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insfiringyou · 3 years

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BTS - Somebody Else (V x Da-eun) & (Max x Cassandra)

Contains: Fluff, parenting, slight angst, smut, first date

Set a month after the fic ‘A Chance Meeting’ where V asks for Da-eun’s phone number. He agrees on a date with the stylist and Cassandra and Max spend some alone time together.

You can find out more about our headcanon universe and ongoing storyline here and more about our headcanon girlfriends here.

To read each member & their girlfriend’s headcanon universe fics in order, follow the links here: RM / Jin / Suga / J-Hope / Jimin / V / Jungkook & our full masterlist of fanart and fanfictions can be found here

If you wish to follow all member’s storylines in chronological order from the beginning, you can find them listed here.

Rated content below the cut

PART ONE

Taehyung smiled, opening his mouth in a playful gesture as the baby dropped the wrapper on the floor; the infant licked the dark substance from his tiny, sticky fingers with a grin. The man opposite reached for the pack of wet wipes on the table in front of him, slipping a few from the hole in the top and stretching to hand them to Taehyung who took them with a quiet thanks.

“No problem.” Max sat back down and leaned back in the chair, watching as Taehyung wiped the chocolate from the baby’s lips, trailing it across his cheeks and forehead, where a strand had managed to become lodged in the boy’s dark hair. “He loves that stuff but he gets it everywhere.”

Taehyung looked up briefly at the sound of the man’s voice, dismissing it with a lazy gesture. “Babies are supposed to be messy.”

“He’ll never sleep now…” Cassandra rolled her eyes with a sigh, shifting against the cushions of the small, two-person couch she shared with her boyfriend. She had spent all afternoon trying to get Gabriel prepared for his evening walk with Taehyung; making sure he was changed and fed, but the child had been restless, throwing his dinner on the floor in a tantrum before attempting to climb the stairs; pulling the safety gate from the wall in the process. Her limbs ached from chasing him, but his demeanor changed when his father showed up at the door. He climbed in the stroller without kicking up a fuss and, according to Taehyung, hadn’t made a sound on the mile-long trip to the park. It was times like this she jokingly wondered if Gabriel had been the right name to call him. Lucifer might be more apt.

Max had shown up shortly after the troublesome pair had left, and the cup of warm tea he made was most welcome. He helped her tidy the living room in anticipation of them coming back, and insisted she sit back and relax as he did the washing up. Her feet were sore and he kneaded them gently, resting them one by one in his lap until the sound of the door opening made her pull away. The thought of Taehyung seeing them made her uncomfortable, and her soles were feeling much better anyway.

“It’ll be fine.” Max murmured cheerfully, pulling her away from her thoughts. “I can go and sit with him if he wakes up.” Cassandra frowned at his casual taking of Taehyung’s side and he touched her thigh, giving it a little pat. “It’ll give you a chance to sleep.”

“I could stay if you need me to.” Taehyung offered, his gaze suddenly fixed on the couple.

She shook her head, frown fixed. “I thought you had a date?”

He opened his mouth to speak but Max cut in, interest peaked. “I didn’t know you were dating.”

Taehyung was silent for a moment before offering a small shrug. “We’ve only been texting.”

“How long?” The other man asked.

“A month or so.”

Cassandra turned to her boyfriend, sensing the other man’s discomfort at being questioned, she took over, elaborating for him. “She’s a stylist.”

Max grinned teasingly. “Your stylist?”

Taehyung shook his head. “No, a friend’s. We haven’t met yet.”

“Where are you taking her?” The older man asked.

There was a long pause and Cassandra suspected he wasn’t going to reply, realising that Max, who was an open book when it came to conversation, hadn’t yet sensed the other man’s uneasiness. Taehyung lowered Gabriel gently to the floor. The infant had started to wriggle in his grasp, as though sensing the change in atmosphere.

“Le Rouge, in Gangnam.” He murmured.

“Oh, it’s nice!” Max turned to his girlfriend with a warm smile. “We’ve been.”

“Make sure you try the Coq au vin.” She chipped in.

The younger man shrugged once more. “I’m not that hungry…I was thinking of just going for drinks.”

She looked at him, eyebrow cocked. “Have you told her that?”

“What do you mean?” He replied, voice slow.

She tried not to roll her eyes. “She might not have eaten.”

He sighed quietly, wanting to change the topic. “I’m sure we can figure it out.”

Cassandra fell quiet, eyes falling to her son who had started to whine under his breath, babbling incessantly as he clung to the dark fabric of the sofa, attempting to climb back onto his father’s lap. He was growing fussy and she checked her watch.

Max watched her do this and got slowly to his feet. “We should put him to bed now.”

“I’ll do it.” Taehyung interrupted.

Cassandra joined her boyfriend, shaking her head lightly as she stood, gently reminding the man opposite. “You’ve got somewhere to be.”

“Are you driving?” Max asked, stepping aside to allow Cassandra to edge past him.

The younger man shifted in his seat but accepted Cassandra’s offer. “Taking a cab.” His eyes followed as she bent down beside him, scooping the child in her arms easily as she had done thousands of times before. Their eyes met and she gave a soft smile, nodding towards his printed shirt. The colours were jeweled in tone; feathers decorating the crisp, white fabric. It was a wonder he had managed to stay clean with the baby around.

“You look nice.” She complimented.

“Thank you.” He murmured quietly.

She nodded, straightening her legs. “I hope it goes well.” Gabriel had finally grown quiet, his eyes closing sleepily and she lowered him towards his father who kissed his cheek softly, smoothing a stray lock of hair from his forehead.

“Goodnight angel…”

He watched her walk towards the hallway and felt his chest swim simultaneously with warmth and sadness at the sight of them leaving. Max followed his gaze, sea-blue eyes observing, but not quite understanding what he was seeing. He sat back in his chair, sensing the tension the other man was feeling and wanting to alleviate it somehow.

“Do you want something to drink since you’re not driving?” He offered politely. “Something to settle your nerves?”

The younger man’s attention was drawn for a few more moments by Cassandra climbing the stairs to the second floor with Gabriel walking in front of her; his arms held up to stop him from falling, before turning back. “If you want.”

Max stood up, heading towards the kitchen. “Do you like craft ale? We got a batch from a local brewery.”

“Anything’s fine.” Taehyung murmured without interest, watching as the older man unclasped the safety gate which shielded the kitchen from young, adventurous hands. He heard the fridge door open and the gentle hiss of cap tops being popped, before the other man returned, clutching two bottles. He handed one across the table before settling back down in his previous position on the opposite sofa.

“Has it been a while?”

Taehyung frowned. “Since what?”

Max shrugged easily. “You dated.”

The younger man looked away, thinking. “I’ve been focused on other things lately.”

Max nodded with a smile, remembering tidbits of information from Cassandra. “I heard about your house renovation. Is it going well?”

“Almost finished. I just have the nursery to decorate.”

He gave a murmur of approval in reply, before falling silent, unsure what else to say. Max had met Taehyung on a handful of occasions, though their conversations were usually brief; it wasn’t him he was coming around to see after all. He hadn’t yet grasped a good sense of his personality, though he seemed to be shy, reserved even. Max wasn’t used to making small talk, but wanted to be friendly; the other man was Gabriel’s father after all, and it would help Cassandra if they got along. “It’s good that you’ve made it work.” He eventually said, approvingly. Taehyung looked at him with a blank expression and he quickly clarified. “You and Cassandra...most people can’t.”

“Me and Cass aren’t like ‘most people’.” He replied, making Max laugh. He held up his bottle in cheers.

“I’ll drink to that!” He grinned, pressing the bottle to his lips. Taehyung followed, mirroring his motion and taking a few small sips. Max put his bottle on the table, watching the other man drink quietly, musing over whether he should say what he had planned. The young man opposite seemed more relaxed, having grown used to his company, so he pressed ahead, a little cautiously, seeking approval.

“We were thinking of taking a little vacation this summer…”

“Where to?” Taehyung asked.

His voice seemed casual, uninterested, so Max continued. “Sweden.” He cleared his throat a little. “Lund, my home town.”

Brown eyes met blue across the space. “Will Gabriel be going with you?”

Max hesitated, brushing his fair hair from his eyes and touching the back of his neck. “Would you be okay with that?”

Taehyung was quiet for a second, before replying. “If Cassandra’s comfortable with it.” He looked towards the doorway automatically, towards the staircase. He could hear Gabriel whaling loudly upstairs, Cassandra’s frantic hushes just audible as she tried to get him to settle in his cot. Max followed his gaze, reading his thoughts, and shook his head knowingly.

“She might take a while.” He confirmed. “You don’t want to be late.”

Taehyung fell silent, as though wishing to protest, but finally stood up, collecting his phone from the coffee table and sliding it into his shoulder bag. He hadn’t quite finished the drink, but a quick glance at his watch told him he wouldn’t have time. He wasn’t that thirsty anyway.

Max trailed behind as they walked into the hallway, the older man sipping his beer along the way. “I hope you’ll come again soon.” He smiled. Taehyung paused by the stairs, considering whether he should go up and say goodnight.

“I’ll let her know you had to go.” Max said gently, and Taehyung looked back, nodding in acceptance.

“Thanks.” He murmured, reaching for the door handle.

PART TWO

She felt hot under her thick, woolen coat and hoped her foundation was staying put. The evening was unexpectedly warm, a contrast to the past few nights when she had taken the bus back from her company’s headquarters downtown, and she was beginning to regret her attire. There was no one behind the reception desk and she looked around the dim room frantically, checking the small face of her watch and hoping he hadn’t left already; that was if he had shown up at all. There were a few couples seated around the circular tables, along with a family on the long, bench-like table near the window, clearly celebrating a birthday. Golden balloons were strung along the backs of chairs, and the conversation among them was heated and familiar. She couldn’t see him there and reached into her handbag for her phone, wondering if she would be brave enough to text.

Her gaze was averted when an older man came out of a back room, closing the door quietly behind him and glancing across the desk. She hoped he couldn’t sense her embarrassment and wondered whether she should just leave, before he beckoned gently to her. She took a step closer to the desk and he leaned across to whisper.

“Could I take your name?”

She pulled away and looked at him. His expression was hard to read and she felt her cheeks turn red.

“Kang Da-eun.” She replied, wondering a second too late whether it had been a good idea to tell a stranger.

He nodded. “This way please…”

She looked around the room, noting the busy atmosphere, before following cautiously towards a beaded curtain at the end of the corridor.

“Can I take your coat?” The man asked, pulling the strings aside as she ducked beneath. It made a soft, musical sound as the beads shimmied back together and she looked around the small room, spotting the lone figure immediately. The walls were a deep, fleshy kind of burgundy and the soft, warm lighting only made the room seem smaller, more intimate. Her heart seemed to stop as the man seated at the far end looked up above the menu, straight at her. His hair was a medium brown, tousled a little above his dark, dark eyes and the expression he gave seemed intense, though she couldn’t quite read it. She still couldn’t believe she was meeting him in the flesh; though she recognised him immediately. She had been too preoccupied over the prospect of him not being there that she hadn’t quite worked out what she would do if he was. Da-eun became aware that the server was waiting patiently at her side, and she belatedly turned to him with a blush, smoothing her dark hair away from her perspiring forehead.

“Oh, thank you…” She slipped off the tweed coat, fumbling a little with the oversized buttons, before handing it to him. He hung it on the stand in the corner, before promptly disappearing back through the curtains. When she turned back her date was standing, pulling the wooden chair from the other side of the little table for her to sit down. She walked over shakily, hoping her feet wouldn’t give out from under her as she joined him. The chair squeaked as she sat on it and she felt herself cringe even further.

“I’m sorry to be late. The bus was delayed.” She blurted, eyes following as he sat back down and met her gaze.

“Which number did you get?” He asked, voice low and surprisingly soft. She felt the pulse in her hands and knitted them together in front of her on the table.

“The one from Hannam-dong.”

He nodded, though she wasn’t sure he really understood. She wondered how long it had been since he had taken public transport. She looked around nervously, observing the framed photographs which hung, clustered on the walls. They were placed a little chaotically in the small space, but she thought that might be the point. She recognised a few of the places shown, though she had never been there herself; the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. “It’s really nice here.” She smiled, tugging a little at the hem of her dress; wishing it wasn’t so warm or that she had chosen something less modest. “I feel under-dressed.”

His eyes flickered to the garment, lingering on the decorative pattern which adorned the thick, woolen dress. “Don’t worry.” He murmured.

“Have you been here before?” She asked with interest.

“No.” He said, making her fall silent. She touched her cheeks with the back of her hand, realising, as expected, they were warm to the touch. He noticed and leaned forward. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Just water.” She nodded and he pressed the call button at the side of the table.

“Still or sparkling?”

She blinked. “Still.”

The waiter was prompt, walking through the curtain a few moments later and Taehyung requested water for them both. She took advantage of the moment to fix her fringe again, which had started to cling unattractively to her forehead. She feathered the dark locks with her fingertips, making sure the older gentleman had once more retreated behind the doorway before she spoke again.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come.” She whispered honestly, a little ashamed of herself.

Taehyung looked at her. “Why?”

“I thought…” She shook her head to herself, a little smile playing on her lips. “It might be a prank.”

“I wouldn’t prank you.” He said smoothly.

“I know…It’s just…” She started, already feeling flustered. “I see people on T.V all the time, where people pretend to be someone they’re not.” She paused. “It’s usually for their credit card.”

The other man was quiet and she worried she might have offended him. She opened her mouth to clarify, but he changed the topic. “Did you like the flowers I sent?”

Sitting back in her chair, she nodded with a smile at the memory. The pale, delicate Baby’s Breath had arrived at her workplace the previous week, wrapped carefully in brown paper. It reminded her of something a child might pick in the spring and she had later wondered if he had done just that. “They were lovely. I didn’t think they were for me at first.”

“I wrote a card.” He affirmed.

She quickly nodded. “I know. I just didn’t see it until Ara pointed it out.”

“Do you like working with Ara?” He questioned.

“She’s really nice.” Da-eun confirmed. “She told me how you met.”

Taehyung sat back, threading his fingers together. “We’ve known each other a long time.”

“I heard.” She thought for a second, curious about something she had heard rumours of in the news. “Are you working on a comeback?”

“Not really.” He murmured dismissively, looking over her shoulder when the waiter returned with a jug and two glasses. “Thank you, you can set it there.” He gestured, pouring the drinks for them both without fuss. He continued speaking as he placed her glass carefully in front of her. “How did you become a stylist?”

She took a few mouthfuls, soothing her dry throat. “Well…” She gulped, setting it back down. “It’s a funny story.”

“I’m listening.” He said.

She looked up, observing that he was indeed watching her closely, before she continued the story. “I had a friend from school who worked with Mamamoo, and she had to pull out of a photoshoot because she broke her arm.”

“How did she break it?” He asked.

“What?” She looked up, eyes wide.

“Her arm. How did she break it?” He asked patiently.

“Oh…” She looked down, remembering. “She fell down the stairs before a business meeting. Her heel just snapped.”

“Sounds painful.” He commented nonchalantly.

“It was.” She confirmed, feeling more confident now she was making conversation and that he appeared to be interested in what she had to say. “Anyway, she couldn’t mix the colours with only one arm. So she asked if I could step in.”

“Did you go to beauty school?”

She nodded with a smile. “I’d just graduated. I couldn’t believe my luck.”

“That’s very fortuitous...” He wandered off, taking a few sips of water as he thought to himself. She watched his eyes grow dark. “I would have liked to have spent more time at school.” He eventually said.

“You still can.” She replied softly. “What would you study?”

He was quiet for a second. “Art maybe…or Photography.”

Her smile widened. “I’ve seen your pictures online…they’re really good.”

“I’d like to be better.” He murmured.

She nodded sympathetically. “It must be hard to balance your time.”

He met her gaze, caught off guard. “Why?”

Da-eun frowned. “You have a son, don’t you?”

She saw his expression shift and immediately realised her mistake. “I’m sorry…” She backtracked, turning red with embarrassment and looking down at the table. “I saw it online.”

“So did most of Korea.” He said dryly.

She sensed a note of sadness in his voice she couldn’t quite place; regret perhaps? She knew why. She didn’t need Ara to tell her what the backlash had been like. Her own reaction as someone who had known his name for years was one of shock and slight disbelief. She knew for those who followed him more closely; the fans who attended his shows and bought his records, the news would have seemed like a bombshell. It had never occurred to her before how this must have affected him. She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

He shifted slightly in his wooden chair, his demeanor relaxing. “Maybe another time.” He confirmed, surprising her. Da-eun watched as he reached slowly across the table, fingertips skimming the back of her hand briefly before pulling away. She felt her skin prickle at the touch. “I want to know you better first.” Taehyung whispered.

She moved her gaze from her hand, where his own had been only seconds before, to his face which seemed soft in the dim glow of the lamp. “I think I’ve told you it all…” She admitted, only just realising how open she had been with him during their messages.

“You still live with your parents and sister?” He asked, already knowing the answer but seeking confirmation.

She nodded. “When I’m home.”

His mouth twisted a little and she wondered if he was teasing her. “Do they know you’re on a date?”

She nodded again, trying this time to hide her blush by talking clearly, with an air of confidence. “I said I’d be back by ten…”

“I’ll make sure you’re home in time.” He said softly, sitting back in his chair.

“Thanks.” She mumbled, sensing a shift between them. Looking across at him, he suddenly seemed less defensive, as though he was finally starting to relax. She nodded towards the single menu that rested between them, noting the neat, spindly calligraphy on the front page. “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

She felt her stomach grumble in reply and picked it up sheepishly. “Did you want to share something? I hear the chicken is good.”

“I heard the same.” He replied coolly, gesturing towards the laminated sheet. “We should get two. I don’t want you to go hungry.”

She glanced at him with a smile, belatedly feeling just how hungry she was. Her stomach had been uncomfortable all afternoon, churning with nerves, and she hadn’t been able to manage more than a few bites at lunch. She knew how much Idols had to watch their figure; having seen for herself what Ara and the girls were subjected to while preparing for their comebacks, but the fact he didn’t seem to mind her having an appetite came as a relief.

“Shall we get a starter too?” She asked hopefully.

He nodded easily. “You should order as much as you want.”

“Maybe some onion soup?”

He smiled. “Sounds good. Do you drink?”

She blinked. “Alcohol?”

He nodded.

“A little bit.” She replied, though immediately realised that was an exaggeration. The last time she had alcohol had been two Christmases ago, and even then it had only been a taste.

“Do you want some wine?” He asked.

She hesitated. “I don’t know much about what’s good.” Da-eun answered honestly.

He nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ll order. Is a Cabernet okay?”

She looked at him blankly, but agreed. “Okay.”

***

She had managed to finish her small glass of wine, but only just. It’s bitter taste had taken her by surprise and if she had felt the room warm before, it was now like an oven. Taehyung had taken her lead and made sure his own glass was small, though he had drunk two. He gestured towards the bottle, still more than half full.

“Do you want any more?” He offered, putting down his fork and wiping his mouth with a napkin.

She shook her head with a smile. The room seemed to be lit with a soft, fuzzy glow; the man opposite cast in a halo of light. She had never been drunk before, though she had heard it was fun. She wasn’t sure tonight was the best night to find out. “I’d better not. I have to get the bus home.”

He looked at her, expression straight. “Are you driving it?”

Da-eun laughed loudly in response, his reply unexpected and funny. It was the first time he had attempted humour all evening, and it was welcome. “No…” She shook her head, eyes streaming a little as she calmed down.

He settled back in his chair comfortably and she suspected he might be feeling proud of himself for getting a response from her. She wondered how long it had been since he had made another woman laugh.

“It’s pretty strong.” He confirmed, noting her roughed cheeks and giddy demeanor. “You could take it home with you. For your parents.”

She looked at the drink, frowning. “I’m not sure they’ll let me on the bus with a bottle.”

“I’ll call you a taxi.” He offered. “I said I’d have you home by ten.”

His words were reassuring and she felt her heart skip in her chest. She hadn’t been sure earlier in the evening if meeting him had been such a good idea. While their messages had been friendly enough, she wasn’t certain he really liked her that much. But his offer to get her home safely was sweet and much appreciated; the prospect of riding the bus so late at night had been making her a little anxious as the evening drew to a close. Perhaps he was just as nervous about the date as she had been.

“I’ll get my coat.” She smiled, getting to her feet.

***

The cool air sobered her up and she tucked her coat tightly around her midriff. “It’s getting cold.” She commented, though felt it was welcome.

“Yes.” He murmured, walking side by side with her along the pavement until they reached the point where the curb dipped into the road. “The taxis stop here.”

She turned to him, only just noticing the clear height difference between them. It was strangely comforting. “Thank you for buying me dinner.” She smiled.

“Did you like it?” He asked.

“Yes.” She confirmed, quickly adding. “Thank you.”

Taehyung pointed to a black cab which indicated right at the end of the road in the distance before pulling into the side street. “This will be for you.” He confirmed. “I texted ahead.”

Da-eun looked up with a polite nod. “Thank you.” She wondered what came next; whether she should bring up the topic of a second date. The dinner had been nice, and she had warmed to him considerably during the course of the meal, but she couldn’t be sure whether he felt the same. Taehyung gave a little wave to the car which pulled into the taxi bay beside them.

“It was nice to meet you.” He said, watching her tuck the handbag beneath her arm a little more securely. She waited to see if he would say any more and when he didn’t, took a tentative step towards the cab, feeling awkward. He moved away and, noticing from the corner of her eye, she took it as a sign the date was over. Da-eun gently loosened her grasp against her purse and pulled open the zipper, knowing that while she hadn’t opened it during the date, she was strangely prone to losing things. Noting that her bank card and phone were accounted for, she allowed herself a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Taehyung walking away, back in the direction of the restaurant. He looked a little cold in his thin shirt and black trousers, and she wondered if he had left the rest of his belongings inside. Disappointed, but unsure what else she had expected, she turned back to the car and gave a small wave to the driver who gave one back in reply. She considered whether she should get in the front seat, though knew she would be useless at making conversation during the trip. Instead, she reached for the handle to the back.

“Do you have everything?” The voice behind her took her by surprise and she jumped a little, almost dropping her purse in the process. She turned towards Taehyung, failing to hide her shock, but managed a nod.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good…” He murmured, breath turning to mist in the cold air. He fell silent before stepping forward. “Can I kiss you?”

Her mouth opened uselessly, though she knew she must have managed a nod because a moment later his lips were pressing against her cheek, his touch soft as he pecked her gently, the sound filling her ear. He was surprisingly warm despite the cold night, and she felt a tingle after he had pulled away; her nostrils briefly filled with his dark, woody scent. The fragrance was unfamiliar, though she hadn’t much experience with colognes, and it filled her stomach with butterflies.

“Goodnight…” He whispered, straightening up.

She blinked stupidly in reply. “Yes.”

“Text me when you get home.” He requested, reaching out to tuck untuck the collar of her thick coat, as though protecting her from the cold, before he turned to leave. “I want to make sure you’re safe.”

She nodded, though her voice was suddenly quiet; she felt like a mouse. “I will.”

The driver seemed to be growing inpatient behind the wheel and she gave a final wave as Taehyung set off once more in the direction of the restaurant, briefly turning back to watch her get inside before the car pulled away from the edge of the curb.

PART THREE

Earlier that evening…

“That sounded difficult.” Max smiled, automatically switching to English now they were alone and the apartment was finally silent. The cries from upstairs had only begun to taper off during the past five minutes, and the relief was apparent on Cassandra’s face as she gave a knowing smirk in reply and sat on the sofa, leaning into his touch as he wrapped one arm casually around her shoulder, bundling her against him. “It was the bastard sugar.” She replied in the same language, making him chuckle.

“One won’t hurt him.” He protested lightly. She rolled her eyes dramatically, realising he was taking Taehyung’s side in this.

“As long as you’re the one to stay up with him when he inevitably wakes up at 3am bouncing off the walls…”

He looked at her, holding his palms out with an easy smile. “I offered, didn't I?”

Cassandra looked around the small room, only just noticing. “Is he gone?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I gave him a beer.”

“How chivalrous of you.” She quipped dryly, tucking herself closer, body heavy with exhaustion.

“He seemed stressed.” Max shrugged, mispronouncing the final syllable, drawing it out.

“Yeah…” She murmured, growing silent in thought. “For a second I didn’t think he’d go.” She admitted.

“First dates are scary.” He agreed.

Cassandra pulled back to look up at him, her cheek pressing against his lower chest as she grinned mischievously. “Was it scary dating me?”

He shrugged against her, matching her smile. “You are easy to talk to.” He thought for a moment. “And my Korean is not that good yet.” He added.

“Me neither…”

He grinned, whispering. “You lie.” She laughed softly in reply as he looked at her, tucking a dark lock of hair behind her ear and smoothing her cheek with his knuckles. “I’m very lucky.” He said soberly.

Her mouth twisted in a playful leer. “Oui.”

His smile remained. “Do you feel the same?” He asked.

“Oui.”

He sighed dramatically. “You know my French is no good.”

“Non?” She teased, voice heavily accented.

“Non…” He agreed, bending down to meet her lips in a gentle kiss. He cupped her jaw, opening his mouth against hers and meeting her tongue as it brushed his softly, before pulling away and welcoming the feel of her weight against her body.

“He seems like a good guy.” Max admitted and she shifted against him, eyebrow raised.

“Taehyung?”

He nodded. “He’s good with the baby.” He said, falling silent when she didn’t reply. A thought had been playing on his mind, though he had never asked. Now, the timing seemed right. “Were you ever worried how he would react?”

“To having a baby?” She questioned.

Max gave a sound in confirmation. “He’s young.” He explained.

“Honestly…” She said, shrugging. “Yes.”

“I mentioned us going to see my family in the summer.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

She looked up at him, voice turning stern in disbelief. “You didn’t…”

He moved his shoulders; his shrug shaking her against him. “He was okay with it.”

Cassandra frowned, a little shocked. “Really?”

“He said it was up to you.”

Another eye roll. “How kind of him…”

Max looked at her, observing her expression. “Did you think he’d stop you?” He asked, genuinely curious.

She grew quiet, before answering carefully. “I don’t see how he could.” She gave a small sigh. “We’re not together anymore.”

He couldn’t help but grin, gently touching her nose with his index finger. “Fortunate for me…” He smoothed it along her bridge lovingly before moving to her forehead, trailing it across her skin. “Shall we book the plane?”

She didn’t answer at first, and Max wondered if he should repeat the question, before she chimed in, a little tentatively. “I’m not sure Gabriel could handle the long flight.”

“I flew to Australia when I was his age.” He explained.

She shook her head against him. “I don’t want to put him through it yet.” Her hand reached for his and she held it lightly, hoping he wouldn’t take offence. “Maybe this time you could visit them yourself…until he’s older.”

“We can talk about it later.” He agreed, wrapping his fingers around hers and giving her hand a soft, reassuring squeeze. The sweater she was wearing had ridden down her chest a little, and he eyed her cleavage for a moment, before dipping his spare hand lower to cup a breast. She had closed her eyes, but gave a murmur of approval as he closed his fingers around her flesh, massaging her a couple of times before slipping his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater to brush the cup of her bra.

“Are you sure he’s asleep?” He whispered.

She nodded against him, grumbling sleepily. “For now.”

He dipped lower, sliding beneath the thick fabric to tease a nipple and welcoming her sigh as he brushed the sensitive bud. “Do you want to?” He asked, watching her eyes open.

“Can we do it here?” She asked, pulling away from his body to change position. “I don’t want to wake him.”

“Okay.” He agreed, taking her cue as she laid along the length of the sofa, facing away from him. He tucked himself behind her, already feeling himself stiffen beneath his trousers as she nestled her backside against the forming bulge. She wriggled a little, trying to get comfortable and he groaned in response, unfastening the button on his jeans and letting out an inpatient gasp as she reached behind with one hand to feel him through the fabric. She offered a long, slow squeeze which made him buckle into her grasp, untucking the edge of his boxer shorts as he pulled them down a little to free himself. Reaching around her body, he moved under her sweater, stroking her stomach gently before palming her breast once more through the fabric as she sought out his cock, wrapping her digits around his thickness and jerking him roughly against her covered backside.

“Is this good?” She whispered, keeping her voice low.

“Amazing…” He spluttered. “I’m not hurting you am I?”

“No…” She sighed, tightening her grasp.

“Your nipple is so hard.” He remarked, tweaking it a little through the padding as she unfastened her jeans with one hand, tugging the fabric along with her underwear down just enough to expose herself to him.

“Touch me…” She gasped, moving her hand to his and placing it between her thighs where he smoothed his fingers along the curved outline of her pubis, running through the dark mat of curled hair before dipping between her folds.

“I love your hair.” He whispered against her ear, panting at the sensation as she squeezed along with length.

“My cunt?” She moaned, moving her lower body against his fingers, encouraging him to explore further.

“Yes…” His breath was warm against her face and neck as he kissed the skin there sensually, tongue flicking against her.

“Say it.” She begged.

“I love your cunt.” He repeated back to her, moving his hips in time with her motions, pushing into her palm as the tip slipped across her fleshy backside, humping her.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Cassandra asked, breath catching in her throat.

“Yes…” He pleaded.

“Put your cock in me?”

He groaned loudly in reply and she held him tighter.

“Fill me with your cum?”

His voice hitched as he tried to speak. “Fill you…” He wandered off, giving a final grunt as he spilled himself into her hand, trying to catch his breath as he stilled against her. She realised, too late, what had happened and slowed her motions, uncurling her digits from around him and pulling away.

“God…” Max cried, bending over to kiss her cheek. “You’re so hot.” His voice came in jagged as he murmured against her cheek. “I couldn’t help it.” His eyes moved to her hand and he shifted against her, sitting up on the sofa as she moved around to rest her feet on the floor. “Let me get that…” He quickly offered, reaching for the wet wipes on the coffee table and wiping her digits before she could protest. He bundled the tissue and dropped it absently in the garbage can beside the sofa, pressing his lips back to her face. “You look so sexy.” He mumbled against her cheek, hands moving to squeeze her bare arse cheeks.

Cassandra pulled away, a little sleepily. “So do you.” She reached for her jeans, meaning to pull them back up but he beat her to it, pushing her hand away gently.

“Let me do something for you…”

She watched silently as he knelt on the floor, fitting himself between the sofa and table and looking up at her with wide, blue eyes. His intent was obvious, and Cassandra passively sat back in the chair as he stroked along her thigh, fingering the edge of her clothes and sliding them down her legs. He discarded them on the floor and she placed both feet on the sofa, spreading herself wide for him and watching as he leaned forward. His lips were gentle as they kissed along her labia, holding her open with two fingers and licking her folds with the tip of his tongue. She closed her eyes, blindly reaching for him as he tucked himself closer and stroking the strands of hair at the back of his neck. He moaned in reply to her touch as she held him against her, letting out an approving groan as he kissed her clitoris lightly, peppering it with soft, sucky kisses before focusing on her inner thigh which he showered with equal affection. She felt her eyelids growing heavy and forced them open, wanting to watch and appreciate him as he moved back to her clitoris which he sucked between his lips.

“That’s nice…” She whispered, encouraging him nearer. He wrapped his arms around the backs of her thighs, opening his mouth against her. The moans she gave in response were genuine, though she feared she lacked the energy to reach her peak. Giving a last attempt, she splayed her fingers across the back of his head, holding him to her as he licked across her clitoris in small, circular motions. He groaned once more against her body, clearly enjoying the act, and she hadn’t the heart to ask him to stop. Shifting on the sofa slightly, she let go of his head and ran her fingers lightly through the pale, blonde strands, increasing the sounds of her breathing steadily until she forced a series of raspy, throaty gasps and stilled against him. He pressed a lingering kiss against her inner labia, just above her cunt, and she eased him away gently. He looked up at her with a soft smile and she met it affectionately.

“Thank you.” She whispered, kissing him softly when he moved up her body and opened his lips against hers. “Is it too early for bed?” She asked when he pulled away, stroking his stubbled cheek with her index finger.

He shook his head. “No. Do you want a nightcap?”

She thought for a moment before getting to her feet, bending down for her discarded underwear. “I want to keep a clear head in case Gabriel wakes up.”

He reached for her spare hand and she took it as he pulled her into a loose embrace. “Okay.”

***

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bleachanimefan1 · 3 years

Text

Oblitus Part 35

Brother My Brother

28 Days Left Until Extermination...

Michael was now sitting on the couch in the lobby. He had finished eating his sixth sandwich that Anna had made for him.

"Can I have some more?" he asked. Anna laughed.

"You know, there are other kinds of food besides sandwiches."

"Maybe later then?" Michael suggested.

"Maybe," Anna smiled. "So, how did you make my parents have me when they couldn't?"

"Your parents are still your parents. I just helped give them a little nudge," Michael explained. "I gave them a blessing and here you are!"

"So, is that an angel thing? To give blessings?" Alastor snickered as he leaned against the couch beside Anna.

"I wouldn't be laughing if I were you," Michael smirked. "If I recall, your mother had the same problem as well." Alastor immediately froze. Michael continued, thinking. "Judging from your expression, I've must have hit something. What was her name? Oh, it was Rose Hazbin! So, unfortunate how she died. That would make you her son, correct? Your real name is Alastor Hazbin! You're the serial killer in Louisiana, that was killed in the 1930's due to an unfortunate dog accident!"

Anna's eyes widen as she looked at Alastor. She knew that Alastor really did not liked to talk about his past. Michael was crossing very thin lines at this moment. But, she couldn't help but find it strange that Michael only mentioned Al's mother and not his father. Was he not in heaven with Alastor's mom?

Alastor's eyes began to glow a deep shade of red as he stared at the angel with a strained smile on his face. How dare this charlatan talk about his mother?! He growled, clenching his fist tightly that his nails drew blood as he did. Anna grew tense when noticed a look in Alastor's eyes. She knew that look anywhere. He looked like he wanted to rip the angel sitting beside her in half.

"So, how long does the blessing take for the hotel?" Anna interrupted, sliding in front of Alastor, blocking himself from Michael.

"It'll take a couple of days," Michael replied.

Suddenly, the group heard the front door close. They turned their head to see Charlie walking in, along with her father. As the two of them approached, Lucifer froze when he saw Michael sitting on the couch. Michael gasped as he saw him.

"Luci!" the angel got up from the couch and made a beeline over to him, to hug him. Lucifer stepped to the side and stuck his cane out, tripping the angel instead, making him fall on the floor face first.

"When my daughter said that she had an interesting guest," Lucifer said. "I didn't think she was talking about you. What are you doing here?"

"I suppose, Charlie, told you what happen, right?" Michael groaned, as he sat up from the floor. "It seems our other brother has gotten the wrong idea and thinks that your secretly raising an army to overthrow dad." he explained.

"So, when are you gonna leave?" Lucifer growled.

"I can't on the account of my damaged wing," Michael replied. "Once, it is healed and I give my blessing to the hotel-"

"No, you're not!" Lucifer spatted out, angrily, as michael stared at him with wide eyes in shock. "I don't want any of that shit around my daughter!" Michael cringed as Lucifer continued to curse at him.

"Dad!" Charlie stepped in. "He's trying to help with my hotel program. Why can't you accept that?"

"Oh really? Then where was his help when your grandfather cast me and the others out? Where was he when your grandfather left me and your mother stranded in exile? Hmm?!" Anna and Alastor, who had an amused look on his face, watched as the two went back and forth with each other, arguing.

"Luci, I know anything that I say won't change the past. But, you have to let it go," Michael replied, calmly. Then he looked at him, defiantly. "But, you have to live with your actions. It was you who chose to upset father! It was you who decided to rebel against him! You have no one to blame but yourself!" The next thing, Lucifer slammed Michael against the wall, by his hand on his throat.

"Dad!" Charlie shouted.

"If it wasn't for my daughter standing here right now, I would kill you," Lucifer growled. Then he released Michael from his grip and he fell to floor, coughing as he rubbed his throat. "But, I also don't want to start a war, not with my family is in danger. So, go ahead put up your silly little protection spell. But, stay away from, Charlotte." Lucifer's eyes glowed bright red, angrily as he stared down at Michael. "Do we have an understanding?"

"You're as crazy as ever!" Michael shouted. Lucifer ignored his brother's outburst and turned to everyone else who was in the room, who had come running in to see what the yelling and shouting was about.

"I also have another announcement to make," Lucifer said. "To celebrate my daughter's hotel program, for redeeming half of the clients, we shall have a party! What do you have to say about that?"

Anna stared at the king with an puzzled look. He yells at his brother then decided next that he wants to throw a party? This guy is a loony tune. However, Alastor noticed that there was an suspicious look in Lucifer's eyes for a second as he looked at him then glanced over towards Anna.

Just what was he up to?

It was later on that evening, that the party was held inside of the hotel. Everyone was gathered inside of a large ballroom completely dapper and dressed up. Some demons and clients were dancing and chatting with each other. Niffty and Baxter were dancing with each other. Charlie was talking to her mom, while Angel was wearing an non revealing chest dress for once, to everyone's surprise. He had claimed that he wanted to wear something different for once, but Husk noticed that there was something going on that Angel wasn't telling everybody. But, decided to drop it for now.

Anna wearing the same dress that she wore to sponsor Niffty. She was resting after finishing her last dance with Alastor and was now talking to Michael.

While everyone else was doing their own thing, Alastor was leaning against the wall, looking around the room, watching. Waiting for something to happen. Lucifer decided to approach him as he stood next to him.

"I don't know what you're planning, but-" Lucifer laughed.

"But, nothing Alastor," he smiled, wickedly. "My plan's already in motion."

Alastor's eyes widen when he noticed that Lucifer's pet snake, that was on his hat, was missing.

Where's the snake?!

He saw Lucifer smirk and turned his head in his direction to where he was looking at. Alastor felt everything froze around him as he saw the purple snake, slithering it's way over to where Anna was standing. It opened it's jaws and bit into Anna's ankle. It slithered away as Anna fell backwards collapsing onto the floor. The whole room went silent as everyone gathered around her some screaming while some yelling wondering what had happen. Alastor ran over to her, leaving Lucifer behind who had an evil smirk on his face, as no one noticed it.

"Take her to the infirmary!" Charlie ordered.

A few minutes later, Anna was lying on a bed as everyone gathered around, to hear some kind of news that she would be okay. Baxter was examining her and checking her pulse.

"Is she going to be okay?" Niffty asked, worried.

"Her pulse is weakening and her heart rate is slowing down," Baxter explained. "And her skin feels cold like death."

"But, she's going to be okay, right?" Vaggie asked. "Can't you come up with something to wake her up?"

"I can't if I don't know what caused her to collapse in the first place!" Baxter shouted, frustrated.

"Well, you better think of something quick, Look!" Angel pointed out. Everyone looked back at Anna to see that her skin was turning more sickly, becoming more and more pale to the point it was almost turning to a lighter shade of grey.

"Shit!" Baxter cursed.

"I'll figure out something to slow the process," he told them, walking out of the room to grab more medical supplies. "In the mean time, find out what happened before the accident."

Charlie nodded and everyone left, while Alastor and Lucifer stayed behind. Alastor glared at the fallen angel standing beside him, as they did. Just as the door shut, Alastor pinned Lucifer against the wall.

"What have you done?!" he demanded. Lucifer smiled.

"I've done nothing. That was all you, my dear boy." He smirked evilly. "I just gave a little nudge to speed up the process."

"I swear, if she dies, I'm going to disembowel you!" Alastor threatened. "What do you want?"

"Stop, hotel's program, like we've agreed to. No more of this silly redemption nonsense." Lucifer explained. "In return, I'll give you this-" he pulled out an small apple shaped vial with some yellow colored liquid inside of it. "I'll give you the cure to save her. Do we have a deal, radio demon?"

"And what if Charlie finds out that it's you, or your wife!?" Alastor argued. "And when they do, how do you think they're going to take it? Knowing that you betrayed them, by going behind their backs!"

"They're not going to find out. Because if they do, then I'll just destroy the only thing that can save that woman, lying on her death bed, right now."

"Clock's ticking, Alastor," Lucifer laughed.

#alastor #Hazbin Hotel #Hazbin Hotel OC #Hazbin Hotel Michael #hazbin hotel fandom #charlie magne #Angel Dust #niffty #Baxter #vaggie #radio demon #Alastor's mother #alastor x oc #Fanfiction #angel wings

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timextoxhajima · 4 years

Text

HOSTIS, Chapter VII: Partium, The Party

Previous Chapter (VI: Venerum)

Member: Lee Hyunjae (tbz)

Genre (by chapter): comedy, drama, angst???

Category: Short Novel/Long Series

aphrodite was talking to ares, but it was the wrong ares.

five days of being a real doctor.

patients to take care of. medical records to keep up with.

for awhile, it seemed so quiet; life was nothing but tranquil for the last five days. even lucifer next door seemed so cooped up in his own patients to deal with that he hadn’t really had the time or energy to come and annoy you.

maybe it was zeus’ way of telling you that he was done making two areses play a never-ending war. all the two of you really needed was a reminder that you were both finally in a place you wanted to be. you’ve spent most of your life studying and drowning in words and science to get here; why waste that effort by throwing yourself into a wrestling ring with him?

but zeus also seemed to be petty with how much aphrodite he was offering you.

since eric sent you home last week, you haven’t seen him since. doctor kim hasn’t emailed you or told doctor choi that you were needed in the research department, neither were you available in any given point of time to even go to the research department to look for the intern.

you felt like a young girl who just realised she had the biggest, fattest crush on the cutest guy in school, and not being able to see him was arguably one of the most heart wrenching things you could possibly feel, even at this age.

he was kind, cute, not to mention lively and enthusiastic, and god, those eyes.

your scheduled rounds were about ten minutes away, so letting yourself fall back into the pillows and feathers and wedding bells in your head wasn’t so difficult. you’ve learnt to treat ten minutes like precious treasure despite being a full-fledged doctor for only five days.

the gentle ripples of the piano playing from the stereo behind you loosens all the knots in your shoulders, and your head falls back into the seat with your eyes fluttered shut.

eric son young jae...

ding

one of your eyes open upon the duty call from the office computer, and you notice the newest email coming from another staff member you don’t recognise. giving yourself a little shake, you sit back up and click on the newest email, the contents of it surprisingly not as important as you were predicting it to be.

from: lee sang yeon (asst. head of dept)

to: the neurology dept, the neuro-research dept

subject: the NRD quarterly party

dear all,

every three months in a year, the neurology department (NRD) has a strict tradition of throwing a party to celebrate and congratulate the hard work all the doctors in our department have put in.

in these quarterly parties, we sing cheers to successful operations with high-risk, prestigious achievements and research findings, and new doctors after their 2-week-mentee period has ended.

this year shall not be any different.

despite the NRD’s unofficial events management team having some trouble finding a location to throw our party, we are pleased to share our gratitude to our new doctor, lee hyunjae, for offering his home for this grand celebration.

the party will be held this friday (two days from now) at the following address attached to this email.

do inform either me or doctor choi young joon if you are unable to be present.

thank you, and we see you there!

oh, for fucks’ sake.

of all places?

a soft sigh exhales through your nose and you minimise the window, gathering your pens and patient files to begin on your rounds.

the hallway of the ward spaces come into view once you exit the lift, and you were just about to turn into one of the wards that had three patients in them.

“good morning mrs kang.”

the voice halts you in your tracks, and you back up against the wall so nobody in the ward sees you.

“good morning doctor lee, how are you doing today? your rounds are never this early,” the frail lady, who was your patient, sounded so calm and relaxed; you could almost imagine the look on her face.

you remember the first time you met her. mrs kang was previously doctor choi’s patient, so she first saw you when both you and lee hyunjae were trailing him. she was initially cold and reserved, even to doctor choi, but with the both of you, she looked at you like she was looking at her own children.

“i decided to pop by my patients earlier today to chat with them, see if they understand why they’re really in the hospital,” you hear the clacking of the clipboard that was slotted into a holder at the end of the bed, and for a moment you wonder why he was even bothering himself with your patient. “sometimes older patients don’t really grasp the importance of their health and they just go along with the flow while their kids admit them to the hospital.”

a pause.

“how is mr yoon over there? he’s your patient, right?”

“mr yoon’s doing alright, but he’s definitely had better days,” the clipboard slides back into the slot at the edge of the bed, and you hear his footsteps shift around in the ward. “how are you doing? how’s doctor l/n treating you?”

“oh, she’s wonderful, sometimes i wonder why i couldn’t have two doctors because i’d definitely have the both of you to take care of me in my time here.”

that last line pulled on your heartstrings, and you know it was terribly unprofessional of you to even feel it, but your heart shattered upon her words.

mrs kang was a amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient and she was only deemed as low-risk because doctor choi gave her another year to live; all you had to do was make sure her condition didn’t spiral.

yet, it was difficult to swallow that she was aware her time was limited, and there was nothing she could do about it. if lee hyunjae has read her patient records, then he would know why she said that.

you hear a chair get lifted off the ground and it sets down barely a second later, a soft shuffling motivating you to angle your head into the ward, keeping most of your body outside.

the sight of him sitting by the hospital bed, by your patient, with absolutely no clue you were standing right outside, rippled gentle chills throughout your body. the view was so rare and unfamiliar, the disbelief that filled your chest was almost difficult to contain.

“rest assured, we will stay with you for as long as you need. if doctor l/n or doctor choi isn’t around to attend to you, then i will, alright?”

mr yoon coughs loudly, and lee hyunjae’s attention gets snatched away.

“give me a moment, would you?”

the chair doesn’t make a sound as he carefully gets up and returns to his patient, and you grasp this chance to walk in to avoid creating an awkward situation.

“good morning, mrs kang,” a polite smile automatically surfaces on your lips, and you pick up her records to tally with the one you had. “how are you feeling today?”

“i’ve had better days but definitely better than yesterday. how are you?”

“i’m going to a party on friday night, jealous?”

she scoffs before bursting into soft laughter, the sound of her happiness when you teased her making your heart feel so warm and at ease. your eyes and hands start to wander around her iv drip and her medicine schedule located by the side of her bed, and you could feel her eyes follow your every move while she comes down from her high.

“i met my husband when i went to the craziest party i had in my life,” the little story hugs your heart with warm arms while you click your pen and jot down some routinely checks.

“maybe you’ll meet yours this friday,” her eyes were glistening with such wonder, you had to physically restrain yourself from souring your nose.

“i pretty much already know everybody who’s going to the party this friday,” a pout on your face causes her to chuckle.

“staff party?”

“yeah.”

“maybe you’ll find out that someone you already know is the right one for you.”

“oh, god forbid that happens. i’m fine on my own and i always will be,” a scoff rumbles in the back of your mouth and you side-eye her as you finish up your checks.

“that’s what everybody says until they find the right one.”

you provide her with a small smile, swiftly double-checking all her needs. your pen was jotting down the last round of checks before her attention rides past you.

“goodbye, doctor lee!”

“bye, mrs kang. rest well, and i’ll see you tomorrow when i come to check on mr yoon.”

how was it that the grin on her face was given and caused by lucifer? watching him interact with her so carefully and kindly made you think you’ve just been fighting with a twin brother instead.

there was absolutely no way that it was the same person.

but you couldn’t deny the admiration for his professionalism and his dedication to his job. he didn’t need to care or have such a candid conversation with mrs kang, especially not when she wasn’t even his patient.

not just that, he didn’t even say anything horrible about you.

he could’ve, but he didn’t.

it made you feel slightly guilty, but where there was guilt, there was resent; there was a reminder that he spent half his life trying to mess with yours. his professionalism didn’t warrant any change in attitude from you.

friday comes by in a flash, and the sudden realisation that you were going to be stuck in hell the entire night, pretending like you weren’t, made you want to hurl your lunch.

eric was going to be there, and you haven’t seen him in almost a week. you weren’t entirely sure why though; firstly, because you didn’t ask anybody why you weren’t needed at the research department -- there was no reason to. secondly, doctor kim looked like he was having fun dumping a lot of the tinier pieces of research required on him. so while you were making your rounds and being the doctor you were now, eric was probably suffocating from the mounts of research information doctor kim was allocating him.

you couldn’t remember the last time you decided wearing jeans and a one-sleeved top was a good idea, but you did it anyway. your face was caked with more makeup than you usually wore to the hospital, only because you were ready to let yourself go and really soak yourself in the idea of a party, not caring that everybody there was going to be a qualified neurologist or research officer.

you had one goal tonight, and that was to win your aphrodite over.

the house looked like a set from a horror movie; you know, the one where you walk in thinking everything would be perfect but everybody dies.

maybe it was just your hatred for the owner.

“HEY!” the door swings open when you knock on it, and the unusually loud music was literally making eric scream over the bass thumping throughout the walls of the house. “was just wondering when you’d get here!”

your ankle boots give you an extra height boost, so eric was just slightly above eye level now. he takes the pack of beer from your hands and nods you into the house, a couple of other neurologists you recognise from regularly walking past them greeting you.

“where’s doctor lee?” your voice was literally inaudible, but you could hear the strained vibrations in your throat as he places the pack of beer on the kitchen counter.

“who? oh!” his eyes dart behind you and he tip-toes, craning his neck to look for the person you asked for. “i think he’s in the living room talking to someone!”

the first reaction to his response was to turn around and search for lucifer, wondering who in the right frame of mind would even want to entertain him. but you remember all the love letters he received throughout school, so it wasn’t a surprise when you see him chatting with a female doctor.

his lips were moving, and he was nodding every other second, looking like she was pi telling the story of being stranded in the middle of the ocean.

he suddenly looks up, and your eyes involuntarily lock for a moment. the non-physical contact drills shivers down your spine when you realise the last time you even looked at him was a week ago, when you saw him in the carpark before and after you tripped into eric’s arms.

eric’s voice tears your attention away from lee hyunjae though, and you lean your torso over the kitchen island to watch him fill two cups with punch.

“are you alright with punch?” his eyes look up at you through his lashes, pushing one cup across the table to you. “i normally don’t offer beer to girls.”

a chuckle pulls your lips apart, and the punch washes down your throat easily. “‘normally’, huh?”

he notices the mockery in your voice and he smiles, that gorgeous sight forcing butterflies into you.

"doesn't it feel like it's been forever since we last met?" he gestures for your cup and you slide it back to him.

"it's been a whole week," you pause and walk around the kitchen island so that he wouldn't need to risk spilling the drink all over the surface if he wanted to slide it over again. "my duties officially started this week and doctor kim didn't need us over at the research department."

"ohhhhh, so that's why..."

"you sound disappointed," you rest one hand against the kitchen island, barely keeping an arm's length distance away from him.

"i was looking forward to hanging out with you more, and i considered going over to the neuro department to look for you but i was afraid i was going to be disruptive," he hands you the cup, and you lean one hip on the edge. the drink in the cup was swirling in circles while you watched him fill his own, and from the corner of your eye you catch lee hyunjae talking to another female doctor, this time right at the foot of the stairs near the entrance of the kitchen.

"actually--" he pulls the cup away from his lips just as he was about to take a sip. blinking at him as he whirls around the kitchen before returning with a napkin, pulling out a pen from a drawer that you didn't even know why it was there, he begins jotting down his... number?

"here's my number," the blue ink on the napkin was a little pathetic, but it was adequate for all the digits to show.

you do a little imaginary punch of triumph into the air, your chest feeling a little weightless when he pushes it across the counter to you. "drop me a text and we'll hang out. even after my intern ends, we can totally get a drink together!"

blood and shyness rush up to your face, and you thank the house for having the worst lighting ever to hide your blush.

"my phone's dead and it's rude to ask for someone else's phone to save my number in."

"aw, you're such a sweetheart," the coo that comes off your tongue was packed with innuendo and you push yourself away from the table so you could shove it into your pocket. but the friction between your shoes when you make a misstep pushes you off your balance, you fall again, straight into eric's arms.

because of the slight change in height, eric now has his arm wrapped around your waist. his chest becomes your landing space for your palm, and your legs become softer when you look up through your mascara coated lashes at him.

"you really need to work on your balance."

the butterflies in your stomach intensify their movements when he pulls you up, and your arms were the only thing keeping the two of you apart.

"i do, don't i?" the blaring noise of the music gets cancelled out, and you catch the moment that eric hesitates before he leans forward into you. his chest starts to push your hands over his shoulders and the kiss becomes like a dream.

subconsciously, you start cancelling out the loud music, and for a moment you were grateful that everybody else was probably too occupied screaming at whoever it was they were talking to.

neither of your lips move, making the kiss so soft and warm and fuzzy.

it didn't last very long, but it was long enough for you to taste the bit of beer he probably had before you came.

eric slowly pulls away, his eyes immediately searching for yours to make sure you weren't in any way uncomfortable.

"oh," the realisation sinks in, and his hold around you loosens. "i'm sorry, i didn't--"

"no, no, it's fine," he releases you, and you suck your lips between your teeth, slightly desperate to taste the rest of him in your mouth.

"i'm... i'm gonna go catch up with the other... people," the effort to try to mask his embarrassment was so astoundingly adorable, you couldn't resist the large smile that broke out on your face. "i'll catch you later."

he gives you an awkward wave as he runs off, and you turn your body to look for the pack of beer you brought. your mind relentlessly throws you back to that kiss and you replay it a billion times in your head, the alcohol in the beer only making you fall more in love with something that was already over.

"hey, doctor l/n, right?"

the voice was unfamiliar, and you look up to see someone you've only seen in pictures in doctor choi's office.

"oh, yes, i am," hurriedly gulping down the beer in your mouth, you put the can down and pat your palm on your jeans. "i'm guessing you're... doctor lee sang yeon?"

he nods and offers to shake your hand, which you gladly take. there was a can of beer in his free hand as well, and it felt like he deliberately displayed it to you so you wouldn't feel too awkward.

"mhm, my apologies that i haven't been around to welcome you and... doctor lee hyunjae, was it?"

ew.

"oh, right, yeah."

"i was away the last two weeks because i was hired as a short term lecture in a local med-school."

“that’s so cool,” the beer can finds your lips again and you take a big gulp.

you spend easily the next hour talking to sang yeon, who you found out was the hospital’s youngest assistant department head.

not only that, he even praised your research work. apparently, doctor kim had already read both yours and lucifer’s research reports and both provided him with fascinating results.

but what was even more gratifying was that lee sang yeon never said a word about lucifer’s report. drinking beer while listening to sang yeon talk about your report was like eating sugar or a tub of ice cream.

most of the night was reserved for talking to lee sang yeon, looking out for eric and seeing his bright smile whenever he catches you looking at him. occasionally, doctor kim would come round the kitchen looking for more beer, but doctor choi was always around to stop him.

the night slowly settles in, and you could tell it was getting late when some of your colleagues who you just met began to leave the house.

you would’ve too, but eric was still here.

worry and displeasure start to creep up on you like mike on halloween when you spot lucifer talking to eric, but judging by the smile spread across his face, lucifer wasn’t doing much besides making the little puppy happy.

one of your colleagues was going off about one of her patients the previous year, so your attention felt so oddly torn.

nonetheless, it was slightly sickening to know that though aphrodite was talking to ares, it was the wrong ares.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter VIII: Invidia

#hyunjae #the boyz fanfic #hyunjae fanfic #lee hyunjae #the boyz #the boyz hyunjae #timetohajima

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paperficwriter · 4 years

Text

A Deer Dance (Charlastor, Hazbin Hotel)

Alastor is a deer demon, and while he's never been lonely, he's not going to say no to a little doe that seems as interested in him as he with her.

Dirty Paper warning!

---

Living or dead, Alastor always did like to believe that he was one of a kind. The best of the best, and a step above the rest. And, in many ways, he was right; when he compared himself to other radio personalities, or home chefs, or, now, demon lords, that knowledge that he was better would add a skip in his step and the huge smile on his face.

He wondered if that gap that remained open between him and everyone else was the reason why his appearance was so different here. He’d never seen another deer demon before. All of the other shapes of demonic beasts were represented, certainly. Wolves. Bears. Goats. God, so many goats, it had ruined any dish with meat or milk that he might come across.

There were rumors of others, but perhaps his presence, his power, had sent them all into hiding.

That would make sense. Alastor didn’t particularly appreciate being shown up (and most denizens across the Nine Circles were more than aware of that). Just his average appearance - his dashing suit, the cloven prints of his shoes, the long fluffy tufts of his hair and his sharp-toothed grin - parted many a crowd, but in his true demonic form with its rack of horns and dead-eyed, sharp-toothed leer, most hoped to just survive the encounter.

But it was in his fairly casual shape that he went to Mimzy’s Club for a colorful event that she was hosting that particular evening. The Burlesque Revue had been all the talk across the city for several weeks before, something that was supposed to combine the lurid fantasies that were commonplace in this corner of Hell with something a little more artistic.

“Listen, if there’s gonna be stripping, ain’t nobody gonna say no to that,” he had heard one demon say as they looked at the poster of one particularly long-legged dame with a boa around her shoulders. “If they wanna make it fancy, s’alright by me, just so long as they take it all off at the end, yeah?”

There certainly wasn’t any proof that Alastor had set the unbearable dolt on fire. People combust all the time in Hell!

After all, the concept alone sounded entertaining enough for Alastor, that was for certain, but what really intrigued him the most was the rumor that the whole thing was being hosted to bring attention to some hospitality project being taken on by the Princess of Hell herself, Charlotte Magne. And if she was anything like the classical piece of art her mother Lilith was on stage, he did not want to miss this for anything.

Mimzy clearly had tried to doll up the place. There were fairy lights everywhere, and thick drapes of black and red velvet scooped down from each pillar along the edge of the club floor. An entire area had been elevated into a stage and that was littered with props and poles and bars.

“Al!” Mimzy gushed as soon as he came in, rushing over to take both of his hands. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. These people are annoying the shit out of me. I forgot how the artsy crowd could be such a bunch of divas.”

“Mim, Mim, Mim,” he tutted, “I think you just described the entire population of the here-after. The artists just happen to have practice, don’t you know?”

They laughed about that, and then someone spoke up behind him, a young, sweet voice that was so different from the raucous roar he was used to that it was almost startling. “Hey, Mimzy, I’m so sorry to bother you. Can we get a little more light on stage left?”

“What do I look like, an electrician?”

“No, but the electrician snuck into one of the dancer’s dressing rooms, and I’m pretty sure he won’t be waking up anytime soon.”

Mimzy sighed as Alastor turned to the source of the voice. “I’ll get right on it, Princess,” she groused before disappearing.

And there she was. The Heir to the Throne of Hell. What had Alastor been expecting? Someone dressed like Lucifer, probably, a mess of over-the-top vaudevillian aesthetic and an extremely untrustworthy face. And yet somehow, that horrible cretin had helped to birth the most beautiful creature Alastor had ever laid his eyes on. Even if it had just been the classy black dress, the diamonds in a cascading pattern down her neck, the silver apple tiara atop her blond hair styled in a gorgeous updo...all that would have been more than enough to catch Alastor’s attention, but then...

“Charlie. Please.” She said it like it was one of a thousand times she had insisted. And although Mimzy was already gone, her ears perked at Alastor.

Her slightly furry, tear-drop shaped ears, and a tail turned up behind her where the dress had been perfectly cut to let it out.

Another demon just like him. No, not just like him. A doe.

“Well,” he greeted with a low bow. “I’m glad I won’t be making that mistake. I will never call you by a name that is not your preference, my dear.”

She giggled into her hand, covered by a long opera glove that matched the black of her dress. “I appreciate it. And you must be Alastor. Unless you prefer ‘the Radio Demon’?”

Oh, she was a quick one. Not that Alastor was ever good at flying under the radar. “I would prefer ‘yours,’ actually.”

That got an even darker blush from her already-rosy cheeks. Her tail twitched a little bit. “That’s a title that comes with many responsibilities, Alastor,” she said through a little smile, clearly trying to keep up with him.

“Where do I send my resume, darling, because I’m always looking for a job with better benefits.”

“Well, you certainly know how to dress to impress.” Charlie bit her lip as she glanced at him up and down. Alastor knew when he was being sized up, and he let her take him in, knowing already that she was having the same response to him as he had to her. You’re someone like me, her eyes said. After so long.

“Maybe in this case,” he said quietly, stepping in close to her. “I should have left the suit at home. After all, you should dress for the job you want, shouldn’t you?”

Charlie leaned in. This close, he could see all the soft strands of fur on her ears, the pink inside. He wanted so, so much to touch them, but...not yet. There would be time and privacy for that yet. “I’d really like to continue this interview,” she whispered, “but as you can see I have a revue to oversee.”

“After, then,” he said, slipping her hand into his and cradling it. So small. Delicate. “I have a tower with an extremely quaint office overlooking the city. It’s quite comfortable, you’ll find.”

She nodded, voice breathless. “After.”

---

Charlie let Alastor take her home. If anything, Alastor thought he noticed her speed up a bit through her acknowledgements and post-show credits, now and then glancing his way. Nobody else would notice, but he could see the way her tail was flashing, how she wanted to run.

Run to him, no less.

And she did, in the huge fluffy stole that she had worn on stage after her act when her dress had been taken off and then pulled back on only as a skirt, her pale skin just showing though her breasts were hidden. He had never driven himself faster back to his Radio Tower.

The only person down in the “lobby” was Husk, and he was playing a computerized slot machine that he had won in a game with Alastor (though to be fair, Alastor let him win, because otherwise he threatened to leave altogether, and one piece of infernal technology was payment enough for service he could count on).

“Don’t wait up, Husker-chum,” he said, Charlie on his arm.

“Why the fuck would I literally ever care what you are do...do...” He trailed off in that moment. Husk had looked up momentarily from the game, catching a glance at Charlie, and his mouth just stayed in that same ‘o’ until they were in the elevator. Then, as though realizing that the moment Charlie went upstairs with Alastor it would all be over, he fell over himself running toward the quickly-closing doors. “Hey, what’s the rush?!” he asked hastily. “Let’s hang out! The night’s young! We can get some drinks or hit a bar or--” Alastor snapped his fingers, and the doors refused to open, even as he hit the button. “I’m not always great with sharing,” he said as Charlie was quietly laughing into the fur around her neck.

“Good,” she said, dropping the wrap to the red floor. She stood before him now with nothing but diamonds from the waist up, blinking at him bashfully despite the fact that she was the one who had made this quite-forward, more-than-brazen move. In the mirrored wall of the elevator, he could see her tail, soft and twitching just so. Now, now he did reach out to caress it, to run his long fingers through it. She shivered and instinctively huddled close to him. “So what were you saying about your qualifications before?”

As much as he had planned to continue their little tete-a-tete, it was hard to manage at the sight of her so natural. He pulled her out of the elevator when they reached the top floor and made quick work of getting her out of the rest of the dress. He dragged his mouth across her thigh, the little freckles there looking like the same pattern on young does.

At some point, his antlers sprang from his head, creaking slightly like branches over them, and when she sprang to his boudoir, he didn’t know how she would respond to his coming up from behind her, grabbing her waist and pressing in tight and close where she could feel the bulge in his pants.

He didn’t think she would moan and raise her tail to him, inviting him inside.

It wasn’t the only way they would have one another that night, but it was the most intense. The most instinctive, the best and only way he could imagine fucking in this form of his that he had gained. They didn’t speak, not even each other’s names, and yet he felt like he had known her for eternity before that, and that she wasn’t some mysterious woman that had just happened to fall into his life.

They didn’t even kiss until that first round was over, when she was gasping and clutching at the covers of his four-post bed, and he had nuzzled her face until it met his.

“I think,” she said softly, sometime quite a while later, her head on his chest, gold hair now free and messy all over his sheets, “we might have a position available for you.”

“Only one?” he teased as he rolled her onto her back and came back down to kissing her neck.

#my paper fics #hazbin hotel #charlastor #charlie magne #alastor #dirty paper warning #dirty paper

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svitia · 4 years

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hi hello hey here’s a couple of quick oc run downs while i still set everything up

◈ clovis is bazett’s cousin that took over the fraga family when bazett left. after hearing word that bazett died, clovis summons berserker (alter cu chulainn) to fight in the holy grail war; only there’s a lot of shit wrong going on. clovis suffers from a lot of insecurity & abandonment issues as well as abuse she dealt with as a child.

◈ elisaviol is a homunculus created by the gressil family using a mix of alchemy and necromancy. the gressil’s are a small magus family that held a lot of hatred towards the eizberns. her existence in stay night kicks off an early apocrypha war.

◈ seri is basically a gudako replacement in fate/grand order. though, their personalities are completely different.

◈ athanasia is the daughter of leonardo in an alternate universe and master in the fate/extra setting.

◈ sae is the lieutenant of the 13th division and an anomaly. they were found one day in one of the districts in rukongai because of their insanely large reiatsu. it was a bit of goose chase for awhile as sae learned to conceal their reiatsu and hide away in the woods with a couple of orphans they picked up. they were caught not long after taking an asauchi off a shinigami in order to protect one of the kids they picked up. sae is a genius despite their laziness & habit of falling asleep in the craziest place; they tend to gear more towards long range than short range.

◈ tsuyoshi was born through one of orochimaru’s experiments with hatake and tenro (not based on the game) dna. they escaped the lab they were stationed at with their older half brother shitsurai and caretaker mitori at the age of 5 but were found and taken in by konoha’s anbu and placed in (incredibly) kakashi’s care. they have a kouton (steel release).

◈ silla mysterious student and leader of the white dragon house which is aligned with the church. seems to be related to rhea in some way.

◈ sigyn known more commonly on asgard as hylla who grew in the realm of light elves, alfheim, as the half-elf, half-asgardian daughter of freya and eldrinn. her mother, who once trained and led the valkyries, fled to alfheim in sorrow and grief after hela’s massacre. freya fell in love with king eldrinn, eventually having hylla. hylla was loved and adored by her mother, father and the people of alfheim. she is bound to loki by fate. when she becomes the asgardian equivalent of 18 she moves to asgard. as her mother’s daughter she’s skilled in the art of magic and war.

◈ kira a powerful psionic mutant taken into xavier's school for gift children at a young age. her power rivals jean grey's, whom kira dates in their teenage years. she's the host for the cosmic entity kishin who amplifies her powers. kishin originally wished to destroy the world; feeding on kira's hatred for it when she was younger due to the abuse she'd gone through and the societal stigmatism against mutants- but as kira grows older and learns to be more of a person instead of a weapon, loving the world and all the good in it, kishin's morality shifts along with her. kira travels the world with logan.

◈ asha an omega level mutant with the power to create, shape, and manipulate aura; she was found by charles during the events of the movie first class using the cerebro. asha is extremely protective of the younger mutants brought in and acts as something like the team mom. out of all the recruits, she seems to be the one to have the most control over her powers and isn't afraid of them either, making her a powerful asset. her abilities allow for an incredible wide range of capabilities from enhance her own and other's strength to healing to telepathy and so on. her powers are based off the seven chakras.

◈ astaroth is a fallen archangel now archdemon of hell and twin sibling of asmodeus as well as the older sibling of the archangel anael. lives on earth with john constantine. they can shapeshift between male and female forms depending on their mood. goes by the human names venus and david constantine. asmodeus and them are able to grant wishes similar to djinn (judaism) and are the embodiment of lust.

◈ lyta demigod daughter of ares. spent a lot of her life unknowingly feeding off the anger of other people until it drove her mad. lived her life as a pawn for her father's plans to destroy wonder woman but wanted to part of it. after a long drawn out fight with wonder woman ending her lyta's defeat, she disappeared and was never heard of again for months. she turned up again, alongside red hood, starfire and arsenal, joining their team of outlaws. her and jason are currently in a relationship as well as the both of them flirting with tim drake. lyta has similar powers to her father; superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and endurance, being able to summon and control any weapon, as well as minor necromancy.

◈ nezha born zahra al ghul, known among the league of assassins as al sahira. the daughter of ra's al ghul. her parents sold her to ra's in order to repay debts they owed and growing up under the assassin's tutelage is all she's ever known. she's a decade younger than talia but the two were often pitted against each other and grew to see the other as nothing but competition. before damian was born, nezha was an unfeeling killing machine who held no remorse for her targets. unlike talia who seemed to grow no maternal instincts during the birth of her son damian, nezha grew it in her stead. nezha became extremely doting and protective of damian and in the process gained a something of a conscious and a moral compass. nezha later swore her allegiance to damian, acting as a retainer for the young boy as well as something of an older sister figure in his life. she helped damian to gotham and with meeting his father. when damian became robin, nezha stayed with him at the wayne mansion.

◈ azrael deserter of heaven. she loved michael and lucifer so much their fight brought her to depression. during the war she faked her death and hid among humans for centuries. azrael resurfaces after fallen in love with a sickly human; bending laws in order to keep him alive. sadly because she was attracting the attention of heaven and hell & she was pregnant with a nephilim, azrael had to part ways with her human and allow him to die. leaving her and her son to travel the world hiding from angels and demons.

◈ marcia formerly from a big and notorious hunting family, the clarks, marcia went into hiding to live a normal life after finding out her mother was actually her aunt and that her birth mother died in order to fulfill azrael contract and make marcia one of the special children who would become apart of lucifer’s army. marcia was unknowingly given small doses of demon blood all throughout her life until she turned 18 and found out the truth. when she left her family she went to school to become a doctor. when her husband dies from a demon attack, she goes back to hunting.

◈ bilith was once considered the weakest of the princes of hell until she developed a bit of cannibalistic tendencies towards demonkind. she gets stronger the more she absorbs other demons; taking their powers as well. bilith never had an interest in human souls, and only cared about knowledge and strength. she’s the only demon who’s been on earth the longest, making contracts with witches, hunters and humans alike but instead of their souls she’d traded them for a valuable/powerful item; growing her collection of trinkets. during her time on earth she developed an order of hunters that focuses on collecting magical artifacts known as the shield of saint benedict (who was known to protect against moral corruption and supernatural dangers)-- to outsiders they claim they are protecting humanity from dangerous magic items but in truth they hand them over to bilith in exchange for favors, these hunters capture any demons they hunt and bring them back for bilith to absorb. bilith doesn’t damn the hunters to hell either or bother taking their souls, the items they bring her sufficing for they’re deals. still, with all the powers she’s gained over the years she’s still rightfully terrified of lucifer, lilith and azazel and despite her confidence is quite a coward when it comes to them.

#❛ 𝐢. oh no i’ve lost touch with reality again ! ( 🍒 ) ooc.

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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I always thought Anna said "only an angel can kill an angel" because the idea that a human (or anything else) could ever obtain an angel blade was so ridiculous, they didn't even consider it. As for Cas not knowing who was killing angels, I now personally interpret that Cas was such a blind soldier (or recently back from obedience training with Naomi) that the idea a fellow angel would be working against them just didn't compute until he saw it for himself. Shaky, I know, but it's all I got 😜

Confession: I am watching 4.16 AT THIS MOMENT. As I type this. It’s on the tnt loop this morning :’D

First off, it’s not Anna who says that line, it’s URIEL. Aka, the antagonist of this episode:

URIEL: Alastair was much more powerful than we had imagined.CASTIEL: No. No demon can overpower that trap. I made it myself. We've been friends for a long time, Uriel. Fought by each other's sides, served together away from home, for what seems like forever. We're brothers, Uriel. Pay me that respect. Tell me the truth.URIEL: The truth is, the only thing that can kill an angel...A blade slides out of URIEL's sleeve into his grasp.URIEL: ...is another angel.

What Anna says, before she stabs him:

CASTIEL: You can't win, Uriel. I still serve God.URIEL: You haven't even met the man. There is no will. No wrath. No God.Between each phrase, URIEL punches CASTIEL. The last time, he raises his fist and is stabbed through the neck from behind.ANNA: Maybe. Or maybe not. But there's still me.

I just wanted that clarified, because it does change the tone of the line, and informs how much stock we should put into that judgment, you know? Considering the level of manipulation Uriel employed throughout s4 to this point, it’s pretty blatantly Part Of The Grand Plan, and therefore should be examined critically because of that. Uriel... wasn’t stating this as a blatant fact, but more in the way of a villain monologue confession “Yes, ’twas I that burned down the house!” sort of deal, you know? Okay, back to the actual question! :D

My working theory is “It’s Chuck’s fault.” I mean, the show just confessed that everything bad is actually Chuck’s fault. But it’s kinda been saying that since s4, too. Yes, a lot of s4 (and 4.16 really began this framing) as “a betraying element in Heaven who sided with Lucifer causing dissent and disobedience among the angels, but when asked, all the angels and archangels stated their reason for going forward with the apocalypse was that it was God’s Will, you know? This was the Grand Plan. But it went deeper than that, too.

When asked why now, and when Dean asked why me, the answer at the bottom of it all was because I’m tired. Raphael in s6, Gabriel in s5... they just wanted it all to be over. They were tired of trying to understand and live by God’s Grand Plan.

But Gabriel has also said, in 5.08: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you?Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.

It was always gonna be Dean and Sam. Gabriel started messing with them years earlier. We know Chuck began writing the Supernatural books at the beginning of the series, with The Woman In White, but that he’d been setting things in motion for the apocalypse to happen since long before that, at least as far back as 1973. Or possibly the earliest timeline point in canon-- When Sam met Samuel Colt and Dean killed a phoenix with it in 1863. You know, Chuck had to set all that up if wanted Sam and Dean to actually have a chance of releasing the Leviathans, you know?

Even the orders Chuck supposedly left the angels with when he flapped off for parts unknown long before the start of canon were contradictory, forcing them to choose which set to follow. Cas’s line has always been that the purpose of angels was to watch over humanity, while other angels (Michael, Raphael, et al) have always insisted that their purpose was to enact the apocalypse to bring God back to the world. So what did Chuck actually tell the angels? BOTH things are probably true. The angels CHOSE what to do with the time that was given to them, and Cas always chose humanity, while others always chose obedience to the Grand Plan to end it all. It was still always a CHOICE. Even 5.22 framed it as a choice-- Lucifer told Michael they could just walk away, but Michael was convinced that they had to go through with the fight because it was destined. He could’ve chosen differently, but everything that had led him to that point had convinced him that he was making the right choice in fulfilling that destiny. Only TFW overrode that choice.

Because Chuck manipulated EVENTS and SITUATIONS. And then left the choices to PEOPLE. He reminds me so much of Ruby in s4: I just gave you the options, and you chose the right path every time.

We’ve seen the mind-boggling level at which Chuck can manipulate events and people-- snapping his fingers and everyone on the planet can just lie again. But compare what he is willing to snap his fingers over, and what he makes excuses for and refuses to snap his fingers over. And what he ACTIVELY MANIPULATES into being despite his stated intentions, you know?

He actively manipulated 4.18 into being. Yes, it was Ruby manipulating Sam throughout s4 into total reliance on her, total alienation from Dean, and making him believe that her way was the only way to “stop Lilith.” She’d stated it from the start, from s3, that the only thing she wanted was “Lilith dead.” And that was TRUE. She just... dodged telling them the WHOLE truth.

I think Chuck is very much the same. Very much the angels in s4 and s5 like Zachariah who “avoided certain truths to manipulate you.”

And in retrospect, Chuck would’ve had the power to just snap his fingers and make every angel just forget they had an angel blade for half a year (or a year, or even several years as he ramped up the events of the apocalypse). But he also could’ve snapped his fingers and made the angels content to watch over humanity for an eternity, you know?

Because the real question Sam and Dean shouldn’t have been asking wasn’t “Why Us?” The real question was “why NOW?” If all of these events had been destined since the beginning of time, why was Heaven and Hell scrambling to make it all happen now?

Cupids had to make John and Mary Winchester meet, fall in love, and produce Sam and Dean. Demons had to interfere throughout Sam’s life (we learned from Lucifer in 4.22). And events of s2 had to be arranged to push Dean to sell his soul for Sam in 2.22, but really it had been the events of Dean’s entire life that had prepared him to actually do so.

The entire apocalypse could’ve fallen apart if ANY of these things hadn’t happened in the prescribed order, you know? Which we saw the proof of in 14.13. One wish on that pearl that pulled John out of his original timeline before the beginning of canon as we know it was enough to undo the work of angels and demons. The apocalypse just... never happened in that wish-changed universe.

So for something that was “always destined to happen,” it was shockingly easy to undo, you know? Just like Zachariah had the power to implant false memories in Dean and Sam in 4.17, just like Gabriel had the power to force them to “play their roles” in tv show after tv show, that’s kind of what Chuck’s been doing their entire lives.

In 5.08, Gabriel didn’t force words into their mouths, you know? He didn’t dictate what they would choose. Their free will remained intact. He was just nudging them to make the choices he wanted them to by dropping them into specific situations. And they still resisted, still kept trying to find another way out. I really do think 5.08 is an excellent metaphor for just how Chuck has been meddling in their lives all along (and again, that aspect of Chuck is very “Gabriel,” you know? He does have the other archangels’ characteristics as well, but his Chuck persona-- the part of him that waffled and denied he had the power to fix anything in 11.20-11.23, the part that taught himself guitar and wants to be pals with creation-- is basically Advanced Gabriel.

And just... deciding the angels shouldn’t have swords for a while could’ve just been an “interesting writing choice” for him at the time. Maybe he just wanted to see what would happen. Maybe he thought taking away their main weapon would make it easier to bring on the apocalypse.

Because I’m sitting here watching Alastair nearly killing Cas right now, and I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that in that situation, if Cas had an angel blade, he wouldn’t have pulled it out and stabbed Alastair with it. Instead he relied on Ruby’s knife to inflict pain on Alastair, even though it wasn’t able to actually kill Alastair. But an angel blade WOULD’VE killed Alastair, you know? And in theory, it would’ve killed Lilith, too...

During a season where most of the angels truly believed they were trying to STOP the apocalypse from happening (only a few knew the true plan, confessed by Zachariah in 4.22), if there HAD been a confrontation between an angel and Lilith before the end of the season, it would’ve been a matter of a bit of a stabbing and then BOOM no apocalypse, ever.

And this whole situation that Uriel created in 4.16 was framed as “we must stop the demon responsible for killing the angels!” As if his secondary plan was simply to foment dissent and distrust among the angels while intensifying the drive to battle the armies of Hell.

And through all of this, Cas’s lesson via Anna is about learning to choose for himself, to think for himself. Basically... he’s learning how to be human, and what it means to have free will.

It’s only after he’s resurrected by Chuck in 5.01 that he suddenly has an angel blade again. And it’s only after that point that ALL the angels suddenly have them. When NONE of them had angel blades throughout the entirety of s4.

So when Uriel said that in 4.16 (which... I’m literally watching that scene RIGHT NOW), I think it was literally true. Uriel had the only angel blade in existence as of that moment.

#spn 4.16 #spn 4.22 #spn 4.17 #spn 5.08 #spn 5.22 #spn 4.18 #spn 11.20 #if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #supernatural weapons #that's what free will is #Anonymous

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i-llbedammned · 5 years

Text

Memories of the Fall

Title:Memories of the Fall

Word Count:1,963

Summary: Despite being a demon for thousands of years, Crowley is still haunted by the memories of the Fall from grace. He normally does such a good job of hiding it, but Aziraphale happens to walk in at the wrong moment and senses something is wrong.

Link to Ao3 is here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20146882) or read the fic below the cut.

Screaming. The first thing Crowley was aware of was that there was an awful lot of screaming around him. Wait. Not around him. Coming from him. The sound of screaming that seemed to blot out all of existence was coming from his own throat. He barely recognized it with how ragged it sounded.

The next thing he was aware of was the tremendous cold feeling of falling. One moment he was up in the clouds and the next he was screaming, falling through more time and space than he had ever imagined existed before. His stomach jumped up into his throat as he tried to bat his wings desperately but fruitlessly against the inexorable pull of the ground. The last thing he was aware of was the pain. Every artist liked to portray the turning of an angel’s wings to demons as pretty, but most of what he was aware of in the moment was pain. With each feather that turned black it felt like someone pulling out slowly each tuft and then forcibly inserting another one into his skin. It was like needles being plunged into the most delicate parts of his body and that was before the impact hit him.

As the ground rushed up towards him, he fell not into it but instead through it. He just kept falling til an icy plane came up to greet him, smashing against his wings and face. Silvery blood poured from his lips and skin as it scraped along the ice, his wings were so twisted that it took months to get them properly straightened out and healed. This was long before he realized that he still retained the ability to do miracles even in a demonic state. Hell, the term demon didn’t even exist yet. He was just a lost, fallen angel trying to make sense of the world.

After laying there on the ice for a few moments he ascertained that he was indeed not dead and instead something else. He stood up and saw that all around him were friends in a similar state of disarray. Hastur was still screaming, clawing at his once beautiful skin as it oozed with pus and grime. Beezlebub stared in a stunned state, clearly barely registering that all of this was even happening as flies crawled over her flesh and into her ears- too stunned to even bat them away. And there at the center of them all was Lucifer himself, lovely faced with large swooping bat wings and the fury of a man who knows the system he had served previously was unjust. His rage coalesced around him and he threw chunks of ice at the nearest hapless victims, trying to make anybody pay for what had just happened. Fear lanced through Crowley as he tried to figure out what had changed about his form. There was no smell of rot about him nor extra limbs that grew. He combed over every inch of skin, finding patches of black scales which in retrospect didn’t seem that bad. He could have been the demon with maggots crawling from their skin eternally.

Wait, what was that?

A glint of gold caught his eye in the ice below him. Looking through the warped image, he stared at the face he thought was his own. But his eyes were all wrong. Instead of swirling with the energies of the galaxies they had gone matte gold and slitted. Hissing he turned away and covered his eyes with his hands, finding that the hissing sound went on far longer than he intended it to. It was then he figured out how far his punishment would go. One hand touched the ice as he struggled to get away from his own reflection and it became stuck there, frozen fast in the mire. In panic he tried to pull it away and instead it detached from his shoulder. With his remaining hand he tried to pry it loose, but then his left foot touched the ice and became fixed there. One by one his limbs started falling off, becoming frozen in the ice as he tried to move. More and more scales grew over his skin as his pleas for help became gargled hissing. No, no. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! He was supposed to be a goddamned angel!

Gasping Crowley sat straight up in bed, covered in a thin layer of sweat. In fear he checked his limbs, ascertaining that they were all still there. Also he was no longer in an icy hellscape, but instead a rather cozy bed with black sheets in a flat in London. His heart raced in his chest and the world felt like it was going to cave in on him at any second. Logically he knew he was safe, but memories were not tied to logic.

The dreams of the fall never got any easier. You would think they would at least get less frequent as the years went on, but no. One of the many hidden punishments of falling was never being able to forget the fact that you had betrayed everyone you had formerly sworn to serve. It was enough to make him never want to sleep, save for the odd hours where he got bored enough to wonder if anything about them had changed. They didn’t, for the record. They never did.

“Hello?” He heard a familiar call at his doorstep and his blood ran cold. No, damnit, not his angel. What was he even doing here at-What time was it anyway? Crowley looked around the room and saw the clock read 11.

Okay so maybe he had overslept, that still didn’t mean he wanted Aziraphale to see him so panicked. Then he would want an explanation and that wasn’t something Crowley thought he had words for. But what could he do?

“Hello, Crowley. I know you said not to bother you for a few days after the Apocalypse, but there is a lovely play going on-“ Started Aziraphale, shuffling around something in the living room.

“Hey, angel,” the demon growled from his bedroom, “Now is not the best time. I think this mortal shell is sick.”

“Sick? Crowley you haven’t gotten sick in two hundred years.” The sound of the angel’s light footsteps were coming down the hall.

“Yeah, I know. It’s unlikely, but I am pretty sure it is tuberculosis and still contagious.” He fired off quickly, only remembering that tuberculosis wasn’t a plague in London in this century after he said it.

“Tuberculosis? I can fix that!” Aziraphale said brightly from right outside his door and Crowley raced to his feet, throwing his weight against the wood. The feeling of a divine miracle washed over Crowley with a familiar itchy burning sensation.

Of course the angel had tried to miracle away the disease. The door began to move and was only stopped by one large demon slumped against it.

“Crowley, your door is stuck.” Aziraphale sounded pleasantly confused but patient, “I’m going to have to push it really hard to get through. Hold on.”

“No really, it’s quite al-“ began Crowley trying to control the panic in his voice, but soon found himself punched in the face with his own door as Aziraphale shoved it backwards and sent him sprawling. Sometimes he forgot that the chubby angel who loved books and cake was a trained soldier capable of great feats of strength which in this case included shoving one stubborn snake demon away from his own door.

“There we go!” Aziraphale proudly beamed, looking at Crowley’s bed at first and then confusedly at the floor where Crowley lay, pitifully holding on to his own head and bringing his body up into a curled ball. “My dear, what are you doing down there?”

Steadying his breath, Crowley said into his own knees, “Oh you know, just enjoying the view.”

“I-“ The angel’s voice stopped as he reflected, no doubt feeling the traces of panic at the edges of Crowley’s emotions. Damn him and his god-given gifts. “Crowley, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m just hungover, that’s all.” He barked, now climbing to his feet and never letting his gaze settle on something for more than a few seconds. CD player, Dresser, Bed – where was a safe spot to look.

“We both know neither of us get hungover. We just sweat out the alcohol.” A soft hand reached towards Crowley and that would be too much right now, so he moved towards the bed and pretended not to see it.

“I know. Normally I do, but I wanted to know what it felt like. It feels awful, by the way.” The demon took a spot on the bed, flopping down roughly on his stomach and burying his face in his pillows.

“If you don’t want to talk then you don’t have to, but at least look at me. My dear, it is like you are another person right now.” The sound of his bed shifting as the angel sat next to him and touched his shoulder. Oh no. Here it came. The revulsion and hatred for his betrayal. “I- Oh!” Aziraphale’s voice changed, softening and becoming delicate. Crowley could swear he heard a tinge of shame in there as well. It was easy enough to look past the fact that he was a demon most days, but he just knew this would be the line for his ineffable partner. It was one thing to hear someone was demon, it was another to feel the emotions from the fall from grace.

Without saying more he grabbed ahold of Crowley’s hand, petting it softly. That was all. It was such a simple gesture, but the wave of love that the demon felt in response was enough to overwhelm his senses. Stupid Aziraphale and his delicate hands, treating him with a wonderful care that someone like him didn’t deserve. The angel just held his hand and waited, his care showing in the touch of his fingertips as he gently stroked up and down the muscles. He just held his hand and waited, his care showing in the touch of his fingertips. The tenderness was enough to finally break the demon, causing tears to start sprouting which were blessedly hidden by the dark cloth on the pillow in front of him. It was the pain of the fall and the torment of forgiveness that tore at his heart and made it ache like a hole had been torn in it. However this pain was not filled with panic, just a wave of emotions. Whatever he had done, or hadn't done, to deserve this companion made all of this pain worth it.

“Angel, you don’t need to dirty your hands with mine. Not this time. I’ll be fine, really.” Crowley halfway mumbled, hoping it sounded stronger than he felt and knowing that he failed badly at keeping that hidden.

“They could never be dirtied by touching you. There is such a profound pain that you carry gracefully.” To emphasize his point, the hand was raised to his lips and a tender kiss was placed upon the knuckles. “My poor dear, I don’t know how you walk with such a hole in your chest.”

“I don’t,” Crowley laughed, bitterly, “I slither for a reason, angel.”

That was all that needed to be said, at least for the moment. Love was not always trying to fix the problems, but simply being there while the emotions were sorted through. Silence was needed and Aziraphale gladly gave it to his friend. However he never let go of his hand and Crowley never forgot that. The angel sat there, holding on and sending the most profound emotions of care through their connection til the pain subsided.

#hurt/comfort #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #angst #fanfic #good omens

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geek-patient-zero · 5 years

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Prologue (Part 1)

Or: My Dinner with Reuben

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Dead Trilogy Volume 1

I always loved the cover art. It was done by an artist called BROM. Here’s his website.

Robert Weinberg dedicates the book to Edgar Allan Poe “for obvious reasons” and Bram Stoker “who started it all”, though Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu might disagree with that. On Poe, peppered throughout the book, between the three parts and on the back cover are short quotes from his works, mostly “The Masque of the Red Death”. Obviously. It’s a little BS though. Any elements inspired by Poe are shallow, at least in this book.

Underneath the dedication is a little disclaimer:

While the locations and history of this trilogy may seem familiar, it is not our reality. The setting of Vampire: The Masquerade of the Red Death is a harsher, crueler version of our world. It is a stark, desolate landscape where nothing is what it seems. It is truly a World of Darkness.

For in the grim dark 1990′s there is only war. And vampires.

Going into the book I thought this disclaimer was a little wanky. I expected that “a harsher, crueler version of our world” would translate to “our world but with more rats, goths, and supernatural creatures.” Similarly, the book’s spine labels the genre as “Dark Fantasy” which in my experience usually translates to “regular fantasy but with more rape.” Turns out the World of Darkness setting is a little more complicated than that, but most of the time Weinberg isn’t too subtle on the whole “darker version of our world” thing.

I just want to let you know, before we get started, that I’m not the biggest expert when it comes to V:TM lore. I’ve never played the tabletops, or read their source books. My knowledge comes from Bloodlines, wiki binges, and lore dumps on Reddit and the Something Awful Bloodlines 2 thread. Please bear with my dumb ass if I get something wrong.

Alright, enough preamble, let’s get to the actual story.

We start in Rome, June 15, 1992, at an outdoor restaurant near the Coliseum. A meeting there was set up the night before through an anonymous phone call to the “heart of the Vatican.” For a suitcase full of money, they’d talk about vampires, or as the book dramatically puts it:

“We will talk,” declared the mysterious voice in somber, cold tones, “of The Kindred.”

The first to arrive is Father Naples, named so because it’s a word you’d find on a map of Italy. He’s a member of the Society of Leopold, who only get one more brief mention after this prologue so all you need to know is that they’re Catholic vampire hunters. He’s a big buff guy, described like a cross between a priest and a high ranking CIA agent. He came unarmed.

His faith served as his shield. Along with the five other agents of the Society of Leopold in the restaurant, including two women disguised as streetwalkers.

The Society of Leopold is the “the devil was behind this” kind of religious, so it’s weird they’d jump straight to hookers when thinking of disguises for their agents, or that said agents would agree to it. But this is the World of Darkness, a harsher, crueler version of our own, and that means there’s hookers everywhere, so put on the hot pants and think of Italy.

So Father Florence here’s got his disguised agents, who “carried enough firepower on them to start a minor war.” He’s also something of a badass.

And, though he had retired years before as a field operative, Father Naples still maintained his training in the martial arts. An expert at both kendo and karate, he could kill an attacker a dozen different ways.

He’s also got some agents in a nearby hotel room with a directional microphone aimed at his table to record the conversation. Soon, the target of all this seeming overkill arrives; a blonde mid-twenties guy in a white suit. His voice was different than the one who made the phone call, implying to Naples, and us, that there’s at least two people involved on the other side of this setup. It’s a neat bit of foreshadowing. After a firm handshake and no-selling Father Naples’s patented death glare, the stranger introduces himself as Reuben, “like the sandwich.” They banter a bit about the biblical Reuben before he decides to troll the Father a bit. First by saying he’s older than he looks, then by passing on the Father’s offer of wine.

“No thank you,” said Reuben. “I do not drink wine.”

He waits a beat for a reaction, then orders a Coke and a menu. I think I like Reuben.

Since vampires can’t eat or drink (unless they have high Humanity and a good dice roll) Father Naples is thus satisfied that the guy is not a vampire trying to trick him, deciding he’s “definitely human. And not very clever.” Reuben had made an obligatory knock at airline food, so now Naples believed the agents recording the conversation could use this clue to track down his real name and where he came from through airline records.

They get to the You Got the Cash/You Got the Stuff part of negotiations, with Reuben showing off the twenty million US dollars in his briefcase (Not euro because we’re the only country whose currency matters fuck you Italy) in exchange for a monologue from Naples about the history of the Kindred, starting from the beginning. Reuben says Father Naples can summarize if need be.

“Summarize?... How does one summarize ten thousand years of absolute evil? An impossible task, but let me try.”

The rest of the prologue until the end is Naples’ exposition on vampires while he drinks a shit ton of vino. Since it’s Vampire: The Masquerade Lore 101, I’ll summarize like our pal Naples.

Vampires secretly control the world. There are thirteen vampire clans descended from Caine, of Cain and Abel fame only spelled with an e for some reason. Ye olde Caine killed his brother, though I once read that in this setting it wasn’t so much just committing the first murder as introducing the very concepts of murder and killing to reality and basically ruining everyone’s lives, including demons. God punished Caine by giving him vampirism, forcing him to kill to survive for inventing killing. The vampirism also gave him superpowers, so he’s like a little bloodsucking demigod. I’ve seen jokes about God punishing Caine by giving him cool superpowers, but according to Father Naples Caine needed them because everyone knew what happened and were pissed at him for inventing murder and eating them. When everyone and everything wants to kill you on sight you need to be OP to survive and then feel sad about it.

(He also didn't learn most of those powers until later, when he met Lilith.)

Caine discovered that he could make more vampires through the classic “drain their blood to the point of near death and then feeding them your own blood” method. He sired three new vampires, who weren’t as powerful as him but still quite capable of ruining your day, a trend that continues through twelve or thirteen vampiric generations, although the latest generations are puny compared to Caine and his kids.

Caine and the Second Generation founded Enoch, the First City, and were worshiped there as gods, I’m guessing because of a mixture of fear and the hope of getting some sweet vampire powers if you suck up to the first murderer. The Second Generation then sired the Third Generation, thirteen vampires that became known as the Antediluvians. They’re the ones the modern thirteen vampire clans descend from.

Then everything goes to shit for Caine. Again. The Antediluvians, ambitious dicks, rose up and killed the Second Generation, destroying Enoch in the process. This could be thought of as Caine’s true curse: being forced to watch his childer, and their childer, and so on plot against and murder each other as he had done to his brother, and generally being a plague on mankind. See, Vampire: The Masquerade can be a bit too try-hard edgy and horny at times, but then you also get neat bits of writing and lore like that. As for Caine, he disappeared after the fall of Enoch. He’s now a cab driver in Los Angeles. Or a hermit in Greece, messing with traveling scholar vampires. Or both. Depends on who you ask. No, really. I’m being serious.

I should mention that, religious guy that he is, Father Naples likes to pepper his monologue with casual mentions of the devil. He says things like...

“It was then, in his darkest despair, that Caine learned from Satan a monsterous secret.”

“Encouraged by Satan, Caine created three such monsters.”

“And, in time, urged by Lucifer, they, too, bestowed the gift of eternal life on a select group of their victims.”

“They knew not the Lord God, but Lucifer, the Dark Angel.”

...and generally blaming the big guy below for getting the vampires to do vampire things. While most of what Father Naples says about the setting’s history is correct, the Satan stuff isn’t. Lucifer is a character in the World of Darkness, specifically Demon: The Fallen, but he has nothing to do with V:TM. This adds a neat bit of characterization and unreliability to Naples’ narrative; something Reuben will point out at the end of the prologue.

The Great Flood happened, but Father Naples doesn’t mention it. He skips to the Antediluvians founding the Second City, which didn’t get a name like Enoch because in its two thousand years of existence apparently no one could think of one. With the support of their childer, the fourth generation, they ruled over the Second City and, according to Naples, enslaved humanity. But eventually humanity rose up against the vampires, killing some of them with sunlight, fire, and beheading. The Second City fell and the surviving vampires fled. The Antediluvians disappeared. Some modern day vampires believe the Antediluvians were all dead, while others (the correct ones, turns out) believe they’re hiding, resting in torpor (a kind of vampire coma) this whole time and one day, they’d wake up and, as Father Naples says, “...the world of the Undead shall tremble.” This is our first mention in this book of Gehenna, the end of the wold according to the Kindred. He also says their return was predicted in Revelations, but I’m no biblical expert so I can’t tell you what bits of Revelations that might be referring too.

Reuben asks what happened to the fourth generation, or the Methuselahs as they’re now known because they’re old as balls but not “lived before the Biblical Flood” old. Father Naples tells him, then goes on to explain the titular Masquerade, vampire factions, and the thirteen clans.

#vampire the masquerade #vtm #vtmb #world of darkness #vampire: the masquerade #blood war

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popculturespiritwow · 5 years

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THE WICKED + THE DIVINE: 1923 AD AKA A WORK OF ART(IFICE)

This issue is the Peakiest of Peak Gillen -- Gillen to the Power of Peak to the Power of Peak, if you will, #MathisCool. It’s a comic book masterpiece of research, reference and storytelling and I’ve been so daunted at attempting to comment on that it’s taken me months to make the attempt. You only climb Everest once, people! (Shut your mouth, Nat Geo.)

WAGNER VERSUS WARHOL, FIGHT!

In format the issue involves a back and forth conversation/rap battle between high and low art. On the one hand, we have novelistic chapters rich with description. “The island looked like a threat, a fist of rock that had forced its way through the waves.” The island and Ananke both...

Then we cut to what at first glance seems like your standard comic book, but in fact is actually a riff on the early days of film, complete with title cards (which themselves get so silly the font might as well be comic sans #IllBeHereAllWeek) and everything shot in a wash of black, white and brown, except for the splashes of red at the scenes of death—victims’ blood, Lucifer’s apple, and my favorite, the red seaweed around Neptune.

Love that red seaweed.

The heart of the plot follows a similar back and forth, as the elitist “classic” artists, the TS Eliot/Ezra Pounds and Ginny Woolf-ish-types of the Pantheon, want to kill the more popular art types, the Shirley Temples and Buster Keatons and Robert Johnstons, to initiate a nightmare scenario that will supposedly give them control over the zeitgeist of the future. It’s an incredibly disturbing take on some of the giants of the early 20th century -- and one Gillen found based in fact.

It’s fascinating, too, for as much as the real object of venom is the truly popular artists, the movie star types with their simplistic narratives and opium for the masses, the elitists focus on killing figures who from our perspective sit far closer to them – Lucifer (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Poseidon (Ernest Hemingway), Dionysius (Pablo Picasso) and the Morrigan (James Joyce). I wonder if it’s something about the chaos those specific figures represent, the way that their particular forms of art end up undermining not only the structures but internal belief system of the modern world. If Baal-Et-Al’s idea is to work with Joe Goebbels to coopt pop culture for their own We Will Keep Control project, in a sense a Picasso or Joyce was doing the reverse, presenting in the formats of the elites only to deconstruct their validity. (Gillen’s notes on the Morrigan point in this direction. Also, his description of Set as coming off “a little like Tahani from The Good Place made me laugh out loud.)

In the end our good guys will stop the bad using their own popular media, film from a train, which was in real life the very first motion picture, and terrified people back in the day for exactly the reason that they feared the train was real and was going to leap off the screen and kill them all.

Writing perfection.

HISTORY IN REPETITION AND RHYME

As we’ve seen throughout these specials, we get lots of echoes between periods here. Lucifer is once again the first one killed, the Morrigan is once again a character all about voice and drama (I love his self-narration so much, please sir can I have a spin-off?), the Norns are still trying to figure everything out, Susanoo=Dandy Baphomet, complete with his own complicated dating relationship (those rings made out of light, though, such a pristine beauty of a moment that Baph never gets), and Woden is once again a gross racist hack misogynist -- that submarine has got to be phallic, right? -- who has stolen his tech powers from someone else to produce content that is entirely derivative while secretly playing the gods and being used by Ananke.

There is also another mechanical creature, “Little Brother”, which we see only for a few panels, and that is not nearly enough because it is an adorable looking flying squid. (SCREW YOU BABY SHARK, BABY FLYING SQUID IS EVERYTHING.) Ananke also works from her standard playbook here, the Prometheus Gambit – you can gain some life if you kill others, which Baal et al will then use for bat#!% crazy purposes, which of course is also part of her plan.

And Minerva is also once again a child who seems maybe to be working with Ananke. It’s clear right from the start that the whole Shirley Temple schtick, lots of Yays and Gollys, is just an act, part of her “character”. And we get a glimpse of the real her again at the end.

That doesn’t have to mean she’s in league with Ananke. (Just read the next arc; she’s totally in league with Ananke.) But she also comes to know what happened to Verdandi, when she wasn’t with the group that discovered him. (Dude: She’s totally in league with Ananke.) And it gives her an excuse to leave Morrigan at precisely the right moment for him to get murdered by Ananke. (Yes, exactly, because she’s in league with Ananke.) And she will kill Set herself without a second thought; it’s all still just hint and innuendo (UGH NO IT’S NOT STOP), but given what we’ve just learned in the present day that’s all we need for now.

Meanwhile Baal is in some ways the opposite of ours, a racist white elitist who dismisses James Baldwin-type Amon-Re as incapable of being an artist given his “nature”, and Set is her own thing too, a snobby name-dropping Virginia Woolf. Most intriguingly, the Norns have internal divisions that break them down, which make me worry a little bit for Cassandra and her friends.

Best take care of your family, Cassie. Remember, in #WicDiv no one is just a sidekick…

CREATURE(S) IN EBONY This is the second special where the Fall of the Gods involves the introduction of a new being created by the gods by way of a classic Ananke “Definitely Don’t Do This (wink wink)”. In 1831, Lucifer and Morrigan resurrect Hades to create an energy vampire that after killing them merged with Woden Shelley to create Steam Punk Elsa. This time the being – again a woman – is described as “looking like some ancient ancestor of the Metropolitans, but made of living poetry and bleak lightning rather than simple metal.” Which sounds an awful like the 1831 Creature.

She also emerged from “an ebony luminescence with streaks of blue beyond blue”, which again, sounds a lot like Mary Shelley Elsa Frankenstein.

Almost 92 years later we’ve heard nothing from her. But Kieron never forgets anything, INCLUDING YOUR BIRTHDAY, SO WATCH OUT. What could this all possibly mean…

ANANKIERON CHRISTIE

For me the most interesting element of 1923, though, is everything to do with Ananke. We come into the special, like the last two, knowing she is our Big Bad (probably, I don’t know you guys, I think in the next arc Kieron’s going to make me feel bad for her and I don’t want to). (No worries, he didn’t, or did he, wait, there are two Anankes now, I don’t know, what?)

But here for the first time we enter into the story alongside her. In fact, in that very first shot it almost seems like she’s looking right at us.

Time’s running out, she’s got to get to the murder-y and behead-yness stat, and this time we get to watch her do it. Awesome!

It’s almost like we’re partners in the exercise, even; right before they’re about to go in for dinner and discover Lucifer Ananke seems to stop and look at us again.

Us and the millennia-old serial killer of children--High fives all around!

For the last 30+ issues I’ve been asking why Ananke is she always wearing a mask, and now finally I get it: just like the Pantheon, she is an actor giving a performance.

Here specifically she presents herself as a classic Agatha Christie protagonist, finding herself along with everyone else in the Remote Place version of a locked room murder mystery and slowly working to uncover the truth of what’s going on while others continue to die. And Then There Was Fun!

Except in fact Ananke is not The Marple but Christie herself, author of the entire series of events that happen, which makes this to my mind pretty much the greatest Christie story ever, and also reinforces the belief of All of Us that Jessica Beatrice Fletcher is the Greatest Fictional Serial Killer that Ever Lived.

But wait, though. Doesn’t that make Ananke basically…a writer? Like um, this guy…?

But that’s crazy. We’ve spent the last five years with him. He’s fine.

I mean yes, both he and Ananke fashion fictional Big Bads (Note: this issue has absolutely no trace nor mention of a Great Darkness, despite the fact that this entire Pantheon has been around almost to their Use By) and also Ways to Save the World which motivate the characters down paths which lead to their eventual destructions.

And okay, true, in this issue Kieron does spotlight/ridicule parts of the storytelling mechanic, the machines characters are always trying to find/build/repair as nonsense.

Such rituals are actually simple. It is about will and art. The machines…in my experience, they are little more than props. All that matters is your action and intent. They killed so the world would die. You die so the world can live.

But still, if we were to accept that Ananke is Just Kieron’s, er, Mask, then it’s like this whole time he’s been the one doing terrible things to all these characters, including the characters that he made me want to love.

And then this question which I’ve been chewing on since 455 AD, whether the characters can ever be free of the roles they’ve been assigned, in a sense becomes a question about whether they can ever escape not Her but Him…

Or what about us? The Audience. The ones that Jamie and Kieron and the others are creating this for.

This isn’t And Then There Were None, is it? No, this is Temple of Doom. Kieron may be Mola Ram, but I’m the Ever-Hungry, Never-Satisfied G--D-- Kali.

All along, Kieron has thrown in these moments where we get glimpses of the broader world, the way it feeds on the Pantheon. And I can get to the end of 1923 AD and say there’s a fascinating battle going on here about the ethics and/or violence of being a writer. But maybe there are also deeper questions being asked of me as a reader.

Maybe the issue begins with Ananke looking at me like that for a reason.

STOP IT, ANANKE. YOU’RE MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE. LOOK AWAY.

WORLD WARS, IRL AND URL A last point: 1923 AD is unusual for the degree to which it is haunted by something external, aka war. Even as the story takes place in the effervescent champagne bubble oasis of the Roaring 20s, both the nightmare that was World War I and the possibility of another war which is somehow impossibly much much worse than it hangs over the characters. That’s an insightful take on the period, but also an awe-full twist on the sense of doom that we’ve witnessed in the 21st century Pantheon, their own personal oncoming catastrophes expanded to the scale of disaster for the whole world.

It makes me wonder whether the last act of The Wicked + The Divine will involve something of a similar scale, whether the underlying momentum of the book has not always been toward the culture of celebrity, insofar as it engenders adoration, mob-think and a lack of fundamental care for and curiosity in one another, as sign of our own massive social crisis. (See: Brexit. Trump. The Fights My Dad Gets in on Facebook.)

Are we doomed? Do I still have time to tweet a thread about it? I really think it could make a difference, you guys.

#WicDiv #kieron gillen #peak peak #Kalibunga #aud koch

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kierongillen · 7 years

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Writer Notes: the Wicked + the Divine 455

Spoilers, obv.

The specials have been quite the time, having several ways to stress everyone the hell out. The amount of work that goes into a special is far more than any single script can justify in cold commercial terms. It's lucky that I'm only choosing periods that I'm interested in researching to death.

I suspect (or at least hope) that in terms of background reading, 455 is the most. 1831 was hard, but is a relatively tight period I looked at in depth. 455 basically involved researching the whole of the Western Roman Empire. This means the work was a much broader sweep. In the same way I suspected the 1831 story would be about Frankenstein, I knew this would probably be about what happened at one of the sacks of Rome. Not definitely – I've always got room to change tack if something more profitable turns up in the research – but likely.

As I started work, I realised the main advantage of the sack near the end of the Western Roman Empire is that it means you can do a swan song for the whole thing. Everything has already happened, so you can use it all. Thus we've got something which feels a little like a Roman Greatest Hits story.

Simultaneously, there's the awareness that while I think a lot of this is relatively well known, even the most basic facts aren't. Early readers made me aware that even basic ideas like Julius Caesar being dead for 500 years by this period can't be assumed – a level of historical literacy equivalent of not blinking if Joan of Arc turned up in a WW2 story. That's just audiences, and the vague sense of “Rome stuff” fills about 1000 years of people's imagination. As such, that our story is acounter-history required the introduction of what the real history actually was.

As I knew this was coming along way off, the research was a slow boil. I knew Rome, in various periods, relatively well. From the Punic Wars to Augustus is stuff I've read about many times – Carthage is something I've always wanted to do a story about. What I was looking for is a long sweep across the whole thing, to live with it a while, and let me think along the way. The actual device I used was The History Of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan, which goes from legendary prehistory to about 20 years after 455. It's about 60 hours of stuff, by my rough match, which I worked into my listening routine – which is mainly when working out, running, travelling or doing the dishes. I listen to my podcasts at 1.5x.

That was for most of 2016. After that, it was digging down into specific texts, the majority which happened in December/January. Trying to play with various theories about the decline of the Roman Empire was paramount. Everyone has one, and be suspicious of anyone who gives you one reason. The book which generally was most influential in terms of how I chose to present Rome was The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History by Peter Heather, which basically forwards the idea that Rome fell due to trade across their borders creating increased population density of Barbarian tribes which (as opposed to earlier periods) the Romans were unwilling to integrate into the fabric of the Empire.

I went with my own counter-theory, of course, which was that an Old Lady Did It.

(The Old Lady Did It is a Roman Trope of long standing. I'm a proud owner of a Livia Did It T-shirt.)

Anyway – too much research, and I'll try and drop some things I'd wanted to use but didn't as we go through it. Suffice to say, there's nothing comforting about reading about Rome in the current political climate.

Anyway – Andre! I'd first encountered his work in Avengers AI, written by my friend Sam Humphries. That weird, neon-infused Cyberpunk vibe was a big part of the book's appeal for me, so I started following him. I believe we started talking properly around the time of his own Man Plus, which was is a Otomo-does-Akira-In-Portugal kick, and was another thing which made me file Andre in my “Sci-fi artist file.”

However, after we got talking, he showed me some of his other in-development pitches, which included historical and fantasy work. Which made me go “Hmm.” He's got a mass of gifts, but I had one image that I knew I needed for 455 – the Roman Triumph, with a God in the chariot. That demanded a certain sort of artist, namely one who was happy to actually draw a triumph in all its ludicrous glory. Andre, someone whose work had more than its fair share of city-scapes and crowds, seemed like someone who'd nail that – plus the confluence of European and Manga influences in the work would gel interestingly. We'd get Rome as a place, and that's what we needed.

He was working on Generation Gone with Ales Kot, but they talked, and Andre took as month off the preparation for that to do the special. Thanks, guys.

Colours are provided by Matt “Eisner For Matt” Wilson, and seeing how the two of them worked together was definitely one of the more intriguing parts of the process.

Andre's Cover

Done early, before the script was actually completed, which meant we were more conservative with the choice. The Laurel reef being lowered by elderly hands, the arrogance of it. A call back to the head-shots of the first year of WicDiv too. Also, compare and contrast Matt's colouring choices here with his ones in the issue. This is a much more subdued, chalkier mode. Or that's wot I think anyway.

Jamie's Cover| We were originally talking about statues of multiple gods, but as the script was still in process we didn't want to tie down any of the cast bar Lucifer. Equally, we leaned symbolic on the cover – the flames of Rome, the statue, the grafitti's Chi-Ro in paint (or blood)? Symbolic is good. We like Symbolic.

The Chi-Ro is an old Christian symbol. It's what they say Constantine had his soldiers paint on his shields to ensure victory. My fave thing of Constantine from the research was that while he was more responsible than any for the Christianization of the Empire, he didn't convert until just before his death. I enjoy the theory that it's because the idea that baptizing may have been a one-time “clear all your sins” opportunity. The idea of confession and absolution wasn't around as much. So if you convert and then commit a mortal sin, you're off to hell. But if you commit a mortal sin and then convert, you're fine. So Constantine may have just been gaming Christianity to ensure the best chance of a good afterlife.

IFC

Oh god. Looking at the last paragraph makes me think this could be eternally long if I just keep on stopping and telling you fun anecdotes from memory. Also, factually dubious, as they're from memory, and my memory cannot be trusted.

Jamie designed the icons, and had to work out what vibe to give it. I suspect he was grateful to me for having most the cast already being dead so saving him work.

The Inverted Chi-Ro isn't a real symbol anyone used, but our best way to make a Lucifer. The biggest historical cheat in the series is using any Lucifer figure like this in the period – as far as I'm aware, the idea of a singular satanic adversary in this mode simply wasn't around. But it dovetails with our mythology.

I get asked whether any special will happen earlier in the cycle. The tendency to lean towards the ends is basically the same urge which pushed towards a Roman Special at the fall. Ends let you write about the whole thing. It's only at the end where you can say with any hope of being correct what was really happening, and even then it's only a hope.

But the 1920s special is a little earlier than the end, if only because we've seen the actual end in issue 1.

(More on the 1920s special soon – there's been a few changes in my planning on that.)

The text on the page is the standard WicDiv one, but the final two lines, briefly explaining the history of the Vandal sack in 455 were added at lettering to provide the necessary context to a reader.

Page 1-2

Steady angle shot, three panels on each page. The issue has been compare to Uber by several readers, primarily for the volume of the violence and the detail of the historical focus. It's also a little like it in its storytelling like this – this lingering attempt to make a scene very normal. We don't see the battle against the Vandals – instead, we observe from a distance. We try and make it documentary, with us an observer.

The animal being gutted is a goat.

An example of an earlier tweak, the shepherd's first line was “Wh...who in god's name are you meant to be?” This could read as that our Lucifer actually is Julius. Changing it to “Dressed up as?” brings the artifice closer to the surface. While the nature of lucifer/Julius is explained in a few pages time, it's not meant to be a mystery. Creating a false uninteresting question is just a distraction for the reader.

I kind of laugh at the idea of Lucifer wandering around near Rome, trying to find an army.

Ave Atque Vale! Is a quote from Catallus, related to death. Originally was Ave in my first draft, which of course means “Hello!” so makes no sense to say when he's heading away to the shepherd. If you were generous, you could say he was greeting the Vandals.

The first pages which Matt coloured were these, and when I saw them, I knew it was going to be something special.

Yes, panicked sheep in the second panel of page 2 is a star.

Page 3-4

WicDiv is about many things, but “The fucking obvious” certainly rates highly. Triumphs are one of the big core Roman rituals we think of, when a general is given a personal parade. They're rare and hugely important. The slave whispering “remember you are only a man” to warn against hubris is the detail which everyone loves. Clearly, in WicDiv, the resonances are all kinds of fun.

In terms of how comics panels are not one moment in time, have a nose at the last panel. You read the line, then the Oh!, and then the response of the slave seeing something, and then you look at the miracle, the smug, painted face, of Lucifer, and his Heh. That's a little journey.

The red face paint is ceremonial, to be akin to Jupiter. Bear that in mind for later, obv.

The big triumph is the first issue money shot – after 3 pages of very low atmosphere, we have the sprawl of Rome. Choosing the direction of the march was key – I gave Andre the best guess route of the triumph, and he chose his angle. By luck, he would enter via the gate here Lucifer is dragged out at the end of the issue. The triumph also ends at the temple of Jupiter, which is yet more fun subtext for those who really like digging into it.

We tweaked the colouring on the crowds, to try and get more of the cosmopolitan nature of Rome. The majority of legionnaires are white, but that's because most were Germanic in this period.

The triumph was originally planned for a spread, but I decided I needed another page later in the comic.

Page 5

Title drop, and a bleak laugh. The idea of calling a story IMPERIAL PHASE which isn't in the actual Imperial Phase trade came from thinking of Julian Cope having his single World Shut Your Mouth not on the album World Shut Your Mouth, an idea he in turn got from some sixties band I haven't time to look up.

The date was tricky to decide exactly, due to the timeline of real world events I wanted to get in. Clearly, for full trash-Roman pulp, I'd have pushed this story March, so I could Ides of March it, but alas, no dice.

Page 6

Nice atmosphere in the first panel, in terms of going from the chaos of the Triumph to something a little more contemplative.

Enter Dionysus/Bacchus. Flashback colours and... one of the thoughts of Matt was that the SFX budget for God Stuff would be lower back here. So the god powers aren't quite as SFX-y as they are in the present day. Not that there's much here, but I'm reminded by how low-key this is. The intent here is that he's done his god thing on stage and come off... but he could just be an actor, which is about as close as WicDiv gets to a 1:1 thing.

The nature of art in Rome (or “Rome”) is key here, and talked throughout. Actors were the underclass. To act was to be disreputable. The “actress as sexworker” trope arrives in Rome, I believe. I reference Lou Reed in the panel descriptions, in terms of these being a Walk On The Wild Side Romans.

Falerian is a type of fine wine. Mithras is presumably one of the other gods – Scythia being a place.

The nature of Imperial Phase has been about women involved with women, which has nagged. Having the humanising part of the story be a love story between men felt timely. It was a place we could do it, so we should. Though more on that later, in terms of the specifics.

There was the obvious worry of doing it, of course – where Lucifer ends up. Lucifer is not good representation. I haven't seen anyone pick up on that angle. We spend a lot of time worrying about stuff no-one picks up on, which is why we spend all that time worrying about it.

The word “play” is, of course, loaded, as are the name changes. Story about identity, we are in it.

Page 7

The best thing about the specials is definitely getting a chance to write Ananke again. She is a fun time.

If I had more space, I'd have almost certainly done more with Lucifer's adventures during the day. It's worth stressing that by this point, I believe Gladiatorial fights were no longer actually happening in Rome, due to Christianisation. My research has went straight on from Western Rome and barged into Byzantine Rome, and the story of the chariot races there is a delight.

Page 7-8

These scenes are very much me getting my I, Claudius on. Very limited set, two actors going off at one another. Of course, all of this will resonate with anyone who's been following the main series.

Panels 3 and 4 on page 7 are the bit of tight acting I like most from Andre here – it's all about the actions, and the space, with us positioned a little back from it.

I smile at Lucifer referencing something that was said of 2014-Lucifer in the first arc. Ananke has been doing this for a very long time.

A quick buzz through various other gods' fates in the first panel on page 8. There's a lot of historical reference packed in there to unpack for those who wish.

The Inanna/Attila The Hun panel is, I think, the largest panel description in the issue. Well... not true. The Rome Triumph one is much longer, but that's a splash. This one included a potted history of a bunch of Hun-related information for Andre to play with, in terms of deciding the looks, etc.

It was also the most discussed panel at the stage of pencils – avoiding objectifying Inanna here was key.

Attila The Hun died on (one of his) wedding night in the real life.

The “As I understand” is pretty key in the captions, as is other distancing effects. Lucifer would not have been a god when Inanna did this. It is very early in this pantheon's time.

I think this may be a place to have a word about Pantheon times through history. 455 doesn't seem to fit in one of these 90 years, if you follow that strictly.

The short version is, as seen in the first scene of WicDiv which ends the 1920s pantheon at Dec 31st 2013 and we start our story about 6 months into the new Pantheon on January 1st 2014, the question of where the 90 years is measured for has to be (to some degree) flexible. Gods appear over a period of a year or so in our 2014, and die at their own rates. You can assume that the “true” length of a pantheon can wiggle a little – some would be less than a year, some could theoretically stretch across 4 calendar years. As such, it's hard to predict exactly on which year any given recurrence could occur – even from the data we have from 1831, 1923 and 2014, we know that.

I suspect before the end I may give hard dates for every Pantheon. I suspect, anyway. I know where it would appear.

Page 9-11

You know, I suspect Page 9 – for an action scene – is one of the most story-beat laden of the issue, in terms. Lots of great Andre stuff here – the casual-ness of both the burning and the brutal-ness of the kick. Matt goes to town on the colours too, the reds taking over. Obviously the fire is a key thing with Lucifer, and his flame grows and ebbs as we progress.

There's some difficult hard cuts here – page 10 to 11, for example. We just have the “Ananke leaving” beat there, then moving to Dio and Lucifer in bed.

There is a tendency when discussing the ancients to be a bit blasé in terms of writing about their sexual habits. This normally is based around us mapping our readings of sexuality onto the past, while erasing their own social mores. I've ran with some of the information on page 11 before, when doing THREE, specifically the politics of different sexual roles. Relevantly, the status elements Lucifer alludes to here – in terms of being a bottom is always dishonourable. I could ramble at this at length, but I'll spare you.

Lots and lots of stuff here, in terms of trying to set up thematic elements here, but let's just say none of it would matter at all if Matt and Andre hadn't nailed the last panel.

Page 12-13

Lots of historical bits and bobs here. Perhaps the implicit question we don't answer is “what happened to the last Emperor?” He was cut to pieces a few days before this and thrown in the river, because he'd pissed off the Vandals enough to have them invade.

You may notice how thin the senate is populated. That's because the majority of the population of Rome have fucked off to hide. Rome's population is artificially lower during this point in history, which is a thing which tries to lend a little credulity to the Ananke/Geiseric cover-up.

The main tweaks here was making sure the exact nature of Lucifer's slip was tricky. Someone getting mixed up in the time-line requires making sure the reader understands the timeline. I half wonder why I went with Crassus rather than Pompey.

Anyway, let's hope that Lucifer manages to keep on the straight and narrow.

Page 13-14

Well, that escalated quickly.

When planning the issue, you start doing maps of time and space, and I rapidly realised with 25 pages, and so many other essential scenes, there was no possible way to show a slow descent.

The story's structure immediately suggested itself.

While the Triumph was the image we needed to enter the world, this is the one that will be remembered. People reference my Crossed work here – which is true, to some degree, in that it was also about turning flesh into art. I suspect I was more thinking of Banks, and a certain beat involving a certain object of furniture. I say, dancing around spoilers.

The influence here which gets kind of buried is Domitian, who threw the most goth parties of all time. Have a nose at this here, in terms of Things Emperors Got Up To.

Page 15-16

We've already namechecked Caligula and here comes Nero, the other of the most famous Roman Bad Emperors. The elements about Nero here were the closest thing the research unveiled which made me want to reposition the story to a different period – Nero interacting with the gods would have been fascinating, for all the reasons described here.

We had a reader question the direction of Imperial Phase, in that the insanity-leading-to-murder trope that appeared to be coming and the inherent ableism in that. It was a usefully timed question, as it made me dig more sharply into the exact choices we were making in explaining the idea. This isn't about going mad. This is – as Dionysus puts it – about excess. I'm thinking of Bowie living off cocaine and peppers. We lean into it pretty heavily in this issue, and hopefully it delineates the aim.

Just looking at my script, and found the anecdote about the time I threw up a handful of blood slipped in there. I'd forgotten that this page was autobiographical. Comics, eh?

Look at what Matt's doing with the colours here – the whole panel is bloodshot as we progress.

Page 17-20

In terms of buried research in the comic, that a hole was knocked in the roof of the Temple of Jupiter during this sack of Rome is the one which makes me laugh. Behold! Let team WicDiv present the true story of how the temple of Jupiter got a dirty great hole in it.

(I also like that this makes the sack of Rome much more efficient for the Vandals.)

This is an actor making a soliloquy scene, perhaps obviously, recalling both the stage and the Passion. While this issue is heavily in the research, it's also doing ahistorical work. Shakespeare's fingerprints is all over this, to state another obvious thing.

The “Emerge like an Eagle” thing is very much Roman Pagan belief.

I mentioned Nero, Caligulia and Julius. The other Roman Emperor who is in the mix with Lucifer was Julian the Apostate who was the last Pagan Roman emperor, and tried to revive Pagan Rome before dying early. A “What if Julian had lived?” is a counter-factual history which is always a fun one to swill around your mouth. He's the one we don't reference, but much of Lucifer's thought comes from mashing Julian with someone of lower birth and more melodramatic tendencies.

This is the sequence which I cut the page from the Triumph earlier to expand. Clearly this could happen quicker, but we need to let the death sequence come out, in all its horror. Also, the collapse on the page turn seems essential.

I'm almost surprise Et Tu Jupiter reached the final page. We were always wondering whether it was too funny. In the end, it was decided it was, but in juxtaposition with the art, sufficiently bleakly to not break the mood. Especially before the collapse on the next page, which is very much human stripped by the divine.

Clearly this plot beat, is the biggest one for close followers of the book. I suspect at this point of the story, there would be strong suspicions that the “you die in two years” isn't true. Unless this sequence is deeply deceptive, it is true. You die in two years, by yourself. We place the specials pretty carefully, in terms of what they reveal, so this being half way through Imperial Phase underlines what could await our cast.

In terms of craft, going silent for a page after the monologuing seemed key. I mean, Ananke's fundamental disrespect in terms of how she's carrying Lucifer says everything.

Page 21-25

Out the gate towards the Tiber. The names listed are famous Romans whose bodies were thrown in the Tiber so that they could have no honourable end – and in the case of Marius, that there was no place for his followers to gather. The man who did that was Sulla, btw. Marius was dead, he dug them up.

The “Pagan burial, but a shit one” is very much Ananke at peak “I will tell you the truth, but you really have to pay attention to the details” mode.

And here's Geiseric! Looking good. The Vandals have been in Carthage for 20 years, but we decided to have him be kind of pallid so as not to confuse people. Stories like THREE were all about the pure-historical aspect and risked (and often did) lose people by doing things in line with the best research rather than common belief. WicDiv has a slightly different set of priorities, especially on secondary aspects like tanned Vandals.

Heh. Story starts with butchery of a goat, and ends with butchery of Lucifer. WicDiv is a very subtle comic.

Sulla's an interesting dude, and I think the use by Ananke here seems pretty fair. The future she's pointing towards never happens – the marriage is there. Germanic hands ended up ruling what came after the Empire, but that's not really what is going. Of course, Geiseric is also entirely right in recognising he's being manipulated.

They're a fun pair, actually, in terms of the fencing. I kind of realise this is the sort of conversation which is going to be key in Spangly New Thing, which makes me excited about writing it again.

I smile at the Vandal line. People have wondered why I didn't do the earlier sack, so I could have had the goths. Well, it didn't really work for the story, which is about the end of an era. But also it would have been perhaps too much. I did have a joke take, where Ananke is debating which Germanic tribe to manipulate into invading Rome. “The Goths again? No. No More Goths.”

But 455 isn't that kind of book.

The final image! Lovely, in its bleak and awful way.

Page 26

City of God being Augustine's book, written primarily in response to the crisis of faith in the Empire over the 410 sack of Rome by the aforementioned Goths.

Anyway – thanks for reading, and thanks for Andre for joining us on this beast. We're back (eek) tomorrow, with Imperial Phase II. Onwards, etc.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #andre lima araujo #matt wilson #Writer Notes

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thetruthseekerway · 4 years

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Is Creation an Evolutionary Process?

New Post has been published on https://www.truth-seeker.info/refuting-darwinism/is-creation-an-evolutionary-process/

Is Creation an Evolutionary Process?

By Louay Safi

Is Creation an Evolutionary Process?

In recent years, the debate over teaching the account of human creation provided by religious texts has intensified in the U.S. Some Christians insist that schools teach “creationism” side by side with the theory of evolution. Most recently this call has been echoed by several Muslim writers, most notably the prolific Turkish scholar Harun Yahya.

The call for embracing the theory of creationism should be treated with caution. Not only because it would undermine scientific research that aims at exploring metaphysical assertions through scientific methodology, which has for long been embraced and supported by Islamic scholarship, but also because it seems to contradict facts alluded to by the Qur’an itself.

Undoubtedly, no human being has ever had the opportunity to witness the beginning of human life. We are members of a species whose origin is counted by tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of years. The many narratives about the origins of human life can be ultimately subsumed under two grand narratives: creation and evolution. Evolution is widely embraced by natural scientists who attempt to reconstruct the beginning of human life by tracing prehistoric animal life, finding in the shared biological traits of all living creatures evidence of common ancestry and common evolution. Human life, they claim, evolved from the general animal life through a process of “natural selection”.

The followers of monotheistic religions, however, share a grand narrative that places the beginning of human life with the creation of the first masculine human being, Adam, along with his feminine spouse. The Qur’an describes human creation by narrating an exchange between God and the angles:

Behold, your Lord said to the angels: “I am about to create man from clay: When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My Spirit, fall down unto him.” (Saad 38:71-2)

Another Qur’anic verse provides a similar but a more elaborate account. It describes that the clay from which the human body was shaped went through organic transformation that it turned into smelly and darkened clay:

Behold! Your Lord said to the angels: “I am about to create man, from dark malodorous clay, from mud molded into shape; “When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My Spirit, fall you down [in prostration] unto him.” (Al-Hijr 15: 28-29)

The human being, according to the Qur’an, is made of earthly matter mixed with water, and left for a while until it went through a process of transformation. This clay had already gone through a transformation to become a malodorous and dark substance, thereby suggesting an organic process. This transformed clay was then molded into the human shape, and into which the Divine breathed a spirit derived from His own.

The Qur’an is silent as to the nature of the process through which the human body took its final shape. Was the human body created instantaneously, or did it go through an evolutionary process? What is clear, though, is that the Qur’an places the question of the origin of life within the realm of natural observation rather than theoretical reflection. Thus, investigating human creation belongs to scientific observation and not to theology.

Say: Travel through the earth and see how God did originate creation; so will God produce a later creation: for God has power over all things. (Al-`Ankabut 29:20)

Yet the Qur’an describes in so many different ways human creation as an elaborate and phased process, whereby the human being goes through various phases before it evolves into the human shape. The above verses of Chap. 15 refer to a process of “molding into shape” or taswiyah that culminates in the human creation. In Chapter 7, the Qur’an refers to the two phases of human creation: the act of creation and the process of shaping:

It is We who created you then gave you shape; then We bade the angels bow down to Adam, and they bowed down; not so Iblis (Lucifer); he refused to be of those who bow down. (Al-`Araaf 7:11)

Indeed, the Qur’an describes human life as an ever evolving through distinct stages, taking different forms, beginning with the most primordial stage of earthly matter, the dust, through various stages in the mother’s womb, through the various stages of development from infancy, to full adulthood, to senility for those who reach the very advanced age, ending with death.

O mankind! If you have a doubt about the Resurrection, (consider) that We created you out of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a leech-like clot, then out of a morsel of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order that We may manifest (Our Power) to you; and We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term, then do We bring you out as babies, then (foster you) that you may reach your age of full strength; and some of you are called to die, and some are sent back to the feeblest old age, so that they know nothing after having known (much). And (further), you see the earth barren and lifeless, but when We pour down rain on it, it is stirred (to life), it swells, and it puts forth every kind of beautiful growth in pairs. (Al-Hajj 22:5)

In this account, one sees a clear allusion to an evolutionary process of creation, in which life starts with dust, and then evolves into a single cell (sperm) that multiply to form a clot (‘alaqah) that grows into bone and finally to flesh. While the process that referred to here mainly describes the growth of the fetus in the mother’s womb, the Qur’an starts its description of the fetus’s growth by referring to the earthly dust, thereby suggesting a comparable evolutionary process that was part of the act of creation of the first human being. This suggestion is further enforced by the conclusion of the verse, where the Qur’an invokes the ever observable process of rejuvenation of vegetation in the desert during the annual rain season. The return of life to an apparently lifeless desert after receiving heavy rain is gradual and relatively slow process associated with the growth of vegetation.

While the Qur’an describes a purposive act of creation of human beings, it does not exclude an evolutionary biological process leading to the completion and physical maturation of the human being. What sets human and animal lives apart, according to the Qur’an, is not primarily the biological development of the human body, but the moral, intellectual, and spiritual capacity of the human spirit. Human life enjoys dignity that is unique to human being, dignity that is rooted in human spirituality, not biology.

The debate over creation and evolution is lively one. While Muslims may question an account of evolution that is used to propagate a purposeless process of creation, it should not close the mind to scientific methods that look at natural evidence to figure out the natural dimension of human existence.

———————–

Courtesy www.islamicity.com with slight modifications.

Dr. Louay Safi is executive director with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He writes and lectures on issues relating to Islam and the West, democracy, human rights, leadership, and world peace. His commentaries are available at louaysafi.com.

#Adam #biology #Christian #Eve #evolution #Featured #Harun Yahya #human body #Is Creation an Evolutionary Process?#Islam #ISNA #life #Louay Safi #natural selection #Phases #quran #science #stages #theology

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aion-rsa · 7 years

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INTERVIEW: New Lucifer Writer Thinks the Devil Isn’t Such a Bad Guy

The Devil has a whole universe to play in — Hell, Heaven, Earth and everything in between. But in DC Comics’ Vertigo line — and the Fox TV series inspired by the comic — Lucifer is far more down to earth, in the most literal way possible. Rather than lording over a vast dimension of pain and fire, he’s more likely to be the lord of Lux, his chic piano bar in the material realm.

Urban fantasy novelist Richard Kadrey of the “Sandman Slim” series takes over Vertigo’s “Lucifer” starting with this week’s issue #14, alongside artist Lee Garbett, who’s been on board the book since it relaunched in December 2015. Despite the cosmic and universal scale that the devil could play with, Kadrey is keeping Lucifer grounded in the human world. Specifically, in the City of Angels itself, Los Angeles.

RELATED: Fox’s Lucifer May Add a Classic DC Character

What’s more, Kadrey sees Lucifer not as a malevolent or adversarial figure, but as an embodiment of free will, individuality and the opposite of divine authoritarianism. That’s not to say that there aren’t other demons out there looking to destroy humanity, though, and even God Himself might be a threat to the world as a whole. CBR spoke with Kadrey about what he’s got planned for “Lucifer,” why he doesn’t see the devil as evil and his collaboration with Garbett.

CBR: Richard, without giving too much away, how would you summarize your plans for “Lucifer”?

Richard Kadrey: Well, one of the first things we talked about was really centering Lucifer in Los Angeles, not having him go too far to other realms. Really making him physically and mentally part of the city, and using the city and its inhabitants as part of his storyline. We want to deal with both long-term story elements that have been coming in “Lucifer” from as far back as [original “Lucifer” writer Mike] Carey and certainly from [previous “Lucifer” writer] Holly [Black]’s run, and really put it in a contemporary setting.

It’s really hard to talk about some of this without giving it away. We’re dealing magic and economics and politics and Lucifer all at the same time.

“Lucifer” #14 cover by Dave Johnson

Lucifer as a pop culture character and Lucifer in DC/Vertigo specifically has been portrayed with a variety of motivations — wanting to rebel against God, wanting to be left alone and do his own thing, wanting to actively subvert the lives of mortals. What is he about in your run?

I think it’s very much along the same lines that Holly’s been working on, in that he’s come back, and is engaged in the world. He was gone but he very consciously chose to come back, and now that he is back he has to deal with all of the ramifications of having been gone, and having to deal with the world as it is right now. Certainly dealing with the issue of the new God that is looming in Heaven, and what that means for Lucifer, the world, the whole universe.

How do you see his relationship with humans in general?

He’s not adversarial. I see him more as amused. He sees us running around trying to get everything right, working so hard at it, and just screwing up all the time. I think he’s just a little bit removed and kind of shaking his head and chuckling to himself, but I think he has a certain weird affection for humanity.

What about his relationship with the truth? He’s been portrayed as someone who does lie, and he’s also been portrayed in DC/Vertigo as someone who always says things that are accurate in the literal sense, but might be deceptive. Which direction do you want to take the Father of Lies in?

I don’t see him as a liar, but that does not mean that he’s going to give you all of the information that’s going to put you at an advantage. He will tell you the truth, and he will tell you enough, and he believes in free will, but you have to do some of the work yourself. And you have to remember, always, that you’re dealing with Lucifer. He’s not going to flat-out lie to you, but what does the truth mean in this circumstance?

This also might seem like a weird question since we’re talking about the literal devil, but do you think he’s evil?

No, I’ve never seen Lucifer as evil. I’ve written a lot about Lucifer in my book series, “Sandman Slim.” I’ve done a lot of research on Lucifer and I do not see him as evil at all. If you look at the history of Lucifer going back to the Old Testament, Lucifer is not an evil character. He’s portrayed as evil later in church teachings basically as a bludgeon against worshippers. He’s something to scare people into falling in line.

Let’s face it, all of us modern writers who write about Lucifer, we’re all stealing from Milton. A lot of this comes out of the image of Lucifer from the first half of “Paradise Lost.” Free will is key. Free will is what he’s about and that’s where his truth comes from. And any of his dealings with humanity come out of that conflict between his desire for free will and God’s desire for control.

“Lucifer” #15 cover by Dave Johnson. Scheduled for release on Feb. 15.

So you see him more as an avatar of individuality as opposed to the embodiment of evil?

Absolutely. And with all of the messiness that comes with free will. He doesn’t get everything right all of the time. He screws up, too.

You’re also focusing on several other prominent characters. Who else is running around with Lucifer?

If you’ve read #14 then you’ve met Arabelle Crane, and we’re definitely going to be seeing more of her. Arabelle’s going to be a fun character for people. She’s a detective, she’s someone who has a lot of powerful magic, and she has a ton of flaws that I think will make her fun and interesting for people. She’s very psychologically powerful, too, with an interesting history that you’ll see more about very soon.

And then you’re going to see some old characters coming back, but I’m not [going] to give stuff away. You’re going to see some old people coming back in surprising ways and in surprising forms, transformed a bit. People might have been adversarial are a bit friendlier now that the see what the stakes are.

You’ve also got Asmodeus and Beelzebub in there. They’re very much presented as the villains of the piece, at least from the outset. What do you think distinguishes Lucifer from those other demons, either in temperament, morality, or ways of seeing the world?

I think Lucifer is different in all of those aspects. Those demons in particular are what humanity thinks of as “the devil.” They are villains, they are out for themselves in every single way, and we’ll get more into that as the series progresses. They’re untrustworthy. Yes, Lucifer is called the Father of Lies, but that applies much more to their ilk.

What are some of your favorite and least favorite portrayals of the the devil, hell, demons, etc. outside of DC/Vertigo?

I think there’s a wonderful Lucifer in the movie “Constantine.” He’s fascinating, funny, and he’s completely mad. He’s a bit more like the old-school Lucifer, like the crazy evil one, but he’s portrayed so wonderfully in that role. He has a sense of humor and a sense of real danger. He’s such a fun character.

On the other hand, you have Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate,” which, to me, is probably the worst portrayal of Lucifer. Certainly in his Luciferian form. He is the most scenery-chewing, gaudy, ridiculous, version of Lucifer I can think of. A Lucifer who screams a lot about being bad is the least scary Lucifer I can think of.

Historically one of my favorite Lucifer stories in one of the heretical texts is that really got some people in trouble was the wonderful idea that Lucifer and Christ were twin brothers. It’s one of my favorite old bits of heresy right there, and it’s very much a Cain and Abel story. That was wiped right out of the church.

“Lucifer” #16 cover by Lee Garbett.

What’s your scripting style like? You ask six comics writers how they script and you’ll get a dozen different styles. What sort of script are you presenting to the artist, and is their art affecting how you write?

I love working with [penciler] Lee [Garbett]. Lee’s great. I haven’t worked with that many comics artists yet, but along with Ben Templeton, Lee is my favorite artist. He definitely has an influence over the look of the comic. Sometimes I will give him very specific directions because I need a certain look for a certain panel, but really for the most part I try to give him as little direction as possible and let it run with the images. That’s his job! He’s the visual guy and I’m the story guy. Letting people do what they’re good at is the best way to work in the world. I know I can trust him. He’ll come back with a great image, or three great images. He’ll give me three versions of something and all of them will be great.

I’m working very simply. The weirdest thing people will find [is that] when I’m working on my novels, I’ll often do sections of the novel by hand. For the first draft of a “Lucifer” script I’ll do it by hand on a yellow legal pad. For some reason it helps me. I’m very writing dialogue by hand. I can do it on the computer, but for some reason it feels more organic doing it by hand, so I get these ridiculous piles of yellow pieces of paper when I finish a script. I can pretty much get a page of “Lucifer” script on one page of legal pad.

Has the way that Garbett has drawn changed the way that you write?

Oh yeah. The way Lee has portrayed Arabelle has changed the way I write Arabelle. She is more physically dynamic than I originally imagined her. From my original and description and thought and the discussions we had, he kind of streamlined her physically in a way that made me want to put her in motion more. I saw her more as a still figure, and Lee made me want to get her doing stuff. Play with her more, and bring out her dark, cynical humor. It’s been really fun developing her.

And Ellie! Ellie Pyle is such a good editor. She’s taught me more about comics in the time we’ve worked together than anybody else. [CBR Note: Ellie Pyle recently announced her departure from Vertigo to work as a Senior Editor at Riot Games.]

“Lucifer” #14 is on sale now.

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