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imagoddamnonionmason · 6 months ago

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Unknown Soldier

Fandom: Call of Duty Word Count: 5985 (sorry) Summary: Jodie Hall, callsign Bell, is faced with the revelation that she is not who she's been made to believe she is. Feeling betrayed, with memories rushing back, all she wants is a little bit of air.

A/N: Hello! This is a rewrite of the cutscene where Bell finds out they're brainwashed but written for my version of Bell! Hope you enjoy, pls let me know what you think :) Slight implied woods/bell, but at this point in the story they're not really a thing yet

Read on!

CIA SAFE HOUSE E9, “DIE LANDEBAHN” Jodie "Bell" Hall, MI6 52.5200 N, 13.4050 E, West Berlin March 14, 1981

As Bell worked to open her eyes, the lights above left sparking spots dancing across her vision. She attempted to block out that sickly light with her right hand, but found resistance against her limbs. Sluggishly, she moved her head to the side, eyes pained to focus on the leather straps that restricted her movement, that pinned her to the gurney beneath her back. Her mind was fogged, encased in a painful ache that even the tiniest movement made her stomach lurch and her body wishing it could anywhere but there.

Beside the gurney was Sims, his arms folded over his chest and eyes watching her so very intently, scrutinising her, judging her. Bell may be feeling like her mind was a million miles away from her physical body, but she was not stupid; he was regarding her with a deep seated hatred and it burned her skin.

He muttered, calling out to someone, “she’s coming to.”

In an instant, Adler was in their presence, leaning over her as he placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. The grip was tight, edging towards being painful, and Bell winced against the pain. He did not care, instead, his voice loomed over her, deep and assertive, “Bell, no more fucking around. What did Perseus say? Where is he?”

Her eyes met his, though her sight was blurred, fighting incredibly hard to focus. There was a brief thought that danced across her mind, as the fog started to rise and her brain began to settle down from whatever heights it had been at before. Her head shifted back, an attempt to put more space between her and Adler, only for the gurney to keep her rigidly in place; the thoughts became clearer, incessant, and she found that the voice in her head grew louder than the voice of the man before her. It screamed that she was clueless, lost, and everything was a lie.

Her voice was small, as her sweat slicked brow furrowed, “who am I?”

There was a flicker of derision on Adler’s scarred features, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, soon replaced by a concern that did not sit right with Bell. His voice grew soft, levelled with a sense of urgency, “you’re disoriented, Bell. We’ll explain everything later. Right now, we need to help each other.”

Her dark eyes remained on him for a moment longer, growing darker as clarity finally came about her. Memories flashed across her mind’s eye, so quickly that the course of events overlapped and flitted in a slurry of blurred images, headache inducing and raw. The drugs that had pumped through her system burned inside her veins, the ingenuity of her captors seared across her skin as their eyes bore straight through her. These people wouldn’t help her, they had her tied down to a damn gurney.

“Bullshit,” she spat, lurching against the restraints.

“Bullshit is what your whole life will amount to if you don’t come clean.” Adler leant closer, a sneer on his features as a low growl roughened the edges of his vocals, “tell us where Perseus is.”

While Adler and Sims were settled by the left of the gurney, Park stepped into the light by the right and her hands came to rest on Bell’s forearm - it was a calmer sensation, gentle in some way, a reminder that Bell might still have someone. But there was the instinctual desire to tear herself away, denied the right by the restraints.

Park spoke, as softly and calmly as her touch attempted to coerce Bell to feel, “you were one of Perseus’ agents, Bell, and his associate, Arash Kadivar, turned on you at the airstrip in Turkey. He left you for dead.”

She was partly right. Bell could feel it, knew it, deep down, that there was a truthful essence to those words; but they had it completely wrong, too. At the edges of the very recesses of her conscious mind, after all the drugs, the conditioning, there were glimpses of memories that belonged to the woman that Bell once was. After a second of reaching for them, desperately clinging to that consciousness, she found that those memories came forward, rushing at her in a cold wash of dread.

In her fingerless gloved hands, a thick file, filled to the brim with bountiful knowledge that, in the right hands, could end Perseus in his steps and see him rot in Hell. Her eyes settled over the Russian text, reading it over and over, as a reluctance to hand it over to her counterpart weighed heavy in her chest.

This is the information that she had been asked to collect, to give to Agent Wells when they next met, and yet she could not find an ample opportunity to stash it away. Eyes were on her, ever present and lingering, as though they knew exactly what part she was playing.

The hand of Arash Kadivar is out to her from her right, waiting expectantly, urged to hand over the files with the slight wiggle of his index and middle fingers. Forcing herself not to hesitate, Nadežda placed the files in his hand, the mask over her face hiding the reluctant grimace that flashed across it.

Arash opened the file, flicked through the pages, nodding as though something had been confirmed to him. He looked at her, offered her a cocky smile, then spoke, “when the plane leaves Trabzon, it stops in Duga. This you know.”

Nadežda nodded, brows twitching into a short lived furrow, as her heart skipped a few beats - the palpitations did not last long, willed away by the strength of her resolve to complete her mission. She had come so far and she was not about to lose sight of the end goal now.

“Here’s what you don’t know,” he continued, tilting his head slightly, as though gauging her reaction, “Perseus won’t be there.”

Now this was new information, a dash in the plans that she had not foreseen coming. Perhaps, she thought, these differences were ironed out in a meeting that she was not able to be present for, and could only hope for that to be the truth. But, Nadežda knew that the entire faction played with the semantics of the word truth, she played with it, and so found herself unable to commit to that notion.

She was singled out for a reason and her palms grew sweaty, as she tried her best to hide the nervous anticipation of Arash’s next words.

In turn, Arash waved his hand out to gesture at the collection of men and women working along the airstrip, the sight coming into view as they began to arrive. They were loading weapons into the plane that sat patiently on the airstrip, “none of these hired guns are going to leave Duga alive. We’ll dump their bodies in the forest. Then we will move the weapons to Volkov in Berlin.”

He handed the file back to Nadežda, though did not let go of it for a second. He was attempting to shake her confidence, to cause a fracture in her well designed facade, and he was met with failure.

“From there, we fly to Solovetsky,” the truck growled and spluttered, wheels screeching as the driver pushed his foot flat against the brake. The three bodies lurched forward with the ending motion. Nadežda hovered in her seat for a moment longer, as Arash stepped out of the vehicle and closed the door. The window had been set down, which now had Arash leaning over the lip of it. He ducked his head down, his shoulders bouncing in low-levelled laughter, before the chuckle grew into something mocking and scornful.

Arash spoke, words laced with disappointment and contempt, “Perseus has other plans for you, though. He thought so highly of you. Then it turns out you’re nothing but a traitorous dog.”

The dread had grown exponentially in her stomach, heavy and cool, driving ice through her veins and urging her body to react to the man drawing his pistol on her. However, she was taken off guard and though her reactions were fast, they were not enough to stop the event that was in motion.

As she began to aim her pistol at Arash, the bullet fired from his own and shredded straight through her upper left chest. It threw her body heavily against the door, blood splattering from the open wound and onto the frame. Nadežda knew she should feel pain, but instead she felt nothing, as adrenaline dulled it down to such an impossibly low level. It was screaming at her to use its masking to get away, to run, but all she could do was slump forward and try to protect the file she still had in her hands.

Arash then shot the driver, before he opened up the door and snatched the files from her hands.

“You can bleed out,” Arash snarled, “and while you die, know that everything you tried to do has amounted to fucking nothing.”

Desperately, sluggishly, she tried to reach for the files, but he pushed her away, leaving her to slowly fade into unconsciousness.

A voice broke through her reverie, booming, agonising, “we were there, Bell, we found you after everything went down.”

That’s right. She remembered the blistering heat of explosions, gunfire, screams, agonising screams-

Her door was pulled open, violently, and the stale air that clung to her dying form was sucked away as though caught in a vacuum. Hands were on her. Searching. Hands were on every inch on her but they found nothing but her blood. Gasping breath wracked her lungs, inflating them weakly as her own hands began their own blind search. They sought after the person next to her, fingers feebly clutching at unknown fabric.

End it.

You’ve come back to finish the job.

Do it.

“Over here! We’ve got a live one!”

American?

He’s American.

One name was present on her chapped lips, but her eyes could not focus on the blurred figure that pulled her up from her slouched position.

“Wells?”

No- No, it hadn’t been Wells, had it? It had been the bastard that had the nerve to stand beside her now, right? She couldn’t remember everything, no matter how much she fought to cling to the nuances; they were always just out of reach, just beyond her, and her instincts, again, screamed ‘don’t fucking trust anything. It's all lies. Lies.’

Through gritted teeth, tortured vocals hounded, “you’re lying- you put this shit in my head. You’re fucking lying-”

Impatience grew thick around Adler and his hands were back on Bell’s shoulders, shaking them, as he barked, “the CIA reinvented you, Bell. You fought against us every interrogation. You left us no choice. We gave you a new identity to replace the old.”

Flashes of those interrogations seared across her mind, burning holes and leaving scars. She’d never said a word and if she did, it was only ever to utter Agent Wells’ name. He’d told her not to trust any other agent, that the CIA had been compromised by a mole. She couldn’t have risked the information she had getting into the wrong hands, even if she was already destined for a destructive path. The last thing she would do in the face of her betrayal to Perseus was to make sure the information she had either reached Wells or died with her.

Adler continued, a hollow laugh filling the air, “it was Park’s idea to make you MI6. She wanted that bond with you. You even picked up a bit of her accent.”

Park tried her best to offer the woman before her a genuinely concerned, reassuring smile, but she was never able to tell whether Bell appreciated the effort. Her light eyes then focused on her colleague, brows furrowing as he continued, guilt beginning to sow seeds in her chest. His voice was quieter now, “we were able to utilise your language, your cryptography skills, they were an added bonus. The bigger challenge was your memory.”

Park interjected, hoping that her softer tones might be more palatable, begging that Bell could read between the lines and see that they did only what they thought was right, “the CIA’s MK-Ultra program used Adler’s missions in Vietnam as a template. We needed you to have that shared experience. A lifelong bond. We needed you to trust us, Bell.”

Bell hated that she could feel tears threaten to fall, as her throat clenched, sharp pains coursing down and into her chest, “you people are sick.”

Adler moved away, pointing in her direction with a judgemental glare, “are your hands clean, Bell?”

Again, she moved to rise, her anger flaring in the pit of her stomach, only for her dive for the other to be restricted, “fuck this- fuck you.”

His voice was ravaged by disgust, cold and menacing, “I don’t think so. You’re still holding back on us, and we are going to get it out of you.”

She felt sick.

She wanted to throw up.

To cave in on herself.

To fade.

Bell felt a whimper form in her throat, but would rather die than allow anyone to see her give in to her fear.

Then, he muttered, “we have a job to do.”

Her brain felt like it had just had a thousand volts of electrical current run through every synapse, crackling and stunning every inch of her being. It was like her emotions were torn from her, a factory reset taking over and forcing her into a baseline. Whatever she had been thinking about before, whatever memories from the past she had fought to hold onto, they were snatched within an instant and everything became a blinding white.

On the gurney, she convulsed, writhing and screaming in pain, as part of her battled against the conditioning.

In the end, she lost.

That white light scorched her sight, overtaking her vision, until flashes of a red door were all she could see. It was to her left. Then her right. Behind her. In front. It was all consuming, following her, unrelenting and torturous.

“The trigger phrase kept you in line, but it didn’t get us everything we needed,” Adler informed, now too invested in this reveal to give a damn about what this would mean for his subject. Did he even care to begin with?

The red door was now in front of her, the force of it dropping from above driving its base deep into a greyed concrete floor. Wherever she was, it was vague enough that she couldn’t place it in the real world. She was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

“Your innermost secrets were always locked behind a door.” He added, then a sigh heaved through his nose, a tired look on his features as he came to stand by her left. His hands were on the gurney, taking the weight of his upper body as he leant forward, contemplative, “Bell, I realise you probably hate us right now.”

“Fucking understatement,” she spat.

“I need you to fully understand the stakes here. What you do right now is not about me, it’s not about you. It’s about millions of other fucking people. It’s about stopping someone who, in the end, has no true allegiance to anyone other than himself.” Adler clearly felt proud with that speech, and he removed his sunglasses to aid in gauging Bell’s thoughts. He kept his eyes locked with hers, intently searching the brown hues for any nuances, any flickers, something he could recognise as winning. He spoke impossibly soft, “tell me, Bell.”

A beat.

“Where is Perseus?”

Before her stood the man that had been with her since she was a child. Eyes that had once regarded her warmly, fatherly, now did so with cold synergy. She did not know what went on behind those eyes, she could never read his thoughts, nor could she even begin to understand the complexity that was him, Perseus, and so had given up trying years since. That had been until she had come across a wayward file, written words never intended for her own eyes to see and it had been the first glimpse into the kind of man that he was, the kind of man that shaped a child into a soldier and promised her everything, but gave her nothing.

For years she had known what he had done, that those eyes were filled to the brim with fallacies and delusions, contorted into orders and manipulation. Those were the years that she had spent sick to her stomach, playing a game of chess with the man that held all the cards. All the lies she had told, the lies she had lived, the lies she would continue to tell would all amount to nothing if she did not stick with it at this moment. She had to continue, to persevere.

His hands rested on her shoulders, as he offered her a warm smile that did not reach his eyes. In their native tongue, he spoke, addressing her tenderly, as a father would a daughter, “once we control the Greenlight arsenal, Nadežda, we will detonate them all from the safety of Solovetsky.”

The word ‘safety’ rang in her ears and she was reminded again why she was finally breaking free from his hold.

He had promised safety to her brother and he shattered it himself.

“Yes, from the safety of Solovetsky,” she had echoed.

“This is your chance to define who you really are, Bell. Tell us, where is Perseus?” Adler let the desperation slip through into his tone and Bell closed her eyes. They stung from the tears that wanted to form, that threatened to fall, but she wouldn’t let them. Eventually, when she opened up her eyes, she forced her gaze to stare at the ceiling. She could hear Perseus’ voice echoing against the inside of her skull and her rage began to build again.

Bell had been betrayed by Perseus her entire life, fed his lies over and over; then, agent Wells who had made her believe that she couldn’t have trusted those that now currently stand around her, he had betrayed her, too.

But whether she trusted Adler, Park and the rest now, or not, did not matter.

This was it, everything she could remember doing, everything she had fought for, what she had been destroyed for, it all came down to her next words.

Quietly, she murmured, “Solovetsky… It’s Solovetsky Monastery.”

He echoed her, then turned to Sims, “Sims, get Washington on the line. Everyone else, gear up, we’re leaving now.”

As Sims left the room, Bell was released from the restraints by Adler, “you made the right choice, Bell, come on, you’re still one of us.”

He moved to help her sit up, but she shrugged him off, pushing him away and seething, “don’t fucking touch me.”

“Bell,” Park started, then switched up, “Jodie-”

“Shut the fuck up-” Bell fought to get off the gurney as quickly as she could. Beside Park was a metal tray nestled atop a table, the contents being the copious amounts of drugs and the used needles that had kept Bell compliant throughout the session. Bell stumbled, knocking into this table, the tray clattering as her hand caught the lip of it in an attempt to steady herself. Adler and Park motioned to help, but Bell swatted them away and shot to the entryway of the room.

Leaning against the doorframe, she felt her stomach flip, empty of contents, but bile sloshing uncomfortably against the lining. It wanted to rise up her throat, burning the flesh raw. But, she ignored that feeling, willed it away, and pushed herself onward until she was in the open, stale air of the safe house. Her heart was pounding painfully against her ribcage, to a point where she believed that, if it beat hard enough, it would burst through the bone as though it was nothing but brittle china.

Eyes were on her. One set was hidden behind darkened glasses, steadily trailing her form and remaining stoic in the face of the situation; it was to be expected, the man was like ice. Hudson stood, leant at an angle against what he had claimed as his desk, arms folded over his chest as he kept a hawklike watch on her actions.

The other two sets were nestled by the van and their owners moved their sight to her, warily concerned, as they rose from their seated positions. Mason began to walk towards hers, hand out to help steady her, but she quickly stepped back. He hovered in place, then withdrew his hand and retreated from her. His tones were laced with a cold sensation, torn at the edges, and his eyes glowered at the direction of the room she had just come from. Mason could feel a heat burning in his chest, spreading like a wildfire until the anger singed at his fingertips and lapped at the edges of his mind. Sharply, he asked, “Is Adler finished with you?”

His question did not reach her. All she wanted was air, cool and refreshing and free of anyone else.

Bell needed to be outside. She needed to be out of the damn safe house, out of their company.

She wanted out.

“I need some air,” was all she could breathe, taking brisk steps past the man before her. Mason turned his body to follow after her, but froze himself to the spot, as he shot Woods a look. He was speaking volumes without having to use his voice and Woods knew better than anyone that Mason was pissed.

There was part of him that asked when does this kind of thing end? It should have ended with him. Yet, here he was, staring after a woman who had been put through the same horrendous agony. Maybe, deep down, he knew that this is what had become of that woman from the airstrip, but to have it confirmed… it caused a rage he’d not felt in years to boil up.

He supposed this was just another thing Hudson had kept from him, from Woods. Perhaps it’s because they would have shot it down, the idea of destroying someone completely and utterly. Who knows? And in that moment, Mason quite frankly couldn’t have given less of a fuck about the reasons.

At the exit of the safehouse, Bell was slumped headfirst against the door, hands fumbling about the face of it in search of the handle. She felt as though she was drunk, body battling the effect of the drugs that had been pumped through her veins. Her ears were ringing, pulsating, and with each throb she felt her heart ache more intensely than it had seconds before. As she focused on steadying her breathing, she didn’t acknowledge the sounds of voices behind her, gaining on her position.

“Bell, do not go through that door,” it was Adler. He was firm, cold, and his footsteps were frantic as they approached. Her hand finally grasped the cold doorknob, twisting it in a stubborn response to his order, but before she could escape into the cool air outside, his hands were on her.

The second she felt his touch on her, she turned on him like a wild animal. Her sight was entirely consumed by pounding red, like fire scorching her skin and lighting a fury in her core. The rage coiling within her chest burned so violently, blindly, that she was acting before her mind could quell it. Instinct was in control now, leading the charge against the threat it perceived in Adler. In one quick thrust, her enclosed fist flew out to strike his face. Her knuckles collided with his chin, rocking him backwards.

He took a few stumbling steps, but ultimately he remained standing, a hand cupping the area that she had made contact with. His glasses were gone, the force of the hit throwing them from his features, leaving behind the unobstructed thinning glare he sent her way.

“I said, don’t fucking touch me,” she seethed, as their team came to stand between them. Woods was by her side, hands hovering over her; he didn’t want to touch her, less he received the same treatment Adler had. One thing he noted, however, was that she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Bell acknowledged no-one, other than Adler, and her searing glare burned right through him and to the man behind.

“Take a walk, Bell,” Woods uttered, shooting a daring glance over his shoulder, wishing someone would just try and say that she couldn’t. If he had to, he’d stand and guard the damn door.

“She’s not going outside alone,” Adler muttered, as Park tugged him back further into the safe house.

“You goin’ to stop her,” Woods snapped, turning away from the woman that was still at his side. He could still feel that glare, hear the steadying deep breaths fill her lungs as she fought the rage within her. He then snapped at her, “I said take a walk.”

He accentuated his words with a firm point to the door, his arm hovering just over her right shoulder. It was then that she broke her eye contact with Adler, sending that hateful gaze towards Woods; the heat faltered when it was faced with this new person, lessening considerably. It was then that he saw it, the slight crack of a facade he hadn’t even realised she’d been wearing. There was the slight ghost of tears welling in her waterline, but Woods didn’t have the opportunity to see if they came to fruition, as she was turning and throwing herself through the door like her very life depending on escaping.

It slammed, leaving behind the team in silence.

As most moved back into the safe house, Woods remained by the door, head ducked down as he thought, his thumb running circles over his forefinger. If she hadn’t done it, he would have probably hit Adler himself, as similar rage was settling in the pit of his stomach. Part of him wondered if he should be angry, whether he had a right, and the questions left a bitter taste in his mouth. He took a deep breath, followed by biting his lower lip to fight against the grimace of bitterness on his face.

He didn’t want to admit that he had gotten too attached, too close, and now he was left adrift in a million questions with no sail to guide him through. Bell was on their side, she had fought alongside them, saved Park’s life and now he was supposed to believe that she had been one of Perseus’ most trusted? It didn’t fit.

“If she runs,” Adler had called out to him as Woods fought his internal monologue, “it’s on you.”

Woods settled his gaze on him, cold, icy, and he wondered if it was worth telling him to go fuck himself. He settled, for once, on ignoring that impulse and moved to go through the door, the same one that Bell had used to escape into the outside.

As he moved into the night evening air, he felt the slight chill in the wind cling to his body, begging to break past the leather of his body warmer. Initially, Woods couldn’t spot where the woman had disappeared to. He hated to admit it, but for a second he wondered if she had taken the opportunity to run. Who could blame her, though, in the face of what had just happened within the walls of the safehouse. Woods had never seen her so emotive, so unstable, and her professional facade had shattered right there in front of their eyes. But, if he knew her as well as he thought he did she wouldn’t have gone far. Bell wouldn’t run, not from this, not from anything.

Taking a few steps forward, Woods squinted against the harsh sickly lights that shone from the sides of the safehouse wall. They illuminated the surrounding area, until the light slowly faded to the depths of shadows a couple metres out. His gaze focused there, in that dark evening ambiance and hope that she hadn’t wandered that way out.

“I see Adler sent a guard dog after me.” There was bitterness to the stressed tones, a slight waver, that usually was absent, wracking the vocals. He swung his head to the left, following those indignant tones until he was met with the image of Bell leaning against the wall. There were a few discarded pallets, stacked high next to her and they created a small shaded spot for her to hide in. The only show that anyone was there was the gentle silhouette and the occasional glow of red as a cigarette burned. As he stepped, cautiously, closer, Bell's sight remained steadfast in its forward gaze, darkened eyes refusing to acknowledge the company she now had.

She brought the cigarette to her lips, drawing in a long, deep inhale of smoke. It remained, pooling in her lungs until a rush of short lived relaxation washed over her and then she exhaled.

“He hasn’t sent anyone,” Woods retorted, gruffly, frowning as he came to a stop next to the pallets, “I came out here ‘cause I wanted to.”

Her eyes moved, downcast, as she flicked away ashes that clung to the end of her cigarette.

“Listen, Jodie-” His tones were considerably soft, something not many had the privilege of being the subject of.

“Don’t call me that.” She snapped, instantly, growing rigid at the name.

“But that’s who you are-” He urged, annoyance clinging to his throat.

“You haven’t got the slightest clue who I am,” she seethed, voice wavering once again.

He crossed his arms over his chest, gloved hands tensing as he stared at her incredulously, “are you kiddin’ me?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

A beat.

“What are you even doing out here, Woods? I don’t remember asking you to follow me. I don’t want you here.” She moved to spare a fleeting glance his way, as she shifted uncomfortably against the wall.

“Well tough shit, cause I ain’t goin’ anywhere.” Was all he said in response, trying his best to stunt the feeling of growing annoyance at the way she spoke to him; he had to understand that she had every right to be angry, to be belligerent and aggressive and seething. Damn, he’d be worse if the roles were reversed.

Silence fell over the two, as Woods pulled out his own packet of cigarettes. He pulled one for himself, then offered her one.

She did not take it.

As he lit his, the glow of red fading over his face with each attempt to get the lighter to work, he was posed a question. If he didn’t know any better, he might have flown off the handle, but right now he supposed Bell was reevaluating those around her.

“Did you know?”

“What-”

“Did you know?” She cut him off, lips thin and tight over the snarl that erupted along with those repeated words. She didn’t have time to play games and she was tired of the constant mental chess she had been forced to play with the others.

“No.”

The unconvinced scoff that formed in her chest was heavy and she shook her head as she muttered, “really? You expect me to believe that.”

“Yeah, actually, I do,” he griped, “you really think I’d have let them brainwash you?”

Pushing herself from the wall, she yelled, “I don’t know what to think, Frank, because ten minutes ago I was Jodie Hall, MI6, and now I’m some brainwashed terrorist.”

Wiping a hand over her mouth, there were waves upon waves of distress and anxiety that were almost tangibly rolling over her body. If she hadn’t covered her mouth, she feared that she would have said much more than she was willing to admit. There was part of her that was relishing in being free, letting her emotions escape and ransack the outside world; then the other part hated being so vulnerable.

Silence fell over the two and though it was tense, rigid, Woods didn’t want to leave her. There was nothing he could say, or do, that could make this revelation any easier on her and he wasn’t entirely sure why he decided to stick around. But he did and he didn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

He eventually found himself looking at his feet, then at anywhere but her, only for his attention to be pulled back to her when she let out a scoff, something akin to a vindictive chuckle. He silently waited for her to speak, as it seemed that there was something on her mind and Woods worried that if he interjected, she might close up.

“You know what’s funny?”

A beat.

“I thought about lying.” She said, her features haunted by a vacant, ghostly reverie, “I thought about sending the lot of you to Duga, to chase after nothing.”

She stubbed out the cigarette on the wall before discarding the butt to the floor, a hollow laugh rattling through her aching chest, “I imagined what your faces would look like, being betrayed. Maybe you’d all feel a fraction of what it’s like. To be fucked over.”

There was a heavy feeling in his chest, brows furrowing further as he watched a dark look come about the woman before him. Before he had a chance to catch the words, they were out in the open, snapping, “then why didn’t you?”

Bell looked up and quietly regarded him. She was doing what she usually did, reading his features, gauging his reactions. Her eyes locked with his and there was the hint of tears forming in her eyes again. But, she didn’t cry, unable to allow herself to reveal any vulnerability.

“Why didn’t you lie, Jodie?”

“I…” She faltered.

She ducked her head down, then to the side as she fought the tears, the burning tightness in her throat. If she spoke now, the tears would fall, her voice would crack and she couldn’t risk him seeing her so weak. Bell motioned to move away from him, to run from this situation and fade back into the shadows where she could silently cry but Woods’ hand gently took hold on her forearm. He softly guided her to stand before him, the lights now allowing him to see her features clearly. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes red-rimmed, and her lips quivered. His hand gave her arm a slight squeeze; it wasn’t much in the form of comfort, but she knew what he was trying to do.

Then, she cleared her throat, fought to push out the words, “because I don’t matter.”

She inhaled sharply and she uttered the next words almost to convince herself that she had done the right thing, that she had made the right choice; after all, everything she had done over the last few years, the pain she had endured, it was all coming to a head.

Stopping Perseus is what she had been aiming for, right?

Saving millions of lives is why she had betrayed the faction in the first place, right?

After everything awful she had done for that man, after the lives she had taken, ruined, destroyed she supposed it made sense that this was the way her story came to an end.

Her voice was barely above a whisper, “what’s one more sacrifice…”

Pulling away from him, she began to walk back into the safe house, leaving Woods to watch after her retreating form. She had no intention of speaking with anyone else; there was nothing left to talk about other than do one singular thing.

Stop Perseus.

#decided that I'm gonna start posting the AO3 link and also posting the things I write separately to Tumblr #I realised that some people might not have ao3 and I felt mean not giving other ways of reading my stuff so #yeah we'll see how this does #if it works ill continue to do this kind of thing #call of duty #black ops cold war #frank woods #russell adler #cod bell oc #jason hudson #alex mason #helen park #lawrence sims #fanfic #cod fanfic #bocw

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tonydaddingham · 11 months ago

Note

Some of the posts you've reblogged lately have clarified some of my thinking about how Gaiman has reworked the characters from the original text. In the novel, Aziraphale and Crowley have at base the /same/ flaw: they evade thinking about the ramifications of their actions by displacing everything onto their "job" requirements. To which the novel says, no can do. Aziraphale has his moral epiphany at the airfield before Crowley does, but it is by and large the same epiphany. Most of the rhetoric about offloading responsibility goes to Crowley, either directly or in free indirect discourse, but he's also the dominant viewpoint character of the two. For that matter, we are told how Crowley /feels/ about where Aziraphale has led him, morally speaking, but we aren't privy to Aziraphale's interiority during this moment. In a sense, though, that doesn't matter, because there's no reason to believe that the sense of liberation is any different.

In the series, though, Gaiman ramps up the tension in S1 and S2 by splitting up their problems. Crowley still has the "but it's not my FAULT" moral flaw, considerably amplified with even more suspiciously unreliable narration, and he still thinks about his work for "head office" as just that, a job. But Gaiman rewrites Aziraphale so that, as other people have pointed out, he thinks about being an angel as an identity (and being a demon, for that matter). I think you can make a good case that unlike in the novel, in the series neither character fully grasps how the other conceptualizes himself. This is one of the reasons that the novel's moral epiphany doesn't happen in S1, and can't happen in the same way in S3. Crowley nudges Aziraphale as though he were nudging him out of a job, not as though he's nudging him into an entirely different sense of personhood. Aziraphale praises Crowley's goodness because he essentializes it, seeing it as a sign that Crowley's demonself is continuous with his former angelself ("you were an angel once"). In S2e1, we have the very telling dialogue in the coffee shop where Crowley knows all of Aziraphale's "voices," but doesn't understand why it ought to set off fire alarms for him that Aziraphale so needs to report to him for praise. This sits alongside the tension in the Job minisode, in which Crowley is openly disaffected with both Heaven and Hell, but doesn't see the situation in the same existential terms as Aziraphale does. The end result is the S2e6 car crash, in which each character proposes to the other in a way that solves their /own/problem.

LWA i’m guessing that this is you - let’s face it, noone else sends me asks like this - but by some chance that it isn’t, congratulations anon you sound just like them (and now i’m slightly terrified that there might be two of you lurking around my blog).

also - apologies that it took such a long while to come back to you; my original response was approaching half a dozen pages just for aziraphale alone (and i wasn’t done by a long shot), and then i remembered to great disappointment that tumblr isn’t exactly the forum for such a long post (future rhi: haha you played yourself, this is still a mammoth response). at which point, i basically had to rewrite it all over again, condensing it (future rhi: you failed) down into what i’m hoping are my key points. i wish i was joking when i say that you’re currently reading what is probably the fourth or fifth version of this response.

i think where a lot of disconnect happens in how we view aziraphale’s journey throughout both seasons stems from thinking that the concept of being an angel is all-encompassing, instead of potentially also being multiple layers that aziraphale has steadily been shedding throughout the story. personally, i think there are three distinct areas around aziraphale’s identity as an angel; heaven, god, and being good. a lot of these overlap and intertwine with each other, for sure, but i think it's too much to ask of aziraphale, as the audience (and crowley), to be able to abandon it altogether in one fell swoop. being an angel is not the whole of what aziraphale is - this much is evident - but to his mind, it's the core. dismantling that, stepping away from that, and finding who he is might be without the overarching expectation and pressure of being an angel is no doubt terrifying... and potentially we're not giving that struggle enough credit.

to my mind, he disconnects from heaven fairly early on in the narrative, as far back as job, and continues through the ages with a sense of fear - or, at best, trepidation - from them. however, this tenuous allegiance carries through to s1 when it severs entirely with the call to the metatron; i truly do not see any instance after this point chronologically where aziraphale has any fondness or loyalty to heaven as the institution, nor the archangels. he is unique in being an angel that has experienced the fullness of earth and humanity, and this has influenced him fundamentally into being an angel that is so 'other' from his peers that he's by default unrecognisable, almost alien, and is deprecated and dismissed as a result. it's the very first modern scene we see of him in s1 - putting him in direct contrast with gabriel (arguably The angel of abrahamic religion; the one that nearly everyone recognises, and considers to be the epitome of What An Angel Should Be). crowley has similarly influenced him through the ages; he's made aziraphale think outside of the dogma that heaven instils as being the irreproachable, righteous, Good Side - as well as encourage him in his hedonism and self-interest (literally the reason why they both endeavour to stop the apocalypse in the first place) because it is important to aziraphale personally, and he takes pleasure and happiness from it. aziraphale "[keeps] up appearances" for the sake of complying with heaven and not raising suspicion, but is ultimately "an angel who goes along with heaven as far as he can".

aziraphale's relationship with god is little more complicated, but again - i think aziraphale reaches the stage where he is shown time and time again that god chooses to be distant, and not to act or intervene*, which is something aziraphale cannot fully reconcile. as he sees it, hell does bad things (as does heaven, as is demonstrated with the apocalypse), and where you have the power to stop it, you should. equally, if you have the power to do something good, you should do it. he takes literal issue with this in job, where he learns that god is resolutely refusing to intervene in whatever hell is cooking up for job and his family, and he instead chooses to defy this and go to crawly to beseech him to not hurt them (obviously not realising that crawly has reached that page already). he holds out hope that god will do the right thing, but the storm comes from hell, starts early even, and god does not stop it - would not have stopped it, even if the children were above, and not in the cellar.

he cannot reach any other conclusion than crawly must be right, and god in fact wants the children to die. when it comes to the lie, and aziraphale resigning himself to falling for it, i do wonder how he reconciles this after he doesn't fall - my thought currently is that aziraphale believes that god has seen his 'transgression', and chosen clemency - to forgive it - but aziraphale fears she may not do so again. it makes sense that aziraphale then is so resistant to the Arrangement later on, and then why he appears so set on not helping thwart the apocalypse because that would be going against the plan (despite, yk, evidently agreeing with crowley and privately wanting to stop it as much as crowley does). this is once again shattered by the call to the metatron; aziraphale holds out hope that the almighty will fix everything, surely this is the time where they would intervene, job and his family is one thing, but destroy the entirety of their creation? but... god won't even get on the call with him. that to me is, once again, where aziraphale lets go that particular strand of what makes him an angel - as far as i can recall, we see no instances in 2023 where aziraphale declares any outright loyalty to god or to heaven*, even going so far as to initially reject heaven (and god, presumably, by extension) - "i don't believe there's anything left to be said, i've made my position quite clear" - until he is given the opportunity to... fix it? improve it? mend it? restore it? semantics, but "make a difference" plainly recognises that how it currently exists, or how it currently functions, is wrong.

*although, ultimately, this is arguably the only moral solution for god as far as humanity is concerned. an omnipotent and omniscient being should not get involved, nor even a vaguely powerful one (i'll take "free will" for 500, alex).

*i've said it before and i'll say it again; where aziraphale says "but heaven! it's the side of truth, of light, of good", this to me is not aziraphale saying that heaven is itself good. that would be in direct conflict with his willingness to "make a difference". if he thought heaven was perfect as it is, 'making a difference' wouldn't even come into it. to that end, he knows it isn't - and instead i see it that aziraphale thinks these are the qualities that heaven stands for, what it ought to be... not what it currently is.

last thing on god: aziraphale even literally steps into god's shoes in ep5, during the ball - it's all very well, admirable even, that he hosts and crafts the ball to be a curated environment where maggie and nina might realise that they have fallen in love with each other, he thinks he's doing the right thing by intervening... by getting involved. but as you say, the book epiphany hasn't happened for them at the end of s1, not even in s2, and aziraphale hasn't learn the lesson of why "messin' about" might actually be the wrong thing to do. in fucking about with the ball, he completely tampers with the free will of not only the girls, but everyone else. nina reflects this back at him, and it visibly unnerves him that she does so; he is removing free will from all present (or, attempting to in nina's case), but is doing what he considers to be right and ergo what he thinks god should do (in his eyes). he doesn't reach the free will realisation, at least not as far as is evident to the audience, and it is clear that when the issues surrounding playing god are highlighted to him (by both nina and crowley), he chooses to dismiss it. he is doing what he thinks is right, but in doing so is literally demonstrating the shortcomings he has in his faith in god.

but aziraphale and the concept of goodness? ah. this, to me, is still the key part of his identity that he is struggling to let go of. aziraphale by the point of s2 accepts that he is not perfect. the first meaningful scene we see of aziraphale in the post-s1 timeline is his interaction with maggie; he forgives the rent, does a kind and compassionate thing, but very readily recognises that he did it for his own self-interested motivations and prioritising himself first (so far as to look uncomfortable when thanked for it by maggie, and referred to as an “angel” as a result - aziraphale knows that his motivation was not angelic at all). a ‘younger’ aziraphale, i do not think, would have so openly admitted to this, and instead would have laboured it as a purely selfless, kind, and benevolent thing on his part... and it would have taken crowley probing further to get it out of him that he did it out of self-interest. this doesn’t preclude that aziraphale was being kind to maggie - kindness is in the perception, not the intention (imo) - but he accepts his shortcomings as far as being an angel is concerned, and the freedom of breaking away from heaven grants him the freedom to do so. but contrast this with his taking-in of gabriel. aziraphale is not stupid, and is evidently frightened, anxious, and suspicious of him turning up at the bookshop, but what becomes clear to him is that this is genuinely someone under threat, in trouble, and lost; yes, he gets frustrated with the situation, but he offers gabriel/jim sanctuary, and is set in this decision before crowley even enters the picture. he makes the clear assessment that the wanker-that-is-gabriel is not the being sat before him, and instead chooses the route of kindness.

aziraphale is not always a good person, and there are multiple instances where this is proven, but there are equally just as many instances that show that he is - and i think he accepts that he is someone that is a mixture of both. that being said, this is still something that he is self-conscious about (if shax's jibes at him in ep6 is anything to go by), but it stems more from a place of aziraphale feeling that he is not enough for heaven, or for god - that even, perhaps, he doesn't deserve to be an angel; i don't think it's out of place to say you can accept the traits that make it so you do not fit in (and in fact be glad that you do not), and yet still feel ashamed and anguished that you have been rejected for the same. there is a case to be made that this in part may be why he accepts the metatron's offer to return to heaven and run it - that it's an offer from the voice of god himself, in acceptance of who aziraphale currently is - but i do wonder how far aziraphale believes this.

now is finally time to start bridging the gap to crowley, because it is clear that being good is paramount to aziraphale. however, the issue is that the sense of being good is paramount, and he still conflates it with what is right. crowley is not to blame for this, but he is undoubtedly a guiding principle in how aziraphale develops this sense; crowley constantly challenges aziraphale on his rigid, often deontological mindset of "the action must be good for it to be the right thing", and instead makes him consider the wider, consequentialist picture; that sometimes, "the action might be a bad thing, but if it results in a good thing, that is the right thing". he reaches, therefore, the conclusion that if crowley ends up doing the right thing, he therefore must be good - and ignores all of the events, all of crowley's behaviour, that point to the contrary. hell, he even ignores all of crowley's own protestations to the contrary. as you say, aziraphale essentialises it.

maybe aziraphale does think that crowley is, at his core, the same person he was as an angel, but... personally, idk how far i currently interpret this to be the case (my thoughts are more along the lines of 'crowley is, regardless of being an angel or a demon, a good person, and that's what counts', but maybe i'm optimistically giving aziraphale more credit than is due). in any case, upon reflection, aziraphale has not learnt from the 'shades of grey' argument... not in relation to crowley. sure, i think aziraphale accepts that he himself is a light shade of grey, but crowley? i don't think he fully comprehends that that same school of thought must apply to crowley too - crowley is not a wholly good person, but arguably is an often dark one who sometimes chooses to do good things/knows when not to cross the line - and therefore lands on the expectation that crowley would return to heaven with him to do good - because that's the right thing for a good person to do. aziraphale has turned to crowley, and holds him to the same ideal to which he previously held in heaven, and arguably in god. these are entities that aziraphale thinks ought to stand, and perhaps originally stood, for "truth, light, and good", and when that went down the shitter in reality, aziraphale has turned to his own reality and found crowley instead. the faith - and comfort that it brings - had to go somewhere. that is not a responsibility crowley should shoulder, under any circumstance, but in not recognising that aziraphale is doing it, aziraphale hasn't been dissuaded from it either.

but hey, let's finally discuss crowley (and if you're still reading... incredible). look, i've made no secret of my... criticism? of crowley, and to reiterate not only what you said in your ask, but also what we've discussed at length; crowley is not a reliable narrator. this, regrettably, makes me reconsider accepting what are posed as core principles of crowley's character. he does not give a consistent account of the fall; whilst what he does say may be, at best, piecemeal snapshots of the events that led to his fall and, at worst, be completely false altogether, the conclusion is the same - there is something missing, and i'd wager that it is something that he doesn't want to admit, confront, and/or reconcile with. add this to his reluctance, or outright refusal, to accept accountability for his actions on a number of occasions, as well as his tendency to skirt around or fudge the truth, and i naturally do not default to taking his word as gospel; that's not to say that i think he has a nefarious, hidden agenda hiding away (obviously not), or is an entirely reprehensible character, but from an audience perspective i think if we're to anticipate some Major Revelations in s3, this is a key place to start.

one quote, from s1, that sticks out to me is, "crowley was all in favour of armageddon in general terms, but it was one thing to bring it about, and another for it to actually happen." this literally is the summary, for me, of all of crowley's ouroboros/boomerang/"this will no doubt come back around to bite me on the ass" characterisation. if i (contrivedly) rephrase this, it reads to me as 'i'm not that bothered about the end of the world and humanity in theory, and happy to add in bits and pieces that would make it happen, but i will have an issue as soon as we start gearing up to press the big red button'. as such, i think we have to contend with the fact that crowley may not be as moral as has been widely accepted. maybe i'm assuming too much, but if you were truly of moral standing, presumably even the notion of setting out plans to destroy the earth would be a big no-no, if you are in fact against the apocalyse because it would mean the destruction of humanity. but of course, this would presume that crowley has any way in which he can viably refuse (which, he doesn't) - to which end, therein lies the dichotomy of the nuremberg argument. is it an immoral action when you don't have the room to consider the moral option? regardless, does that absolve you of consequence?

this would also, presumably, be at odds with AWCW's objections to armageddon as put to us in the pre-fall scene, right? so, to me, the conclusion i reach is this; first, that AWCW obviously does not want the stars, the universe, to disintegrate as a mere bookmark in the wider 'great plan', but this does not come from an altruistic viewpoint; it comes from a more selfish one. and that's totally fair - i probably too would have issues with spending my entire (and at this time, 'entire' is unquantified) existence building and creating, only to see all of my work go down the drain as if it's nothing. but - i do not see it as him having any ulterior, selfless consideration for humanity. second, crowley likes earth, but for the convenient and clever things that exists because of - and in concurrence with - humanity. the reasoning he gives to aziraphale for stopping the apocalypse is just as true for him as it is for aziraphale. there is the line of "you said you would be testing them, but you shouldn't test them to destruction...", an echo of his sentiment at the flood, that gives weight to crowley privately wanting to stop armageddon for humanity's sake. i agree with this assessment on the whole; that crowley holds it as an equally strong and valid reason for thwarting it. but i think it is also fair to at least suggest that this reasoning may also stem from crowley's own personal feelings about the fall - a group of angels that were, presumably, tested to the point of their own destruction - and how god, in his eyes, perhaps should have learnt from that event before planning to do the same to her Ultimate Creation. this, for me, is a little more in line with his characterisation as has been presented so far.

but then again, crawly seems to be acting selflessly in the job minisode. i, once again, am largely inclined to agree... but for the sake of exploration, i do wonder how far it's entirely selfless, or altruistic, and instead how far it's a projection of thwarting god in the sense of rectifying his own punishment. a case of 'i went through this and it's shit, humanity doesn't deserve the same thing the same thing to happen to them', vs. 'i went through this and it's shit, and now she's up to the same old bollocks because she's awful, so im going to thwart it as a big fuck you to god'. maybe there is no real distinction, or maybe it's a bit of both at the same time, but the former would more strongly suggest to me that, looking at the parallel between job and the fall, crowley was the entirely innocent party in his fall just as humanity is/was, which i don't personally buy. 1827 and preventing elspeth's suicide is a little closer to the mark where selflessness is concerned; "you have sinned very bigly - trying to kill yourself?! it's not on!" strikes me that crowley is now acting out of the interest of keeping elspeth out of hell, where it is pretty clear Bad Things occur. there are other clear instances of good too* - he gets the humans out of bookshop in ep5 and brings back mr brown from hell, he treats jim with kindness once he establishes for his own peace of mind that he's not a threat, and he protects maggie from being accosted by demons (and this is not to mention how he, on the whole, treats aziraphale). suffice to say, crowley is clearly capable of selflessness, and doing both the good and right thing, but i do think that he doesn't necessarily act with selflessness and goodness as his default motivation. there are enough instances to suggest that he isn't a completely moral character.

*now that im thinking about it, it seems that it's largely when the threat of hell specifically looms that crowley is at his most selfless..? hmm.

crowley does centre around the thinking that being an angel/demon as like a job - and tbf to him, it's not an overly out-there conclusion to arrive at. heaven and hell are presented as corporations and they're referred to as "head office", he is given a workload and told to report back, he stretches the truth about what work he is personally responsible for in those reports, and crowley describes himself as a 'former demon' (as if he ever stopped being one - even as a fact of being, he is a demon). so yeah - to him, it is a job. and as you say, he assumes that aziraphale sees it the exact same way which, clearly, he doesn't. crowley states that he never asked to be a demon which may well be true, but it's equally possible that he was given the option to step away from heaven and god, and took it (not knowing that becoming a demon would be the result), to my mind, it's almost like he got sacked from a start-up because he didn't like the direction the company was going and Had Things To Say/actively resisted and denounced it, and then was forced to work in a - in multiple ways - a worse work environment. it's an understatement to say that he's under no illusions that hell is awful, and he too "goes along with [them] as far as he can". however, i'm not entirely sure that we have reached where crowley has his "as far he can" moment like aziraphale has - the fact that he says to aziraphale he said no to hell, when he absolutely didn't, rings alarm bells.

as explained above, aziraphale doesn't see it in this way at all; what i think crowley finds difficult to understand is that aziraphale's experience of being an angel is very much different to crowley's. aziraphale has existed for millennia on earth as an angel, and aziraphale’s purpose and meaning is wrapped up in being an angel, in everything that it entails, and specifically being an angel that has walked amongst humanity. just as aziraphale is never fully able to empathise with crowley’s position as a demon, and all that occurred to get him there, crowley is just as unlikely to fully empathise with the importance aziraphale places on his own angelhood. in comparison to crowley's situation in being sacked from a start-up, a hypothetical fall for aziraphale would be like being sacked from a business that, whilst you may not agree with them in the majority, has provided you with a career that is the only thing you know how to do, continues to pay for your home and benefits, and without it would leave you stripped of any purpose and meaning, and no idea on what it makes you/where it leaves you without it. and even then this doesn't really scratch the surface - again, aziraphale doesn't see being an angel as being a job.

the final fifteen is where all this comes to the surface. when the two of them individually have their backs against the wall, with no discernible way out, they have very different responses. aziraphale fights, and crowley flees. heaven is a seemingly insurmountable problem that stands in the way of them being left alone (and being together). aziraphale's response is to try to change it, to fight. crowley's response is instead to flee the situation entirely. this is the same with armageddon - another seemingly insurmountable problem - where aziraphale's response is to go above everyone's heads and dial 9-9-god, and crowley's response is to flee. neither of these responses are wrong, both are completely valid, and i genuinely think it is equally possible to see the situation from their individual perspectives. but neither of them understand the other's. aziraphale, who sees crowley as a good person who will do the right thing, doesn't understand why crowley won't fight with him, won't do (as he sees it) the right thing in making heaven what it always should have been, and is instead choosing to flee. crowley, who sees aziraphale as someone who like him as quit his job and wants nothing more to do with either of their former bosses, doesn't understand why aziraphale is choosing to fight, won't prioritise them, and won't go off with him. once again, both are equally valid thought processes to have, but are borne out of being rather significantly off the mark in understanding the other, and instead thinking that the other will act in accordance to what they individually believe the other to be.

#i missed out so much in this and haven't explained my thoughts very well but i couldnt let it get any longer i simply couldn't #also LWA if you'd be so kind as to confirm this is you (or not) - just so i know if this ask needs to be added to your special hyperlink #ta very much #good omens #ask #honestly this is just All of the meta so will just simply keep it tagged to the characters:#aziraphale meta #crowley meta

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miraclesnail · 8 hours ago

Text

kronus AU, title still pending

chapter 16, 17, 18, 19

First chapter, previous chapter

@oopsies-i-did-a-thing

To add/rewrite later

Travis zones out

Shadow travel

Build a portal

make the clovers/fix the door?

Will try to heal the wound

Percy and travis look at the window and buildings

Travis tells percy to shut up.

Setting sun

House rules.

End call.

After making sure Bianca is okay, the other-him continues with a hesitant “Get some sleep, guys. We’ll figure out the game plan then. Call me once it’s daylight. Or call me if any problems occur. Call me if you want to talk actually. Second thought, maybe I should just stay on the line and—”

“We’ll be fine. You’re going to grow gray hair with all this fretting, Travis,” Bianca jokes with a trembling voice.

Bianca ends the call and immediately plops down and curls into an impossibly tiny ball. She’s trying to stifle it, but Travis can tell she’s crying. He doesn’t know Bianca all that well. Well, he doesn’t know her at all. Today is their first meeting, but it’s not in Travis to leave someone in distress. Should he… comfort her? How does he comfort her? The same way Nico likes to be comforted? How does Nico like to be comforted? Or should he just wing it and go from there? Maybe he should call Will. Will’s bound to know what to do in this situation.

Silena stops him with a gentle hand on his wrist, shaking her head just slightly. She tucks a thin blanket around Bianca’s shaking body and then passes him his own thin blanket.

Sleep.

They want him to take a nap when he just got delivered the worst bombshell of his life.

No way can they be serious.

But Silena lays down beside Bianca and pats beside her and well… he can’t say no, can he? So he bunkers down and stares at the ceiling and listens to the torrenting rain that once had not stopped.

A minute passes in complete, utter silence before he breaks it.

“So about the zombies—”

“Our Travis will tell you in the morning,” Silena says without facing him.

Alright.

He waits some more and then asks, “So about Annabeth and Lou Ellen—”

“In the morning,” is all Silena says.

“Okay, but how about Michael—”

“Morning,” Silena stresses, rolling over to curl up against Bianca, her back to him now, message loud and clear.

So Travis goes back to staring at the ceiling, definitely not pouting and fuming.

This sucks.

xxxxxx

As soon as Bianca hangs up, the questions start. From Clarisse and Nico and Piper and Leo and Will and Perseus and Connor, about Bianca, about Silena, about him, about their world, about the differences, about the zombies, about this person, about that camper, about Chiron, about the gods, about the camp, about this, about that, about about about and it’s too much. Their voices overlap. Their words bounce and crash off each other. Some go in one ear and out the other. Some stay and linger and he remembers dying screams and pleads of mercy that no amount of blinking pushes away.

He sighs, rubs the heel of his hand into his eyes, and debates running to the forest and hiding until he’s needed.

He wonders if that would be a bad look.

[it would be bad. Especially since you establish some kind of understanding]

Understanding? What understanding?

[That you mean no harm]

Then take over. Answer for me. You basically know it all.

[But what if they ask about what happened before the titan? And I'm wary of Annabeth to be honest. I rather not be near her.]

Well, I want to hide so what is it going to be?

“Hey,” Annabeth’s voice, strong and clear, cuts through the chaos.

He peeks an eye to find the room dead silent now for some reason. They’re all still here, all looking at him, but none of them talk. Annabeth’s kneeling on one knee in front of him, her eyes searching his own with a careful intensity he doesn’t like.

“Are you okay?” is all she asks with an earnest face.

What a ridiculous question. He would laugh if he had the energy. He would laugh if he had the spirit.

“There’s not something else you'd rather ask about?”

He winces when Annabeth’s eyebrows crease with concealed concern.

“Of course, I have other questions. But I can’t interrogate you if you’re feeling unwell. So are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lies.

“Liar,” Annabeth says without pause, eyes cutting straight through him. “Nectar? Ambrosia?”

He grimaces as a stab of white hot pain punches through his temples. But nothing more. He goes to rub his neck but at Annabeth’s scowl, at Will’s frown, at Connor’s worry, he stops and instead digs his nails into his wrist hidden from everyone’s eyes.

“No thanks. I’m good,” he mumbles, looking down at the floor.

“Right. Sure, you are,” Annabeth says without an ounce of belief in her voice. She stands and pats her knees free of dust. She rests her hands on her hips, staring down at him for a moment with inquisitive eyes. Eyes searching his that makes him uncomfortable.

After a few moments, Annabeth says, “You said the Titan lost his powers? Just that? He’s not scattered into a million particles in the dust like he is here?”

A… million particles? How does that even happen? Sounds like a fever dream. Sounds like a good dream. What he would do to have that… Annabeth reads his face and clicks her tongue, arms crossing over her chest. Her eyes grow a slight bit colder and he can’t help but freeze [fight back] under her gaze, can’t help but be reminded of his Annabeth and her determination for the kill.

“So he’s still whole in your world. Are you still working for the Titan then? Are you here to start another Titan War?”

He shakes his head.

“No.”

Annabeth stays silent, waiting for more.

He should say more.

Everybody stares at him. Someone coughs. Someone else taps their foot.

He needs to say more.

But his mind is blanking on what to say, on where to start, on what actually needs to be said. It all happened years ago. None of it is relevant anymore. So he was Kronos’s spy. So he lost his brother. So Bianca and Silena are alive. So Annabeth is dead. So his world is a mess. Knowing that history won’t help them even a little bit get their Travis back.

So what’s the point of telling them anything?

“Travis. Hey. Are you still with us?” Annabeth says, a hand reaching for him. A hug? A head pat? A light punch on the shoulder? It doesn’t matter. He thinks of sharpened needles and reacts, flinching and halting her by grabbing the wrist. Annabeth immediately withdraws her hand.

And he blurts, “I'm sorry.”

It's the wrong thing to say. He watches Annabwth’s face grow furious and he squashes the urge to run and hide. Not her not her it's not her so don’t attack don’t attack don’t attack.

Annabeth inhales and her face goes emotionless, turning her back on him.

“What are you sorry for?” Annabeth asks. Sorry? What is he sorry for? For Existing. Fucking up. Not being enough. Not doing enough. Never succeeding. Never amounting to anything. Not—

“Nevermind,” Annabeth says, scowling at nothing, “Forget I said anything.”

He could feel her disappointment like a crushing weight and it makes him sicker than he already is.

[I don’t think that’s disappointment.] Then what is it? [Anger. She’s angry but not at you.]

“Everybody out. I need to talk to him alone.”

The awkward silence comes again. Nobody moves. Perseus opens his mouth but shakes his head like he thought better. Clarisse growls, “Are you stu—” but shuts up too. Nobody dares disobey or challenge her. They just file out through the hacked open wall made by Perseus earlier.

When the last demigod leaves through the door, Annabeth turns to him, crouches on one knee so they’re eye-level again, almost hesitantly, asking quietly, “You’re not really… all Travis, are you?”

Oh. [She figured that out fast.] Of course she did. It’s Annabeth. How could he expect anything else? [though I guess it wasn’t really subtle to begin with]

“You’re hosting the titan,” she says, not as a question but as a fact. “And there’s another person in there with you.”

Is it that obvious?

“It’s pretty obvious,” Annabeth announces, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve known you since I was seven.”

He grimaces and immediately wipes it from his face. [you are easy to read]

“Travis, I know you’re overwhelmed right now and want nothing more than to sleep. I have dozens of questions but I'm willing to hold back until tomorrow if you just answer me this. You said you won’t start another titan war. But the titan inside you, is he going to try? If he’s not a million particles then what is his condition?”

“The Titan.” he winces at the spike of pain. “The Titan is weakened, not as bad as when Zeus chopped him up the first time but not as healed when he first started talking with Luke. He’s linked to me and all he sees is what I see. Sometimes, if I'm tired, he can control my body but we have ways around it. It’s not a problem as long as nobody interferes.”

Annabeth's gray eyes harden and he cows a bit under her glare. Even her turning away doesn’t make him feel better.

“What’s his goal then? If it’s not to bring the Olympians down, then what does he want?”

[tell her the truth]

He thinks desperately of a lie that will work.

“Don’t,” Annabeth says without hesitation. “Your eyes are wandering like they do when you’re being dishonest. Tell me the truth, Travis. Stop trying to spare my feelings. What does Kronos want?”

He bites his tongue and considers continuing trying to think up something. [Tell her the truth. You’re the one that ended him. Own up to it. Don’t ruin the fragile peace with secrets] But Annabeth and him are unrelenting and he hates how similar both of them are. He gives in, pathetically, like he always does, shoulders drooping as he leans his head back on the wall.

“Revenge, not against the Gods, but me for burning Luke alive while he was still hosting the titan.”

17 ANNABETH

“Are you fucking stupid?”

Is what Annabeth hears first thing when she steps into the conference room where all the counselors are present. She had Chris and Miranda switch with her to keep an eye over their dimensional guest.

“Hey,” Percy defends, shooting Clarisse a warning glare. “I’m sure Annabeth has her reasons for trusting Travis.”

But Clarisse slams her fist on the conference room table and repeats herself again, louder, angrier, fear disguised as rage. “Are you really that fucking stupid?”

“He had several opportunities to kill us,” Nico says, “Especially that time he froze all of us on the spot. He could have taken a couple of us out before he passed from exhaustion. He had me in a chokehold too. If he wanted, a snap of his leg and I would have died. Plus, he tried to save our Travis from being kebabed by the other-Annabeth.”

“I second Nico,” Will says, “I think Travis is harmless.”

“But he was a spy,” Butch inputs. “He worked against the camp. Who knows who he killed or what he did in that world.”

“Maybe he had a change of heart like Silena did here,” Percy starts but Clarisse’s death glare stops him.

“Silena is different. She died a hero. I don’t see that traitor dead.”

“There’s ways to prove you changed sides without dying, Clarisse,” Percy argues.

“Are we forgetting he tried to kill Percy and attacked two immortals when he first got here,” Leo says.

“How are Mr. D and Chiron doing by the way?”

“Travis,” Annabeth finally says after watching the counselors argue back and forth for minutes. All eyes turn to her, the room quiets. There’s a tumult in the room, Connor is watching her with hope in his eyes, and she watches it disintegrate when she says.

“Travis is hosting Kronos.”

Everybody spoke all at once. Chairs scoot back. Someone drew a sword. The room grows hotter and smoke fills the air.

“Then we should kill him then.” “Are you sure?” “Maybe he’s lying to us?” “No way. I don’t believe it.” “Why did you leave him alone then?! Someone go watch him so he doesn’t escape!”

It’s expected. Her feelings flew through the five stages as she tried to process her thoughts when Travis confessed.

“Travis was the one to deal the final blow to Kronos,” Annabeth says and the chaos comes to a screeching halt.

Percy stares at her, pale. “Not Luke?”

Annabeth nods. “Not Luke.”

“What were you and I doing then?”

Annabeth narrows her eyes. “You’re alive but I’m dead in that world. I don’t look younger than 16 and assuming zombies don’t age, maybe Luke did end up killing me that day.” At Percy’s horrified face, Annabeth rectifies. “Or maybe I died earlier in the war. It’s hard to say unless we asked.”

“Let’s go back to Kronos first,” Katie cuts in, “So Travis dealt the final blow. But Kronos isn’t a million pieces? He’s Kronos’s host now? And without bearing the Achilles’ Curse? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either,” Annabeth admits, “We would have to ask Travis once he wakes up.”

“How do you know he’s harmless, Annabeth?” Clarisse asks, voice strain. Her fist shakes minutely and there’s a desperate glint in her eyes, like she wants to believe too. “How do you know he won’t start a war again? How can you just trust him like that?”

It’s something she asked herself when she left him in the room. There’s a benevolent titan in her childhood friend who already showed signs of violence. He’s not completely in control either. Travis even said it himself. So why did the more she looked at Travis, the more her worry disappeared? Why was it her worry turned into anger the more she looked? Why did she feel a burning rage and the violent urge to eviscerate whoever hurt him?

Even with the unknown powers. Even with a titan and someone else inside him. It’s still Travis. He’s still that same protective, goofy, sweet, impulsive liar she met all those years ago. Even in pieces and fragments, Annabeth can see him underneath the confident and competent facade he has up.

“Because it’s Travis,” Annabeth states confidently. “And I know Travis wouldn’t hurt us.”

Alright.

Yes.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Of course.

After two solid hours of listening to the rain drops and staring at the barely visible, very moldy and leaky ceiling, Travis can safely say with 100% certainty that he absolutely cannot sleep in these conditions. Shocker, he knows. Totally unbelievable. It’s not like he was delivered one of the worst news one can ever get. Him? A traitor. Connor? Dead. Hotel? Trivago.

Travis pushes up upright, glancing down at his two companions illuminated with the occasional lightning outside. Bianca is curled into a tight ball, face buried in to her knees. Silena is on her back, a frown on her face as she tosses and turns.

But both are asleep. Both unable to stop him from taking a quick walk. Just a walk. All he needs is a walk to clear his thoughts.

So Travis stands and tiptoes out of the room, shutting the door behind him. It’s pitch black in the contained building. Not cool, but not a problem. Travis takes out Silena’s cellphone he snatched before leaving. There’s still Bianca’s phone so it’s okay if he takes Silena’s, right? If Other-Him wants to contact them, he still can through Bianca. Besides, he’s going for a quick walk. There’s going to be exactly zero troubles!

Now to activate the flashlight… all phones have some kind of flashlight right? Travis turns the device in his hand over and over but can’t figure it out so he taps on the screen to turn the screen on and flips it around so the dim light illuminates the way.

Just a quick walk. Should be fine, he reasons.

Just to clear his mind. Then he can finally sleep.

Without looking back, Travis breaks out into a run into the abyss.

xxxx

Rest.

Annabeth left him almost alone to rest and recuperate.

Rest…

Like he has the time and the right to do that. He already took an hour nap. That’s plenty of rest.

[I think you really should though. You still feel exhausted. Your body feels like it’s running on fumes. And—]

“I have to use the restroom,” he announces to his two bodyguards fidgeting awkwardly beside him. He glances at Chris, waiting to see if this version of his half-brother can pick up on lies. Guess not, because Chris isn’t calling him out at all.

“Oh. Sure,” Miranda says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She glances at his alive-again half-brother. “Chris will have to be in there with you if that’s okay.”

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

He stands from his spot against the wall and immediately his head spins. [see?] He grasps the wall for support. [Rest. Please. If not for you, then for me.]

Just let me steal a couple Ambrosia squares for Bianca and Silena. There’s a stash underneath the sink for easy access. Then I’ll sleep. [Promise?] Promise.

So he pulls himself to his feet and walks outside with Miranda and Chris meandering behind him. He passes by the conference room. He can hear Annabeth’s voice and others. Yelling. Arguing. Complaining. And he really doesn’t like the thought of it being about him.

He reaches for the door of the restroom, but it opens on its own from the inside. A body nearly collides with his, but he swerves to the side in time. The yelp of surprise is still grating on the ears though.

“Jesus Christ, Travis. You’re so quiet,” Leo Valdez says, with a high-pitched laugh that borders more on the fearful side, “We need to get you a bell, man.”

He smelled it first before he saw it. The acrid, volatile stench of smoke. And fire.

The smallest of fire, barely a wisp that's snuffed out faster than it's been alive, but fire still the same.

The barest of heat touches his skin. It’s automatic. He could feel the other person shy away from the surface and shut down and go unconscious. The burning on his neck goes from aching and manageable to excruciating and unbearable.

His knees crumple and he hits the floor hard.

Leo’s yelling now. A hand shaking his shoulder. The Titan’s power leaks from his body, manifesting memories into visions. Leo, 14 and scrawny. His push didn’t even make him budge an inch. But fire goes from his hands and onto him. A beautiful, painful array of red, orange, and pink as he burns alive. Leo, 15 and unyielding. Even with him holding a knife against his throat. Even with him pleading to stop it, to let it go, to just live without revenge. Leo, dead, throat slitted, the knife still drips wet with blood and he’s throwing up and why couldn’t Leo just listen to him why did this have to happen this isn’t fair this isn’t fair this isn’t —

Stop it.

He squeezes his eyes shut but he still hears it happening, the memories playing out loud.

Stop it.

[When we’re having this much fun without that wet blanket? Not a chance.]

Stop it, go away, die, drown, disappear like you did here you goddamn stupid loser of an immortal

The ground vibrates with running feet. There’s new sets of voices.

“Leo? What happened? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! I just came out of the toilet and bam! He just fell over.”

New memories come forth. New visions that burst into reality.

Annabeth, fighting against Luke and pleading for him to fight against the titan and come back to them. A blast of magic that goes astray and hits the wrong target. Annabeth, crumbling in a heap, dead in an instant. And ah. He sees this scene enough times, thinks about this moment more than enough, has it embedded to the memory but still he squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears and pretends he can’t hear Connor screaming Annabeth's name and Luke freezing in horror, gold eyes finally fading back to blue, and Lou Ellen clinging to him with trembling fingers. It was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to hit Annabeth. It was an accident. It was an accident.

“Holy shit. Lou Ellen killed —”

Perseus, bursting into the room, seeing Annabeth’s dead body, Connor’s right beside her, the stupid titan charm dangling on his brother’s wrist, and he doesn’t know why Percy just assumed that they could ever — that Connor could ever hurt — when they knew Annabeth twice as long as Percy and she’s their friend too. They would never hurt her much less kill her. His body moves the instant Percy draws his sword. But Lou Ellen holds him back with an iron grip still muttering (It was an accident. It was an accident) and he could only watch as Connor scrambles back against Percy’s onslaught. When he finally pries her fingers away from his shirt, Connor’s dead, there’s blood on Percy’s blade. Sea-green eyes turn to them and Lou Ellen whimpers, crawling behind him. Connor is dead. Annabeth is dead. Luke ran off to who knows where. Lou Ellen is still here, still clinging to him. Percy is asking if they’re with the titan and he’s coming closer and Lou Ellen is still shaking and Connor is dead, Connor is gone, Connor was killed and he just stood there. He just stood there and let his brother be killed.

“I… killed Connor?”

“Travis? Travis! Will, can’t you do something!?”

Connor. Nothing more than a stumbling corpse, patches of flesh and meat sewn and held together by threads. The lopsided smile they share is off and cold. “What do you say? Wouldn’t it be better if you’re dead with me too? You’re lonely all by yourself, aren’t you? You can’t do anything without me, right?”

“I don’t know what to do here! This is the titan projecting the memories. How am I supposed to stop that?”

Will. Nose missing. Left eye gone. His intestines held inside by his hand. Minutes away from death and high on their last supply of morphine. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Is what he recites to himself as he listens to Will says his final wishes.

“Well, do something! I don’t want to see these crappy images anymore!”

Clarisse’s hand on his shirt as she shakes him hard again. Her eyes are pained but determined, a fire that isn't dampened at all by the rain around them. “Live,” is all she says with defiant eyes. Live? When Connor’s dead? How could he live without his brother? She shakes him again. Harder this time. Almost desperate-like as she sneers with fake belligerence. “Don’t make that pathetic face. Your only option is to live. I don’t want to hear anything about giving up.”

“Let him go. Touch him again and you'll regret it, Clarisse.”

Nico. And Bianca. Both in Manhattan and both wearing armor from the head to the toe. Yelling and shoving at each other. He should break it up. But Will, alive and whole, is asking him what happened, where’s Connor (dead), where’s Annabeth (dead), where’s Perseus (who cares). Michael is pointing at someone stranded in raging waters and seconds away from drowning. Clarisse is shaking him by the shoulders and yelling what the fuck is wrong with you, stop zoning out (everything. Everything is wrong. Connor is dead.). Chris is pleading with Clarisse to drop it. There’s about a dozen more things going on, a dozen more emotions he hasn’t even begun to process, that he just ignores the two children of Hades’ screaming match. Then the ground rumbles and cracks and the undead claw their way up from below.

“Can’t we just knock him out? That’s relatively fast and almost painless.”

Piper, quiet and despondent and hurting and mute and clutching the front of his jacket, not speaking, just mouthing the words, over and over and over. I’m sorry.

Lou Ellen, a hand on his shirt, mumbling, “Why did you protect me? You should have let Percy kill me.”

Chris, pulling him out of rubble, pleading, “I can't do this without you. Don’t give up. You can’t give up on us. Please. Travis, please.”

Luke, a crispy corpse still somehow alive, eyes shifting between gold and blue, looking at him, begging him with pained eyes to do something about the unbearable pain.

Chiron, face weary and resigned as he draws his bow and aims at them as he and they, Katie and Michael and Will, begs for Chiron to please help them, to please side with them and not the gods.

Michael, face hardened, dried tear tracks rubbed away, now the sole remaining child of Apollo, a hand extended towards him, the gauze at his wrist fresh with wet blood. “What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

Connor, humming a song as he dangles from the pipes by the intestines. “Are you mad? Does it hurt? Sorry. Next time, it’ll be instant.”

Connor, grinning as he lops the head off with a single swipe of his machete, body moving without his input. “I’ll make it painless. I swear. Pinkie promise.”

Connor, laughing as he hacks up the bits and pieces of limbs and double-bagging them to toss into the ocean. “I heard free falling isn’t a bad way to go if you land head first. Pretty painless too.”

A tower of water, clashing against New York City. Buildings, toppling like dominoes. Bodies upon countless bodies, in the dark murky water amongst the debris.

A golf-size hole that becomes a giant chasm the size of a football stadium. Spirits that clamber out of the pit and to their broken, destroyed bodies, their screams of agony all starting together.

Their voices all cascade and grind against each other. Snapping back and forth. Overlapping like glaciers trying to stay afloat. Just a constant barrage of memories that refuse to be drowned out.

He can feel the titan grinning in his mind, can practically see his sneer.

He likes it when you’re in pain, Hermes told him once upon a time. So don’t react or give him fuel, is all the advice he gets before the titan’s soul was pulled from Luke’s and pushed onto his.

So he curls up tighter, presses his hands over his ears harder, and pretends he doesn’t hear it at all.

Then somewhere in the middle of it all, he hears someone humming.

19 ANNABETH

“You have bacterial meningitis,” Annabeth, 7, says rather frankly and lowers her book about the myth of Niobe. “Connor has it too. Probably from when you guys were living in the streets. Kind of bad timing. We’re out of nectar from treating the newcomers 5 days ago. Luke went to get more from Mount Olympus. He should be back in a couple more hours.”

Travis, 7 also, stares blankly at her with glassy eyes, fever-ridden and probably delirious and definitely not all there. All of Annabeth’s words probably went over his head and she opens her mouth to recite it all again when Travis’s eyes move past her and around the room. He squirms and tries to rise, falling weakly back to the bed.

“Connor? Where’s Connor?” camp’s newest addition croaks.

Annabeth shifts and juts a thumb to the bed beside her. Connor, 6, is unconscious with a frown marring his features.

Travis stares at his little brother with conflict.

“Do you think I would be a bad brother waking him up?”

“Why do you need him up for?” Annabeth questions with an eyebrow quirked.

“... because I want him to tell me everything will be okay,” Travis mumbles, looking away with shame.

“Yeah,” Annabeth says, “That would be pretty selfish. If I were him, I would punch you and go back to sleep.”

“Okay. That’s what I thought too,” Travis says miserably and Annabeth flips back open her book. She can’t focus on the words though. Travis tosses and turns every few seconds, and it’s hard to focus when someone whimpers and whines every other second.

“Why don’t you go back to sleep? It’ll pass the time faster until Luke gets back.”

“I’m trying. I just can’t sleep,” Travis groans on his side, head tucked between a pillow and arm, eyes squeezed shut.

“Well, close your eyes and try harder. I want to go back to my book.”

“Everything hurts though.”

And Annabeth, 7 and not really good with her emotions, not really good with displaying concern, just in general not good with other people that’s not Luke, sighs and puts her book aside. She stands and ignores Luke’s and Chiron’s warning of not getting too close, else she’ll get sick too. She gets up right to the bed, right next to Travis’s face, arms crossed across her chest.

“Well, what will make you feel better? You’re annoying like this.”

“Connor usually sings for us,” Travis says with his face in the pillow before flipping around then to his side.

“What kind of song?”

“Any song.”

“And if I sing a song, you’ll sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Annabeth takes a second to think and sings.

xxxxxx

It was a gamble, a chance, based on the fact that this Travis seems similar enough to theirs. A stupid song she made up on the spot to appease and lull the stupid son of Hermes back to a painless sleep. She doesn’t even know why she thought of it now. Maybe because Travis isn’t responding to any of them, maybe because he’s curled up like how he was when he was sick, maybe because Travis is whimpering and whining just like how he did all those years ago that Annabeth remembered the song and sung it out of desperation.

The images of Manhattan being destroyed by a wave of water, of Percy with dark, hate-filled eyes and a bloodstained Riptide, of Connor hacked and slashed and dead, all of it disappear, replaced with an infirmary and 3 children.

Annabeth watches the memory play out exactly how it happened all those years ago. Everything’s the same. Right down to her little grin when Travis’s eyes started drifting close. To the little pats she gave to Travis’s messy, uncombed hair. To the little sag of her shoulders she did right before Travis fell asleep.

In reality, in the present, Travis’s erratic breathing slows and steadies. A hand grips her wrist tightly, not enough to hurt but enough to be an anchor.

“Jeez,” Her 7 year old self sighs and rests her arms on her hips with the beginnings of a fond smile. “You really can’t do anything by yourself, huh, Travis?”

The memory ends.

Annabeth stops singing.

Travis blinks once. Twice. Focus coming back into his glassy eyes. His eyes roll over to meet hers and a new memory appears. This time of her, 16 and neck bruised purple, her knee on his chest, her hand on the knife digging through Travis’s shoulder, and her other hand pulling that knife out.

“Fight?” Travis whispers in a quiet, heartbroken voice. He stares at her dead counterpart emotionlessly. Not a semblance of pain. Like his shoulder isn’t stabbed. “Without you or Connor?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” other-Annabeth grits out behind clenched teeth.

“You’re going to live.” The knife comes down. It veers off course and shatters against the tile beside Travis’s unflinching ear.

“And you’re going to fight.” A hand snaps to Travis’s throat and squeezes for a second before she lets go.

“And you’re going to try.” A hand fist itself in dirt-caked, brown hair, pulling back and stopping short of slamming down.

“No giving up. Promise me. Promise me you won’t give up, Tr-Tra-vis.”

And Travis, squeezes his eyes shut, tears slipping from the corner of his eye, and nods before he slips his feet under her and kicks her off him and out the open window. She sees Travis’s grief-stricken face mold to something not so fragile, not so open as he turns to the outlines of 4 others running to him.

The memory shifts. To Travis with a pitchfork through her collarbone and pleading as he pins her throat down with his foot. “Please, Annabeth, I know you’re in there. I need your help. I tried like you asked but … but it’s not working out. Nothing I do works out. I can’t plan ahead like you and Connor. I can’t help anyone without you and Connor. I need your help. I-I need Connor. I need—” Travis’s head lowers, but the way his shoulders shake, the way his voice cracks, the rain and thunder does nothing to hide the sob that erupts from Travis. “I need you guys. Connor’s never himself so it’s only you. You’re the only one I can ask… so please, Annabeth… please help me.”

It shifts again, to Travis standing in front of a broken mirror with a messily wrapped gauze around his neck, already saturated with blood. His eyes are a darker shade of blue. A more electrifying shade of blue as hands raise to grip the edges of the bathroom mirror.

“Let’s make a deal,” Travis says to the fractured mirror, voice brimming with uncharacteristic conviction and determination. “I’ll help you. Bianca. Silena. Chris. Lou Ellen. Nico and the others. The undead. I’ll lend you my strength. I’ll help you find safety and peace for all of them. In return, you just keep your head straight.”

Travis blinks and his face falls, conviction turning to uncertainty, eyes a paler shade of blue, the shade of the ocean surface rather than electric-blue. The hands lower to hug his arms. “That’s all you want from me? Seems unfair on my end but I guess I can do that,” Travis mumbles, eyes wandering away from the mirror.

Another blink and Travis with the electric blue eyes is smiling. A sweet and soft smile as Travis’s fist rises to the mirror for a little tap and a spark of electricity flies from Travis’s closed hand.

“Alright, then, partner. It’s you and me. Let’s do our best.”

It cuts to Chris with an arrow flying through his chest, to Lou Ellen tying a tourniquet with blood-slick fingers over her thigh, to Connor as his head is sliced off, to Piper with a hole where her heart should be, to Leo with a knife in his throat, to Holly with a dent in her head, to Laurel blue tinged skin and soaking wet, to Cecil with black veins running all over his body, to Will gored and bitten and in pieces.

To Travis on top of the Empire State Building, soaked under the torrenting rain and frighteningly still with a blank stare to his pale blue eyes as he stare quietly out into the horizon,

To Travis falling off a building head first, eyes closed, body relaxed, falling, falling, before his eyes snapped open, irises electric blue, and the air whirling around him.

To Travis hesitating before a zombie, weapon lowering, stance loosening, eyes wide as the thing stumbles closer and closer and closer. It was a whisper, but Annabeth heard it loud and clear. Connor? Before the thing leans forward and sinks its teeth into Travis’s neck.

To Travis stumbling back with half his neck torn off as Chris rams a baseball bat in between the two brothers.

To Travis writhing and screaming, to Chris frantically pressing a towel against the wound, to Silena cowering in a corner, to Bianca on Travis’s other side, to Lou Ellen standing frozen and Hermes yelling for everybody to shut up, that it’s going to be fine, that Travis isn’t going to die from something as small as that, not with the titan inside him.

And that’s enough.

She has seen enough.

“Travis,” Annabeth grits out behind clenched teeth.

When the memories don’t end, Annabeth shakes Travis by the shoulder. The memory cut to her digging a knife through Travis’s shoulder.

“Travis!” Annabeth shakes harder. A new memory of her snapping Travis’s arm.

“Travis!” Annabeth yells. Another memory of her swinging a shovel and hearing a kneecap shattering. “Look at me.”

Travis does as she asks, ocean-blue eyes staring back at her with barely held back tears and she’s reminded again of her earliest memory of Travis, sick and desperate for his brother.

“I’ll help you,” Annabeth says, hand going to pat Travis’s dirty, unkempt hair. He doesn’t flinch away this time. If anything he clings tighter.

“Jeez, you really can’t do anything by yourself, huh?”

“Your problems, your goals. Whatever they are, leave them to me, Travis. I’ll fix them for you.”

xxxxxx

Hours pass. What used to be all the counselors present is now a select few. Her. Piper. Percy. Will and Nico. Connor.

Exhaustion takes its toll finally and Travis’s eyes droop, little by little slowly closing. Travis digs his nails into his forearm in an attempt to stay awake. Ah, that’s what he’s concerned about, Annabeth realizes.

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth tells him, clasping his hands in hers tightly. “I understand what we have to do. So sleep and trust us.”

Travis is doubtful and he manages to stay awake for five more minutes before Travis’s eyes close and his body slumps over. When they reopen, they’re tinted gold.

The titan barely had time for a second blink before Piper is on it.

“Sleep.”

#watch me post the rest within two or three tumblr post because this thanksgiving break is the only time I have to do so #apparantly the next section for school will be rough :(#but it's fine it's fine it's going to be fine #pjo #my fic #my writing #rereading this kiiiiinnnnddaaaaaaa made me realize what my strong points and weak points were #i wished google doc history showed me when I type this so I don't have to scroll a bajillion version #It's kinda like a time capsule #i have an inkling of what show i was watching based of the style I had at the time

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astralscrivener · 1 year ago

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✨ fic directory ✨

i’ve created a post to keep all of my fics in one place. all fics can be found on ao3. (last updated may 4th, 2024)

major ongoing works

STEALING OUR OWN PLACE IN THE SUN

- voltron: legendary defender: a rewrite of vld seasons 4-8. - team focus, broganes, klance, adashi, romellura - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 22/45 chapters, 251k words (december 25th, 2022) - last posted: chapter 22: season 7, episode 3: elliptical orbit

AT SKYFALL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent au in which keith and shiro are captured by the galra at a coalition gala. things become more complicated when the team’s search for shiro turns up someone else: adam, shiro’s fiancé. - broganes, klance, adashi - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 8/? chapters, 25k words (september 2nd, 2023) - last posted: chapter 8: division and discord

ABCS OF KLANCE

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots, one prompt for each letter of the alphabet, focused on keith and lance’s relationship - variety of aus, some overlap with squad up (2017-19 modern au), mostly established relationship klance - 18 works, 87k words (may 4th, 2024) - a: artistry • b: brutality • c: comfort • d: defeat • e: elegance • f: faithfulness • g: grief • h: homelessness • i: information • j: jealousy • k: knell • l: loyalty • m: mercy • n: need • o: opportunity • p: pain • q: quest • r: rumor • s: sleep • t: trust • u: uncertainty • v: victory • w: worry • x: xenon • y: yearning • z: zero - last posted: lightning in a bottle (y: yearning)

other ongoing works

THESE 20S ARE RAWRING AND THESE DUNGEONS ARE DRAGONING

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au + d&d series started in 2020 as a stress response to quarantine - team focus, klance, adashi, romellua, hunay

• main work: the rawring 20s XD - chatfic that only updates if i think it will be funny - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author notes - 5/5 chapters, 17k words - last posted: chapter 5: there is no easter bunny, there is no tooth fairy, (september 8th, 2022)

- other works include klance-centric oneshots + snippets of the group’s ongoing d&d campaign - 5 works, 37k words - last posted: midnight into morning coffee (february 7th, 2024)

VLD FIC REQUESTS

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots across a variety of aus written in response to prompts from friends and followers - variety of ships, but mainly klance and adashi - some overlap with squad up - 15 works, 92k words (july 8th, 2023) - last posted: distraction

major completed works

DECEIT SO NATURAL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent trilogy in which lance and keith fool their way behind enemy lines and onto lotor’s ship to steal vital information on the galra empire—only for lotor to become far more dangerous than anyone anticipated. - mainly klance, extremely one-sided lancelot - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura - 3 works, 315k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• WHERE PEOPLE GO TO DIE - lotor mistakenly believes that lance is a galra soldier spying on the paladins, and invites him to return home. keith follows him undercover as a prisoner, and quickly draws lotor’s ire as things spiral rapidly out of control. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 14/14 chapters, 49k words - completed july 9th, 2017

• DYNASTY DECAPITATED - lotor becomes vindictive after having been played for a fool by team voltron, and the team struggles to hold the voltron alliance together while fending off his rapid advances. meanwhile, keith and lance explore a new stage of their relationship and learn exactly what the other means to them. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 18/18 chapters, 67k words - completed august 7th, 2017

• STARS GO DOWN - lotor has captured lance and sentenced keith to death halfway across the universe. lance struggles to hold onto himself as he plays the role of an amnesiac, while keith attempts to fight his way back to the team, alone. meanwhile, the team, down two lions and two paladins, scrambles to bring keith and lance home amidst betrayals and tumult in the voltron alliance. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence, temporary major character death + other warnings in author notes - 37/37 chapters, 198k words - completed june 15th, 2018

SQUAD UP

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au written from 2017-19 to cope with the horrors of being in high school and the transition into college - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura and shiro/allura/matt - 25 works, 561k words - completed may 10th, 2019

• main work: squad up - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last year of high school - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 140/140 chapters, 327k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• main work: a midsummer night’s meme - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last summer before college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 27/27 chapters, 79k words - completed august 31st, 2018

• main work: because guys like us are cool in college - series of oneshots/snippets following keith and lance’s freshman year of college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 84/84 chapters, 83k words - completed may 10th, 2019

LIGHT UP THE PATH (THROUGH A SKY FULL OF STARS)

- voltron: legendary defender: 28 oneshots completed for klance au month february 2019. - klance - variety of aus, including but not limited to modern au, canon-divergent/other paladinsverse, fantasy au, and more - rated M, creator chose not to use archive warnings + other warnings in author note - 28/28 chapters, 49k words - completed february 28th, 2019

additional oneshots not mentioned here can be found on archive of our own ✨ other writing (including drabbles, snippets, and prompts from tumblr ask games) can be found in my writing tag ✨

happy reading!

#eileen speaks #my writing #vld #voltron legendary defender #sorry for the wonky formatting #i had it in nice neat bullets but bc i'm not using the new post editor tumblr ruined it. love and light

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stormbreaker101 · 4 months ago

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BEHOLD! MY MAP!

I first made it on a physical styrofoam board, then realized my phone camera is bad so I remade it in MS Paint. The locations of the worlds are NOT indicative of their actual positions in the Spiral (i have more headcanons about that), and instead were chosen just so that no thumbtack was directly in between 2 others... to some extent.

There are 49 different connections and each one has SOME bit of reasoning behind it, which I shall write under the cut.

I made this map for my AU, Corrupted Spiral, which has some noncanon shenanigans going on.

1) Wizard City/Wysteria: Canon says so

2) Wizard City/Valencia: The old Leyline to Valencia in the Catacombs, a handful of Valencians live in Wizard City, more know quite a surprising amount of the Wizard & WC.

3) Wizard City/Avalon: The old Leyline to Avalon in the Catacombs

4) Wizard City/Dragonspyre: The Druid/Dragoon war, and Dragonspyrian immigration to Wizard City after the awakening of the Fire Titan.

5) Krokotopia/Marleybone: Of course Marleybone would expand its empire to a neighboring world. In fact, I'm of the headcanon that the reason we see so LITTLE of Krok and it's all so hyper-concentrated into the Iconic Bits TM is because Marleybone fucking TOOK CHUNKS OF KT AND BROUGHT IT CLOSER TO MB SO IT'D BE EASIER TO HAVE EXPEDITIONS TO IT. (Following in the accidental footsteps of Stallion Quartermane)

6) Krokotopia/Valencia: To-be-released Canon P101 (Arc 2)

7) Krokotopia/Mirage: Both based on SWANA, and I'm of the opinion that worlds with similar IRL geography should be closer together. It just makes sense. Plus, both worlds mention the Sands of Time.

8) Krokotopia/Wallaru: Of course the Krokotillians (Pharaoh Ramakrok in particular) would attempt to expand their empire to a neighboring world. Additionally, I'm of the headcanon that the Manders, Koalas, and Kangaroos are all distant descendants of the Storm Titan (I can go in further detail if asked), so it makes sense for folks of related origin to be nearby.

9) Marleybone/Avalon: Both worlds are based on England, just different eras of it. We see a fair bit of species overlap between the two worlds as well; I'm of the headcanon that MB and AV split off from each other, with AV retaining its high-fantasy magic and MB going more low-fantasy steampunk.

10) Marleybone/Valencia: Canon P101.

11) Marleybone/Mooshu: Canon P101.

12) Marleybone/Cool Ranch: The Marleyboneans are seen establishing CR's train systems with fail time and time again (Duck of Death, Great Sky Train Robbery Gauntlet)

13) Mooshu/Zafaria: A Wizard101 NPC mentions she trades internationally, and Mooshu is one of her regular stops (alongside Marleybone, Avalon, and Polaris). Mooshu also acts as a junction between Zafaria and Marleybone and ergo the other Spiral Powers.

14) Mooshu/Valencia: Canon P101.

15) Mooshu/Skull Island: Canon P101.

16) Mooshu/Wysteria: The wisteria plant is native to East Asia (which Mooshu is based on the way a protein shake is based on multiple ingredients: thrown into a blender), and we see pigfolk in both worlds. Similar Species clause. Yes I am absolutely going to rewrite Wysteria so it's not a fucking joke because I know leaving it in its canon state with this history is a big Yikes Move.

17) Dragonspyre/Monquista: Canon P101.

18) Dragonspyre/Valencia: Canon P101.

19) Celestia/Azteca: Celestia and Azteca have so much history to me. I made a big ol' post about it.

20) Celestia/Khrysalis: Both worlds are deeply involved in the study of Astral magic, the Celestian Zodiac includes the 4 Celestian Creatures of the Radiant Alcazar, and both worlds take... inspiration from Oceania (Celestia's Watermoles are a gross stereotyped imitation of Polynesia, and Khrysalis includes references to Aotearoa)

21) Celestia/Empyrea: I have a headcanon that the Celestians were made by Raven to be stewards of Astral magic, the way the Kalamar, Nimbari, and Dwarves were made to be stewards of the main Schools (besides Balance). But because Astral magic forms a triad of Schools rather than a pair, they couldn't form a Paradox Chain and so Raven deemed them 'unworthy' of staying in Empyrea and so dropped them into what is now Celestia. However, this action caused the 2 worlds to form a link, which became a Stormgate.

22) Zafaria/Aquila: Apparently Carthage existed and the Punic wars happened.

23) Zafaria/Polaris: Same reasoning as Marleybone/Zafaria.

24) Zafaria/Mirage: A similar (albeit weaker) situation as Krokotopia/Mirage, in that the 2 worlds are (sorta) based on similar(ish) places geographically. Additionally, we see both Lions and variants of primates in both worlds.

25) Avalon/Karamelle: They both have fae and that's good enough for me. It's how Lydia made it to Avalon to save Merle Ambrose's life from badly photoshopped gay baby jail.

26) Avalon/Grizzleheim: Both worlds feature bears (the Grizzlies in GH and King Art + Balor the Broken Fang of AV) and giants (Grendels & the Jotuns in GH, the Fomori in AV). Species Similarity.

27) Azteca/Skull Island: I'm just going to point you to THIS again. Also, Xol Akmul's existence.

28) Azteca/Karamelle: I made this choice solely to make my main pirate's backstory work.

29) Khrysalis/Darkmoor: Both are pretty "shadowy" worlds, plain and simple. It just makes sense. The vibes and nothing more profound than that. You understand.

30) Khrysalis/Empyrea: We see a handful of Khrysalis NPCs stranded in Aeriel Shore, and also I just love the idea of a stormgate stretching from the most Light-heavy world to the most Shadow-heavy world. Like, the Heart cannot be completely severed from Spider. Ripped out, but not disconnected.

31) Polaris/Valencia: Canon P101.

32) Polaris/Empyrea: Raven made Empyrea to keep herself out. She dumped Mellori in Polaris. The two worlds hold a theme of being distant enough from everything else that Raven assumes them safe. Sounds pretty close to each other to me yknow?

33) Polaris/Grizzleheim: Similar to Avalon/Grizzleheim, both worlds feature bears (the Grizzlies and the Oskiy) and giants (the Grendels + Jotuns and the yetis). Additionally, the Rus that became Eastern Europe were originally norsemen. Once again bringing up the Geographical Proximity = Spiralian Proximity.

34) Mirage/Wallaru: I have a headcanon that the Sands of Time are related to the Dreaming. If the Dreaming is a sea of possibility, of everything and everywhen all at once, then the Sands of Time are just the things that became real, crystallizing and precipitating onto Mirage.

35) Empyrea/Wysteria: There is regular trade between these two worlds.

36) Empyrea/Karamelle: So we're just gonna take the canon gobbler shit and just kinda burn it in a fire, then completely rework the Alphoi's involvement in Karamelle to not be so shit. Don't worry I made it way better. Ask me about it.

37) Aquila/Valencia: Canon P101. Also what if Valencia had more birdfolk than just Marco Pollo?

38) Aquila/Monquista: Canon P101.

39) Darkmoor/Grizzleheim: Similar to Polaris/Grizzleheim, in that some of the Norse became Eastern Europe. But now instead of fantasy Russia, it's fantasy Romania.

40) Darkmoor/Cool Ranch: English Bill was able to flee from CR to DM to become the Duck of Death.

41) Skull Island/Monquista: Canon P101.

42) Skull Island/Cool Ranch: Canon P101.

43) Skull Island/Valencia: Canon P101.

44) Skull Island/Wallaru: We see many folks of Skull Island in Wallaru in-game, plus it's a convenient way for the Spiral Powers to be able to reach Wallaru.

45) Valencia/Cool Ranch: The Valencian unicorns became the Santo Pollan Stallions, and what if some of the Aquilan/Valencian birds also became the birds of Cooper's Roost? Something something the idea of the West moving from the Roman Empire to Modern Europe to America.

46) Cleaved/Lemuria: CCSAU lore time: CS Lemuria is basically in the Cleaved Spiral now, rather than in the CS Spiral. It probably has a handful of Stormgates leading to multiple worlds of the Cleaved Spiral, but that's not what this is about.

47) Cleaved/Grizzleheim: A rift formed between Cleaved!Karamelle and CS Grizzleheim because many canon Karamelle NPCs fled to Grizzleheim. The presence of "the same" characters in multiple Spirals forged a gateway between the two.

48) Cleaved/Wallaru: Just like the Cleaved/Grizzleheim rift, a rift formed between CS Wallaru and Cleaved Wallaru.

49) Lemuria/Empyrea: To help the two Spirals be more interconnected, and to help Lemuria develop a standing, a Stormgate between CS Lemuria and CS Empyrea was made. Why Empyrea? Because it's doing rather well compared to the rest of the CS Spiral, and also because knowledge of the other rifts between Cleaved and CS weren't international knowledge yet.

#leah speaks :3 #wizard101 #pirate101 #i wrote a thing!#i drew a thing!#worldbuilding #i spent a good 48 hours on this #shoutout to klara for helping me bounce ideas back and forth

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shadowqnights · 7 months ago

Note

May I ask what are your favorite MCD or Mystreet Ships or just Platonic Relationships? I love seeing people’s opinions on different characters relationships. I’ll occasionally see one that I never saw before and I think it’s so neat.

hello welcome to bee's fav ship masterlist

I’m sorry this ask took so long, this is the one that had all my progress deleted before I could save it anywhere during a blackout. So I didn’t try again to write it for a little while. I know you mentioned MyStreet but I want to make a Separate post for that so I might reblog this later with additions but for now I’m just gonna focus on the MCD side because I know my thoughts better on that and already have plenty to say about it.

Here’s like a little masterlist of my favourite ships + platonic relationships in MCD plus some itty bitty summaries with my thoughts on them. As always I’m down to elaborate on any of these if anyone has questions! I can always make more posts specifically about any of these pairings to fully like. Flesh out and brainstorm rewrite stuff. Some characters might overlap cause multiship win. Also these might sound non-canon because this is how I write them, a lot of this is in beeland not canonical jessland. And I've probably forgotten a shitton but fuck it we ball.

Romantic/Sexual Pairings

Garroth x Laurance. No surprises here, I’m predictable, not much to say other than what I say every other time. Enemies to friends to lovers dynamic, they’re toxic and bloody and they are obsessed with each other. They are codependent. They need each other. There is something so insane about enemies to lovers when they literally have seen the worst of each other and fall in love anyway, providing a foundation for such an intimate trust because they spent so long memorising each other for the sake of hatred. Now they would die for each other, now they are black holes for each other - I never really ship Garroth with anyone else in MCD specifically because they are completely absorbed in each other, and Laur only in like alternate timelines where Garrance aren’t quite as insane for each other and are capable of being normal exes. A delicious religious corruption sun x moon guard4guard freak4freak meal for me. Rich with hungry dog metaphors and plenty of blood. I will defend them to the death. In beeland general rewrite (not Loverman, sorry), they get to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere having an honest but peaceful life. They have a couple of kids, including Malachi<3 and once they’re old they are NOT fucking bothered by plot shit again. They go through many hells and then they finally get to rest. They are so fucking in love with each other that it makes me sickened how Jess accidentally gave me source material for the most insane yaoi that would take over my life for a multitude of years. I don’t know what to even summarise here because like. I’ve written a 500k fanfiction about them that is still ongoing like I don’t know what else to say about them that I haven’t already yapped on about. There’s probably more to talk about because I never stfu about them. No one is surprised.

Katelyn x Aphiah. More enemies to lovers but also in a more guard4princess dynamic, and if you squint also worshipper4god if you consider Katelyn devout. Katelyn enters as her assassin and does literally come close to killing her multiple times only to become her target’s most dutiful loyal guard. Their magicks call to each other. Katelyn teaches her how to fight and forces Aph to confront parts of herself that were unacknowledged before their meeting. Confident that with the amount of devotion, desire and pure angry emotion that I give Katelyn, if Laurance hadn’t been at the werewolf wedding in Season 2, she easily could have had a similar outburst and take his place there to save Aph. Katelyn is obsessed with her from the start, no matter whether considering Aph a symbol, then an enemy, then finally a friend, lord and lover. And Aph is utterly captivated by Katelyn, not just her beauty, but her power. Plus, majority of the things you like about Garmau and Laurmau can be translated to Katemau but better if you try.

Dante x Nicole. No enemies here, just lovers, oh god I love these two. They are both runaways haunted by their ‘past lives’, trying to create new names for themselves and heal. I associate them both with animals - Nicole quite literally as a fox, and Dante more metaphorically as a dog or coyote. They are best friends for YEARS before anything even happens between them, and I understand why Jess saw their vibe as an innocent young love/fling but also nooo………………….. I see the visions………………. They heal together… they understand each other’s vulnerabilities and insecurities so well….. they rescue each other…. they are adoring and energetic pure t4t love formed off years of friendship and mutual respect and like. They loved each other as friends and then they loved each other More and just very naturally became partners. They’re both very playful and adventurous when they open up, and even at their most different they’re this lovely dynamic of Nicole unable to stop yapping while Dante stares quiet and adoringly at her. And they fight together side by side!!!! (Hypnosis eyes for you to think more about mcd dancole)

Those are my big three holy trinity right nowwww but. Here are some more smaller-scale MCD ship dynamics that I also looove.

(Jeffory and Katelyn are also on this list but I talked about them yesterday in that other essay so I don't feel like repeating myself. Just know that they're included.)

Vylad x Laurance, errrr it’s complicated you already know what’s going on here. soul bonded or whatever, went through hell together. don’t know each other yet understand each other better than anyone, which isn’t saying much in vylad’s case, since no one comes close to ever really understanding him but if anyone’s going to pretend to, it’ll be laur. they are each other’s hopeful fantasy, like sitting in a dark cell and saying ‘do you think that, in another life-’. in this life, you will always have some kind of self-inflicted divide (you don’t know what the divide is blocking, because it’s not exactly friendship or romance but some third secret scary thing), but the thought will never die. you’re not even friends. in another life, maybe you could have gotten along somehow, but in this life you make stupid, foolish promises about freedom. you leave each other behind eventually, as is natural. vylad had far more clarity and knowledge of shadow knights that garroth never fully grasped, that made laurance feel seen. they make him feel seen in different ways. those damn ro’meaves.

Katelyn x Travis, nooo ha ha wow it’d be so funny if we were both burdened by years of pain and sacrifice thinking that we will never receive love only to find it in an unexpected place. it’d be so funny if you managed to save each other after years of being hurt. to the point that one of you feels that she wasted her only chance at love and the other is afraid that after years of isolation he will never know what it feels like. what if you realise that what you thought was frustrating and annoying is actually exactly what you need right now. maybe he was waiting for you his whole life. maybe he feels like letting go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding for so long. oomf if you keep on cracking the stupidest flirty jokes i might have to let down my tough exterior to actually smile a tiny bit if only in wry amusement but still, he gets her smiling. let’s go swimming and heal together oomfie!!!

Cadenza x Sasha, tragic sun x moon lovers forcefully separated. like your entire friend group was definitely all in love with both of these zvahl siblings at some point but like. instead of both of you being the fascination of this nerd freak one after the other, you two were meant to be together but could never voice it. you were such close friends that everyone already thought you were a package deal. not to be separated. only for everything to go wrong just as you are about to bring those feelings to light and now you will never get the chance because the girl you love just came back Wrong. and worse, she is so convinced that its Your fault that maybe it is, because if she believes it so forcefully it has to be true. without even knowing about gene altering her memories, you just let go because its the easiest thing to do. doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Laurance x Travis, but only in like a certain AU where Garroth is his ex but they’re not fucked up enough to be entirely obsessed with each other still. I don’t really indulge in Laurance or Garroth ships often because I am so ride or die for Garrance but I think in some world Laurance and Travis fit so nicely together, the same way that Laurance has that complicated relationship with Vylad but only in the circumstance that he’s not with Garroth. You have to hear me out here as I tell you that I understand Laurance on a deep insane level and you need to trust me when I say that he’s interested in science. He spends years ruling by emotion and temper. He’s searching for something logical, something with a straightforward answer that doesn’t depend on keeping his heart in check. He’s tired of being told to meditate or do yoga or whatever, thanks Vylad, he wants something tangible. Everyone is so busy worrying about him being this dangerous, volatile ticking time bomb that needs to calm down or leave when he’s already been through an emotional washing machine’s worth of hell that season alone. He’s tired and he wants a solution to a problem that is very much emotional, something that can’t just be fixed. Shadow Knights are made out of emotion, and ugly emotions at that, and now more than ever Laurance is so exhausted by the constant of it.

(Interesting to talk about later that Garroth and Laurance essentially swap, despite their respective emotional reputations, that Garroth’s leaving is emotionally driven and while Laurance’s is triggered by emotion, as per the Shadow Knight overreaction, his actual leaving is far more logical and straightforward, making it less emotionally destructive. Despite the notion that he is more emotional and Garroth is far more repressed, their breakdowns kind of reverse. It’s a little funny. Truly made for each other. Ok sorry no more garrance.)

And oh look who it is its Travis fist deep in the dirt hunting for worms with books and maps strapped to his back conducting the most fucked up science experiment known to man, someone who is very used to putting up a kind of faux performance to survive while having an incredible amount of burdens and sacrifices hidden beneath that carefully curated persona. They’re both incredibly clever, and despite those personas being playful and flirty, they know when to lock in to get the job done. And Travis is that perfect intruiging mix of heart and logic, because he’s blunt and straightforward especially when it comes to reciting things he knows from books, but when he gets passionate he can yap for hours. He is incredibly brave and sweet but also very studious and not very emotionally intelligent. He sees that Laurance has a problem and works himself to the bone to try and fix it for him, even when Laurance is trying to explain that its something unfixable. They’re kind of rivals at first that turn into besties who study each other sometimes. They are considering dissecting each other to figure out wtf is going on in the other’s brain. In a time period where literally everyone’s waiting for Laurance to snap, and he really does snap on Travis, it’s kind of comforting for someone to be fascinated by the Shadow Knight rather than afraid of it, and wants to approach it with science and reason rather than with emotion, fear or merely just projecting their own shames onto him. Their demon sides like each other or something.

Kiki x Cadenza, they’re pretty simple and cute. Sweet little background couple both passionate about nature - obviously Kiki loves animals, and Caddie is more interested in plants and gardening. They both have these almost-dormant magicks that emerge in very beautiful, caring ways. They are soft and tender with each other and also the idea of them meeting via Cadenza being a literal hen is kind of funny. They should throw rocks at Zane together.

Lucinda x KC, except I haven’t fuuuully thought about their endgame, just that they are so cute. Rivals to friends to rivals again, then friends AGAIN, then business partners/besties for many many years. And then when they’re older, lovers. They are stronger together, their magicks respond well to each other, and their individual business ventures actually work best when combined rather than competing. They don’t get together until they’re older ladies and, while Lucinda would still be working through some teacher-related conflicts, she’d be more willing to settle after years of wandering and long after being the White Witch, she might feel more comfortable sticking to one place. But even so they’re the kind of yuri that never has an explicit conversation about it and never tell anyone, it just happens so naturally, they’re old women who live together and have a dual witchcraft store + bakery and finally get to live in a place where they don’t have to feel ashamed of themselves or be in constant competition, even playfully, they can just Live. And also owl x cat dynamic is so cute.

Platonic/Familial Pairings

I feel like a couple of these I have talked about in more detail before so these will be kiiind of brief. Here are some of my favourite platonic dynamics and I am CERTAIN I've forgotten a lot of nice little underrated friendships but fuck it here's a top three.

These AREN’T ROMANTIC !!!

Dante, Aphiah & Aaron, their dumb dog-core little found family - Aaron becoming this old, gruff older brother figure for the both of them. After being alone for so long and bearing so much suffering, he finds solace and the beginning of a healing journey in both of them. None of them are replacing what has been lost per say, but fill the gaps of pieces missing in certain ways. Aphiah the amnesiac who, if she ever had a family at all, has literally no one now, getting to have a sibling dynamic with Dante, who waits so dutifully for his sister to come home. She looks to Aaron as a mentor figure, someone who can understand her feeling of otherworldliness and how she often feels alienated from the rest of the cast while also empathising with her as a Lord and a parent. She and Dante follow him and learn from him very attentively - and for Dante, to have an older brother figure that isn’t Gene. They take care of each other. An old wolf and the cubs that started following him around one day and while gruff and stubborn as to ignoring them at first, slowly learning to open up to them, thus earning their trust.

Vylad & Katelyn, give it up for EMOTIONALLY REPRESSED BESTIESSSSS. Every time I’ve brainstormed and thought about them with oomf I’ve been so genuinely pleased at the idea of locking them in a room together where they literally would just sit in silence and not be able to start a conversation. Such a painfully stubborn, awkward silence. Every scene they have together is so fucking funny do NOT put these guys on a boat together. They’re both gods of obsessing over their stony unfeeling tough exteriors to spare themselves of feeling. Kings of having tragic ass pasts and significant people in said pasts that haunt their respective narratives in a way that they feel no one will ever understand. So they can sit Close to each other sort of and continue to not understand each other but yet be the exact fucking same. GO TO THERAPY LOSERS.

Lucinda & Dante, go get therapy pt. 2, Dante you have to stop latching onto all of these caring figures that are a little older than you and provide some sort of semblance to a sibling, Dante stop it. She picks up on his subtle fear of witchcraft really quickly and decides to teach him more about what she does. He’s able to divulge parts of his past to her that he could never tell anyone about and she’s able to offer some comfort. I do appreciate that it’s not entirely one-sided - like yeah Dante is seeking comfort and understanding which he hasn’t really been able to take before, but he’s also there as a supportive shoulder for her, too, the way that his friendship with Aaron also starts out as mutual transaction. He notices that Lucinda has been feeling a little bit outcast by the town, even though she thinks thats what she has to be yet longs to be involved in the community, so he makes an effort to include her and spend time with her. He’s not really her apprentice, but he’s definitely willing to help out when he’s around, picking herbs and such. It’s a little funny that Dante is so insecure that he thinks of himself as undesirable and unloveable but a vast majority of town is literally a Dante fanclub willing to die for him and take him under their wing. Like oh baby. Your awkward charm is undeniable.

Stayed up late writing another ask answer yet again yippee. As always inbox is open for more asks if you feel brave enough to receive an answer of this average length and insanity :3 Stick your hand in my cage. I don't bite :).

#minecraft diaries #mcd #aphmau #loverman #loverman rambling

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maddgical-boy · 6 months ago

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remakin my pinned post bc i love spending hours on fun formats. anyways

⸝⸝⊂➜﹒it's me! ⊃⸝⸝

mark/vinny ☆ he/him ☆ minor (strictly 18+ only blogs block me)

hello all! here i post about all things daydreaming-related, as well as some self insert stuff since there is big overlap there for me.

i have mainly fictparacosms (paracosms of existing fictional media). i'm kinda shy about them so i don't discuss them as much but please be respectful when i do. they do not always line up with canon and i just want to be happy and have a fun time.

❤️ this blog is a safe space for all madders/iders and whatever you daydream about. even if it's considered really dark nasty shit, and even if it's willingly! fiction is fiction my friends. ❤️

feel free to send asks about my paracosms or about yours! tumblr is buggy and i am chronically ill so i may not get to it right away, but rest easy knowing each ask is treasured in my heart <3 i'm shy but i want to interact with you all.

i make big use of the block button if i don't like your vibes or even if we just don't agree about stuff. unfortunately my block barrier from my main doesn't extend to sideblogs and i have to block separately from here, which i sometimes forget to do. so blanket statement for all my blogs and socials:

🚫 TERFS AND ZIONISTS/PRO-ISRAEL PEOPLE GTFO 🚫

and hey! if you can spare some money check out the #donations tag on my main for vetted palestinian GFMs! 🇵🇸❤️

if you want to see more of my silly self talking about other random things, my main is @thecrimeofmans-laughter!

below are paracosms & tags!

paracosms ☁︎‎‎‧₊˚*𖦹

these fluctuate in and out of how relevant they are to me, especially because god cursed my interests to wholly take over my life and then suddenly evaporate like sweat. this is also why i have random mini paracosms that only come out of hibernation if my hyperfixation does too! lmao

───-> ORIGINAL

■ queerer things still — five teens learn of the magical secret realms on earth and travel through them to uncover the main para (enya liao)'s mysterious past. all of them have magical powers and all of them have emotional baggage that they are eventually forced to deal with by fighting monsters that target their greatest weaknesses. everything is weird and also everything is queer (hence the name).

───-> FICTPARACOSMS

■ arrows of shield — big crossover between marvel's agents of shield and the cw's arrowverse. at the center of it all is me, because i am awesome. the only other teenagers (and original paras) are cicero (an entity meant to deal with all emotional and physical pains) and jessop jiang (a boy from the typical 60s american suburb who accidentally killed his mother).

■ the super happy life of akemi ōtani — a blanket paracosm for all daydreams involving any of koei's musou warriors games (that i have played, which is dw8, sw2, 4, 4ii, and 5, and wo4). the name is from one of my two samurai warriors ocs, as she has a very normal, happy life with her dad and sister that is absolutely not besieged by period-typical war. (also my icon on this blog is of nō, who is a character from sw5! she's in her dlc outfit. i love her)

■ yttd paracosm 2 — i don't have a name for this one yet shhh. anyway have you ever theorized that shunsuke hayasaka is sue miley's mysterious fiancé and then made a yttd sona that has become separate from you and is also their adopted child and is also dating ranmaru kageyama and then spent way too much time rewriting the lore of the game to fit this change? that's what this is. (my first yttd paracosm is asunaroland which isn't as major anymore but yeah. i have 2 of these fuckers)

tags i'll use ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

i love using tags i love organizing i love formatting i love archiving ＼(^▽^＠)ノ ☆ヾ(*´▽｀)ﾉ ~(≧◇≦)/ﾞﾞﾞ

my original posts -> #mark stops daydreaming for a sec.txt

answering asks -> #mark answers asks, #ask game answers | feel free to send in something from my ask game!

vents about madd -> #madd vent, #intrusive daydreaming | all of these are ok to rb

positivity about daydreaming -> #positivity <3

my art -> #martk | other art is on my toyhouse and instagram! | want me to draw your paras? commission me!

useful madd-related things -> #useful

anything not daydreaming-related, for whatever reason -> #not madd

...and probably other tags i'm forgetting! yayyy!!

all paracosms and paras are tagged #like this* to avoid anything (like fictpara stuff) showing up in big public tags because i am Scared

dividers: animatedglittergraphics-n-more

#EDIT: you rebloggers didn't tell me that i wrote 7 clouds in the image descriptions when there are 9???? 😭 help me lord i am tired today #mark stops daydreaming for a sec.txt #maladaptive daydreaming #immersive daydreaming #madd #don't mind me sometimes the goblin in my brain that really likes searching through aesthetic dividers and pretty text formats takes over

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triflesandparsnips · 1 year ago

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...I sometimes go feral for things in OFMD that maybe others don't (yet). So here's what I'm feral about right now:

These are two touch-starved people. And here they are, touching one another. Holding hands, yes, but also-- touching.

Here are some things to know about the human hand:

"The human hand contains about 100,000 nerves, of at least 20 different kinds. Twelve receive various touch sensations; eight are motor fibers, carrying commands from the spine; and all are specialists--"

The hand is an astonishing sensory tool. Our world is composed of nothing except that which we can translate through our own sensory inputs: What we "see" is what our photo receptors translate into little electrical impulses that our brain then turns into pictures; what we "smell" is the brain's interpretation of what molecules an olfactory neuron can detect...

...but what we "feel" is not only what our very very tiny, very specialized mechanosensory neurons register, but also how those registered sensations interact, how they are processed in concert and conversation with one another to clarify what is being sensed, how they are transformed based on the perceived importance to the situation and the object being touched to allow for a physical reaction to occur even before the brain can fully register what's happening and respond accordingly.

A touch, for the touch-averse, can be a full-body flinch before our brains even register that a sensor has been triggered. A touch can translate into danger because the body has learned that that is what is paired with this or that physical sensation, this or that emotional situation.

The experience of touch happens before-- outside-- human thought.

And the thing is, the thing I keep thinking about, is:

To experience touch-aversion, but to take a deep breath, and to believe in the soft intent of the other person-- to take the time and effort and concentration necessary to let the brain and body rewrite even a fraction of its trauma-- is an immense act of vulnerability. And, my god, so, so, so much trust.

"Each fingertip has more than 3,000 touch receptors, many of which respond primarily to pressure. These are packed in just under the surface of the skin, where each reports events in overlapping fields about one-tenth of an inch across."

Something else I think about, though, is that another phrase for touch-starved is "skin hunger."

To be "starved" is to not receive a necessary thing; to "hunger" is to ache for it.

Stede and Ed's kiss, just before the handhold-- I see hunger in Stede, absolutely.

In the handhold, though, I see him giving Ed the option of this necessary thing; and I see Ed accepting it, receiving it-- and in doing so, sharing that necessary thing back again with Stede, an act of reciprocity that could have been purely social, if they wanted.

But. The slow movements after. The hand overtop the other. And then the thumb war: fingertips walking across one another's skin, one over the other over the other.

Three thousand touch receptors, each activated, each sending signals that they're taking the slow and aching time needed to process and accept.

They're taking the time to stand in that moment, and let the sensations cascade. To not hide it away in some emotional experience other than "I am touching the man I loved, and may love still--

"--and it is safe, it is safe, it is safe."

"The tongue, lips, and fingertips are the most touch-sensitive parts of the body."

And here's where it really comes together, now that you know all that-- here's why I'm feeling feral about this new moonlight scene, here's the thing I need you to know:

To hold hands is as strong a feeling, in pure sensory experience, as it is to kiss. A hand held can be a kiss forestalled.

A hand held can be a kiss all in itself.

And there they were. In the moonlight. Holding hands.

#touch #touch starved #touch averse #skin hunger #our flag means death #our flag means death s2 spoilers

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eternasci · 7 months ago

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Anatomy of Writing

This is just an analysis on my writing style, my weaknesses, strengths, and other tidbits I've noticed over the ten years of my tumblr writing journey. I always strive to improve, which means acknowledging my banes and boons, as well as spots where I feel style has taken precedence over rules. I welcome others to do the same.

This is also littered with links (whether to my old blogs, or my current writing advice blog), so feel free to be nosy. I welcome input of any kind!

Epithets. My earliest (tumblr) writing can be found on my first roleplay blog, pintsizedpyro. By no means did I write the way I did now. On first glance, I utilized simplistic epithets heavily (e.g., "the girl", "the Korean", etc). I've strayed from this as a result of advice given (and also, a general dislike for how it cut into my writing). To this day, I believe I still typically avoid them if there is no deeper meaning. Whether this makes parsing my posts difficult is unknown to me; I have no issues when re-reading, though that's an obvious bias. I love ones with meaning; ones that typically coincide with a character's facets (e.g. using a title to demand authority rather than a simple first name, or calling a character, whose personality can be likened to a dog, a "hound"... you know who you are). Repetition. Similarly, I found repetition within my earliest attempts. It couldn't be helped, but I did notice and often attempted to revise statements in which I would experience overlapping of words even then (epithets being a big one; particularly, when paragraphs would condense and I'd see similar phrases stacked on top of each other, I wanted to kill someone). This is an inevitability at times; the dictionary has many words, but switching them around for the sake of prettying up a post can cause confusion. At the most, I would rewrite entire sentences to at least break up the distance between repeating offenders. This still happens today, but I am swift when it comes to recognizing and rewriting it out.

Length. We've all been there. Receiving a long post and wanting to return fire. I have long found this useless, something to be ironed out of me. Unless I have substance to fill the page, I have to simply be complacent with how much I can give back. We've all gotten carried away and had much to say, but as we always politely mention: there is really no need to match. Due to the "method" behind my writing, I can string lengthy, prose-laden sentences together, but I do not expect the Mona Lisa in turn. That's just a stylistic choice. Similarly, I can get a lot out of a little, and won't press myself to add more if I believe the point has crossed over. I think we would all prefer to have something to work with over a bunch of pretty fluff.

Writing Structure. The beast that typically intimidates others from interacting with me. This post inspired the way I create my sentences. I think, in some ways, I've taken it beyond suggestion given (I like my replies to sound lyrical, perhaps due to the way the post describes their "improved" sentence). I don't think I've fully embodied this just yet. I feel as though my sentences still end up particularly long with no abrupt, shorter statements to allow for breathing. It's something I'm conscious of and actively trying to work on. I'm not particularly upset with the way my current writing manifests itself, though, especially when comparing one of the older threads I was proud of on pintsizedpyro to one of my most "memorable" ones on burstbombbitch.

The writing is objectively different. In the time (four years) between these posts, I believe I had adopted a more descriptive method of writing. I know when writing the latter post I was primarily aiming for beauty and scene setting, but body language had evolved to become one of my most prominent focuses. Due to my muse's anatomy at the time (the lack thereof), I felt as though I could emphasize and exaggerate body language, pushing it to its limits. I am also aware I wrote in this way to "match" with the person I was writing with, as their writing entranced me and was something I aspired to become. I have found a middle ground, being the style I now write in. I do feel as though my background/scene setting could use more work, but I know it is not impossible for me to do, having evidence of doing so previously. That, and other wonderful writers really help me with their love of elaborating on plots!

I've also been told that my writing is "difficult to read," but not in a particularly bad light. I think the critique is spot on, but I do need the ability to make it "easy" on the fly for others as well. That being said, I find myself omitting things that I believe should be derived from context, which makes a good segue into this next segment...

Word Choice and Character Voice. This is something I feel I could work on. I have three "main" muses at this time: sinsolucion, lovlorne, and eternasci. I want to believe they all have different "writing styles" when I piece their threads together, that others will read the narrative (not just the dialogue!) with the same "vibe" the character themselves give off. Much of my struggle comes from how lovlorne and eternasci both can be on the "fancier" side of things. I struggle to differentiate the two, which isn't inherently bad (someone can simply like a character archetype, which I most definitely adore both), but I do wonder how successful I am when it comes to isolating what makes these characters them.

Then there's sinsolucion, who I believe would have none of the elegance the former two share. On rereading posts, I think I've managed to nail keeping him "simple," although actions like body language may still invoke my type of "lyrical" writing. This is a post that kind of has me like... "wait, maybe this was written with too much influence from my other blogs?" Objectively, nothing is wrong... but it does feel too fancy for a dude who just... isn't. Funnier still, this character is a writer, but he would absolutely never write the way I do. It creates some dissonance that makes for a challenge, but I do love him for it. It can be drowned out when reading other replies from Lucien or Xiuying, though. It also helps that, unlike these two, Soren doesn't typically undergo the same thought process or even have the same weak points in their characterization, leaving him to fill in voids they don't allow me to write.

It's difficult to divide your "style" for a different "person," but Soren gives me a good challenge, and helps me grow all the same. Also, he's a breath of fresh air when it comes to his very different interactions. Honestly, after going over these, that aforementioned post definitely felt a little fancy for Soren. I might rewrite it just to see what I could've done differently, knowing the sentence that particularly stood out to me as being more "Lucien" vibes (e.g. "mutters he beneath breath, smirk unbending, nigh threatening to wax crescent").

Just all in the fun of dissecting one's own style.

Steps to Writing a Reply. For Lucien and Xiuying, the first sentence is key. Both of their writing styles are particularly lyrical. I utilize a lot of alliteration and rhyme to get that feeling of song, though it can bleed into Soren's replies as well, evident by the post that has become the previous topic. Typically, when I get that first sentence going, the rest all flow along behind it. I usually knock a reply out all in one go, though I will save a draft and return later to reread it and analyze if I've come up with anything better in the midst of that break. It feels fitting to "set the scene" for these two overly dramatic assholes with a leading sentence, bolded and in bigger text to capture someone's primary attention, both of which crave to be in the spotlight literally and figuratively.

I think just about any post is an example of me framing the first sentence, but a good chunk of my favorites come from Lucien, especially when they're on the particularly silly or dramatic side. Xiuying has her moments, but most of them were in her development a few years ago. Her style has become more "pointed" and jarring to align with her new design, though anything that comes before her third phase of development falls back to the eloquence Lucien has now.

things to come back and add to this: my weakness of scene setting/bgs dialogue

This isn't really something to "tag" per say, since it's not reeeally a prompt or meme, but I'd love to see some elaboration on writing styles I'm super curious about (and as we all say, for the love of all that is holy, you DONT need to match)! I've sent out asks already, but if you haven't gotten one, steal this!

so suffer: @bloodxhound, @kagoshou, @fatedprincess @lionfanged, @goldenfists, @vtriol, @passionoathed, @shdwtouch, @stillresolved, @mielmoto, @amorbloom, @wishedby !

#i get asked to do essays on other ppls writing at times #theyre a Lot of effort too man. when asked ppl tend to forget ive written em too and i have to go find em.#i wanna do one for myself. i wanna see my own change. i wanna have it down for myself since i know i won't just. forget or toss it somewher #ok tag system w/e bro #if yall notice smth unmentioned lmk im curious #🙦✿ ⦙ shoot for the stars; no safety. ⦙ ❪ & ooc. ❫#🙦✿ ⦙ cutesy wootsy pink mermaid! ⦙ ❪ & mun. ❫

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eriquin · 3 months ago

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i know how venn diagram sets work and all but imma be real i just don't get this at all, please help me understand this :(

I'm going to assume you sent me this because I have a thing in my blog about helping people with their math homework. This is my jam, though, so I'm answering it even if that's not why.

Okay, so let's imagine instead of percents, we just have 100 people. Each of them answered the survey, but some of them said more than one thing.

8% = 8 people don't want to do any of these things. Honestly, I'd leave them out of the Venn diagram because because making a Venn diagram (that's the one with overlapping circles) with more than 3 circles is kind of a pain in the ass, so they're just going to be outside the circle. I'll draw it so we can see what that means.

You'll see that I've left some space for overlap for all three opinions. Is it really 0 people who think that? Well, maybe, maybe not. The way that the question is phrased makes me thing that's a gotcha and we should confirm it.

12%, or 12 people, only hate his guts. Let's put that on the diagram. Yes, I'm doing this in marker. Here's hoping I don't have to erase it.

If 12 are only want to hate his guts, but 14 people answered the survey that they hate his guts, then that's 2 people who hate his guys and something else. We don't know what yet. Let's evaluate the other things first.

36 people want to do two things. 34 of them want out and plan to desert. 2 of them hate his guts and want out. Well, there's your other 2 people. Since that 2 + 12 = 14, then that accounts for all the guts-haters, and we really don't have any that do all three. We can put these numbers in the overlapping spots. 2 in the intersection of HG and WO, and 34 in the intersection of WO and PD. Also, we have 0 in the intersection of PD and HG, and 0 in the middle.

So what does that leave in the other circles? Well, we had a total of 58 that answered that they want out, and we already have 2 and 34 written down. 58 - 2 = 56. 56 - 34 = 22. So 22 goes in the WO circle on its own.

And the PD? Well, we have a total of 56 planning to desert. We already have accounted for 34 of them (they want out and plan to desert) so we have 56 - 34 = 22 left.

Now, let's check our math, which just means checking if all the numbers add up to 100.

(8 + 22 )+ (2 + 34) + (22 + 12) =

30 + (36 + 34) =

30 + 70 =

100

(No I don't usually add stuff like this but I thought it would be clearer in text)

So yeah, that checks out.

I know that Venn diagrams don't have to be to scale, but I'd probably rewrite it like this:

Except neater. Pretend those numbers are legible.

Anyway, I hope that helped explain how the question works.

#math questions #asks #life and times of eriquin

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alexanderwales · 5 months ago

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The Current WIP List

Inspired by this post by @a-memory-a-distant-echo, this is a list of ongoing works-in-progress, where "in progress" I will define as "I have added at least one sentence in the last year as an indicator of actual mental load being used". This does not include worldbuilding or planning documents, which spring up like weeds. I am also including the ones that I get paid for via Patreon or publication deals or whatever.

Thresholder is my currently ongoing web serial, publishing two chapters a week (in theory ...). It's about a guy who travels between worlds and fights other people who travel between worlds, with each world being a relatively contained book. Currently about 750K words.

Doomsday Pivot! is, in theory, the follow-up to Thresholder, about a start-up that has to make a sudden change in plans when the end of the world gives everyone a character class. First book is rough draft complete but needs some responses to developmental editing, sitting at 104K words. (You can read a noncanonical first chapter here, which I had previously made public on my discord.)

Millennial Scarlet is a webcomic I write about a gig-economy demon hunter. Writing comics is awesome, mostly because I get to see my words come to life. In word count ... I'm not sure right now, but probably not all that much. In the middle of writing the fourth issue right now.

Glimwarden was a web serial that I abandoned, a black mark on my record. I intend to go back to it at some point, because it was my wife's favorite. You can read it up to the point where it was abandoned here. There are currently ~3 unreleased chapters, but most of the effort put into it has been rewriting it and bringing it up to snuff, as well as fixing some problems with it. Will get a relaunch at some point, probably, when I'm ready to commit to that. No idea on the word count.

Untitled Dance Magic story is probably a short story, currently ~5K words. It's based around a magic system where people do ballroom dance to create architecture, and is a somewhat traditional romance and/or coming of age story. I started writing it on a whim after a conversation with @etirabys at LessOnline, and hopefully they haven't started their own story, and hopefully if they have, hopefully their story doesn't overlap mine. I'll check before posting, hoping to get this one finished and out there.

Kensuke Fucks the World is an existentialist horror erotic novel, which I describe as being "like the Erogamer, but sad". Currently 75K words, and might never see the light of day. I think I can wrap it up in another 25K words, but I think it needs a lot of work.

Long Stairs will probably be novella length in its finished form, and will probably not be finished. It's an old story, which predates Worth the Candle by a few months, and is about a military fireteam making a routine delve into an endless shifting dungeon that the US military has already pulled a lot of magic out of. Medics with clerical healing, wands and firearms, high fantasy and military. There's unfortunately some stuff in there that I cannibalized for WtC that needs to be changed so it's not a repeat, but nothing structural, and there are a lot of plot beats that I enjoy in both the 15K words that are already written and what's in the notes. I did not put a bunch of work into this one, but it was one of those cases where I was reading through old stuff and got enough of a head of steam that it latched onto me again. (I also don't know enough about the military or how to write that kind of stuff, which is one of the reasons that this fic never got my full attention.)

The Lot is a story that's basically just "the backrooms, but with cars". It think it was inspired by a tumblr post, but probably won't be finished, since it's probably novella length. Currently 9K words, more a character study than it is about people stuck in an infinite parking lot and scrounging off what they can find in glove compartments.

Kitchen Sink is a bureauporn/bureaupunk novel about the agency created to deal with the rise of mutants circa 1977. Currently a mere 9K words, but the plan was for each successive part of the book to focus on another genre being discovered by the department, so you'd get a book with wizards, with vampires, with aliens, etc., mostly with a focus on how these are handled on an administrative level. No way I would ever be able to sell it, unfortunately.

Robot Team Isekai (not its real title) is about a van full of kids on their way to a robotics team meet that get transported to another world where their individual specialties grant them awesome abilities in a "your hyperfixation makes you perfectly adapted to the fantasy world" kind of way, but for five people with different hyperfixations. 2K words, probably will never see the light of day.

Full Meta vol. 2 is a novel about a group of high school students who get metafiction powers, so like ... one girl gets the ability to read the text of the novel they're in whenever someone is engaging in exposition, one guy can read the flashbacks, someone can read all the romance scenes or whatever, and they have a dysfunctional time dealing with each other through college and into adulthood. I fully recognize that calling it "Full Meta vol. 2" when no first volume exists is a gimmick title and would be confusing enough to immediately turn people away.

Dark Wizard of Donkerk was an old NaNo novel, but got halfway dev edited before my dev editor on that one flaked. I think it's a good story, just a matter of getting into the guts of it and making it great, but that takes time. 173K words, but this is old old. If you like rough, unpolished creative output, you can read it on my website.

Untitled Hermione/Draco fanfic is, uh ... I guess according to the logs was something that I put effort into in late 2023. I have read vanishingly little HP fanfic, and I'm sure there's a ton of this stuff, and that some of it is even good. This one doesn't adhere too much to canon or fanon, and is mostly about trying to write a realistic racist who falls in love with someone he's racist against. 14K words, I cannot believe I added anything to this recently, but apparently I have.

Technically by the criteria set out, I should count all seven of the NaNo test chapters I wrote. Of those, the only ones that have retained any brain space are "The Inevitable Return of Nathaniel Greene" and "Dungeon Core".

There are a few more that are technically outside the arbitrary time limit of one year, but I'm going to include them because I have thought about them in the last year (and will not include the ones that I have not thought about).

Of Witches and Wizards is what I thought was a romance but was told does not fit the apparently pretty exacting mold of a "romance novel". It's about a widowed witch whose two sons have left for college and a wizard who travels the world writing about places for a travel guide. They fall in love. Tons of worldbuilding stuff as they visit different cities and see the breadth and beauty of magic in the world. 15K words right now, was going to be a nice and slender novel.

Eager Readers in Your Area was a short story I wrote a year and a half ago. The WIP is a novel-length version of that about ... art, artists, AI art, dealing with people online, and a bunch of other stuff. I wrote an outline I thought was quite good, but if the short story is the first chapter, then I want an equally good and tight second chapter, and that's hard to do.

Slaver Slayer (not final title) was about a slave who assassinates a high-ranking member of the kingdom and through an oversight gets a magical artifact that might possibly let her kill her way through the monarchy in an attempt to end the institution of slavery. The other protagonist is a detective who's grappling with his complicity in the system and is trying to stop her. Made it to 13K words. Another one of those that was outlined to be a nice tight novel.

#my wips #creative writing #thresholder #doomsday pivot

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