whom Veirs had never met; however, there remains an insurmountable distance. Sill had been dead 35 years — as long as she was alive — by the time this ode was composed. While Veirs hints at Sill’s troubles in the first verse, only in the last verse does she make explicit what happened: “They found you with a needle in your arm, beloved books strewn ‘round at your feet”. The revelation gives the chorus retroactive prophetic relevance. The past tense, once wistful, is now crushing.

Her death, like her life, became part of the legend. There are general points of agreement: she had been in several car accidents, was using heroin again, and died of an overdose just after Thanksgiving 1979. Everything else is less clear. Though her death certificate reports she was found dead in her house in North Hollywood, a persistent rumor suggested she had disappeared to Mexico to live out her final days. Her death was reported as a suicide, but family members and friends maintain that the note found near her, a characteristic musing on death and redemption, was an idea for a song.

The title of a 2014 BBC Radio documentary by Ruth Barnes says it all: “The Lost Genius of Judee Sill.” Sill’s genius is preceded by its lostness. Sill herself comes last. Her music is mentioned too, of course. They quote Sill’s self-description of her work as “country-cult-baroque” and her professed influences, Bach and Pythagoras. (In some versions of the quote, Ray Charles is thrown in.) Yet every time, it seems, someone brings up that she wrote “Jesus Was a Crossmaker,” about JD Souther, that Graham Nash produced it. She was the inaugural artist on David Geffen’s Asylum, we’re told, .She opened for Crosby Stills and Nash, and Cat Stevens, and Gordon Lightfoot — and so on. These revelations are usually accompanied by astonishment at the fact that she failed to find the commercial success of her peers, despite her comparable — perhaps superior — talents.

Many have offered explanations about how this happened. There is a general consensus that her falling-out with Geffen played a role. It’s not exactly clear what happened. The word “faggot” was involved, but whether it was said live or on the radio, in reference to Geffen himself or a pair of his pink shoes, is up for debate. Whatever she said severed their relationship. Some contend that she may have been in love with him, and was hurt when he spurned her advances. Others point out that she was growing frustrated with what she saw as his lack of promotion for her music. By this point, she was already making no secret of her disdain for the “snotty rock bands” she had to open for, and I doubt this did her any favors.

The contradictions in people’s stories exacerbate the larger-than-life quality of her life and times, as do the many cliches used to tell her story. Headlines variously declare her “a star that fame forgot,” “L.A.’s doomed lady of the canyon who lost her genius to drugs,” a “mystic” who “walked among us.” The human Judee Sill is lost somewhere beneath this sensationalism. It is no wonder why her friends and family members, Tommy Peltier chief among them, feel so compelled to set the record straight by providing their version of events. In his remarks in “Songs of Rapture and Redemption,” Peltier is quick to discourage speculation about her drug use and past prostitution, declaring instead “She was just the most beautiful person.”

“Beautiful,” you may recall, was the only word Laura Veirs could come up with to describe “The Kiss.” When I first heard “The Kiss,” I was immediately struck by how inadequate the word was to describe what I was hearing. The song showcases the best of her efforts to induce mathematically precise intervals into intricate melodies that aren’t so much heard as felt. Her lyrics, confusing the sacred and profane, ride the thin ridge between love and logic, devotion and desperation. Over shifting and plaintive piano Sill sings a eulogy to stars bursting in the sky and begs a lover — god? — to come and hold her “while you show me how to fly.” I first heard “The Kiss” in a YouTube video, one of few that survives of her performing, whose introduction insists that she herself was determined to be a successful musician. Ironically, the video shows precisely why perhaps she couldn’t be: severe and guileless, Sill hunches over the piano as if it were all that exists, engrossed in the song’s intense and uncommercial emotional intensity.

Sill’s idiosyncrasies are on full display in “Songs of Rapture and Redemption”, a compilation whose greatest strength is its commitment to capturing the artist and all her contradictions in her own words. The sleeve features a candid photograph of a smiling Sill, alongside several of her paintings and drawings. The tracks included are a combination of live recordings, demos, and studio outtakes that lay bare the deceptive complexity of her compositions. In the Boston Music Hall performance that opens the record, Sill, armed only with an acoustic guitar, tells the audience “I’m going to sing you a few little songs before David [Crosby] and Graham [Nash] get here. I’d like to sing you this song called “The Vigilante”. It’s new, I hope I remember the words.” The self-effacing introduction notwithstanding, what follows is nothing short of revelatory.

An early highlight is “Enchanted Sky Machines,” a bluesy number about waiting for the end of the world where she trades her distinctive fingerpicking for pentecostal piano licks she picked up in reform school. There is an aching earnestness to the way she sings of swallowing her yearning, and it carries over into “The Archetypal Man,” which begins with Sill singing the song’s opening harpsichord solo. Before “Crayon Angels,” she describes how she would call up friends as she was writing the album and sing them instrumental solos, joking that it must have been hard for them to like her in those days. The crowd is in on it, and her self-deprecating humor belies a clear confidence in her talents and her musical vision that is justified by the virtuosic grace of her playing. Sill was a perfectionist who demanded and deserved creative control, a notoriously laborious songwriter who could be a tyrant in the studio, and these tendencies are on full display even in this humble solo set. When she introduces her second last song, “The Lamb Ran Away With the Crown,” she enunciates every word, then repeats it again — ”with. the. crown.” — determined to ensure the the audience walks away knowing exactly what she was saying.

The set ends with Judee’s signature song, “Jesus Was a Crossmaker,” which had only just been released to radio two days prior. She calmly reveals the song’s inspiration, an unhappy relationship with a “bandit and a heartbreaker,” and describes waking up one day with the conviction “that even that wretched bastard was not beyond redemption.” Her diction is clear, her tone less so. The audience, nonetheless moved, cheers and laughs. She goes on: “It’s true, I swear. It saved me, this song. It was writing this song or suicide. It’s called “Jesus is a Crossmaker” and I hope you like it.” Her voice seems monotonous for such an emotional confession, but that stops mattering as soon as the song begins.

Instantly her singing voice, freed from the perfectionism of her studio recordings, reveals itself as strikingly human. Precise, unadorned, free of vibrato, it is flat in places, sharp in others, yet cuts to the rhythmic core of each note. She struggles with a few of the intervals she has given herself to sing, but this only enhances the song, giving human voice to the mathematical precision of her compositions, linking the downtrodden with the divine. With her unpretentious voice and deceptively simple language, she strives to speak redemption into being. Her longing for it is audible.

Such longing is a key theme in much of sill’s work, and nowhere is it more pronounced than in “Crayon Angels”:

Crayon Angel songs are slightly out of tune

But I'm sure I'm not to blame

Nothing's happened, but I think it will soon

So I sit here waiting for God and a train to the Astral plane

Later in the song, she confesses “Guess reality is not as it seems so I sit here hoping for truth, and a ride to the other side”. Sill knows the truth she longs for is unattainable, at least in this lifetime — but she remains unflagging in her belief in something. It is this belief that motivates her music. To characterize Sill as a god-given genius laid low by fate undercuts her formidable musical ambition, and the sincerity with which she approached her craft. The work she created was not purely inspired by the divine, but instead strove for it, confronting the inevitable impossibility of reaching perfection with the all-too-human drive for beauty in the face of death. Still, one gets the sense that Sill herself, enthralled as she was with cowboy stories and cosmic secrets, might appreciate the mythic proportions her life story has taken. I like to think that she’s made it to the Astral plane, and that wherever she is, she’s smiling.

#h: assignment #h: 2018 #judee sill #music criticism #folk music #songs of rapture and redemption

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hobeemin · 3 years

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content tag game

tagged by the lovely @joonscypher 🍒🍒

1. what fandoms have you written for (but do not currently)? whew one i wrote for was sailor moon, true blood, xmen, batman, game of thrones. haven’t written anything in ages.

2. what fandoms are you currently writing for? bts, got7, nct... i’ve put members of red velvet, vixx, txt, sunmi, exo, hyuna, hyolyn and a few others in my fics as well.

3. how long have you been writing? since middle school, but actually wriiten works online, i was 16

4. on which platforms do you post your stories? tumblr & ao3

5. what is your favourite genre to write? supernatural and crime. i always loved mysteries and fantasy and otherworldly creatures.

6. are you a pantser or a planner? both, but i lean towards planner now a days. i have to do at least a basic outline for my fics so i remember my thoughts and the plot.

7. one shot or multi-chapter? def both.

8. what is the perfect chapter length in your opinion? umm honestly it depends on the fic.

9. what is your longest published story? is it complete? hmm if were looking over the course of my writing, it was a sailor fic called angel of mercy, super cringe >.<. but currently one i’m proud of is a bts fic called resurrection a mix of zombies and drama. i’m proud of writing a six part series in less than three months. don’t know if i can do that again lol

10. which story did you enjoy working on the most? ohh good question, probably my delightful temptations series, dangerous pairing, jamais vu, and eros et psyche

11. favourite request you’ve written and why? hands down it was dark charms it combined both my love of bts and harry potter into one story. it was so much fun researching and familiarizing myself with hp world once again.

12. are there recurring themes in your stories? ohh def enemies or strangers to lovers. there is even a bit of slow burn if i’m being kind.

13. current number of wips? you don’t wanna know...i think its like more than 10 by now.

14. three things you have noticed about your own writing? 1. i can never now a striaght pwp cause i like to describe a lot of details. 2. my mc always have an attitude lol 3. i need to use a thesaurus more.

15. a quote you like from a published story. this is from dark charms 😊

Her eyes scanned the shelves looking for the purple sprigs. She lit up once she saw them peeking behind an extra mortar and pestle. Standing on her tiptoes, Y/N tried to reach for them only for a hand to shoot in front of her to grab them. The intricate ink patterns on the fingers could only belong to one person. Jeon Jungkook. She sighed as he pulled the lavender off the shelf giving her the tiniest acknowledgment. He turned to walk away when she grabbed the sleeve of his robe.

“Um, that was mine first, Jungkook.”

He froze, whirling around to give her a cold stare. “Does it have your name on it?”

Y/N flinched slightly under his intense gaze. “N-No, but–”

“B-But,” he mimicked mockingly. With a snort, he turned back on his heel. “You can have it when I’m done with it.”

Her eyes blinked in surprise. She watched his retreating form going over to the table with the rest of his Slytherin buddies. She grabbed the Valerian sprigs and walked back into the classroom. Throat tightening, she tried to keep her composure as she made her way back to her table. He knew she couldn’t start the Sleeping Draught without the lavender. It took awhile to make the paste. Her eyes cast over to him as he took his sweet time pulling the lavender out and making a show of taking out each sprig slowly. Her face felt hot as she watched him chatting and laughing with his friends. Once she knew he wasn’t planning on giving them back, her face darkened with anger. All her reasoning going out the window. She grabbed something out of one of the bowls and stomped angrily over to his table, fist balled. Before she knew it, Y/N smacked him across the face with the flobberworm mucus and snatched the lavender from his hands.

16. a quote from an unpublished story. ohh okay here’s from a fic called a princely affair

“Who’s shameless?”

The couple’s eyes turned toward the entrance of the veranda. Namjoon was standing with a young woman. Her dress is the shade of lavender with a silver mask adorning her face.

“Cousin!” Aria ran to her in excitement. “Namjoon, have you two been getting acquainted?”

“You could say that,” he chuckled cutting his eyes to Jin. He raised his brow not understanding his friend and walked forward to the woman.

“Aria was just telling me she visited you abroad on her holiday. I’m surprised I didn’t know that information already.”

“Shocking really,” she said crossing her arms. “You would think Prince Seokjin would know all.”

“Pardon?”

“Still being a jerk?”

Aria cried out covering her mouth, “Cousin! H-How could you say that?!”

Jin clenched his jaw but gave a forced laugh. “I didn’t know she would be so bold.”

17. a space for you to say something to your readers. to anyone whose read my fics, thank you. i write for myself mostly, but if anyone enjoys my writing that is a bonus. love all yall 💜💜

tagging; @springbean @hobiandsprite @yoongsgguktae @kookdiaries @bangtanhome @ressjeon @oftenderweapons @joheunsaram @sugasbabiie

#tag game

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millennial-star-gazer · 4 years

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A Fire Dragon, His Princess and The Not-So-Terrible Party Aftermath: Chapter: 1 (Nalu Week 2020)

A Fire Dragon, His Princess and The Not-So-Terrible Party Aftermath

Nalu week 2020 Prompts: Voice, Flirt, Charm & Smile(All implied)

Genres: Romance, Humor, New Adult Fanfiction

Pairing: Nalu/Endlu (Natsu x Lucy & E.n.d. Natsu x Lucy)

Rating: M for language, steamy and mature/adult sexual content (all consensual) in these and future chapters. Reader Discretion is advised.(You've been warned!)

Summary: God knows it was all fun and games at an outdoor guild party until a drinking contest results in a not-so-great time for a certain celestial wizard much to the dismay of a protective dragon slayer and company. Even worse is Lucy's hangover with some kind of mild flu and busted ankle to boot . At least a doting Natsu is more-than-willing to provide his mate plenty of TLC. One of my entries for @nalu-week 2020 and part of the Nalu-centric anthology series The Dragon Demon and His Celestial Princess anthology series (slight au/ canon divergent).

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Chapter 1: A Worthwhile Distraction

A/N: Hey guys, it's me again with my third entry for @nalu-week 2020 in the form of a new story and is also part of The Dragon Demon and His Celestial Princess anthology (TDDAHCP); series which is set shortly after the events of 100 years quest with said quest being completed in a matter of weeks or a few months (hence why it's slight au/canon divergent). Special thanks to @mannyegb again for helping me to edit and further develop this chapter. Now without further ado, here's the story-enjoy!

Scroll Down Past The Read More Button/cut for designated links and the actual chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairytail which instead belongs to the one and only Hiro-sensei instead!

Read More of This Fic and on other Platforms

Note: Copy and paste links into another browser tap if reading on desktop site

1. A Fire Dragon, His Princess and The Not-So-Terrible Party Aftermath

A. Tumblr

Chapter: 1 Next (Chapter) (Click Here:) (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/624773467606319105/a-fire-dragon-his-princess-and-the)

B. Fanfiction (Click Here:) (or here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13623735/1/A-Fire-Dragon-His-Princess-and-The-Not-So-Terrible-Party-Aftermath)

C. A03 (Click Here:) ( or here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24802591/chapters/59983813)

3. Master Post Of All My Writing And Profiles (Click Here:) (or here: https://millennial-star-gazer.tumblr.com/post/179665258923/master-fic-rec-post)

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Legend

Italics: Fantasy, flashback & literary/ song quotes

Bold: First Person Thoughts

Bolded Italics: empathized word

Bolded Italics: outside of main story): A/N

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" The friction between my words and your fantasy is making the atmosphere erotic."

(Soraya Marcelo: Twitter)

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"There you go baby - everything's ready now. It should be perfect for tonight. A guild picnic at dusk and bonfire under the stars, was it?"

"Yep, that's what Mira told us. Even said so on the Magicbook * page for the event. My friends from other guilds like Sabertooth will be attending too— a bunch responded."

"Awesome baby!"

"It really is. Thanks for helping me get ready by the way, Cancer!"

"Anytime. Have fun tonight!"

"Will do— thank you! "

"All right-catch you later, baby!"

"See ya!"

" Wow—- You look beautiful, Luce."

Natsu's arms encircled Lucy's waist from behind with the soft pressure of his lips on her shoulder; which sent a tingly shiver down her spine.

"Not that ya' didn't before. He amended, a fond smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Not to mention those striking emerald eyes the celestial mage could drown in. "You always do."

Major fan of this whole look.

"I still can't believe I got such a gorgeous angel as my mate and queen. How am I this lucky?"

"Dunno. How'd you ever get so sentimental?" Lucy shot back, a teasing lilt to her words. (She couldn't help but lean back into his arms ). "If Gray could only hear you now ...but yeah, I really like all this too ."

Golden half-braided hair framed the face of Lucy's reflection in a floral-mini, skater dress; who was gazing back through a mirror. Topping the whole ensemble together was a pair of Grecian-style wedges on her feet that were to die for.

"Still can't believe you're officially mine" the dragon slayer breathed, voice thick with reverent awe. "I love you so much."

"L-love you too... hmm."

The celestial wizard let out a soft hum of bliss from the peppering of feathery-light kisses on her neck leading to her collarbone just after a nuzzle.

"Y-You trying to distract me Natsu?" she inquired, voice coming out as breathy to her own ears. God, the sensation of Natsu's scorching lips on the celestial mage's creamy skin was scattering all train of thought— almost too much to handle!

It's really hard to think right now...

"Hmm.. just maybe I am, sweetheart," came the dragonslayer's reply, timbre, a languid drawl against her skin. "Is it working?"

"Yes," was all Lucy could utter, eyes drifting shut from the sweep of his hand up the curve of her neck in a single caress. Oh and the appealing sensation of a blonde tendril being dragged through his deft fingers was an added bonus too!

"Good," The vibrations of the fire wizard 's throaty chuckle sent sparks ripping across the summoner's nerves; which effectively turned the celestial mage's knees to mush.

"That's what I was aiming for ."

"It is?"

"Yep. Did I mention how amazing you smell?" He rumbled, pulling another shiver out of his mate. "Your natural scent now permanently mixed with mine..."

Dear God, the enticing charisma of this man- so natural! Who was she deny the incredibly overpowering ecstasy exploding through her veins with how the demon hybrid's nose was pressed against the crook of her neck?.

"And is that a hint of jasmine perfume I'm catching a whiff of?"

"Mhmm..." Goddamn- how extremely apparent that Lucy was pretty much rendered incapable of forming any type of response other than a single ,answering hum.

"Thought so-pretty intoxicating if ya' ask me."

"Um..."

It was then Lucy couldn't help but wonder what Natsu's ultimate end game was. No doubt the man was successful in efforts to ensare her with his devilish charms— but where did he intend for it to all lead? Did any of his plans entail steamy kissing marathons on the couple's bed? Slow-burn love-making beneath the sheets, wild romps all over their apartment? Just what if it could be?

Holy hell— that pulsating of liquid heat pulsating that shot between to the keyholder's core from the scintillant flash of images flooding her mind .

Supple digits unzipping the back of her dress, an insatiable Natsu pinning her against a wall, being lightly tossed onto the bed by said dominant dragon slayer, all-too-welcome lips leaving a high-voltage trail of electricity down her bare form before...

"Crap... the time."

Just for that little fantasy bubble to burst once Natsu pulled away from Lucy; who bit back a noise of protest at the loss of contact.

"Eh sorry, Luce," he apologized, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "Didn't mean to lose track of the time like that. Either way, we should probably start heading over if we don't wanna be late."

"Okay..." Lucy let out a sigh, not able to stop the wave of mild disappointment from washing over her.

"Aw come on now, weirdo!" Natsu wheedled, light-hearted amusement coloring his tone. "No need to be so glum! Tonight's gonna be fun, remember?"

"I know." Lucy conceded, with a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Should be great to spend time with our friends from Fairytail and other guilds. " Her spirits couldn't help but be lifted by the pyro's sunny mood.

Him and that infectious grin of his...

"Great! That's the spirit!" He crowed , planting a light peck on Lucy's cheek;aka the reason for the slight flush of scarlet .

"Tonight's gonna be awesome !"

"It sure will ."

"Definitely!"

"Oh, and one more thing," Natsu paused to shoot Lucy a lingering glance. "Just a little tiny something."

" What that might be?"

"Your outfit. I was thinking that maybe it could use a little extra piece to complete the look? Like, say that necklace I gave you?"

" Oh… that gorgeous pendant? You know what, yeah! Great idea-Thanks Natsu!"

"My pleasure. And pretty sure I saw said pendant in your jewelry box. Lemme' grab it for you."

"Sure thing!"

"Great then- so it's settled!"

"You bet!"

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A/N: Magicbook is a fictional social media app and site for all magic users and citizens in Earthland- aka the Fairytail equivalent of its counterpart in real life Facebook- in case anyone was wondering. Just a little sidenote about the chronological order for the timeline each fic in my TDDAHCP anthology series.

1. Fire And Gold(prequel)

2. Tantric Flames

3. A Dragon, His Princess and the Not-So Terrible Party Aftermath(this fic)

Figured I'd provide a little guide about the chronological order in terms of how each fic in this series takes place. Anyway, that's pretty much all for now until the next chapter. Hoped you enjoyed the first installment and please free to let me know what you think by dropping a review/comment!

Once again, don't forget to check out my other Nalu week entries along with the rest of my writing! Also be sure to stay tuned for chapter 3 of Fire and Gold which will be posted ASAP once I have a chance to finish the edits and format! Did I mention my other upcoming Nalu/FT projects in the works! Bet you're all fired now as Natsu would say! Oh and why not check out the rest of Nalu week submissions from the other incredibly talented writers and artists while you're at it? (Corresponding links to all my writing and profiles can be found above in this post, the navigation bar and bio if reading this on tumblr. Also on my respective FF and A03 accounts.) Thanks again to everyone for their incredible show of support ! Until next time-take care!

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer Review – Richard Ramirez Docuseries Speaks Plainly

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Netflix dives into one of the most horrifying cases of multiple murders with its eyes wide open in Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. The documentary is told from the perspective of the investigators at the heart of the case, particularly a veteran homicide detective and his young, enthusiastic partner. They had nothing going into the case, and when they did dig out the clues, they often lost what they had because of its newsworthiness. The series works because it treats the audience the same way as the cops were treated: infuriatingly.

Every clue, setback, and recalculation in Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is satisfyingly frustrating. We all know the story by now, so director Tiller Russell can leisurely fill in the plot. We don’t even get the name of the serial killer until the end of the third episode. It’s not in the title, and if the detectives don’t know it, the series won’t disclose it. This is an internal affair, and early disclosures to the media contaminate clues like dancing on a crime scene in a pair of size 12 Avia sneakers.

The four-part series opens in a hot and happy Los Angeles, filled with glossy tinsel and hair metal. The city hosted the Olympics in 1984, and the Lakers were international superstars. Archival weather reports continually update a sweltering heat wave, and the citizens cool off leisurely and diversely. But not after dark, where the bulk of the docu-series is set. That is LA Noir. The same kind of darkness that crept into the headlines when the Black Dahlia murder struck, but more similar to the Manson Family killings.

One bad boy, who will later be described as having incredible sex appeal, rips the nightlife apart. At the time, though, all anyone knows about him is he has bad teeth, smells like a goat, and loves AC/DC. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer captures the mid-eighties period well, with archival TV news and clips of then-current shows. When the events turn creepy, Max Headroom is playing on a black and white TV in the distance, almost out of focus.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Gil Carrillo and renowned homicide cop Frank Salerno are great storytellers whose obvious gravitas centers the documentary. There is one other standout from law enforcement. San Francisco Police Department homicide Inspector Frank Falzon actually breaks down what it’s like to be goaded into punching a possible witness. He completely explains the forces which lead him to do it. The frustration, the horrid images of the case which flashed into his mind. The disgust he felt at the actual details. Carrillo has a similar incident, convinced of a suspect who fits too perfectly only to be told “He’s a freak, but not your freak.” But his defining moment probably comes when he can’t bear to even listen to a discussion of putting a child who had been sexually assaulted on the stand to testify.

Even though we know how it ends, the limited docu-series captures the race against the clock tension of the summer of 1985. Initially tagged “The Walk-In Killer” and “The Valley Intruder” by the press, the satanic beast prowling Los Angeles came to be known as “The Night Stalker.” His crimes seemed disconnected because the victims were so varied. Serial killers usually have a specific type of victim. The Night Stalker’s crimes appeared to be random. “There was no pattern,” a detective bemoans in an interview.

The detectives get blowback from inside and out. We hear about an important theory being laughed out of a meeting. Investigators have to deal with cops in different districts not sharing information, as multiple jurisdictions spark “a pissing match between Type A dudes.” The investigators don’t only have to deal with the media blowing the case. They get the information from a politician who releases details which tip off the suspect. Many of these details have never been told.

We also get to hear Laurel Erickson and Paul Skolnick, the journalists who covered the story from the beginning, explain why they were so eager for details, and where they drew the line. Like the Hillside Strangler, who had recently been caught by Salerno’s homicide team, the Night Stalker was a once-in-a-lifetime case. Not only to the press, police and politicians, but to the community, which ultimately plays the most emotionally satisfying part in the documentary. When the suspect is caught in East Los Angeles, he tells the arresting officers “Thank God you came.”

The mystery unfolds through first-person interviews with victims who lived through the attacks, some of whom were allowed to survive. One woman remembers being dropped off at a gas station to call someone to take her home after the killer had sexually assaulted her in a dingy room. She was a child when that happened, one of the youngest of the Night Stalker’s victims. They ranged in age from six to 82; were men, women and children; some affluent, others poor; and of a mix of races. Anyone could be the next victim. The persistent updates on the heatwave accentuate this, because in a town under siege no one can sleep with their windows open. After Charles Manson had been caught, the people in Los Angeles didn’t feel the need to lock their doors, the documentary asserts. Now residents barred their windows.

Books

The Last Book on the Left Takes on the Grim History of Serial Killers

By Alec Bojalad

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Crazy, Not Insane Doc Studies Serial Killers’ Minds on HBO

By Tony Sokol

The assailant also varied his weaponry, using knives, hammers, tire irons, and a .22 caliber pistol. The savage specter takes on an almost occult status when the investigators find pentagrams drawn and carved on walls, and occasionally on victims. The killer gouged the eyes out of one woman. He used thumb cuffs, which comes as a visual surprise to the detective recounting it. He relives that one moment of discovery with both a personal revulsion and a cop’s curiosity. He still hasn’t gotten his head around it, and it’s only one detail. Like an Avia sneaker, size 11 and a half, the only one shipped to Los Angeles since the company was founded.

There have been several features on the notorious killer at the center of Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. Chris Fisher’s film Nightstalker (2002), Ulli Lommel’s Nighstalker from 2009, and Megan Griffiths’ The Night Stalker (2016). His story was dramatized in the 1989 TV movie Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker. Zach Villa played Ramirez on American Horror Story: 1984. Director Russell, whose father worked in the Dallas DA’s office, grew up in courthouses, jails and police precincts.He keeps his focus steadily on the investigators and the victims.

Russell presents the evidence plainly. Emotionally, he wants to present the feel that anyone in the horrific footage could have been a viewer or someone they know. He never treats the victims like statistics. We get personal stories, like one told by a granddaughter remembering how she preferred a grandma who did cartwheels over any necklace heirloom which could be bequeathed. The documentary occasionally lets the camera wander around recreated footage too long, and takes leisurely pauses of action with only music over grim background sets to amplify the atmosphere. We also get the occasional emotion-cam closeup, with a frozen face willing a testimony into a camera wordlessly.

The first glimmer of a name the documentary provides for the suspect is Richard Mena, who is being treated for an impacted tooth. Richard Ramirez actually doesn’t get much screen time. We get a very curt statement on why he turned out the way he did. “All the things that could poison a child were part of his life,” a detective explains. The only detail is a recollection of how Ramirez was tied to a cross in a cemetery overnight as a reprimand from his religious father. Ramirez explains himself throughout, although without credit until we learn the quotes and affirmations come from a recorded interview the Night Stalker gave from prison. But we never learn how Satan was “a stabilizing force in his life,” which prompted “a motivational charge.”

The documentary explores the killer-groupie phenomenon, but it is from the amazed and uncomprehending reactions of the investigating officers, and the families of the victims. They don’t get it. The journalists who covered it have never seen anything like it. It proves everything about the case is unprecedented. We see Ramirez, upon sentencing, tell the families, as well as the judge, jurors and investigating officers: “You don’t understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.” The doc cuts his last lines, “I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all.” What replaces it is a snippet of Ramirez requesting a promise that his recorded interviews be erased after his death.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a satisfyingly exhaustive account of the investigation into the Richard Ramirez murder-and-assault-spree. But know it is limited to the crimes and the cities they were committed in. Los Angeles is a bigger character in the documentary than Ramirez. The docu-series isn’t about him. It’s about what he did, and the people he did it to. Survivors describe his very presence in the court as “evil,” and the documentary resolutely chalks the case up as a triumph for good. By following the timelines so deliberately, Russell lays out the arc of a perfect detective story. That being said, I could have watched two more installments on the villain and collateral damage.

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Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer streams on Netflix on Jan. 13.

The post Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer Review – Richard Ramirez Docuseries Speaks Plainly appeared first on Den of Geek.

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amoralto · 4 years

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Hi! Since you're such a great source for Beatle quotes, do you happen to know if any of them ever commented on Charles Manson using Helter Skelter/the White Album as justification? I don't think I've ever come across any comments from them and I'd be super interested to know what they thought. Thanks! Love the blog, btw

Hello! And thank you so much for liking the blog. 😭 The short of it is that they have, intermittently, and there was some contemporaneous one-sided goings-on as well. I’ll put it all behind a cut, lest I be an interminable eyesore on dashboards.

For how/why Manson interpreted the White Album as he did, Barry Miles provides a good overview:

Charles Manson, thepsychopathic killer responsible for seven murders including that ofthe actress Sharon Tate, blamed LSD and the Beatles’ White Albumfor the series of killings his “Family” committed in August 1969.Manson was obsessed with the Beatles and, like many disturbedBeatles fans, thought they were directing secret messages to him viatheir songs. In Manson’s case, he thought the messages wereordering him to kill, and that “Helter Skelter” was the uprising in which blacks would murder a third of the world’s population. It wasalso the name his followers used for a murder spree. In his ramblingstatement at the conclusion of his murder trial on 19 November1970, he told the judge and jury:

“Like, Helter Skelter is a nightclub.Helter Skelter means confusion. Literally. It doesn’t mean any warwith anyone. It doesn’t mean that those people are going to kill otherpeople. It only means what it means. Helter Skelter is confusion.Confusion is coming down fast. If you don’t see the confusion comingdown fast, you can call it what you wish. It’s not my conspiracy. It isnot my music. I hear what it relates. It says ‘Rise!’ It says ‘Kill!’ Whyblame it on me? I didn’t write the music. I am not the person whoprojected it into your social consciousness.”

There were five tracks onthe White Album that Manson played more than others: “Blackbird”, “Piggies”, “Revolution 1”, “Revolution 9” and “Helter Skelter”, thoughfor Manson virtually every one of the thirty tracks brimmed withhidden significance. Even the fact that the sleeve was white wasprophetic. Manson’s interpretation of the Beatles’ lyrics was atwisted affair also heavily dependent on the Book of Revelation ofJohn 9, which he equated with John’s “Revolution 9”. In the biblicalRevelation, St. John says, “So the four angels held were set loose tokill a third of mankind. They had been held ready for this moment,for this very year and month, day and hour …”

To Manson theBeatles were the four angels. At the beginning of Revelation 9, Johnsees an angel [star] fall to earth: “and the star was given the key ofthe shaft of the abyss. With this he opened the shaft of the abyss;and from the shaft smoke rose like smoke from a great furnace, andthe sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.Then over the earth, out of the smoke, came locusts …” Locusts, inManson’s mind, meant beetles. The fallen angel with the key was, ofcourse, himself. He had also found an abandoned mine shaft in thedesert north of Los Angeles about which he span many a fancy taleto his brainwashed followers, claiming it was the shaft in Revelation9.

Manson’s exegesis of Beatles lyrics was a supreme example ofobsessional interpretation and would have been hilarious had theresults not been so tragic. Manson taught his followers that theWhite Album prophesied that the black races would rise up andmurder the whites but that Manson and his Family would be saved.To him, “Rocky Raccoon” was about a “coon”, a black man. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” was the Beatles telling the blacks thatthe time had come to fight, and the lyrics to “Blackbird” spelled it out even more clearly. With headphones on, Manson was able to hearthe command to “Rise!” hidden in the mix of John and Yoko’s soundcollage urging the blacks to rise up; in fact it was John shouting “Right” from the original “Revolution” tape. The white enemy wasidentified in “Piggies”, which is why the Family scrawled the words “Death to Pigs” in blood on the wall after killing Rosemary and LenoLaBianca with knives and forks “in the dead of night”, and “Pig” onthe door of Sharon Tate’s home.

The words to “Helter Skelter”showed Manson and the Family emerging from the shaft to take overafter Armageddon. Manson expected the murders to be the long-awaited signal for the blacks to begin their bloody uprising and wassurprised that riots did not follow. Vincent Bugliosi, Deputy DistrictAttorney for Los Angeles, whose book Helter Skelter is the standardwork on the trial and Manson’s cult, questioned Manson about hisbeliefs. “We both know you ordered those murders,” he told him. “Bugliosi,” Manson replied, “it’s the Beatles, the music they’reputting out. They’re talking about war. These kids listen to this musicand pick up the message. It’s subliminal.” It was complete madness.

— Barry Miles, Many Years From Now. (1997)

John’s thoughts right around the time of the trial:

WENNER: What did you think of [Charles Manson] when that thing happened?

JOHN: I don’t know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of the things he says are true, that he’s a child of the state made by us. And he took their children in when nobody else would, is what he did. But of course he’s cracked, alright.

WENNER: What were your feelings when he quoted ‘Helter Skelter’?

JOHN: Well, he’s barmy. He’s like any other Beatle kind of fan who reads mysticism into it. I mean we used to have a laugh—put in this, that or the other in a light-hearted way, that some intellectual would read as symbolic youth generation whatsit. But we also took seriously some parts of the role. But I don’t know what’s ‘Helter Skelter’ got to do with knifin’ somebody, you know? I’ve never listened to the words properly, “helter skelter,” which is sort of a noise.

— John Lennon, Lennon Remembers interview w/ Jann Wenner. (December 8th, 1970)

Interestingly, in the lead-up to the trial, The Family had tried to get in contact with the Beatles:

With Beatles’ lyrics adding an enigmatic backdrop to the proceedings, it transpired that Manson wanted to call John Lennon to court to support his reading of ‘Helter Skelter’. In fact, Charlie was wrong to credit Lennon with the song, as it was actually Paul McCartney’s sole composition. Nonetheless, someone from the Family obtained the London number of Apple Corps, The Beatles’ London headquarters. As chief messenger, Squeaky made a series of calls with a view to talking to one of the group.

‘One of the Family, Squeaky, called the Apple press office,’ remembers Apple press office assistant, Richard Di Lello. ‘Not wanting to get involved, I do remember that we passed that call on to Peter Brown [Apple Corporation head]. The call from Squeaky did not get very far. We wanted nothing to do with them.’

But the Family didn’t give up on The Beatles so easily, not after they’d help kick-start their bloody rampaging. Gypsy, one of Manson’s most loyal supporters, collared reporters during the trial, armed with a message to be passed on to the Fab Four. ‘What can I say to the damn Beatles?’ Gypsy begged journalist David Felton visiting Spahn’s Ranch. ‘Just get in touch, man. This is their trial. And all the things they’ve been hearing – there’s something happening here; they should see it by now. It’s hard to see through the negative, but just tell them to call. Give them our number.’

— Simon Wells, Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast. (2010)

The defense team also tried to officially subpoena John to testify for (them and) ‘Helter Skelter’, either not knowing he wasn’t the writer of the song either, or banking on the John-Is-The-Intellectual-Beatle persona, or most likely some measure of both:

But, in London, a spokesman for the Beatles said today that is “like summoning Shakespeare to explain Macbeth.”

What’s more, said the spokesman, the song in question “Helter Skelter” — was written not by Lennon but by Paul McCartney, another Beatle.

“We want John Lennon to testify,” a defense source said in an interview Tuesday. “We feel he may want to explain the lyrics.”

— Associated Press, Tate Defense Wants Beatle to Be Witness. (October 28th, 1970)

‘We want John Lennon to testify,’ a defence spokesperson revealed at the time. ‘We feel he may want to explain his lyrics … He’s the most articulate and philosophical of the Beatles, and he understands his social and political effect on the world.’

— Associated Press? (October 28th, 1970), c/o Simon Wells, Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast. (2010)

Lennon told the Associated Press: “I’m a peace-loving man. If I were a praying man, I’d pray to be delivered from people like Charles Manson who claim to know better than I do what my songs are supposed to mean.”

Reporter Donald White also quoted Lennon as saying, “Why didn’t Manson listen to our song ‘Revolution’? ‘Revolution’ clearly states my position on violence. ‘When you talk about destruction, you can count me out!’”

Lennon didn’t testify at the trial which ended on Jan. 25, 1971. Manson was found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

— Steve Seymour, Infamy grows for Helter Skelter. (February 23rd, 2011)

And John in 1980:

SHEFF: Did it trouble you when the interpretations of your songs were destructive, such as when Charles Manson claimed that your lyrics were messages to him?JOHN: No. It has nothing to do with me. It’s like that guy, Son of Sam, who was having these talks with the dog. Manson was just an extreme version of the people who came up with the ‘Paul is dead’ thing or who figured out that the initials to ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ were LSD and concluded I was writing about acid.

…

SHEFF: ‘Helter Skelter’?

JOHN: That’s Paul completely. All that [Charles] Manson stuff was built ’round George’s song about pigs and this one… Paul’s song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do with anything and, least of all, to do with me.

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

Paul, George, and Ringo, from what I’ve seen, have been overall reticent about it over the years, usually speaking of the song solely on its own terms and not Charles Manson’s. But they did touch upon it in Anthology:

PAUL: Then it got over to America – the land of interpretive people. And as a DJ would later ‘interpret’ the fact that I had no shoes on the Abbey Road cover, Charles Manson interpreted that ‘Helter Skelter’ was something to do with the four horseman of the Apocalypse. I still don’t know what all that stuff is: it’s from the Bible, Revelations – I haven’t read it so I wouldn’t know. But he interpreted the whole thing – that we were the four horsemen, ‘Helter Skelter’ the song – and arrived at having to go out and kill everyone.It was terrible. You can’t associate yourself with a thing like that. Some guy in the States had done it – but I’ve no idea why. It was frightening, because you don’t write songs for those reasons. Maybe some heavy metal groups do nowadays, but we certainly never did.

RINGO: It was upsetting. I mean, I knew Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate and – God! – it was a rough time. It stopped everyone in their tracks because suddenly all this violence came out in the midst of all this love and peace and psychedelia. It was pretty miserable, actually, and everyone got really insecure – not just us, not just the rockers, but everyone in LA felt: ‘Oh God, it can happen to anybody.’ Thank God they caught the bugger.GEORGE: Everyone was getting on the Beatles bandwagon. The police and the promoters and the Lord mayors – and murders too. The Beatles were topical and they were the main thing that was written about in the world, so everybody attached themselves to us, whether it was our fault or not. It was upsetting to be associated with something so sleazy as Charles Manson.

— The Beatles: Anthology. (2000)

PAUL: I wasusing the symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to thebottom, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and this was the fall,the demise, the going down. You could have thought of it as a rathercute title but it’s since taken on all sorts of ominous overtonesbecause Manson picked it up as an anthem, and since then quite afew punk bands have done it because it is a raunchy rocker. […] We did work very hard on that track.Unfortunately it inspired people to evil deeds.

— Barry Miles, Many Years From Now. (1997)

I’ll end with a recent Paul interview, because in the end, what ‘Helter Skelter’ is is a good song, and a damn good one:

“Well, that put me off doing it forever,” he says. “I thought, I’m not doing [‘Helter Skelter’], you know, because it was too close to that event, and immediately it would have seemed like I was, either I didn’t care about all the carnage that had gone on or whatever, so I kept away from it for a long time. But then in the end I thought, you know, that’d be good on stage, that’d be a nice one to do, so we brought it out of the bag and tried it and it works. It’s a good one to rock with, you know.”

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Dan Stubbs for NME. (September 14th, 2018)

#ask #context #sessions: the white album

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dlamp-dictator · 4 years

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I’ll keep an eye on this anime. If anything, it definitely looks pretty, the fight scenes have been [done] well so far, and seeing Melida be cute in full color is great. If I just get a decent action series out of this anime, I’ll be happy.

-Allen X, October 22 2019

Well folks, Assassins Pride wrapped up last week and I can safely say I got what I wanted. In the end, I think this was a pretty fun and passable anime to watch weekly. Decent action, decent plot, and a decently written story. Nothing was too offensive or annoying save for one or two moments in the middle, and as much as I felt the show stumbled compared to the manga and possibly the light novel I have hope that this might just get an official translate and... well, you know, do the pacing thing better.

But since I had a habit of covering this thing after every arc I figured I’d give the show some closing thoughts and an overall opinion of the thing at the end. I hope I don’t spend a 1000+ words on this, but... well... I can get pretty wordy when I get a groove, so we’ll see.

But anyway, let’s start with...

The Good

The Visuals

Let’s not mince words folks, this anime is pretty. It might be because I’m a sucker for night aesthetic, but the one disadvantage of the black-and-white manga is that were really never got to see just how dark the world of Flandor really was. To quote myself again:

(This is a) world trapped in perpetual night with warriors of light being the only thing keeping away further darkness, along with the last bastion of humanity being a literal chandelier city in case you missed the symbolism

And nothing makes you really feel that more than that first scene of Kufa walking through the quiet streets on his way to the Angel estate, seeing not only how dark the world is from the night sky above, but also how artificial the light within it really is. The dark aesthetic really helps a lot of the other characters pop out a lot more in terms of the actual color. Mana is literally a glowing, flaming aura that lights the darkness like a candle. The two main girls in this series are a bright blonde and white-haired girl that stand out against the black night sky like the sun and stars.

Again, symbolism.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

The Action

Not to say this is Trigger or Madhouse or Perriot, but it is pretty nice that we get a decent action scene every arc. Something I definitely appreciate is that they show contrast between Melida’s kind nature and friendly attitude with her brutal and dirty fighting style.

See, Melida is a kind and gentle girl that would rather not use violence save for fighting demons, but if she has to fight she’ll use every dirty trick in the book. She’ll throw sand, she feint attacks, she go into brawling when close enough, she fake being injured to make her opponent let their guard down. It’s a nice little story detail that shows you this noblewoman was, in fact, trained by a ruthless assassin that taught her to actual fight for survival instead of like a nobleman. Her taking down stronger students by doing all but outright cheat is almost hilarious to watch sometimes.

The Overall Narrative

For as fast as the pacing was I feel like I got a good idea of Melida’s story and the trials she has to endure as the “Incompetent Talented Girl”. This story focused on Melida more than Kufa, which is something I’m very thankful for. It’s always tempting to switch over the OP male MC to overpower his way through things, but to my pleasant surprise this only happened in one arc, and it was an arc that had some justification for it, though I really didn’t care it myself. Save for the third arc everything was to show Melida’s growth from a shy and bullied girl to a competent swordswoman that can even hold her own against the other heirs of the three noble houses.

But that’s enough of the good, so now we have to talk about...

The Bad

The Pacing

There’s no getting around this. Even if I didn’t already read bits of the manga online ahead of time the pacing for this show is still insanely fast. Even taking out the fact that this is an adapted story we’re never given enough time to absorb certain scenes. And the worse is that a lot of the arcs have a focus on intrigue and mystery. Luna Lumiere Selection Tournament Arc had two major mysteries: who was the one that changed the plaque and who is Black Madia masquerading as? They especially took care to make Mule seem like a very suspicious party only to reveal it was a third party in the very same episode. The mystery of Black Madia was done better, though by necessity as she couldn’t reveal herself until the very last moment of the arc. This was fine in the anime, but it could had used an extra episode or two of build-up between scenes. The arc at Rosetti’s hometown was a huge mystery that had Kufa under believable suspicious, and was actually done pretty well by not revealing the true culprit until the last episode of it, it also helps that Kufa was under suspicion from the first episode of it. The Library Exam Arc was... done alright, but it could had used an extra episode or two to cook and add some more tension between the Angels and the other nobles, but it was done well.

And that’s the main issue. Every arc could had used one or two extra episodes to really set the scene. Nothing was done poorly in terms of structure and narrative, but everything could had been better had things slowed down. Despite the action this show isn’t a shounen or action genre, it’s a political drama with a combat school setting.

This might also be just the issue of this being a 12-episode anime adapting a novel. A novel has the advantage of progressing its plots slowly with the knowledge the reader has the entire book to finish either that arc or at least most of it. If that reader skips around because they’re bored that says more about them than the author. With an anime or television show you don’t have that luxury, you only have a few episodes at best to keep a viewers attention, especially for something like the seasonal anime lineup where you have to keep audience retention every week and your competition is the other 50+ anime out there that might possibly be more interesting. I pity whatever decent anime has to contend with the newest My Hero Academia season along with everything else.

I understand the need to want to just show off the cool bits to keep audience attention, but it came at the cost of the narrative. Even if this thing still holds together well it could hold together much better if they only focused on the first two arcs of this series instead of trying to shove in four, but alas...

In any case...

Other Smaller Issues that Bugged Allen

Really, the pacing was the biggest issue in this anime, but I do have my fair share of gripes and nitpicks too. I’ll keep this in list form for the sake of simplicity.

Kufa having access to potions/medicines that can not only kick-start a mana-less person into having it, but one that can also turn half-Lyncrophyes back to humans opens up quite a few plotholes and issues. I’m sure the light novel and manga explain their existence better, probably something to the effect of them being extremely experimental and a deadly risk, but the anime doesn’t explain that and it can take you out of the story if you care about the world-building.

I feel like side characters like Nerva, Mule, and Salacha were suppose to get more screentime, or at least more development, but just didn’t due to the pacing and runtime. You get the basic idea of everyone, but it feels like the show wanted to do more with them, or at least that the source material probably did more with them.

The occasional moments fanservice don’t work too well in this series. It’s nothing to the level of Senran Kagura or Ikkitousen, but when your cast consist of mostly middle school aged girls the most fanservice that should be seen is a beach episode or a sleepover episode. And while this anime did have a sleepover episode it still also took time to put some of this girls in... compromising positions. My general rule of fanservice is that high school age characters doesn’t really count due to the wonky-ness of hormones act and how most media east and west tends to treat high school characters anyway, but middle school kids... yeah no. That’s just my morals, but it’s still a detractor from the anime.

The third arc kind of felt pointless since it tried to focus on Kufa’s relationship with Rosetti. I didn’t really need to know about Kufa’s past, and connecting it to Rosetti just... doesn’t feel right given how he dismissive treated her in the first arc. Making Rose a half-vampire was also pretty pointless to me. It feels like they were trying to give Kufa a harem when this show is mostly focused on Melida, and the most interesting part about his past is a mix of his life in the dark zone of the world and his past as an assassin, not his relationships with his apparent adoptive sister. It just felt... really focused and a waste of time. They could had cut out this arc, gave each other arc an extra episode to build up some things and be none the weaker for it.

The Dub

The nice thing about VRV is that I can see the HiDive dubcast along with the show. I only watched a handful of episodes, but here are my general throughts for those curious. Overall, the dub is fine, but like most HiDive Dubcasts it feels... off. Not bad, but it feels like they needed to be 4 or 6 weeks off the original release instead of 2 or 3 to get the director in the right place. I feel like most of the issues with this dub come from the direction and scripting rather than the actual voice-acting. But just to keep this short.

Kufa sounds too flat. This was a pretty common dubbing issue back in the early 2000s when trying to translate/localize a stoic, serious character. The director is probably trying to make the actor emulate the original Japanese voice acting and Kufa just sounds too flat and bored at times because of it. Most character like this tend to be given a more deadpan and sarcastic edge to them in English to make the have a little more emotion. In Japanese that flat tone is meant imply stoicism, resolve, and masculinity. In English... that’s just sounding flat and bored. Again, most characters like this are usually given a different kind of tone to keep them from sounding bored. For Kufa I’d say a more strict and stern tone of voice would help given he’s an instructor, almost like a even-toned drill sergeant issuing orders. He does sound like that from time to time when actually instructing, but I wish he kept that persona. Though that’s just my take.

Nerva and Rosetti... just don’t hit it for me. I don’t mind the difference in tone, but the script doesn’t lend itself to it. Rosetti’s actor makes her sounds much more like an adult in English, but her actual lines are still childish, which makes her come off as a little... cringe. Same with Nerva, but I’m willing to overlook it since she’s more of a side character anyway. Mule actually sounds pretty good in this regard. Her tone sounds less like a middle schooler and more like a young college woman, but since a lot of her actual lines has an air of condescending smugness it works out, though her actor sounds like she’s reading the script and not acting from it.

The scripting in general seemed to really want to follow the subbed version and it falls flat because of it. When I read the subtitles that take the world, systems, and general wackiness of this subpar anime so seriously it’s fine. But to actually hear it in a language I understand... it kinda’ shows how lacking the series is. I’m not saying they should had added jokes or anything, but it feels like they could had made the dialogue a bit more casual than it was in the subs so that the lines flowed a little better. HiDive dubs, their dubcasts especially, tend to feel like a product of the early 2000s rather than something current.

Thoughts and Recommendations

Overall I do recommend this series as a decent action show with some nice colors to it and a killer OP and ED, but there's a lot better I could recommend too that does everything this anime does but better.

So... here are a recommendations I have if Assassins Pride didn’t really click with you as much as you hoped.

A bit of an odd recommendation, but I’ll stick up Goblin Slayer first. This anime is actually a lot like Assassins Pride, being a character-focused story with decent side characters and does a lot of its world-building in the background. However, it does its arcs far better than Assassins Pride since they aren’t intrigue-based and the cast is solving much simpler problems in the grand scheme of things. It’s also an anime based off a light novel just to add to the similarities, and said anime also has four arcs to it. I will say this is a series that’s not for the faint of heart, and I almost recommend skipping episode 1 if you’re of a weaker constitution if you plan on watching this one.

Next up would be Chivalry of a Failed Knight. It does the combat school aspect of Assassins Pride much better, taking some strides to show that each of its students are, in fact, warriors capable of harming and killing others and going to a school to hone those skills. And if you that Melida was a ruthless fighter Ikki probably takes it a step further. And this is also another light novel adaptation, though the manga did technically finish its updates online if you’re curious. A side recommendation to this one would be Armed Girl's Machiavellism.

My last recommendation will be Katana Maidens. This is another combat school anime that I feel is honestly average, but it’s an anime-original series that has 24 episodes behind it, and quite a few decent action scenes. I recommend this one more to action junkies as I feel the story really starts to drag in the second half, but an overall decent series that does do itself world-building a little better than Assassins Pride, or at least I’m not asking as many questions at the end of it.

And those are my thoughts on Assassins Pride. Now I have a Rambling on video games to work on, so I’ll see you all later.

#assassins pride #your dictator is speaking

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ianbrunner · 5 years

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Mr. Poe as the Fool and a Catalyst for the Loss of Childhood Innocence in Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events

“‘People aren't either wicked or noble,’ the hook-handed man said, ‘They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.’” - Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto, p. 223

Now, I must admit it’s been far too long since I’ve read any of the books in Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events. The final book in the series, The End was published in 2006 (thirteen years ago… really?), anyways, as I’m on spring break I’ve been binging the Netflix adaptation. In season 1, episode 4, The Reptile Room: Part 1, there is a scene in which the Baudelaires, accompanied by Mr. Poe, are traveling down Lousy Lane which is located near a horseradish factory. Mr. Poe mistakes the smell of horseradish for ginger which perplexed my mom. I found myself explaining to her that a running joke of the series is that the adults are inept. Thinking on this, I found myself relating Mr. Poe to the Fool archetype.

The Fool functions a few ways in literature and film. Joe Bunting on the website: The Write Practice lists these succinctly as: “Comic Relief”, “Characterization”, “Conscience”, and “An Invitation to Freedom” (The Write Practice). He goes on to state that the Fool is also free to express more emotion than is culturally appropriate, characterizes other characters in the media because of how these characters interact with the Fool who they believe is someone beneath them, and is free to speak the truth and live freely. I can’t say that Mr. Poe lives freely, as he seems to live to serve the bank, but he does function as comic relief, characterization, and conscience. Exploring the literature around A Series of Unfortunate Events I stumbled on a article titled: Not so unfortunate: carnivalisation, metafiction & the elements of grotesque realism in The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (Kimiagari, 2017).This article details how the Baudelaire’s stories function as a kind of morbid fairy tale and when read using Bakhtin’s definition of “Carnival” (p. 307) which Kimigari interprets as “...a place… where nothing is stable and fixed” (p. 307). The author goes on to discuss Selden, Widdowson, and Brooker’s (2005) interpretation of carnivalesque in terms of

“...relativity and reversal” (p. 307). This is where “...hierarchies are turned on their heads (fools become kings, kings become beggars); opposites are mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell); the sacred is profaned. The ‘jolly relativity’ of all things is proclaimed” (Selden and Widdowson, p. 41).

In short, “Carnivalised location, therefore, is a place of the upside down and the inside out” (Kimigari, p. 307).

Looking at the world of A Series of Unfortunate Events it’s an uncanny place where children’s parents die in fires and most adults seem to be incompetent at best and antagonistic at worst. There are secret organizations known as VFD with a seemingly endless list of phrases that constitutes what the acronym means. The members of this organization are identified only by the recurring image of an eye which is often tattooed on their ankles. The whole thing has got a bit of that Tim Burton surrealist atmosphere going on with less corpses. The people who should be taking care of the children do not and cannot, whether it is because of death or just sheer stupidity. However, the people who wish the children harm, Count Olaf and his cronies, while over the top and exaggerated, at least manage to create schemes that, in this world, could potentially steal the Baudelaire fortune.

To bring this back to Mr. Poe, he at least cares (a little?)... okay, he tries. Usually in the stumbling manner that an adult does in this world, but from time to time he critiques the children and functions as their conscience such as when Violet picks the lock of Count Olaf’s suitcase in The Reptile Room: Part 2 and Mr. Poe responds along the lines of “Nice girls shouldn't know how to do that sort of thing” (Fox, M. & Palansky, M). At times, Mr. Poe acts as comic relief when he panics (to be honest, K. Todd Freeman kills it in this roll). In The Miserable Mill: Part 1, after losing the Baudelaires the episode opens with Mr. Poe panicking. His first lines in which he grabs onto a man on the street function both to show that he cares, but also gives the Baudelaires a chance to sneak off which in a roundabout way functions as the “Invitation to Freedom” (The Write Practice) Bunting mentions. When the Baudelaires take this chance, they seize the reins and make their destiny their own. And yet, they are not exactly free as they are pursued not only by Count Olaf, but also Mr. Poe, and other adults who care about them as the series progresses. Instead of relying on the adults to care for them as children would normally do, they grow closer together and form absolute trust in one another. This lends itself to Mr. Poe’s functions as the Fool as he characterizes the Baudelaires as characters who recognize that he wishes them well, but understand that he cannot keep them safe. Mr. Poe’s ineptitude forces the Baudelaires to make a choice, to reject the social order that we are used to, especially in texts written for children such as parents knowing best, children doing good by listening to their elders, happy endings, and life lessons learned. Instead, the Baudelaires grow up fast. They recognize the cruelty of the world they exist in, learn who they can trust- each other-, and even commit crimes to further their explorations of the mysteries surrounding their lives and family as the story progresses.

There is a certain truth to the idea that children see the world differently than adults. In a 1989 interview with Stephen King on WAMC’s: Public Radio Book Show which was animated by the YouTube channel Blank on Blank, King states that childhood is characterized by two things for him. First that “...it’s a secret world that exists by its own rules and lives in its own culture,” and secondly that "...we forget what it is to be a child and we forget that life, which is kind of exotic and strange". He goes on to ponder that children “...tend to think around corners instead of in straight lines" (Blank on Blank). The Baudelaires learn quickly that the world is not black and white and they have to make decisions, some of which may hurt innocent people. Early on in the series Mr. Poe nearly loses his job because the Baudelaires run away (he eventually gets promoted to Head of Orphan affairs), people who try to help them die, and at times they must steal or lie to survive. Perhaps children see the world more honestly than any of us. Not through rose colored glasses, but as a place that is true. They trust until they are hurt, they explore until they learn not to, and in a way the symbol of the eye that marks the secret organization of VFD throughout this series is not only a symbol of watchfulness, but also, what happens to children as they experience the world that grownups have created. In the Neil Gaiman’s novel: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the text opens with the epigraph: “I remember my own childhood vividly… I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them" and this quote from Maurice Sendak, I think, sums up the world of Lemony Snicket and the Baudelaire orphans.

References

Blank on Blank. ( 2016, December 13th,). Stephen king on childhood [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA2kzmoAsnk

Fox, M. (Writer), & Palansky, M. (Director). (January 13th, 2017). The Reptile Room:

Part 2 [Television series episode]. In Handler, D (Producer), a series of unfortunate events. Los Angeles, CA: Netflix Inc.

Gaiman, N. (2013). The ocean at the end of the lane. New York: NY, Harper Collins.

Kimiagari, M. (2017). Not so unfortunate: Carnivalisation, metafiction & the elements of grotesque realism in the bad beginning by lemony snicket. International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 22(3-4), 305-316. doi:10.1080/1364436X.2017.1369011

Selden, R., & Widdowson, P., & Brooker, P. (2005). A reader’s guide to contemporary literary theory. Edinburgh Gate, UK: Pearson Education Limited.

Snicket, L. (2004). The grim grotto. New York, NY: HarperCollins

The Write Practice. (2012). The fool or clown archetype in literature and film. Retrieved

#a series of unfortunate events #mr. poe #literature #television #blog #the fool #criticisim

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ettadunham · 5 years

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A Buffy rewatch 2x22 Becoming Part 2

aka if all of the strength and all of the courage

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and point out / hyperfocus on one detail in it in 10-3k words. Or maybe go through each and every random scene I choose. Rules are fake.

And God, does this show know how to do season finales. It’s just so *licks the popcorn salt off of each and every finger*

I think at this point I just accepted that I’ll never be able stick to my ‘focus on one thing to rant about’ plan. And that was obviously never gonna work with season finales especially.

There’s a certain flavor to the kind of season finales Buffy always managed to deliver - which I feel like we’re getting less and less of the likes these days, as it’s so specific to serialized network television dramas. There’s always so much pay-off and emotion and big grande battles... but on the other hand, it also has to be a contained story as we still have to somewhat adhere to the episodic structure.

And sure, sometimes that “contained story” means 2-3-4 episodes, but the point is that the combination of that and all these very specific season-arching themes coming to full circle is what truly makes those episodes pop imo. You’re getting your payoff, but you’re also not sitting there halfway through the season, throwing popcorn at your screen yelling for them to just ‘fucking get to the finish’.

We’re all here for the journey. Even when it takes us through stops like Go Fish.

And even by the end of that journey, Becoming Part 2 still holds up high for most of us I believe. It’s one of the most emotionally satisfying episodes of the entire series, as it focuses entirely on Buffy and her journey to find her inner strength and courage when all seems lost.

I know everyone has this quote already memorized, but let’s just savor it.

Angel: No weapons. No friends. No hope. Take all that away, and what's left? Buffy: Me.

This idea that in the end, she only has herself to fall back to is an ongoing theme for Buffy for the entire series. She can’t expect someone else to fight her demons, to decide what to do.

Except while in that scene it’s a moment of triumph, later on it’ll only cause her to isolate herself from the rest of the world - which is what we start seeing before the credits start rolling.

And yet, even at her lowest, stripped away from any support, having lost so much she still has the strength to keep fighting. Then when the world turns even more cruel and offers her something she thought she lost, only for her to have to choose to lose it all over again... she makes the choice. It breaks her, but she does what has to be done.

She kills Angel and saves the world.

Perhaps there is a kindness in those few extra moments she gets with him. She can finally say goodbye, and not just through someone else’s words as it happened in I Only Have Eyes for You. But if that’s the case, it’s still a cruel kind of mercy, especially when she’s already accepted that loss.

Although... did she? Last episode I had a half-thought that I didn’t let myself finish, because I wanted to talk about the plan to resoul Angel. And the argument against it - or at least the argument whether or not they should’ve been counting on the spell in the first place.

Yes, we’ll be talking about Xander again, folks.

I don’t know about you, but I was big mad at Xander for what he does here - lying to Buffy about Willow’s message - for the longest time. And then I watched Part 1 now and suddenly I realized... that that was probably the right call.

When in Part 1 Buffy goes to fight Angel while leaving the gang to perform the spell, she’s stalling. Angel even comments on how her heart is not really in the fight. But then again, he’s stalling too, so Drusilla and his team could kidnap Giles (and also kill Kendra and injure Willow in the process). And the Scoobies were all so wrapped up in their own moves and plans to restore Angel’s soul, that they never stopped to consider those kinds of possibilities.

So when Willow here sends Xander on his way to tell Buffy to try and stall again, I felt his hesitation. Maybe the spell worked. Maybe it didn’t. And maybe it was already too late because Buffy was dead and the world ended.

If Buffy were to win this fight, her heart had to be in it. She had to fight Angel like she meant it, both for herself and the world.

That’s not to say that Xander was all the way justified for lying. It’s easy to argue that Buffy had the right to know what she could expect. Xander is essentially making the decision for Buffy about what she should and shouldn’t be aware of, and that’s obviously not a good.

In addition, I also feel like the way Xander chose to not tell Buffy about the resouling attempt, saying that Willow said to “Kick his ass” actually caused more isolation issues for Buffy. It reaffirmed to her that neither of her friends would truly understand what she was going through, or even care.

There’s a reason why she’ll bring up this moment almost 5 seasons later in an argument.

And yet... I am still kind of with Xander on this now. Whether or not the spell worked, Buffy had to fight Angel. Likely to the death. And especially with how things ended up going down, I really don’t think that her knowing about Willow’s attempt would’ve helped.

So yeah. My perspective on Xander in this episode certainly changed. But I think that I’m still struggling with Joyce.

Although, there were definitely moments in their argument where I got it. When Buffy says “Just have another drink”, I winced. She’s dismissive towards her mom for most of the argument, while Joyce is desperately trying to morph the young woman in front of her back into the daughter she thought she knew.

But then there’s also the coming out metaphor happening. (”Have you tried not being a Slayer?”) So for her to then tell Buffy that she can’t come back home mixed with that has a whole lot of baggage.

In reality, it’s obviously a last-ditch-effort on Joyce’s part to inject some authority into their argument. But it only backfires as it becomes one more thing chipping away at Buffy’s mental health, telling her to stay away. To break alone.

Triumph and heartbreak, victory and depression - Becoming Part 2 really has it all. It’s the emotional rollercoaster that’s worth every single repeat ride.

I’m not crying, there’s just some Sarah McLachlan in my eyes.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs #no proof reading before posting we die like men

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