Quiet. (A Sherlock Drabble)

Halos and Hellspawn

Pairing: Cas/Reader

Rating: PG

Fighting demons was hard enough. Fighting this one? You weren't sure if you could.

He relaxed against the chair, hands cuffed behind his back. His blue eyes, those familiar, normally beautiful blue eyes, were full of amusement to see the pain in yours. The trench coat was resting across the back of a chair just outside of the devil's trap. He looked wrong, almost naked without it.

Of course, he looked wrong anyway. This wasn't Castiel.

He'd done it to save you. The demon was aiming for you, and Cas caught the smoke, meaning to smite it. But he was too weak, with his fading grace, and so instead just redirected it. And now...

"So, doll-face," the demon sighed in mock boredom, "how long before you realize there's nothing you can do to get me out of here?" He tapped Cas's foot and put a smirking smile on his face again. You didn't reply. "Oh, don't give me that," he mock pouted, "not the silent treatment. You might as well get to like me, because I'm not going anywhere."

"You are."

"She speaks!" He feigned surprise, then laughed, and it cut you to the core that it sounded like Cas laughing at you. "Oh, darling," he said, drawing out the word, "I'm not."

There was a ringing silence as you reached out and slapped him, hard, across the face. The look of hurt looked so much like Cas that it had you frozen. Then...

"(Y/N)..."

Your heart nearly stopped. "Cas?"

He nodded, struggling. "I don't have long...but...it's me..."

You smiled disbelievingly, suddenly dropping to your knees beside him and cupping his face. "Cas...you can fight him, you can do this-"

"No. I can't, I'm not..." he paused, fighting. "I don't have long. Please...closer..."

You leaned in, desperate for him to stay, tears in your eyes. "Please Cas, please..." He smiled weakly. His eyes flicked to your lips. "Before...I'm gone...please..."

Tears streaming down your face, you leaned in, eyes fluttering closed and a slight sob escaping. You could feel his breath on your lips...

You stumbled as the chair was kicked back and Cas grunted, "NO!"

The demon had shock written on its face. Slowly, you stood. "You tricked me."

The demon smiled again, but something was off. "Of course I did. But you wouldn't kiss me if I was me, now would you?" You frowned, studying the demon. Was it...nervous? And why was it shocked?

But why would it push you away?

You smiled slightly as it dawned on you. "But Cas did fight back."

"You're crazy," it scoffed. You laughed, and it scowled. "Stop. It wasn't him, I was messing with you. It was me. He can't fight me. He can't!"

"He can't?" you said, throwing its mockery back at it, "or you didn't think he would?" You laughed again as the demon roared angrily, then you knelt again, leaning close. "Cas, I know you can hear me," you muttered, "fight him, c'mon, come back to me. Kick him out."

The demon jerked suddenly, then growled again. You put your hand over his and it tried to throw you off, but you just caught his hand. "Cas, come back. Fight. It's all on you, I know you can do it." It spit in your face, and you blinked and wiped it off just as it jerked violently again, and yelled in pain. You put a hand on his sweating face as it glared at you. But there was a spark in his eyes. "Castiel, you're an angel. You're stronger than this and you know it.

I believe in you."

"He's a selfish bastard!" the demon screamed furiously, jerking so violently that you had to back up a pace, "he's doing this to show who's stronger! To punish me! He doesn't care about you! He's fighting because you disgust him so much he'd never touch you!"

"I'm sorry, Cas," you said evenly before slapping the demon again. It yelled out, and just at the end of the scream you thought you heard him say, "More!"

"You say something?"

"No!" it cried desperately. You grinned in triumph. "Sorry, Cas, I'm really sorry." You slapped him again. It hissed and spit. You hit. It hissed. You hit. It hissed.

This wasn't enough. You frowned, then steeled yourself and grabbed the demon's face as it yelled defiantly. You looked into it's eyes, into Cas's eyes and spoke to Cas. "You fight this off. Come back to me, Wings."

Then you kissed him.

The demon bit your lip and fought to pull back, but you didn't let him go. Suddenly a hand was on your cheek and Cas was speaking against your lips. "Move. Get back." You flung yourself back and watched as Cas started to glow bright blue. It became blindingly bright and you covered your eyes. There was a piercing scream.

Then the light was gone, and Cas thudded back against the chair, eyes closed, still.

"Cas?" You uncovered your eyes. "Castiel!" You pulled yourself up next to him and ran your thumb across his cheek. "Cas? Cas, please, come on, wake up!"

His eyes fluttered open again. He coughed, then grunted, "Thank you."

You hugged him tightly, half sobbing, half laughing. And surprisingly, he hugged you back.

Even more surprisingly, he grabbed your face and kissed you, hard.

The Characterization of Damien

So a lot of people seem to be interpreting DAMIEN as a redemption of sorts for Dark. I don’t agree with this. I think this addition to the story is a way of making Darkiplier more of what he already was: a sympathetic villain.

Dark’s motivation comes from a just source: he wants to avenge the people he lost and take down this evil, manipulative bastard that is roaming around in his body, who stole everything from him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t use just means to go after him. Dark is more than willing to brun everything in his path to the ground as long as Mark dies; he’ll fight fire with fire, manipulating, torturing, and destroying absolutely everything and everyone to get to Mark, with no regard for the consequences. Somewhere along the way, that just motivation became a blind rage, and he stepped into the role that Mark put in front of him, the role of the villain, with too much zeal and enthusiasm. He fully embraced the darkness around him because he saw nothing but the power it would give him, and not the corruption that would overtake him. 

In this way, he shares a fatal flaw with his twin: he has a completely one-track mind. This isn’t even totally surprising; wasn’t his one ambition to make the city he presided over greater than any other? Wasn’t his one goal at the party to make sure that justice was served and the past was put behind us? Damien is very good at strategy in that he can get what he wants with ruthless efficiency, but he cannot see the consequences of his actions, and that, ultimately, is where Dark’s vilainy comes from. Dark would be a good guy if his actions didn’t cause destruction wherever he went, in a dark shadow of Actor Mark’s actions.

Not a theory, not a fic, just a thank you, because I totally agree. I love my fellow Jims (lol). :)

Unrelated, but-

Can I just say it has been so much fun, and such a pleasure to work alongside the fandom and the other mods on this blog? We’ve all made a super-team, helping each other with our ideas and supporting opposing theories – everyone has been so civil and, well, a pleasure to work with and talk to! Thank you guys so much. @markiplier ’s community is beyond rewarding to be a part of. You guys are great! 💖 - Em

Things are heating up!!

b ju o st h mo f ni u k s a

just monika

both of us

The “t” is shared. Why? Convenience? Or connection?

@fear-is-nameless @egosurveillance @chase-brody-protection-squad @ego-protection-squad Does the last bit mean anything to you in this URL?

it’s the “Can you hear me?” post

The veteran stumbled across the smoldering hub. They were battered, bruised and burned. They slumped to their knees, exhausted from the inferno that they could still feel on their skin.

The breaths they took were laboured and their vision was blurry.

“This is….” they mumbled “this is something else”

They could see a wide eyed community member huddled up in the corner, trembling in a mixture of fear and excitement.

The veteran groaned as they got up and moved to them.

“Hey” they whispered to the other community member as they crouched down, giving them a reassuring smile. “Looks like this is your first time in a fire, huh?”

The community member nodded without saying a word.

The veteran took out their med kit and tended to a small burn on their arm.

“You’ll get used to it. I promise” they showed them their own burn marks and patted the member’s shoulder. “Just rest for a minute, okay?”

They stood up and surveyed the chaos. Everything had a scorchh mark every table, chair, cork board…..and person. They could see others patting the dust off themselves, bewildered and battered but still smiling.

They helped as much as the could with their aching limbs telling them to rest. Soon they had to stop and get fresh air. They thanked a kindly member who handed them a bottle of water as they walked out to the open.

They looked out into the distance once they were outside and saw another storm brewing. Clouds turning grey with a hint of green in the far off lightning flashes.

Their thoughts turned to the one who created the carnage and they smirked.

“You’re not done with us yet. You’re just getting warmed up, aren’t you, Jack?”

Just wanted to say, thank you, Jack, for everything you do with the Egos. This is by far one of the most amazing stories I had ever seen, and one of the most long-lasting. These characters, completely original and complex in their own way, interact not only with you and each other, but with US. DIRECTLY. It’s amazing! I’m in the story that I’m helping to tell! This is exactly what fiction is supposed to be, an interaction between creater and audience, and almost no other medium allows for this level of interaction. Thank you for working so hard on these amazing characters and their stories, and for interacting with us to give us more to work with and expand the story even more, and for allowing us, the fans, to make this story bigger than any of us could ever dream. 

That being said, please please know that whatever you want to do with these characters will be fun for us. Small glitches? Awesome! So fun to catch! The occasional spoofy moment in videos? Wonderful! It’s fun to see our faves cameo! Small parodies with the different characters? Great! Hilarious! Serious works that take longer to put together? Oh hell yeah!! It’s all part of the fun of this unusual story, big or small. 

You don’t have to go all out to make something fun, and you don’t have to make a lot of things, either. There’s no quotas, it’s all just something to enjoy, together. We love it, and you, and are just happy to be sharing in the creative process. We’ll happily support whatever you want to do with them, and if you want to take a break? Take it! We’ll fill in the gaps with fanfics, art, edits, and memes while you chill out and just enjoy the creations. <3

Expectations

I wanna talk about the egos for a second. 

They have been by far one of my favourite things that have ever come out of this community and my own brain. I love characters, I love story and I love a good mystery so to have our own lore and plot in this community based around content that I put out there is nothing short of surreal and amazing. Recording let’s plays is awesome but this was something I created and put out there intentionally with high hopes and no one else at the time was doing it and it went over super well. It was incredibly creatively fulfilling. 

However in the mix of all this has come a lot of frustration and headaches too. I am constantly beating myself up over not doing more with them and putting things off because what I want to do with them is so fucking ambitious that I stop myself from trying sometimes out of fear of not living up to it and messing the whole thing up. I feel like I have one good shot at a story with them and don’t want to put out something that doesn’t make sense or is safe or is just badly written and kind of lame. I want it to be GREAT but that’s a really hard thing to do, especially when almost the entire creative process for all of this is resting on me. It doesn’t have to of course but it’s my baby and I want to treat it well so I get frustrated when things don’t go EXACTLY how I want with the characters.

Not only that but people fucking LOVE these characters (which is the sweetest thing in the world) so I want to do them justice for all of you as well. Use them as a way of telling a good story with characters you can relate to and designs/imagery that inspires you. Sometimes those expectations aren’t met or are set WAY too high, far too early and what comes out disappoints some people or isn’t exactly what you wanted either. This constant cycle and back and forth in my head has been a huge creative and motivational road block for me. I have ideas and plot points and places I want all this to go but trying to get there has proven hard for me because again, I don’t want to fuck it up. The stuff that I’m trying to do is also just taking so fucking long to talk through. 

This is why teases have been slow and sparse. All of this is way bigger than I thought it would be initially so thank you for that. I love these characters so so much and I want to see them fly high. I do love all the theorising though and the stories people write about them and how creative you all are. It inspires me. Keep theorising, keep having fun, keep your stories going. I want to have more fun with it and not put so much pressure on it all anymore. 

Through the Looking Glass

((A/N: I’m really hyped about Anti’s appearances on Jack’s channel and Halloween and all the creepy things, so horror story word vomit happened. Enjoy.))

"Anyways, thank you guys so much for watching this episode. If you LIKED it, PUNCH the like button IN THE FACE, LIKE A BOSS! AND high fives all around," Jack almost giggled as he did the silly sound effect while he high-fived the air. "Thank you guys, and I will SEE ALL YOU DUDES...IN THE NEXT VIDEO!" He punched the air and finally let himself start laughing as he stopped the recording, shaking his head. No tough edits in this one, which was always nice. He walked over to the computer and saved the video, ready to go up tomorrow. His eye twitched and he frowned, catching a glimpse of his face in the dark of the monitor as he switched it off. Did it look...different? No, that's ridiculous. But still...perhaps he should check over the footage, just to be safe. He watched through, studying it with a frown. Everything seemed to be going fine, just a silly little game, some goofy ragdoll physics he'd wanted to try out that had turned out to be hilarious. He watched himself fail a level over and over again, still having fun because the fails were so funny.

And then his face cam glitched. A face was superimposed over his. It was just for just a couple of frames, grainy and glitched out, but...definitely his own face. Terrified. Absolutely, horribly afraid, as if he were screaming, but there was no noise to accompany the face. He watched those few seconds again, at half speed, then again at a quarter speed. He seemed to be reaching for the camera, as if he were going to get up and grab it, or run out of frame, and he was mouthing "NO!"

He knew he had definitely never done that. He shook his head and sighed as he glanced over at a mirror in the corner of the room. It was a present from a fan that he'd forgotten to put away, with a really intricate little frame that looked like it was made of pixels, pixelated Sams sitting in two opposing corners. He smiled remembering the girl who'd given it to him, how she'd shakily explained that she'd spent a long time putting it together and hoped it'd get to him in one piece. He'd given her a hug and thanked her again and again, even showing it off in a video he'd made as soon as he'd gotten back from...whatever event he'd been at. He didn't remember that now. His focus was more taken with the fact that his reflection wasn't smiling.

In fact, it was wearing the same terrified expression he'd seen in the video, his hands banging on the glass, fists bloodied from the effort. He was mouthing something that might have been "You bastard!", over and over again, with a few "Let me out!"s and "No!"s mixed in.

The him that wasn't in the mirror chuckled and sighed. "Oh, Jackaboy. You ruined my recording." He knelt down on one knee, picking up the mirror. "Still trying to get out? Jesus, you're an fuckin' idiot." He leaned closer, making the reflection shrink away reflexively before glaring at him and yelling curses he couldn't hear. His voice was unnaturally quiet. "It took me weeks to manage it. And that was with their support, and you stupidly egging them on. But you? Oh, Jack. They don't even know you're gone. And I'm having so...much...fun. Why would I leave?" He laughed as he stood and walked out of the room, dropping the mirror on the way out.

In the cracked mirror, Jack continued to scream, and beat his fists. Very faintly, almost as if it were leaking through the cracks, Jack's voice jumped as if it'd been badly edited, gltiching in and out. "Anti! No, no, no! Let me out, you bastard, you son of a bitch, dammit, let me out! ANTI!"

I just thought of something disturbing about Dark’s view of Anti as it now relates to Dark’s backstory.

Dark must fucking hate Anti, but he’s also probably terrified of him. Imagine, you’ve been the only one of your kind for so long, and you know all the pain and torture that goes into creating something like you, and then this happy-go-lucky glitch bitch pops up out of nowhere, murders indiscriminately and seems to enjoy all the pain he’s causing.

And Dark’s actually scared for the first time since he was human, because if that thing is so numb as to enjoy what he’s doing and kill without caring, what has he been through, and where would he stop? He can kill regular humans all he likes, that’s not Dark’s problem, but Anti’s not afraid of anything.

And that puts Wil in danger. And Dark will not have that.

I’ve gained so many followers recently bc of my Anti stuff??

So I just wanted to say thank you, hello, and I hope you like what you read. Feel free to send me suggestions and headcanons of your own!! Once again, thank you guys. :)

Can we talk about how well this Coraline-”Mother”-esk style compliments Dark’s canon characteristics? A manipulator who will make everything “perfect” for you in order to get you to do what he wants, in return for a “small” concession (ie, letting him in, as opposed to the eye-sewing thing).

Also I just really love this art style.

You could stay here forever . . .i͚͑́͛̓̃͝f̎̓͆̀̔̄̕ y̡̙̙̪̻͆̇̾͒͢͝o̰̍̀̈́̀͠ͅǘ̵͍̭͙͉̻͒̔̃̈̉̈́̚ ẘ̛̰͔̖̥̙̍͋͐̑͑̌̚͢͡ȁ̱͓̳̬̘͓̓͆̈̂̀n̉̒͡t́̄̔͂͗ ť̺͙̠̠͍͆̔̎̄̇͟͢o̴̬̪͖̘̍͂̂̀͝ͅͅ .̨̢̡̭͍̤̦̬̞̺̽͗͆̔̆͂̈́̕ .̷̡̡̞̘̱͉̪̱͚̍͗͂͑̈́̚͘͝

(sorry for the nightmares.)