

All right, I've been talking a lot about entities and Heaven and Hell and Asgard and the Mortal Plane and a bunch of other things you must not be fully understanding. So, in the interest of making this story a little bit more mortal-friendly, I've put together a little crash course in The Beyond.

Enjoy: (If by any chance you are an entity and know all about The Beyond already, please feel free to ignore this next part. Take this time to do something nice for yourself. Go boil an egg. Or go shopping.) (Or go fuck yourself. Who cares? Leave me alone.)

Lilith's Crash Course on The Beyond

So there's Heaven and there's Hell, ok? But it wasn't always like that. At first, there was just The Beyond, and the entities who lived in it. No one called themselves angels or demons, and the entities lived across a bunch of fragmented, independent nations: Hades and Olympus and Duat and Aaru and Paradise and all these different places. A whole lot of them, scattered across The Beyond. Sort of like kingdoms. Or houses in Game of Thrones. One of the biggest 'kingdoms' was Paradise, and it was ruled by The One, who was not, despite the way a lot of people depict him in the Mortal Plane, a big guy in a white beard, but rather a short, fat, stocky bald man. Like George from Seinfeld. Another kingdom was Hell, ruled by the Prince of Darkness. No, not Ozzy Osbourne. I mean my father. Lucifer. Why am I telling you all this? Well, because Paradise and Hell quickly grew to be, by far, the biggest kingdoms across The Beyond, and the two most influential ones too. In time, the cultural influence of Paradise reached far and wide into other kingdoms like Asgard, the Temple of Buddha and most of the Hinduism's Lokas, while Hell's culture was assimilated on places like Hades, Purgatory and other kingdoms of tropical weather. So, little by little, these smaller kingdoms and lands across The Beyond started bowing to either Paradise or Hell. In no time, it looked like every kingdom was either Hell or Paradise-friendly. Kind of like you could be USA capitalist or USSR communist during the Cold War, you know? Soon people started realizing that maybe it would be to everyone's advantage if the kingdoms, which up until then functioned like city states, gathered together under these two unified flags, establishing a unified set of rules and – You know what? It's like the European Union. There, that's easier. There were a bunch of countries, just like Europe, and then one day they just decided to bundle up and establish one government for all. Except in The Beyond's case it was two governments. Hell and Paradise – which later became known as Heaven. And that's the way it is to this day. Got it? And despite the popular belief that exists across the Mortal Plane, Heaven and Hell don't usually disagree on much. Sure, Hell's schools tend to focus more on teaching entities how to manipulate matter and energy in an aggressive and attacking way, while Heaven preaches that supernatural powers should only be used in self-defense, but that's a story for another day. The important thing to remember is the reason these two nations grew large enough to monopolize the cultural and political scenario of The Beyond was a very simple policy they both agreed upon: non-intervention. That meant that, under Heaven and Hell's rules, no entity had the right to intervene in the Mortal Plane. Humans – and everything related to them – were to be left alone to live their lives. Entities wanting to visit, move to, or study the Mortal Plane could do so only in human form, and only after registering with the proper authorities. Even so, they had to agree to respect a series of restrictions before traveling, which mainly included not freaking letting anyone know you're a supernatural being. It sounds simple enough, but you wouldn't believe the trouble Heaven and Hell go through on a daily basis to enforce these rules. Over the last few thousand years we've had to deal with dudes parting seas, walking over water, showing up in toasters... really, all kinds of crazy stuff. So that's that. To sum it up: The Beyond – first, a bunch of independent nations. Then two of those nations grew large enough that they became cultural and political superpowers: Heaven and Hell. Then, gradually, the other, previously independent kingdoms were absorbed by these two kingdoms, and eventually every one of them became a part of either Heaven or Hell. Oh, yes! One more thing, and this is quick: At first, Hell was ruled by my father and Heaven by The One, monarchy style. But then The One died (yes, entities die. Even God) and there was a bit of unrest among the heavenly entities over what to do. Daddy though it was about time to change the way things worked in Hell too, so he gathered a bunch of angels and demons and they got together to develop a new political system. Heaven got itself a House of Angels – a democratically elected group of angels who vowed to oversee and enforce order and peace in all heavenly kingdoms. Hell, on the other hand, was now to be governed by the Chamber of Demons. Same deal as the House of Angels, but with demons. Duh. It was decided that the two organs, however – Chamber and House – were to work under the ruling of a third political power -- the High Council. The High Council was to be composed of both demons and angels, and its mission would be to oversee the actions of both the Chamber of Demons and the House of Angels so that Heaven and Hell could coexist peacefully. And that's the way it is to this day. Ok, now we're done.

And now that you understand all that, can you please appreciate with me the magnitude of the fact that Dean is a God damned entity? I mean, I'm not saying it's all that shocking. There's a lot of entities living legally on Earth, and a good number of them are in L.A. Something about the lovely weather and the soul-sucking quality of the entertainment industry attracts a vast number of both heavenly and hellish entities to the promised land of Café Lattes and overpriced real estate. But still! Dean looks... so human. I wouldn't have taken him for an entity. Granted, I know the motherfucker for a whole twenty four hours, but still. It took me by surprise.

And... wasn't Yuki saying something about illegal entities flocking over to the Mortal Plane to carry out some sort of terrorist attack? Here at UCLA, for that matter? You don't think... I mean, Dean is not... come on! He's just a student, right? He's probably on an exchange program, like I am. Yeah. That's totally it. I'm not developing a crush on an entity that plans to overthrow non-intervention policies and destroy the Mortal Plane. No, sir. Of course not. No way.

Wait. Did I just say I'm developing a crush on Dean?