#some of these overlap or are rewrites of each other | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imagoddamnonionmason · 5 months ago

Text

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

27 notes · View notes

tonydaddingham · 10 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

40 notes · View notes

astralscrivener · 1 year ago

Text

✨ 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

131 notes · View notes

stormbreaker101 · 3 months ago

Text

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

16 notes · View notes

shadowqnights · 6 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

18 notes · View notes

maddgical-boy · 6 months ago

Text

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

10 notes · View notes

triflesandparsnips · 1 year ago

Text

...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

37 notes · View notes

eternasci · 6 months ago

Text

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. ❫

11 notes · View notes

eriquin · 2 months ago

Note

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

5 notes · View notes

alexanderwales · 4 months ago

Text

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

16 notes · View notes

vernalloy · 3 months ago

Text

I am pissed about the schizophrenia confusion with DID because there are some easy ways to sidestep that and maintain the Legion.

1. Hallucination As Headmate

I'll admit I'm personally unfamiliar with this experience, though I have heard of a good many others who consider their psychosis to be in origin to plurality and similar experiences by way of hallucination or delusion. I think this is the closest to what is presented in canon, but as I'm on shaky ground, I don't really know how I'd steer a rewrite more towards this as a personal experience rather than a confused trope.

2. Ipseity disturbance/dissolution of the self

One of the big things that shows up in schizophrenia is the experience of the self getting hollow. The I becomes less immediate. One explanation given for some manifestations of schizophrenia (namely hearing voices or delusions relating to thought control) is that the mind incorrectly categorizes autogenerated ideas as alien. This takes thoughts and pulls them apart into something less solid than a full-on person. Self-experience is either absent, or reflected in everything. The metaphorical cell membrane becomes blurry and unintelligible. As such, a division or loss of identity.

3. Comorbidity

I’ve shot off twice that the Moon Knight system and Venom/Eddie are psychotic-coded plurals, so they have an easier time running this train of thought given they’re plural urban fantasy protagonists. The lines between each characters are much stronger to start off with, so the addition of psychotic-coded elements seems less a mix-up between schizophrenia and split personality¹ and more an extension of pre-existing instability. Legion would have the difficulty of dragging itself the other direction, but a close eye to both distinction and overlap could help a lot.

—

¹ I use “split personality” here even though it’s incorrect to gesture to one possible cause of that trope— the etymology being confused for the presentation of DID (and similar experiences).

Now if I was writing fanfiction, I’d go with option 2 because that’s easiest and most interesting for me to research and write. But these are three things in general I would probably offer if I had the power of a writer on the show— trying to hit a balance of being semi-accurate while following the source.

#(wow vern talk)#legion #legion fx #ok edit I realize it was meant to be did now rather than a fuckup. sorryyyyy

3 notes · View notes

libras-interactives · 1 year ago

Text

Heyo heyo. I thought it might be interesting to talk about the different Occupations in UtDM, which also determines the character's personality. I had a lot of trouble with various personalities in Last Spring, simply because that story is wordier and there's a lot more introspection - My goal for Devil's Moon is to make the personalities distinct but also have enough overlap in some dialogue so I don't go insane with rewrites and variations.

There was also a little confusion over this, I didn't really make it clear in the game itself what Occupation leads to which personality. So after all that chatter, this is kind of what I'm going for:

Triggerman - This MC is familiar with the workings of a criminal gang and actively participates in it. They're used to violence and have accepted their part in it - half out of necessity, half out of enjoyment. They're a practical person whose comfortable with themselves and disregards much of what society considers 'proper'. They have no interest in being dissuaded from their dangerous job, though a gunman with family members or a child might have some doubts.

Distiller - A more solitary and subdued MC who definitely has some traces of depression, not that it was widely recognized at the time. The incident with their boss and the gin explosion has also contributed to some PTSD and uneasiness. Violence does not come easily to them, but they're resigned to carrying out Mr. Flynn's whims. Their illicit operations have made it difficult to connect with family members or a child, if they have them to begin with.

Accountant - This MC is probably the most well-read of the bunch, and has a logical, calm way of viewing things. They've accepted violence as part of this job, but because they've been so distant from it until now, they aren't too good at it yet. Share's the Distiller's attitude of "it is what it is" in regards to Mr. Flynn's orders. The accountant arguably has the easiest time passing off their work as legitimate, even after becoming a driver.

Musician - Arguably the most unsuited to be Mr. Flynn's new bootlegger. This MC is sweet, has a little touch of awkwardness and arguably has the most idealism. They'll have the most trouble with violence and will probably never become "good" at it. They're an artist first, not a gangster. This occupation is likely the closest to their family if they have one, though they're too busy living the bohemian life to come home much.

Working Girl - The most charismatic of the occupations, and most likely to actually be successful when diffusing a situation or gathering information. She's flirtacious, likes to tease others and is used to be underestimated. She has no idealistic illusions about her job or the man she works for, but tries not to become bitter or hard-hearted. One of the most distant from family (if they're around) because of all her secrets.

If you choose to have your character romance someone, it sort of plays out like this: Triggerman and Musician are aware of their feelings and feel comfortable pursuing them, Accountant and Distiller deny deny deny as long as possible (then lay awake at night thinking "oh no") and Working Girl starts out strong but becomes more unsure and nervous as it gets serious.

I also have some ideas brewing for two (or three?) more Occupations, both are very different from each other and the existing personalities. That'll have to be for later, though!

#libra says #if:devil's moon

22 notes · View notes

ahungeringknife · 10 months ago

Text

This chapter more than any other has remained the most consistent through rewrites and drafts. Takes you out of the house where Spayar is a doting big brother and loved oldest child into the actual work he does to plan a coup to kill the rest of the royal family.

If you'd like to be pinged for updates drop me a line. Info links are all at the bottom including AO3.

====+====

The Zealous Servant | 2 | South Garden

====+====

South Garden was a bustling neighborhood where you could get just about anything you wanted. Unlike the gridded streets of Bellringer which had been meticulously planned by the Craftsmans' Guild centuries ago South Garden was an older part of the city where roads had just appeared between buildings and then everyone had crammed into spaces next to each other. Colorful awnings dotted the front of the buildings' fronts often overlapping each other and the street casting the roads into brilliant colors in the dull gray light of the drizzle. Unlike in Bellringer where houses had enough spaces for gardens the homes of South Garden were so close the walls touched and some buildings even shared them. They seemed to hang over the streets but unlike some neighborhoods Spayar never felt like the buildings would fall in on you. You wanted to experience that The Cradle was just on the other side of the river or even more crowded Downriver further away still. The upper windows all held flower boxes and it wasn't uncommon for long trailing flowering plants to drape down low over the road. Traffic in South Garden was regulated to foot traffic or small petty taxis. No coaches allowed so it was a safe neighborhood to walk about freely. Which was good as according to Senior it was somehow getting more dangerous than usual to be on the streets in Bellringer as the number of run-overs by coaches had increased in the last few months.

Spayar just followed after Calli with the shopping. He'd made a big deal about it earlier but it was easier to just let her do it. She knew what they needed. He'd handed over the list and his wallet and let her buy up the processed goods and gather the raw. He stood behind Calli boredly as she was looking over some already shelled nuts. He was just looking around, catching no one's attention in particular, listening to side talk. He was honestly looking for a place to sit for a bit and let the right people notice him.

He was in the middle of a yawn when he saw someone across the street staring at him. Calli was bartering with the stall owner over the price of almonds they were selling and completely oblivious. They were a man, nondescript in appearance wearing the fashion from a few years ago, and he was just looking at Spayar in surprise. Then he made a hand sign at Spayar in thieves cant. He was so out of practice in this after two years in the Arm. Even worse than Dirnine. But after a second he remembered the corresponding hand sign. The man walked away with a nod. Spayar looked away as Calli finished her transaction.

"Five silver for a pound of badly shelled almonds, what a scam," Calli complained after they were out of earshot of the nut seller.

"Bad year?" Spayar asked.

"Its the principle of the thing," she huffed. "Last year it was three silver."

"Is he the only nut seller?"

"That doesn't just sell flour, yes," she was annoyed as they walked the street to their next destination. "Everyone's double processing their raw it seems. It's infuriating."

"The fact that he's selling them just shelled is almost illegal so you can take solace in that at least," Spayar said idly. Selling raw food products or living animals strictly for consumption was illegal in the Alliance. The government paid all farmers and ranchers for their products on maturity and it was distributed by the farmers themselves. If you wanted to sell food stuffs you had to process it in some way, cook it, make it into flour or cheese or do something to change it from its natural state.

"He didn't even roast them!" Calli cried and Spayar chuckled. "Amma wanted me to pick up some spices from her favorite shop so just wait out here. I'll be a bit and see if I can't pry some cinnamon or cardamom from them."

"Good luck," Spayar said and Calli went into a cheerfully lit shop. He glanced inside and saw it was run by some Dirinians as well if Calli's greeting in Dirnine was anything to go off of.

Well knowing Dirinians that would be a while. He went and found a bench to sit on and sighed like he was weary. The bench was damp but not wet and his jacket covered the back of his thighs. He kicked his legs out and got comfortable, reminding himself where the nearest post office was. He needed to get this letter out of Theo.

He glanced over when a man, a different man from before, sat next to him. Spayar recognized him instantly, pale skinned with a shock of blond hair he dyed black but was always showing at the roots. He was a muscly type with a surprisingly honest face. "Jimon," he said in greeting, he was in a thin rain coat, no hood or hat.

"Spayar," he replied back. "Cannin nearly shit himself he was so shocked to see you back out and about." Spayar chuckled. "Showed up at Lonni's acting all crazy. We all had to tell him to shut the blazes up. Wasn't like you died or anything."

"That'd be a neat trick if I had, though," Spayar smirked. "You know Cannin doesn't know what to do around pretty guys," and that made Jimon give a loud well meant laugh. "Didn't even recognize him. Finally got a hair cut."

"Yeah. His lady made him get it shaved off when he came home with lice last month." Spayar grimaced in sympathy.

"So," Spayar started off lowly but casually. He didn't necessary want their conversation overheard. Not that it was probably anything but old news but better safe than sorry. "What's the beat?"

"Depends," Jimon held out his hand palm up on top of his thigh.

"Don't insult me, Jimon," Spayar rolled his eyes.

"Just checking. You were gone two years. Things changed."

"I can't imagine they changed that much-

"Jackkerty's dead."

Spayar needed a moment to process that. "He's what?" That was... not the worst thing in the world but far from the best. Shit.

"Dead. Got got. There's a new master of the Tithing Court now," Jimon said with absolute grim seriousness Spayar couldn't recall seeing in him in a long time even before he'd left.

"I see. Who's the mark?"

"Calls themselves the Pale Cross. Foreigner best we can tell. They've got a retched accent if they aren't," Jimon's face pinched.

"Jackkerty let a foreigner get the better of him? Really?"

"Yeah. We were surprised too. Lonni said they all went in one day for their usual meeting and he was gone and Pale Cross was in his place. Didn't believe at first. Found his body in his house in Middleton later that day."

"Well shit," Spayar said softly. He wasn't really torn up about Jackkerty's death. Not really. Jackkerty had been a fool. But he knew the rules and was easily manipulated. Exactly how the Lord of the Tithing Court should be here in Assarus. "And how's he running the place?"

"They," Spayar noted the emphasis there as Jimon spoke, "don't get it. They aren't from here, acting like this is any other place. Collects more often and higher amounts. They already sent Black after a few of the street runners who didn't pay up, had him take some fingers. It's got everyone nervous and acting stupid. Doing risky things to meet pay day. The Strong Arm's starting to get annoyed and is looking at us."

That was serious. The royals and their spymaster were aware of the Tithing Court and tolerated it for the most part as it acted as a slight extension of their spy network. Petty thieves and people who ran illegal gambling rings heard all sorts of news and gossip a noted spy had more trouble sussing out. Petty thievery or an illegal gambling den wasn't punishable beyond a fine and some time in the city's jail. Never long. Few months. But if petty thievery wasn't making the tithing for this new Lord then they'd do bigger jobs. Start actual robbery, steal things of higher value. If the higher ranks did it it was expected but if the entire Court was suddenly hurting for money to pay their new Lord. It certainly would draw the Strong Arm's attention-- while technically all the guard in the city were part of the Strong Arm it was really only used for those who served on the palace grounds and Fey's Shadow where all the nobles kept their homes. If the Strong Arm got involved the royals got involved and they had a no tolerance policy. There'd be no raids or arrests. They'd just raze all of the Cradle and parts of Middleton to the ground to send a very clear message that this foolish 'guild' was no longer going to be tolerated.

"Someone's told them right?" Spayar asked.

"Of course! Not like they care. I think they think this is like wherever they came from and the guard has no idea where we are and we're some weird secret," Jimon grimaced. "They just want money."

"Ah. Grubber."

"Aye," Jimon spat on the ground to show how much he cared for that.

"And no one's killed them? Seems like a lot of bad without a lot of good."

"We've tried. They're a warlock of some sort. Ones who've tried end up dead instead. It's real annoying actually."

Made sense. Weren't many warlocks in the Tithing Court or who did assassinations. If you could use magic there was way better money to be made doing reasonable magic for people. That and the Adoshade tended to put a stop to any freelance blades in the dark. Spayar had asked one during his time why that was. LiSen, who never joked at all to begin with, had just said it was 'bad for their image'.

"So no one's talked any sense into them?"

"Not that they take seriously," Jimon sighed. As he did a woman walked by them, stopped, and did a double take, peering down at them from under her umbrella. "Not now Lenorr I'm talking his ear off," Jimon tried to wave her off.

"Well it must be awful then since Jimon is a real bore!" Lenorr cried and Spayar grunted when she helped herself to his lap. Lenorr, like most of the Court, wasn't much to look at, straight brown hair, round cheeks, wide hips and a narrow waist. She had pretty eyes he guessed. He wasn't much one for figuring out what made girls pretty unless someone told him directly. He'd consider it a character flaw if he actually gave a shit.

"Hello Lenorr, fancy seeing you here," Spayar said, slightly strained from her in his lap. Yeah sure, use your boss like part of the bench. Perfect, he thought.

"What are you telling him Jimon?"

"New boss."

"Oh, they're awful," Lenorr bemoaned.

"Bad for business I've been told," Spayar said.

"Terrible!"

"Woman will you pipe down," Jimon scolded her. Lenorr just rolled her eyes.

"So I take it I need a new introduction?" Spayar asked to keep the conversation going.

"Good luck with that."

"The court stays with them all the time," Jimon said.

"Why?"

"In case they do something stupid like kill someone like they killed some kid a few weeks ago because he didn't bring any money three times in a row and they considered that unacceptable. Slit the kid's throat and had him tossed into the Meltong. Guards went crazy about that. They were banging on the doors of every known crook or bend in the city seeing if we knew anything," he said it lowly but with great annoyance. "And of course we all said we didn't know anything. Now the entire court just stays there to stop them from doing it again. Stealing is one thing but we aren't murderers."

Spayar rubbed his eyes. "Great. So everyone's there all the time?"

"Well..." Lenorr started, "not Tassa. But no one's seen her in a while."

That did interest him. Von said he hadn't seen Tassa and she wasn't in the court? He'd have to pay her a visit.

"I see. Anything else happen while I was gone?" Spayar asked. He was quite over hearing them complain about their new boss honestly. The Pale Cross didn't worry him. They were shit. Everyone knew Lord of Tithing was a paper title for a weak crime scene just to keep the kleptomaniacs in line. He also knew the court were all soft handed thugs who were too afraid of death to tell the Pale Cross how it was. Spayar wasn't like that and he couldn't have some foreigner ruining his good thing with the thief's guild.

"When'd you get back?" Jimon asked.

"This morning," Spayar shrugged.

"So then you don't know what's been going on?"

"About?"

"Last year the thaw totally flooded the Mire. Most of it got torn down because of it, rot getting into the buildings. It hasn't been rebuilt properly yet."

"It's horrible down there," Lenorr agreed. "We've been getting a lot of new hands from there. There's nothing for them. Asuras isn't fixing it. Then this year that son of hers moved into the Winter Palace and she's been too afraid to come up and see the situation herself," she said scornfully. "Lots of people desperate to get out of the Mire but don't have a place to go home to so they come to us to get enough money for a place to stay."

"Can't get a job if you don't have an address," Spayar said softly. They both nodded slowly.

"Been a weird year and a half too. Too much water along the river basin and then not enough water between here and the White Foot Hills."

"My sister said prices for food products have gone up a bit," Spayar said remembering Calli's complaining of more than just the almonds.

"Yeah."

"And you're lucky to find raw most places," Lenorr said. "It gets grabbed up by processors so fast. Then before you can get that they sell to someone else who can afford a higher mark up and then they sell a secondary process for four times the amount."

"How much is bread?" Spayar asked.

"Two silver," Jimon said gravely.

Spayar nearly choked. "Silver? For a loaf of bread? That better be the best damn bread I've ever had!"

The two thieves laughed. "It's affecting different neighborhoods differently. Craft guild has a strong arm in Bellringer from what I hear. They go around, rounding up raw and single possessed food staples and give it out to guild members first and community members second." That explained why Spayar hadn't noticed the lack and even still could get rice. His father was a Master smith in the guild. His family wouldn't go without so long as the craftsman's guild was still operating in the city. "Fey's Shadow and Upriver of course are noticing nothing."

"Heard it was bad in D'linger for a bit at first before the university took over," Lenorr said thoughtfully. "Now anyone who's part of the university has access to their food stores, raw and processed, free of charge."

"Yeah. Probably best not to piss off the university warlocks by upcharging them for bread," Spayar said.

"I even heard some butcher in Middleton was trying to sell raw," Jimon said.

"No way."

"Unconfirmed rumor," he added quickly. "If it happened the Strong Arm certainly straightened it out quickly."

"Yeah I'd guess so. Anything else fun and exciting I should be aware of?"

"It's Tallasala's naming day soon. She's planning a big party despite Teldin's appearance," Lenorr said. "Thirty-seventh of Neyjarra." So less than two months away with this being the last few days of J'dorr and J'dorr was the shortest month of the year.

"Mmm, great. Well I'll see about getting a meeting with the Pale Cross and we can set them straight on some things."

"I certainly hope so."

"It's... worrying," Lenorr agreed.

"I can't leave you alone for even a minute can I?" the familiar voice of his sister cried as she came out of the spice shop.

"Pleasure," Jimon shook Spayar's hand where Spayar slipped him a gold. Then he stood up, dipped his head to Calli and wandered off, hands in his pockets, wandering back out into the multi colored light of the awning covered street.

"Ah yes, the only woman in your life, huh Spayar?" Lenorr teased him and very nearly shoving her tits in his face. He rolled his eyes making her give him a fox smirk.

"Well she doesn't crush my thighs so yes," he said and that made Lenorr laugh. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and as she got up he slipped her a gold as well. "Ta ta," and she went on her way.

"You've been back home less than five hours and I already find you covered in flirts," Calli huffed, arms cross. She looked very much like Relora then.

"What can I say? I'm very charming," Spayar asked with a smirk. Calli was unaffected and unamused.

"Well I wish you'd teach me that instead of arithmetic. Far more useful than math ever will be."

Spayar chuckled and got to his feet grabbing up the shopping in one arm. He looped the other arm around her as they walked. "Trust me, math is important. But also you just need to seem smarter than you are but not like you know you're smarter than you are, smarter than they are," he did impart some wisdom onto her. Which surprised her by the look on her face and honestly surprised him too. "Shouldn't be too hard. You're very clever and I know you got a smart mind behind that big forehead of yours," and he poked her in the middle of her high forehead.

She swatted at him. "Ahg! Horrid!" she cried, swinging her basket at him. Spayar laughed and jumped back, hands up. "To think I missed you while you were gone," she huffed angrily. But he knew she was just flustered.

"So what's next on the list?" Spayar asked. "Anything heavy for you to torture me with?"

"Yes," she said, still annoyed with him.

They ended up making a few more stops and Calli did find some heavy things to carry, a bag of sausage and cured meat and another with jars of jam and produce preserves. Despite the cooling air it was humid because of the rain and quite miserable honestly. Once the rain settled the humidity would go away but for now he was left to build up a bit of sweat in his rain jacket. "You think amma will be upset if we go home without everything on the list?" Calli asked as they stood at the other side of the big South Garden market.

"I don't even know what she looks like upset so that's doubtful," Spayar said. "What are we missing?"

"She wanted me to see if I could find some raw out here but..." she bit her lip.

"Probably not happening?" Spayar gathered.

"Unless you can make goat appear out of nowhere?"

"I'm a warlock but not that kind of magic," he said and that made her laugh.

"Well then I guess not."

"You could ask nicely," he said.

She shoved him annoyance. "That doesn't work. Let's get home before it starts raining properly."

"We need to stop at the post office. I have a letter to mail." Calli made an agreeable noise and they headed for the closest post office a few streets over.

====+====

Tag list: @full-on-sam @thegodsaredead

If you'd like to be pinged for this let me know. Replies or asks are fine. Reblogs would be wonderful and are encouraged. My ask box is open if you wanna know more~

ZS tag | Masterpost | References | Read it on AO3

#Zealous Servant #writeblr #writblr #original fiction #original fantasy #original character #writers on tumblr #writing #fantasy #spayar hillsman #calli hillsman

12 notes · View notes

postsforposting · 11 months ago

Text

Colors in GO

Dec 23: updated purple

Dec 25: fixed blue, forgot to rewrite it before posting

I think the symbolism of blue and green are wrong? They don't mean heaven and hell. They can be associated with heaven and hell, but they don't solely mean that. Orange and white also seem to overlap, being associated with god, but so is blue which has been said to be divinity. I realized these were all entangled when writing various meta and trying to figure out what was going on in several scenes. Surely they do not all mean the same thing! Lo and behold, they do not.

Now that we all art here, let us recount the deeds of the dyes:

Brown: choice, free will/fate

White: playing by the rules

Black: Deceit

Blue: life/death

Gold: God's presence/watching

Green: god's game, the ineffable plan

Orange: agents of god's will

Red: passion

Yellow: defiance

Purple: power

Note: The shade of each color can mean something different. For example, say pink means love, then bright pink means love, and dark red would be absence of love or a negative/bad connotation. The way colors are combined also matters for context, what's on top or the placement on clothing vs how much of a color there is, what's the "core" color, etc. I am not sure, but I think in scenes where a tint is dominating the other colors, and makes a color look different, then the changed color is supposed to look different: so if in shadow gray looks black, then I think it's meant to be read as black.

There are other things that colors can stand for too, such as red being for blood or love. Those are the traditional symbolism, not the *main* usage in GO. I think some colors also aren't commenting on what is happening in a scene itself, but are foreshadowing future actions or telling us about hidden intent.

Also, I have been wrong about the colors before, this is merely the latest iteration on what I think they mean. I belabored it this time though, so I am pretty confident in these.

Opening montage=very beginning of s1e1 before Eden; intro=sequence we see with the theme music every episode.

Brown: choice, freewill vs fate

Basket the antichrist was delivered in, Hastur's and Aziraphale's clothes. Sandalphon's clothes. Obviously the ground and Adam's forest, seats in the bentley in s1 are dark brown. Lots of dark wood at the satanic hospital. Metatron's clothes. Jesus on the cross symbol, the cross itself. Furnishings and draperies at the Ritz are tan/cream. Desert of War's sword delivery, War's sword has dark brown on it, and half the clothing of the woman who demands to sign first. The summoner's clothes and every box he delivers. The witchfinders who burn Agnes wear dark brown, as does Agnes and the villagers. Floor of modern Anathema's house and the box holding the prophecy cards are dark brown, plus the cards themselves are tan/cream.

It can't be just earth alignment because Sandalphon isn't.

Brown is choice; light brown is free will and darker is more fate. It's associated with humanity but it's not solely humanity. Darker brown is less of a choice, pressured choice, and/or fate, like Anathema's family had with the prophecies: you don't have much of a choice when the world is on the line. They could have chosen not to follow the book though. Sandalphon has latitude in how he conducts himself and treats humans: he does not have to act as he does. Aziraphale's waistcoat gets lighter and worn as he develops his own beliefs rather than rigidly relying on heaven's demands, as he makes his own choices. He adds more lighter brown over time as he makes his own choices instead of being railroaded by fate.

Particularly, humanity was cut off from the light sandy desert while walled into Eden. When Crowley stops time, they all stand on light sand. The bentley having dark brown seats means it's got choice, but not much of one since it's tied to Crowley; also it was part of fate. Creating the antichrist was a choice, was also possibly a forced choice on Satan's part.

When Azi is discorporated to heaven and we meet the heavenly soldiers, he is dressed in a white shirt and tan coat and pants: he's got a choice to make, to go to war or not. The soldiers too all are making a choice to go to war, only pushed along a little bit by fate: the darker brown in their kilts. Except Azi has a white shirt, while the soldiers are button up fully in their choice, with white earpieces.

White: playing by the rules

White can't be specifically heaven or god, since we see it on Adam and we see bits of it on Crowley at some points. Aziraphale is not all white when he's discorporated in heaven as he defies heaven and talks to Crowley as a ghost: he's a white shirt and tan pants and coat. The outfit Adam has for s1, changing only the coat:

That is not heavenly, he's the antichrist. Can't be heaven's watching either.

Can't be strictly heavenly, because when Satan gives Crowley instructions it's white mist. It can't be autonomy, because that isn't the angels, isn't heaven, and Crowley would have some white as a demon. There has to be a reason why it's on Adam's core instead of on the surface like the coat. Playing by the rules? Yes--just like the "shades of gray", there's multiple ways to bend that just like god does, and you can play by the rules for your own ends, which fits why it's associated with heaven and god, and also why black is all over Crowley because he makes his own rules. Crowley also plays by the rules in the arrangement sometimes, respecting Aziraphale and the system, so that could be why it shows up on him sometimes. The new "ye saga continues" that Anathema burns at the end of s1 is cream, ie true but somewhat obscure as prophecies are wont to be.

The first time we see white is in the opening montage, where it's the color of the correct statements. That would appear to be truth, but it's god's truth, and Adam certainly isn't in line with that. And that truth here is malleable, because Adam's truth isn't the world's truth, he can remake it as he wants. So this isn't so much "truth" or reality as it is playing by the rules: what god says is true, but god can also lie, and those correct statements are backed with black. If white is playing by the rules, then black is lawlessness and deceit, so god's lying. This is why angels used to be white, and why Azi was white as an angel but in modern times is gaining light brown as his waistcoat wears out: he's gaining not "clarity" or truth but choice, freewill as he develops his own beliefs. This would explain why it's Adam's core, and why Azi gets a whole shirt of it which allows him to make a different choice than everyone else in heaven, who only get helmets and earpieces of white aka it's pounded into their heads: everything Azi does while in heaven is playing by the rules, the Metatron said he could finish what he was doing and that's what he's claiming to do.

Interestingly, the lightning used by both heaven and hell is white. White tends to be associated with heaven, but it's not exclusive. Pollution is smokey/champagne, so white can't be truth--but pollution is playing by the rules, as they themselves say. White can be truth, a filter, to remove deceit, but it's not strictly truth.

This is part of the parody: white is usually truth, but here it's a twisted version of "being in the light" that makes god look like a double dealing salesman.

Black: deceit, duplicity

Opposite to white, it's deceit, as when Aziraphale wears black to do his magic act: all the rules are out the window, nothing is as it seems. It's associated with hell, but not solely satanic, cf the angels' suits again. This also means that Satan and Beez were hiding things all the way back from s1.

Interestingly, the Ritz is white marble with tan/cream fabric. Sleeve on the dealer in the baby swap card game. The opening montage shades between navy and black for the color of "space": god's lying.

Silver is between black and white, and it depends on context: the angels lose their white robes over time, which matters because they are moving away from strict rule abiding to double talking for many of them to get away with things they shouldn't--or possibly so the system doesn't catch their disapproval of it. This is shades of gray used in a negative way as opposed to the way Crowley and Aziraphale use "shades of gray" to do things better. Same reason why Crowley's wings as an angel started darkening in before the beginning when he found out his stars were going to be destroyed, because he was going to do whatever it took to save them, rules and authority be damned. Here is where the parody of traditional apocalypse fiction comes in: black is traditionally bad, but here it's not necessarily because you can use deceit to do good when in a corrupt system, as Crowley and Aziraphale do, and using it to do bad is negative. Puts Satan's black in a whole new light, eh?

The difference between playing by the book and outright deceit is whether what you're doing is acceptable: Adam's "you are not my father" took the latitude he was given, while the archangels gleefully move line markers and lie about it.

The silver chain Crowley loses in s2 represents hell's authority over him: hell is lawless as the sham trial Crowley got shows, but its denizens are expected to follow the rules. Silver chain of hell, silver suits for heaven: not so different after all.

Blue: life/death

This doesn't mean heaven. I think people got this idea because of the light blue blanket in the baby swap alongside the white and red one that people took to mean hell, but that's not what that means: red doesn't mean hell; only one of the two babies is Jesus, and we don't know which one yet.

The first blue we see is the navy on the TV screen in the opening scene, I think space might be navy and obviously the earth's blue water that shows up thrice. A large neon blue and black eye as god tells us the fossilized dinosaurs are a joke the scientists haven't caught on to yet. Black means deceit, so god's lying about the dinosaurs. The libra symbol is white and light blue. Water in the middle of Eden is dark blue and possibly dark green, the sky is light blue. Jesus in s2 is shown with a neon blue sash.

Light blue is life, dark blue is death.

Leaving Eden was leaving death to seek life: leaving dark blue water to enter light blue sky and sand.

Warlock and Mr Dowling wear light blue shirts, Adam has a faded blue jean jacket. Light blue and white lights on the ambulance that brings the Dowlings to the hospital. Aziraphale wears a light bluegreen shirt, but often it does appear white or light blue. Water in the park, where the ineffables know they're being watched, is actually dark green, not blue. Some of the accessories of the people where War gets her sword delivery are navy, including light blue bulletproof vests, who all die. Outside of the coffee shop is dark blue with a light blue awning and patio fence in s1: life, death and liberty are intertwined, but we never go in to get any liberty ie coffee.

The first time we see the Ritz as they discuss the apocalypse in s1e1, there's a light blue set of windows and a white chandelier framed in the center between the ineffables: life is restricted by the rules, keeping them apart. Aziraphale's tie is light blue and white as the gardener. Light blue lights in Warlock's room, plus a light blue globe. Dark blue water on globe in heaven: heaven is death. The clothing shop next to the bookshop is dark blue. S1e2 starts in the light blue sky with white clouds and dark blue river: life by the rules inevitably leads to death. Light blue pool at Anathema's house and she's in a light blue dress. Newt's car is neon blue. Dark blue recycle bin at Newt's work, the witchfinder ad is circled in dark blue.

Tracey's bra is bright neon blue under a neon orange slip.

The other boys in Them have blue jeans, and Pepper has blue overalls. Adam has one outfit and two/three coats; one is blue, one is the green/blue shown above. Bright blue paint on Aziraphale at the paintball mansion, and light blue paint used by the yellow team, who are wearing white and one of whom has pearls on.

Light blue shirt on the staff at the cafe after the paintball fight. When Aziraphale makes Tracy's scooter fly, the miracle power is light blue: perhaps Aziraphale has the power of life.

Youngs have light blue, some dark blue stripes, when they're in bed. Adam has navy stripes with white on pjs. Light blue fractured lit windows around Azi's head when he finds Agnes's book in the car: the book has given him the ability to preserve life.

Blue in Azi's Shakespeare costume. Juliet, selling oranges, may have a blue costume? Single navy stripe in France's executioner's costume and the center of the flower decoration, which becomes Azi's costume. Beginning of 1941 memory tinted navy outside, so is inside the church, except the nazi space which is yellow. Crowley's dark blue 1941 shirt in both seasons. Adam's aura is yellow outside, then green/blue, red, white. The couple on the bench have a blue aura. Witchfinder manual is blue. Blue and white curtain behind Arthur Young as Adam reads witch magazine. Bandstand top is faded blue. Delivery man's bedsheets are faded blue. Witchfinder candle is light blue. The lights in the electrons Crowley runs through with Hastur are red, light blue, white, and gold. Blue ribbons on Beez s1, navy and light blue.

Neon blue is the last color in the memory tunnel Gabriel experiences getting his memories back, and blue is the tint of the graveyard scene in the last memory he meets Beez to look at his statue.

Gold: god's presence/watching

Gold is not yellow. I am not sure if brass is meant to be gold. I think the antenna on Beez's s1 hat may be copper/rose gold? Dark gold? Not sure. Could be glitter orange.

The first gold we see is a the 14 billion number as the age of the earth, gold shading to white. Then a gravity drawing around the planets to the sun, there are planets in gold, cards, and dealer's hands as god explains her game is like a dealer in a dark room. The libra earth horoscope is gold. Crowley's snake eye appears to be light gold--the show can do yellow, it would look yellow if that's what they meant. Dark gold/brown lion that tries to kill Adam and Eve.

This was extremely difficult to figure out, but I am pretty sure it's god's presence. I don't think there is a "dark" meaning for gold (though gold can be combined with other colors), because there is brass on the witchfinders that burn Agnes, and Agnes's daughter and husband are surrounded by what appears to be a lot of brass instruments. I don't think that scene would make sense if brass meant god's absence or disapproval. Brass could mean dark yellow though, or yellow and black, in which case that scene belongs to another color and not here. I also don't think gold denotes god's approval.

There are what seem to be gold chandeliers in the satanic hospital as they discuss the instructions for the baby swap.

The decoration on some of the angels' faces, and their rings. But when they're threatening Aziraphale in s1, they no longer have the face paint--does this mean the angels know what the paint does, or does the paint move on its own? This absence is why I think missing gold where it ought to be may mean "not ordained", because traditionally people would claim things like that in god's name. Sandalphon may still have the silver upper tooth decoration but he does not have the gold bottom ones in that scene. Michael has the gold when presenting the earth files on Crowley and when tattling to hell. The angels also cover their rings a lot--given they're in silver suits, this would fit a "hiding from god's sight" type of thing. The gold on their faces does not come back until they try to execute the ineffables, both Uriel and Micheal have it again.

I'm not sure if Michael has silver and orange or gold and orange paint the first time we see them in s1e1. I can't tell if there's gold or silver when they present the earth observation files. Given how obviously gold the gold on Uriel is, I think it's likely silver.

This would make sense why there is more gold in the s2 Job flashback: god is nosing in to see what happens with Job. Perhaps the robes change by will of god, they aren't something the angels choose to change, ditto the face paint.

Tracey's room is decorated in a lot of gold. Crowley's thrones and some other furniture. Edges of angel clothing before modern times. Aziraphale's desk chair. Number 4 delivery room, the Dowlings', in the satanic hospital was glowing gold or maybe yellow/orange, ditto #3 room. Cuff of the dealer in baby swap card game. Some decorative edging on the marble walls at the Ritz. Decoration on the sheathe of War's sword. Decoration on Agnes's book and gilt edging on pages. The color of the miracle dust when Crowley checks if it worked. Gold items on Aziraphale's desk and throughout the shop, the ring on Nanny's umbrella. Aziraphale's fob watch on his waistcoat, his waistcoat during his magic act in s1, and the merry go round at Warlock's bday in s1. Pepper's crown she's holding when the hellhound shows up. Aziraphale's mail slot on the shop. Brass buttons on Adultery Pulsifer and his "assistant"? Several medals on Shadwell's coat when we meet him preaching on the street. Gold on the edge of the red witchfinder patch.

All the prophecies in gold lettering on the screen as Azi reads them. Holy bible title in gold letter above the cocoa that doth grow cold. Buttons on the sleeve cuff of the sweater Azi wears to read Agnes's book.

Gold chain in the bartender's hair in Rome, her gold shoulder accessories, Azi's too. Gold on the columns at the Globe, in Shakespeare's costume, and on Hamlet's: god's watching Shakespeare. Gold on the top of Crowley's cane in 1862. Candle holders on left side in nazi church are gold. Gold closures on the bookbag Crowley saves. Gold rims on Crowley's 1967 glasses. Gold around the striptease sign. Gold ring visible as Azi calls Shadwell, and Shadwell's shoulder emblem is gold. Famine's companion is dressed in gold bolero, thick gold chain in diner scene and tons of gold accessories. Atlantean people have tons of gold. Gold street performer statue in the park. The lights in the electrons Crowley runs through with Hastur are red, blue, white, and gold. Newt's socks are red and gold during armageddon, gold shirt. Mostly gold/red credenza blocking off Azi's desk during Metatron summoning, gold candle holders. Gold all around Metatron head in s1, and Shadwell uses gold key to pick bookshop lock. Gold on the heavenly quartermaster and soldiers.

God's been around a lot of Crowley and Azi's dates. Really fascinated with the strippers too, though that's biblical.

Green: god's game/ineffable plan

NOT HELL, not evil. In s2 green is all over hell like a toxic gas. But in s1, green is not in hell except to tint hell's escalator. I don't think it's supposed to mean "just hell" in s2 either.

The first large "green" thing in s1 is the dark green chalkboards with the dates on them, and then a huge black and neon green CORRECT stamp in the montage talking about James Ussher's theories on the creation of the universe. This green is a neon version of the green we see in s2 hell and on s1 hell's escalator. Then we have a large dinosaur arm in the same "hell" neon shot with black, just as god is telling us about the dinosaurs being a joke people haven't understood yet. Black is deceit, so god is lying about the dinosaurs. We are already playing her game.

This is followed by a bunch of decorative looking things, astrology and writing of various greens, the giant eye starts out that neon green before going navy, along with dark green poker chips and neon green math. As in, a game. The s1 intro is almost completely hell green, and specifically there's a dark green street sign. One person in the Jesus scene has some dark green on. In the dealer's baby swap game, the third child isn't blue, he's dark green: this is the baby with the light blue blanket, Warlock. Satan's game is the baby swap, that's what he planned; God's game is the dealer's card game, we know because there's gold on the dealer's cuff. The backdrop to Satan's card game in the baby swap is dark green, and both hospital beds have bright green blankets over white.

Eden is tons of greens that look dark from far away, and dark blue water. Adam and Eve's clothes are dark green. The Youngs' clothes are heavily if not always greens, as are their bedding--again, they aren't agents of chaos themselves. The hospital itself has dark green and white alternating walls. Water in the spy park is actually not blue but dark green.

The forest Adam plays in is green and brown, and there's lots of the parks shown in the show. Anathema's coats are dark green and black or green and purple, and her house is surrounded by bushes and trees, a lot of her clothes are dark green. Tracey's clothing is various greens. The head of the cane/umbrella Crowley uses as Nanny is bright green. Agnes's book is dark green and gold. Crowley's plants are dark green. Ennon's clothes are darker green, he turns into an orange gecko.

The green gas choking Soho during the demon attack in s2, and the lights turning the same green in the bookshop during the demon attack. When Beez disappears to tattle to Satan at the end of s1, the color of the pop smoke is bright green, the same color as hell green, and I would assume all demons have the same color. The angel phones glow the same green of s2 hell. The statue of liberty figure in the coffee shop in s2 is the same green--but Eden was green too so it can't be liberty or freedom, or chaos.

I think the Great Plan is something all the angels were told and was recorded/was written, but the ineffable plan is god's game, and that is what green represents. Change IS the game, so darker green is more change, like Agnes's book, like Adam and Eve's clothes.

These are not agents of god's will as they act independently. This means Agnes and her book was part of god's game; the baby swap was part of the plan and the game. Eden was both plan and game: will they take the apple; Adam and Eve became part of the game once they did.

In s2, the blue and dark green coffee shop whose coffee represents liberty has dark brown chairs outside, and blue and the green of hell inside. I think this can be interpreted as this is a piece of god's game, life and death are a choice within which is god's game, and discovering that leads to freedom.

If there is a plan and a game, then bright green is more "plan" than game. Darker is less part of the plan. That's why the the CORRECT stamp in the montage is neon, because you are supposed to know that's wrong, and why Nanny's cane is bright green and s1 demon pops are bright green, but Agnes's book is dark green. Demon pops in s1 are bright green, I think because the fall was planned, just as the baby swaps and births were planned. The pops change in s2 to purple, perhaps because everything we see is interfering with their own kind rather than humans.

Are the angel phones green because they connect to hell? I don't think so, because the phones must do things besides that. Every time the phones were used they were green, so at the least talking to hell generates change in heaven. I think they have the phones turn off by blowing on them so that they don't have to touch them, because touching would be "dirty" and contaminating--can't be having angels get infected with hell, can't have the angels directly touching "change".

Anathema's shirt is light blue checking in to the UK, her bike is aqua--the bike appears to match Azi's shirt. Aqua, I think, is blue plus green: life plus game aka gambling with life. Anathema and Azi are pieces in the game of life. In s2e1, Aziraphale is a shooting star that's blue, and they're on a background of black and dark green. God's been gaming since, well, always. I think Azi's blue shooting star also means he was the one who made people, and perhaps the earth.

Orange: agent of god/god's will

The first orange we see is, I think, in the opening montage on some of the monks who got the dates of the creation of the earth wrong--they're in a ROYG rainbow. Then on James Ussher's clothing, the guy who got the creation of the earth slightly wrong, who is red, black and light orange (shades from gold to orange, I think) with a roman numeral clock behind him, various oranges. Dealer hands go from gold to orange as god explains her game.

Sash on Beelzebub in s1. Shakespeare's columns are red/orange. Tracey's hair/clothing is bright orange and Crowley's snake belly is dark, his hair looks dark orange too in s1. The fire Agnes Nutter burned in, and the candle flame in her house. Maude's shirt, the wife of the delivery man of the four horsemen. Holy fire on Aziraphale's sword, hellfire, fire that announces demonic arrival. Number 3 delivery room, the Youngs', glowed orange on fire, but it may have yellow/gold in it too. Job's and Jemimah's clothes, columns in his house, most of the color of the TV show that Hastur and Ligur take over to talk to Crowley. The record shop and accessories Maggie wears. The Jesus picture in Crowley's flat is entirely light orange and white. Juliet in the Shakespeare flashback is selling oranges. Orange and white cone in the paintball manor. Dark orange seat belts in the summoner's delivery truck.

Not all fire is orange. Some is yellow or white.

Originally I had this as god's presence, but I think gold fits more with that. This one thus is agents of god--god isn't there, but these are acting out god's will.

Crowley's hair throughout time:

Bright orange: BTB, Job, Tracey, Edinburgh, 1967

Dark orange: s1 present, 2008, nanny, noah?, jesus, rome, shakespeare, paris is brown?, 1862,

dark red: 1941, s2,

I think bright orange is agents for positive change, and dark orange are agents of "negatives". Crowley may not do much negatives himself, but Beez has that dark orange sash. Negative can also mean "throw a wrench in the works" like stopping the apocalypse.

Jemimah has orange clothes and becomes a neon blue gecko.

Red: passion

I think brighter reds are negative, and darker is positive/love. I think pink is fake negative, fake threat: we see it on Mrs Sandwich and in Tracey's bedroom.

Dark red bookshop, dark red backing on the thundergun: Azi loves his shop and Shadwell loves hunting witches. Tracey's apartment is dark red with aqua in the outer room: she helps people, and helps Shadwell a lot, and has knowledge of god's plan.

The big black and neon red "incorrect" stamp in the montage as god says some creationists are wrong, and the black and red "WARning": fake warning, god's lying about the dates, and god feels angry about it. Telephone Crowley calls from to tell Az about apocalypse: fear and anger. Shakespeare in dark red and gold outfit: god's in the audience, he loves his work and so does god. I'm not actually sure if Satan himself is dark red or bright red, he appears to be both, which is fascinating. Several buses shown are bright red while the ineffables are working out how to find the lost antichrist. There are several more buses when Crowley's racing to the bookshop after Aziraphale drops the phone when Shadwell breaks in, and more bright red firetrucks at the shop while it's on fire. Crowley's table he uses to plan running away is dark red; he loves his stars. Pepper's shoes are bright red and her raincoat is dark red: she's got anger but mostly motivated by love. Anathema's pencil when she's hunting for Adam is bright red, she's frustrated. The voicemail counter on Crowley's player that traps Hastur is red, as is the holy water bucket.

The apple in Eden is both bright and dark red, topped with yellow: love isn't possible without anger and fear, and in fact the point of the tree wasn't damnation but a test since it's covered in dark green and dark brown too? Shax's dress is dark red, as is her battle corset: she loves her job, and possibly Crowley too. It's the color of the bottom of the antichrist's baby basket and blanket; the baby itself can't really be passion or devotion, but it does inspire fear and it's a threat. Adam wears a red/brown/white checked coat during the witch hunting game, and has a dark red popsicle later. his eyes turn a core of bright red, ringed in dark red, edged in black: his intentions are to fix the world, but he's doing it through destruction and anger.

Crowley also gets contacts through his car radio, which is bright red.

Crowley's hair in s2 is also dark red. In 1941, his hair is also dark red.

Tracey's bedroom is pink, gold, and red; the flogger is pink and silver. I think this lines up with her "intimate relaxation for the discerning gentleman": she's a fake threat in the bedroom. And god's watching. Her slip as she thinks Newt wants an appointment is orange.

Red has some clear examples of other meanings than "passion": in s1 there's a large red drape of fabric in the Jesus scene, it also stands for blood, though technically war and negative emotion would tend to drag blood in with it; in s2 the tomatoes as Gabriel walks to the bookshop are both invoking the apocalypse (spilled blood) that Gabriel nixed and perhaps also the passion of Christ, as Jim is also a Christ figure.

Yellow: defiance

Not the same as gold. This has been proposed to be fear, which does fit a lot of the appearances of yellow, but then Gabriel lights his own statue with yellow light in s2e6 and the bar he meets Beez in right after is bright yellow. I don't think they're fearful there.

The first time we see yellow is the opening montage, in the text shot with black addressed to kids to not attempt armageddon at home. Which we see the Adam doing. As god says if the universe "didn't just start, unofficially", and we see a red explosion with yellow in the middle. The people claiming it's 14B are shaded in bright yellow, as is the incorrect age of the earth. One of the parade of rainbow wrong monks is yellow. Lots of the latter montage comes out of the yellow sun. Adam and Eve leave Eden into the light yellow sun: more evidence that the apple business wasn't exactly a sin, so where did the angels and heaven get that idea? Did god tell them a lie as she lied to us all through the opening montage? Light yellow lights in sushi place: eating as an angel is frowned upon but not massively disapproved of.

Aziraphale's hair is sometimes blonde, and it seems to do that when he's under stress--both the good and bad kinds, which fits with defiance as that would cause him stress. Job's basement is dirty yellow walls: deceit plus defiance at their orders. Crowley's eyes are yellow, except his snake eyes which seem more gold. The back room of the bookshop is a bright yellow, but most of the front shop is a dark yellow or brown, I think? A lot of the sores on hell's denizens are light yellow. I think brass counts for yellow, it's dark yellow, or maybe it belongs with gold. Perhaps the confusion is deliberate. One of the paintball teams is denoted by yellow flags, and we know that scene is meant to be an echo of the war in heaven (obviously I don't agree with the color analysis in there). The yellow team uses blue paint, the red team uses red paint.

The bentley's headlights when they hit Anathema are yellow: neither of them are supposed to help her because she's working against armageddon. Az's halo is yellow and white when he throws it.

Saturated yellow is defiance, and faded/lighter shades are less so. That lighter shades are more white is deliberate: white is playing by the rules, conformity.

Thaddeus Dowling isn't with his wife while she's giving birth, and his video screen is framed with the yellow and red of the ambulance: he's defying her demands to be there, and it's painted as being out of fear or anger. She is in super dark red jacket over a peach dress, with a bright orange object above her head and pearls on her neck: she's in love and the ambulance is god's rep on earth, but all colors paint her baby as Jesus, wrapped in the white blanket of playing by the rules.

Purple: power

Gabriel's tie, which he does not have during s1e6 armageddon, and the purple color of his eyes which he loses for most of s2. Interestingly, his tie gets super purple in heaven and more dull on earth; I think his eyes do too but that's harder to see. See this post for analysis of Gabriel's eyes, which mean omnipresence, the "power of sight".

Very purple tie when we see him on earth in s1e2, as he flexes his position over Aziraphale. The color of the miracle plume in s2, the color of angelic dust left behind when they pop away as when Gabriel leaves to tattle to Satan after the notapocalypse, and in s2 the color of everyone's arrival and departure pop dust. RP Tyler's weenie has a dark purple aura. Famine's companion has a lavender air bubble appetizer in the fancy restaurant that is framed as snobbery. One of Anathema's coats is purple and green. There are purple math equations in the opening narration: science is explicitly framed by god as humans thinking they know better, when really god is lying and science is the path to learning and mastering god's game.

It's the color of the words "miracle blocker" and a splash of color from it when Furfur engages the card. Keziah's clothes are purple, maroon, and gold, and she becomes a dark brown or yellow gecko with black spots.

This is power. More saturated/neon shades are more power; duller or lighter shades are less power. Where the purple is can denote what kind of power, as with Gabriel's eyes.

The reason only an archangel could have made that plume in s2 is because they're the ones with that level of power. What color were miracles for everyone else? In s1, Azirahpale's were blue. Though if everyone now has purple pop dust, and that's retroactive through history, could anyone do it? Does everyone have archangel power now after Adam's reboot? If so, why was the dust Crowley poked gold?

#good omens #color analysis

7 notes · View notes