#the moral of the story is to write somewhere that saves

[foreverdolly]

Intolerance cannot be beaten with tolerance. 

I have always written and read as a means to escape from my day to day life, even before the struggles of adulthood was even a blip on the horizon. This blog is a safe space for me. I love hearing that my writing, despite the fact that it is nothing but fanfiction (for now, at least), helps people escape for a little while as well. Whether you’re reading before bed in order to silence your mind for long enough to get some shut eye or pulling up tumblr during a rough and emotional day, somewhere along the way you found your way to me. I cherish the fact that our paths have crossed like this. 

Right now, more than ever, the world feels like a very terrifying place. I hate the idea of lifting the finely tuned veil that I have tried to cast over this blog, what with it being my safe little corner of the internet, but silence is complacency. I refuse to be complacent to what is going on right now in the United States of America. When I woke up on November sixth there was an impending sense of dread. As a woman who had listened to the vitriol from the other side, I was naturally terrified. Waking up and seeing “your body, my choice” plastered on every social media site was nothing short of horrific. There is no woman or girl in this world that has not been violated in some way by a man, whether that be physically, verbally or emotionally. 

I look at the hateful rhetoric disguised as Christian love- pastors preaching about eradicating the queer community. About taking away a woman’s bodily autonomy. About ripping children away from their parents. They paint the progressive thinkers to be monsters. To that I say: who are truly the monsters?

We are more worried about banning drag queen story times than protecting our youth who are being killed whilst trying to do something as innocent as receive an education. Our people are living paycheck to paycheck and we're more focused on stripping people's basic human rights away from them than uplifting the impoverished.

This country takes away social media platforms or buys them out all together as a means to monitor the speech and behavior of its people. It dictates how we will raise and teach our children all while forcing them to assimilate to a consciousness of their own design. Women are dying every day due to health complications. Transgender youth and adults would rather eternally sleep than put up with the constant harassment and erasure. The gay and lesbian communities are having their way of life threatened. . . and for what? 

The states have never seemed this divided. It is no longer a difference of politics but a difference of morals. Beyond even that, it is a total lack of empathy. The vocabulary being thrown around by that side is eye opening: “eradicate”,“purge”,“the reckoning” etc. 

Fear mongering is something that I absolutely abhor, but I truly mean it when I say that these next four years are going to be rough. I am certain that the rules and regulations that will be put into place will affect us for many years to come. We are going backwards- back to a time where people of color were terrified to leave their own homes because of the threat of violence. A time where people couldn’t love who they wanted. A time where women had rights stripped away from them and were seen as little other than cattle. 

If there was ever a time to fight then now would be that time. We all have a voice, no matter how quiet. Use it. 

Reject racism. Reject sexism. Reject classism.

This blog is a safe space for those that are genderqueer, queer, and of color. We are trapped. The fire is coming from inside of the house and sadly we can no longer save those that are throwing themselves into it as kindling. 

If you are scared and need someone to talk to please message me. I will give you my personal discord so that we can chat regularly if you need someone on your side right now.

If you feel alone please know that you are not. 

[miyuka1709]

Good afternoon!...

Anyway here's a cute little Cold, and some pen-tasting.

Pretty great stuff.

(There's a pretty long rant ahead about an STP swap AU!!!!!)

I think it's so interesting that there are 5 very different Princesses in the Stranger; I heard from somewhere that their names are The Hopeless, The Sinister, The Snide, The Kind, The Blank.

I imagine it'd be fun if a swap AU implemented those Princesses as "bases" based on the first thing the player says upon being told about the cabin and the Monster.

I mean Voice of the Sinister could be like Nightmare and Tower. She might appear when you first say the "Sweet I've always wanted to off a monarch!" Dialogue in the base game? It'd just be "I've always wanted to off someone!" Instead maybe cause TLQ isn't a monarch and it's definitely pretty sinister to just outright say that.

Voice of the Snide would be like Prisoner/Sharp Princess. Could be a "Why would I listen to you?" "Have you ever considered that I'd be okay with the world ending?" defiant type voice.

Voice of the Kind is obviously Damsel/Soft Princess. "What if he's going to end the world BECAUSE he's locked up?" Or smtg like that, morality talk and whatnot.

Voice of the Hopeless could just be.. Broken? But a girl, I guess? I'm not sure what she'd say but it's something that Broken would say - like "What's the point of doing this? The world will end one day anyway."

They sound so cool and I'm sure anyone can work with that, but Blank Princess? That could probably happen if we outright try to leave like in Stranger so the Monster can't perceive us.

But what would she say? Would she act or speak like Cold? She'd generally have minimal opinions, wouldn't she? Would having her even change anything? Would she be completely pliable or changeable? Would she be like Opportunist, but sincerely ever-changing and not just for self reason? Is she just a shell and says things just for the sake of it like Deconstructed Damsel? Would she just follow along the Princess as the main character and mirror her actions? Would she be as moldable as we (Princess) are to TLQ?

Again, I think the "Base Princesses" might work really funny if they were a byproduct of SOLELY your first ever choice in the narrative, and it sticks, and they act like Voice of the Hero who accompanies you throughout the entire run.

So instead of having different TLQs, you get different You's at the final Heart scene? That's a pretty funny concept to think about - but it sounds like it'd be painful to work with in a game because you'd have to make all the routes compatible with each of the 5 Base Princesses and make it not feel too clunky or too different.

I'd honestly want to write or plan a whole thing with this kind of story, the only problem is I don't know how to make the Narrator want to kill TLQ.

The Echo's literal purpose is to get rid of change and death with it while leaving a sliver of TSM in TLQ so the world could still move along and people could have lives that aren't completely stagnant and devoid of growth and change.

Would this swap-Echo's job be to protect TLQ and tell the Princess/Player to save him? Or would His view change entirely so He'd oppose TLQ by saying"The world will be doomed to eternal stagnancy"?, instead of death, would he be afraid of the constant and stillness? Why would he want to rid the world of it specifically? I'm really not sure.

Just a little idea I had, y'know!.. phew, I didn't mean to write a whole thing but yeahh..

[novelconcepts]

There’s a line from American Gods I keep coming back to in relation to Yellowjackets, an observation made early on by Shadow in prison: “The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment.” I keep rotating it in my head in thinking about the six survivors, the roles they occupy in the wilderness, and the way the show depicts them as adults in society.

Because in the wilderness, as in prison, they’re trapped—they’re suffering, they’re traumatized, they’re terrified—but they’re also able to construct very specific boxes to live in. And, in a way, that might make it easier. Cut away the fat, narrow the story down to its base arc. You are no longer the complex young woman who weighs a moral compass before acting. You no longer have the luxury of asking questions. You are a survivor. You have only to get to the next day.

Shauna: the scribe. Lottie: the prophet. Van: the acolyte. Taissa: the skeptic. Misty: the knight. Natalie: the queen. Neat, orderly, the bricks of a new kind of society. And it works in the woods; we know this because these six survive. (Add Travis: the hunter, while you’re at it, because he does make it to adulthood).

But then they’re rescued. And it’s not just lost purpose and PTSD they’re dealing with now, but a loss of that intrinsic identity each built in the woods. How do you go home again? How do you rejoin a so-called civilized world, where all the violence is restricted to a soccer field, to an argument, to your own nightmares?

How does the scribe, the one who wrote it all out in black and white to make sense of the horrors, cope with a world that would actively reject her story? She locks that story away. But she can’t stop turning it over in her head. She can’t forget the details. They’re waiting around every corner. In the husband beside her in bed. In the child she can’t connect with across the table. In the best friend whose parents draw her in, make her the object of their grief, the friend who lives on in every corner of their hometown. She can’t forget, so she tries so hard to write a different kind of story instead, to fool everyone into seeing the soft maternal mask and not the butcher beneath, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the prophet come back from the religion a desperate group made of her, a group that took her tortured visions, her slipping mental health, and built a hungry need around the very things whittling her down? She builds over the bones. She creates a place out of all that well-intended damage, and she tells herself she’s helping, she’s saving them, she has to save them, because the world is greedy and needs a leader, needs a martyr, needs someone to stand up tall and reassure everyone at the end of the day that they know what’s best. The world, any world, needs someone who will take those blows so the innocent don’t have to. She’s haunted by everyone she didn’t save, by the godhood assigned to her out of misplaced damage, and when the darkness comes knocking again, there is nothing else to do but repeat old rhymes until there is blood on her hands just the same.

How does the acolyte return to a world that cares nothing for the faith of the desperate, the faith that did nothing to save most of her friends, that indeed pushed her to destroy? She runs from it. She dives into things that are safe to believe in, things that rescue lonely girls from rough home lives, things that show a young queer kid there’s still sunshine out there somewhere. She delves into fiction, makes a home inside old stories to which she already knows the endings, coaxes herself away from the belief that damned her and into a cinemascope safety net where the real stuff never has to get in. She teaches herself surface-level interests, she avoids anything she might believe in too deeply, and still she’s dragged back to the place where blood winds up on her hands just the same.

How does the skeptic make peace with the things she knows happened, the things that she did even without meaning to, without realizing? She buries them. She leans hard into a refusal to believe those skeletons could ever crawl back out of the graves she stuffed them into, because belief is in some ways the opposite of control. She doesn’t talk to her wife. She doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not about what’s underneath the surface, because that’s just a mess, so instead she actively discounts the girl she became in the woods. She makes something new, something rational and orderly, someone who can’t fail. She polishes the picture to a shine, and she stands up straight, the model achievement. She goes about her original plan like it was always going to be that way, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the knight exist in a world with no one to serve, no one to protect, no reason propelling the devastating choices she had grown comfortable making? She rechannels it. She convinces herself she’s the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most observant. She convinces herself other people’s mysteries are hers to solve, that she is helping in every single action she takes. She makes a career out of assisting the most fragile, the most helpless souls she can find, and she makes a hobby out of patrolling for crimes to solve, and when a chance comes to strap her armor back on and ride into battle, she rejoices in the return to normalcy. She craves that station as someone needed, someone to rely upon in the darkest of hours, and she winds up with blood on her hands because, in a way, she never left the wilderness at all.

How does the queen keep going without a queendom, without a pack, without people to lead past the horrors of tomorrow? She doesn’t. She simply does not know how. She scrounges for something, anything, that will make her feel connected to the world the way that team did. She moves in and out of a world that rejects trauma, punishes the traumatized, heckles the grieving as a spectacle. She finds comfort in the cohesive ritual of rehabilitation, this place where she gets so close to finding herself again, only to stumble when she opens her eyes and sees she’s alone. All those months feeding and guiding and gripping fast to the fight of making it to another day, and she no longer knows how to rest. How to let go without falling. She no longer wears a crown, and she never wanted it in the first place, so how on earth does she survive a world that doesn’t understand the guilt and shame of being made the centerpiece of a specialized environment you can never explain to anyone else? How, how, how do you survive without winding up with blood on your hands just the same?

All six of these girls found, for better or worse, a place in the woods. All six of them found, for better or worse, a reason to get up the next day. For each other. And then they go home, and even if they all stayed close, stayed friends, it’d still be like stepping out of chains for the first time in years. Where do you go? How do you make small choices when every decision for months was life or death? How do you keep the part of yourself stitched so innately into your survival in a world that would scream to see it? How do you do away with the survivor and still keep going?

They brought it back with them. Of course they did. It was the only way.

[coriphallus]

DA: The Veilguard Spoiler review pt1 - Blood Magic

alright let's do this. let's write an in-depth review of veilguard. this will be long and this will be negative and i might eventually say some good things but everything i say will be undermined with a 'BUT'.

its now been around a week since i finished the game and had some time to parse my thoughts and this is why i didnt enjoy the game; NOT why you shouldnt.

so dragon age has a very special place in my heart and i am %100 the kind that has DAO as their favourite game. i have played these games religiously, and let me prefix this by saying i was not hyped for this game, i wont lie and say i wanted bw to succeed or i hoped the game would be good etc etc. if i liked the game, it would be a surprise. alas.

so theres multiple reasons for that, but the canary in the mine for me had been the announcement on blood magic, and yeah i was not shocked after DAI but i was still disappointed. so lets start with blood magic:

Blood Magic

DA lore has changed alot over time, and just like the media it took inspiration from (ASOIAF) i was under the impression that it used unreliable narrators deliberately, just as theyve poked fun at the concept with bethanys tits. it made sense then that the people telling these stories didnt know much about blood magic therefore they couldnt explain it fully but we've known some things for certain, from the text. blood magic uses blood as its source of power instead of lyrium (blood=life force), what constitutes as blood magic is open to interpretation (i.e phylacteries), multiple groups outside of the 'civilised society' such as chasind are not so staunchly against it, knowledge on it can be passed down from a mentor and that mentor usually happens to be a spirit. it can be used to enact control over people in a literal sense and thats considered by the narrative of all DA games to be more reprehensible than burning someone alive.

now i will derail this but i swear im going somewhere with it. i grew up in a country with majority white people, some blond, most with exposed hair who lived in big cities with cobblestone roads and snowy winters and starbuckses, and who would consider themselves westerners. some religious practices i know less about than most christians know about their holidays.

where my grandma lived was at the bottom of a high slope, and once a year when we went to visit her id see a thick trail of blood trickle down from the waterway to pool on her street, and at that dinner the family (and neighbours, sometimes) would bring a myriad of dishes and we'd feast. i would see butchers shops clean their curbs with buckets of water, mopping red tinted liquid down a drain. when i grew older and we were visiting my mothers village i watched the men subdue and kill a cow that we were going to eat that night. i watched them skin it and separate the meat from its bones, explaining what parts of an animal is used for which dishes because it was their craft and a young girl showed interest. as people we always live with the knowledge that our lives depend on death, whether it be a plant or an animal. existence is not moral and clean, and death is messy. getting blood stains out of a fabric once a month is the lived reality of more than half the human population.

i was not raised religious, nobody in my close family were, i didn't feel any sort of way when those men started to pray around the cow but i knew why they did it, even if it was performative for some, for the rest they had to show respect. the cow was meant to represent somebody you cared about, offering it in their stead symbolically. it needed to be respected, it needed to be butchered without pain. save from one serving of meat, as was tradition, were donated to the food banks.

now im sure some of you are thinking 'no matter how you slice it, its still a brutal act. made more brutal by the audience deriving some form of moral superiority' and yes, i used to think that too, because what is a religious practice for them is a show to me. but it is the norm where i grew up, and in the end a cow is dead regardless because we need to eat. and some people who needed to eat more than us got to eat too.

somewhere in germany news break out that some immigrants were practicing unethical and unsanitary butcherings, you see the footage of men in kufi and puffy pants and women covered completely in black sheets get ushered out by police. they shout some things in a foreign language, speaking the name of their foreign god. they show a censored room covered in blood and gore.

so i have to ask now, when you play veilguard and see venatori torturing and exploding a halla into a puff of red smoke which image does it bring to mind, what do you think of when you hear 'ritual sacrifice'? you may not have noticed this parallel but your brain sure did, as it has been noticing for your entire life and counting, the same reason you cringe at the barbarity of people consuming raw flesh, painting their foreheads with blood, killing animals you would pet. its alien, its gross, its wrong.

i cant play this game and take it seriously with its mask yanked off, gloating about its lack of nuance every step of the way. when you hit people red stuff comes out, red stuff bad. killing bad. murder bad. that it extends more sympathy to a fantasy deer than it ever allows for living breathing people of its universe, faceless and primitive.

in other DA games there were people over there somewhere who enslaved others, built their entire civilization on the ruins of gods they cannot comprehend, practiced bloody sacrifices and rituals that doomed the world for their own power, and even in their homeland they are nothing but canon fodder to be murdered and gawked at. their traditions, religion, entire culture is less than a set dressing, because whatever grosses you out are the bad apples, because the good ones cant be anything else and still derive sympathy from the audience.

and its true, you need to be an exceptional writer to make that work, especially if you dont have any real life experience to pull from. you need to stain your hands a little, and be prepared to be called dirty.

but i see it, i see those news reports everywhere i look in the game, i see the streets being cleaned and scrubbed so the tourists wouldnt call them backwards people, unclean, less than.

ive never played a game so repulsed by and is uninterested in its own universe than DAV, in every line of dialogue i can feel it trembling in fear. my companions tell me i dont need to watch a deer getting butchered, i can look away and proceed to electrocute hundreds of masked men some of whom are talking about comically evil things like patricide.

this has always been a point of contention in the medium of video games as the most prominent way to engage with the world has been through violence, and for me the DA franchise has always managed to tackle this by allowing its main character to be messy. yes, hawke cleaves thru countless faceless raiders but theyre also an illegal immigrant trying to get by with nothing to offer to the world than their violence. warden is deliberately recruited for that same violence, the only purpose of their existence is to fight as theyre made to shed everything else from their old life. and still, still you play these characters as they are allowed to grow, heal, carve out a little space for themselves where they can laugh and joke with their peers. it is juxtaposed to that darkness in their lives that makes those moments precious.

'what is good?' the games asked, and they answered 'doesn't matter, the world can be a better place with them in it'

veilguard asks 'what is good?' and answers 'you are.'

it doesnt matter whether blood magic is bad lore-wise (and that discussion is irrelevant to this decision made by the devs), because it needs to be narratively. like tabloid news the entire premise of the story is built on it. it needs to be inaccessible to and shunned by your party and rook because they need to be 'good' and in contrast, your enemies need to be 'bad'

and like dominoes it retroactively reframes the moral stance of every game in the franchise.

so, yes, i just laughed when i saw that announcement. i didnt know what else to do. but hang on to your knickers because it gets so much worse...

[imbecominggayer]

How To Write A Redemption Arc (Masterpost)

Everyone knows that redemption arcs are the most popular things since love triangles. And everyone is desperate to shove one of this in there.

But as someone who reads bad writing for a living, you need my advice. So inexperienced writer, let me be your Virgil as I guide you through the rings of fire and let you enter heaven!

What Is A Redemption Arc?

Basically, a redemption arc is when a morally bad character overcomes their flaws to be a better person.

What typically seperates someone from "character arc" into "redemption arc" is the fact that their sins are a lot heavier and their moral failing were an initially big part of their character identity. There's also a tighter emphasis on public opinion.

Redemption formulas aren't just villain to hero. An anti-hero can experience a redemption arc. This can include things that aren't just violent crime such as addiction, manipulation, and a mental health crisis.

Sometimes characters have corruption arcs AND redemption arcs!

Creating The Character And Their Crimes

When it comes to characters that eventually get redeemned, you need to be thoughtful in their character creation. They need to be likeable or atleast have the capacity to be likeable. And you have to strike a balance between their potential for good and wrongoing.

Obviously, you need to flesh out their character if you are exploring their psyche. This is a character who is abandoning everything they have ever know, it needs some type of justification or it won't make sense. A common justification is the different between what they wanted and what they needed.

For example: A character wants power but they really needed friendship. A character wants societal acceptance but they really need confidence.

Next, what are their crimes? Consider how severe their offenses are and give them some moral boundaries that will prevent them from going over the moral event horizon.

Common Pitfalls:

Irredeemable: Writers often times write irredeemable characters and then throw in a hail mary of a save that is annoying to read. Readers won't bat an eye at war crimes but if their darling is hurt, they won't put the pitchfork down.

Lack Of Characterization: What are their habits? What makes them feel proud? What do they care about?

Lack Of Justification: Write down exactly why this character wants redemption. I don't care how long that essay is, write it.

Making Readers Sympathize With Assholes: Sometimes readers don't want to watch you explain away abusive behavior. Sometimes they just want the villains to fall off a cliff.

Do They Deserve Redemption?

Motivations. It's not about what they do but why they did it.

Common justifications include:

Seeking revenge

Seeking approval

Desperation for companionship led them to getting mixed up with the wrong crowd

Hurting, and taking that out on others

Manipulated

Trying to pay off a debt

Trying to solve a problem in society, "for the greater good"

Stuck in a cycle of abuse

Remember, show a character's capacity for empathy or logic. It's that little capacity that allows a character to grow and change. My redeemed character, Jukka lacks empathy but does possess logic while my other redeemed character, Verne lacks logic but does have empathy.

Another hint for the audience is making a character unhappy at the beginning of the story. Or they are simply bad at being evil (Cedric cough cough)

Why Are They Like This?

Unhappy people don't act out this way. Somewhere along the way, this character probably experienced something bad and now they are the way they're.

Although it's not necessary for a character to have explicit trauma in their past in order to have a redemption arc, pity is a strong emotion in readers.

A way to not have trauma but still keep pity on their side is a cruel, conditionally loving society that adores all the worst values or distorts good values. A character that needs acceptance from society is a pitiful one!

What Makes Them Change?

We have how they are, we know what they are, we know why they are, and now we need to know why they will change!

Common motivations include:

A reminder that a loved one wanted something different from them.

Swayed by reasoning/coercion/empathy from an outside party

A reevaluation on what course of action is the most efficient

A sudden string of mistakes or bad events that are caused directly by their fatal flaws

Wanting to win the affection of a crush

Jealous of other people's friendships

Having their needs fulfilled by the good guys

A desire to do right by their loved ones

This can evolve over time but it's good to get the initial stuff sorted out!

Remember: Give your character a wake-up call. Force them into the heart of the pain they've caused. Have loved ones crying at their knees, begging them to stop.

Who Are They Seeking Redemption From?

A character seeking redemption would seek approval from the people they most hurt. This could be a singular character such as a friend or love interest, a whole community, or even themselves

The most common pitfall is having the character be forgiven instantly. In reality and as should be in fiction, characters shouldn't be quick to forgive. And someone won't ever forgive.

Be Sympathetic But Not Too Much

Don't jump straight into your character being a good person. Set them up as a real big antagonist and watch all the bravado slowly chip away.

Sacrifice And Fall Again

Your character needs to suffer for their improvement. There are some thing they can never get back. They lost all their friends who were completely devoted to the cause. They lost their social standing. They lost their entire identity and have to start all over again.

By "fall again", let this struggle mean something. Have your character relapse back into problematic behavior.

Have them fully relapse back into who they were. Completely abandon who they are becoming and let them go back to the dark side. Let them realize how nostalgia made them blind to all the pain in evil. Let them realize how the system won't accept them anymore. Let them realize there is no way to get back the things they've sacrifice.

If they aren't fully relapsing, let them act defensive. Let them say something they don't mean. Let them feel they are being needlessly critized. Let them doubt if they can be good. Let them mourn who they were. Let them think about the past. Let them feel frustrated that things aren't happening quick enough.

Positive Change And The Happiness Of Recognition

Once your character has suffered climbing up the mountain, they deserve to see the beautiful view.

Maybe they sit under an oak tree as they marvel about the beautiful sight that had previously withered underneath their oppression.

Maybe they smile at the children who won't have to experience their tyranny

Maybe they cry a little bit when a stranger hugs them in appreciation for the great work they are doing

Maybe they hold their friend's hand and think about how strange it is that they can both live together like this.

Let them recognize how everyone is different and the same. They still like their old brand of fashion. They still have issues that thrive in this newer world. They even have the same beliefs. But it's calmer now. It's a thorn covered rose and not an entire rose bush of thorns.

They are still recognizable as what they once used to be. But now they are a flower in bloom.

[simblorbo-bracket]

Round 2 - Simblr's Saddest, Wettest Meow Meow - Mainline

Seth Morrigan (@medleymisty) VS. Saxen (@herecirmsims)

(polls are presented left -> right unless stated otherwise)

Who's sadder? Who's wetter? Read on for more information, and vote with your heart!

What is a ‘Meow Meow’?

(taken from tumblr user @/torturelabyrinth) “The thing about a true poor little meow meow is they have to be 1) downtrodden 2) morally questionable at best 3) deeply and pathetically miserable”

Seth Morrigan

A name that makes all Sims tremble. They whisper, "Have you seen him? I heard he never takes off his blue cardigan. I heard his khaki pants bear the face of God in their pockets. I heard he stood in a fire for an hour once and didn't die."

Occasionally an impressionable young Sim dressed all in black will say, "Yeah, I heard he burned down his house with his family inside and that he haunts the valley and that the waterfall there always smells like smoke, but damn he looks good in that blue cardigan of his."

Seth is my original Sim, created lovingly in Sims 3 CAS lo these many years ago.

He also made the transition to Sims 4.

He first appeared in the Sims 3 story In The Valley Of The Sun. Its pictures are currently lost somewhere in Photobucket, but the basic idea was that he set his house by Sunset Valley's waterfall on fire, killing his wife. Years later a young woman named Lilith came to investigate the abandoned house, which was said to be haunted. Seth was actually still very much alive, though he haunted Lilith through the narrative. At least until Lilith set a fire herself, taking them both out.

Propaganda that still has pictures! At least unless otherwise noted.

Waffles: The Syruping: a short story of Seth's sad wet descent into meow meow land told from the POV of his wife, Sarah Morrigan.

Syrup: The Waffling: Seth's own POV of his descent.

Because Death Would Not Stop For Seth: A text-only take about Seth's trauma from surviving a fire and how his absolute refusal to try and heal that trauma just led to more fire.

Eggshells: Seth as an emo teen, dealing with being bullied and with his father's condition after surviving a fire at the factory where he worked.

A longer work with Sims 4 pics: Emo Pistols. An epistolary story told through Seth's letters to his two penpals, Jasper and Anya. In this one he is finally attempting to heal from his trauma, as you can see from this excerpt:

How does a house die? Well, other than being burnt down. Speaking of which, I have not yet set the apartment on fire. I suppose that’s good. The apartment does not give me gifts. Sarah does, sometimes.  She is still here. I told her the truth, and she didn’t break or burn. She didn’t disappear into the sun. She is the Sarah who stayed.

I love my Seth baby very much. I hope he might meet some new friends through this tournament, and perhaps I will gain some inspiration to write more words about him as well. :)

Saxen

Things Sax does extremely well: fainting and bleeding (separately), fainting and bleeding (combination), rotting in bed, crying or being completely stoic (no in between), causing more problems while trying to fix his previous problems, omitting certain truths (aka lying).

Now, I don't know if he really counts as an SWMM because he's not a classic villain... but in his pursuit of Doing The Right Thing he has made some awful choices. Good intentions, poor outcomes.

I present the evidence beneath the cut:

Some of his crimes:

In an attempt to save his sister, he left his post and facilitated the escape of a world-devouring entity which he was supposed to help contain.

After his sister died he made another attempt to save her, via necromancy, and instead doomed her to an endless cycle of death and rebirth. Until recently, none of her reincarnations were healthy enough to survive infancy.

He befriended the parents of this latest incarnation without filling them in on the backstory, or his motives. After they were killed by his enemy, he took the baby and kept her hidden for 11 years (did she have grandparents, uncles, aunts? Yes, probably. He claims they couldn't have cared for her like he did and technicallyyyy he's right, since her survival required magic, but...)

He broke the arm of one of his 'adopted' adult kids (he has an enchanted cottage which has been a refuge for a lot of people) when said adult tried to prevent him from killing someone else. Yes, technically he did only push Thom and didn't intend for Thom to hit the wall so hard, but...

Long story short but his home world didn't end, it was just knocked out of its timeline for a while. Unfortunately, due to his actions on the day the Grim escaped (attacking portal guards and forcing his way through the rift, just as an unrelated-to-him group stormed the castle), he was a) assumed dead and b) immediately arrested on his return for treason and attempted regicide.

He's a constant menace and cause of stress to his man, the kindest and sweetest soul to ever live. He doesn't mean to be, it's just that his attempts to keep Fen safe often seem to involve risking himself in increasingly creative and fatal ways.

Why should you vote for Sax? Well, I think his endless complex trauma and the fact that almost all his misfortunes happened because he was trying to fix things/help people makes him pretty damn tragic and definitely very damp. He could do with a win. Plus... look at him. 🥲

[aydafigs]

ooh I have so many thoughts on The Rat Grinders discourse okay

on the one hand, I think it's completely reasonable to be disappointed that there was no attempt from The Bad Kids to engage with TRG beyond just killing them as quickly and bloodily as possible, or no effort from Brennan to present that as an option. I agree that it sucks that these teenagers, who have been corrupted by rage crystals and are presumably being manipulated by authority figures, are being treated as irredeemably evil and therefore condemned to hell forever for their crimes - and I agree that it feels incongruent narratively, when a big arc this season involved 'redeeming' a corrupted goddess, and a key theme has been the power of utilising doubt to overcome rage. I also think it's a shame that Fig's past attempts to engage with Reuben were ultimately forgotten about and rendered useless (and I definitely got the impression that Emily herself was also frustrated about this).

however! I do also completely understand it from a gameplay, genre, and storytelling perspective.

firstly, mostly just as a sidenote, I think it's worth acknowledging that a lot of 'real-world' thinking and logic surrounding death and ‘redemption’ and the moral complexities of 'good vs evil' don't always work within Fantasy High or d&d. death is treated much more flippantly in a world where characters can and do regularly plane-shift to the very real and tangeable afterlives. it's harder to think of death as truly an end to someone's life when it is known for certain that those who die are actually continuing to live alternate lives on different planes of existence - and I think from a meta perspective this inevitably affects the way players think about killing NPCs within a story. no one is ever truly gone; they're just living somewhere else now.

additionally, in-universe, the prospect of dying or being killed is an accepted risk for those attending Aguefort. they're training to be adventurers, and as fucked up as it is, a key element of the universe and genre that this story takes place in is that people - including teenagers - die on adventures, and this risk is entirely normalised and considered unfortunate but necessary. it's one of those genre-specific tropes that you have to accept for the world to function. this is d&d, this is fantasy adventuring high school, teenagers have to save the world from other, villainous teenagers. it's every teen supernatural/fantasy drama. it's Teen Wolf. it's fucking Riverdale. as Brennan has put it before, "it's adventuring school. people die."

The Rat Grinders are not the heroes of this story - and what is so interesting about them, at least to me, is that they know that. there's a lot of excellent analysis of TRG as existing on a meta level even within the story; they're power gamers, they're XP farmers, they know they're NPCs; and this is the source of Kipperlilly's anger. Kipperlilly's rage stems from knowing that she is ordinary; that she doesn't have a tragic backstory, that she will never save the world, that she and her friends aren't a notorious adventuring party or 'found family' or anything other than regular. so she set out to become Not Ordinary by any means necessary - and if she and The Rat Grinders couldn't be the heroes, they had to become the villains. whether or not TRG 'deserved' to die or not is a moot point, I think. it's not about what they deserve. their story, and especially Kipperlilly's story, is a tragedy in this way; she was doomed by the narrative from the moment she started to write herself as the villain.

The Rat Grinders are, narratively, the Big Bads of the season; the Final Bosses of this game of d&d. this final battle is necessary to conclude the story in an exciting and climactic and satisfying way. it would simply not be as exciting, either for the players or the audience, if this season ended with The Bad Kids talking it out with The Rat Grinders and convincing them to switch sides. at the end of the day, this isn't a movie or a TV show. this is a game, being played in real time by real people who are improvising and having fun while collaboratively telling a story together. of course, the storytelling on this show is phenomenal - but it's never going to be able to do everything. they don't have a room of writers pitching ideas to write perfectly timed and paced scripts for character arcs and resolutions. they're a group of improv comedians playing a roleplay and combat-centric game together. they're playing d&d. they’re playing heroes fighting bad guys.

I do think there's a lot of valid criticism around rage and manipulation and who is considered worthy of 'redemption'. I just also think there's a middle ground somewhere between "The Bad Kids killing The Rat Grinders is awful and evil and bad storytelling and everyone involved should feel bad" and "haha suck it Rat Grinders fans, told you they were always evil". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk. it's all love now. [smooch]

[mybookhaven]

The Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson

High fantasy - Detailed world building - mental health

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

I will not be the first person to be completely taken in by the depth of the worlds created by Sanderson, but I couldn’t just ignore the huge crater they have left in my mind. I have grown to care deeply about all the characters of this series (MINOR and major), and would consider these books to be amongst my favorite reads ever. The scope of the plot is absolutely enormous yet very easily understood thanks to Sanderson's magical abilities (yes magical abilities because goodness he CAN WRITE), and i cannot wait till i've consumed every single book ever in the Cosmere.

The series follows a group of humans that come from very different backgrounds as they try to save their people, and the planet they call home from "invasion" by what is known as voidbringers. Sanderson introduces us to Kaladin (the sad wet cat baby boi we all love) as the first narrator of the books and how he struggled for years with high-borns, war, and slavery events that were responsible in part for shredding his mental health to pieces. We then meet Shallan (THE CHARACTER for me) who has evidently been through a lot (also shredded mental health) that we will slowly figure out as events unfold. Jasnah, sister to the king, scholar royalty, with most probably a mixture of some kind of shredded mental health, autism, and "aro" something that is not very clear relationship with romance. I will limit myself to these three characters because i could go on forever with every single person in this series (i am not exaggerating).

The writing style is very much accessible. I'm used to fantasy having all kinds of complicated narratives that get in the way of grasping the progress of the plot, but this series is anything but that. Every character's point of view is written in their unique sound (fascinatingly so with Shallan and her ehem buddies) and interestingly we get to experience two sides of every character, their own pov and the way other people perceive them which was very beautiful to read (and incredibly obvious with Jasnah).

These books deal with so much heavy and morally ambiguous topics in surprising detail that i felt i was reading actual events about a place that exists somewhere in our universe. Metal health, slavery, colonialism, war, religion and so so much more that i really cannot understand the power behind the creation of these books.

Most importantly, as it's something i struggled with when i first decided i wanted to read Sanderson's work, these books are very easily understood without having to read the other books in th Cosmere, but people who do will experience a much bigger world with more connections to other events, worlds and "gods" that actually reflects the scope of THE STORY Brandon Sanderson is writing.

I am definitely going to read the rest of the cosmere and will attach a youtube link to anyone interested in starting that suggests the best way to get into the Cosmere that will put events chronologically in a sense.

[utilitycaster]

In the most recent CR episode I found it really interesting (and really concerning) that it Laudna's truth about wanting Bells Hells to ripcord out of saving the world came hot on the heels of Imogen's truth about not wanting to save the gods

Idk it could just be me, but it seemed like her truth was just another attempt to placate Imogen's moral confusion, while simultaneously pushing those things back onto the whole group

All it makes me think of is the fanon and 4SD discussions about Imogen and Laudna retiring to a farm and living happily ever after. What are either of their reasons for remaining with Bells Hells at this point, if their truths are that they don't want to save the world?

See, that actually seemed fine to me! Fearne had earlier admitted she felt they were ill-equipped for the job and likely to fail, so it's not just them who feel it, and honestly I think that Laudna's confession was one of the more valid ones that I hope get unpacked. Fjord and Jester made a very similar admission to each in both episode 72 and episode 118 of Campaign 2, of "hey, wouldn't it be nice if we just ran away somewhere quiet and never had to deal with this again" and I think that having that admission and then finding a way forward anyway is a really great moment. I didn't write at length about how Orym's "but we have to work together and do this" has also been a really big factor in the party's dysfunction because I covered a lot of that in my discussion of how he handles his own grief well and the grief and pain of others very badly, but honestly it's good that Fearne and Laudna are getting to "we don't have to do this, this was always thrust upon us because an old guy brought us to a cool orc who hired us to look into some stuff and in the process found out that the comparatively small-time political crook was tangentially involved in a a vast cosmic death cult conspiracy that several of our parents are also involved with."

My issue with Imogen is that she literally said two episodes ago she's never prayed and now she's claiming the gods never listened to her, as well as that her reasoning is the horrifyingly self-absorbed "they don't love her", but I actually think it's fine if this party does not wish to save the gods on the grounds of "we feel underqualified and overwhelmed and like we've been at the mercy of many (mortal) masters with no time to pursue our own interests." And I think that Laudna didn't force this specific thing on the rest of the party; she said they could all ripcord, but didn't say who should do it or who felt that way or force them into agreement.

I've talked about the campaign's earlier pacing at length and I don't want to revisit it at length because it evened out, but more so than any other party, Bells Hells has rarely had self-directed adventures. That's a big reason why they're such a mess; they didn't need to develop the tools to come to consensus because Eshteross or Ryn or Keyleth would give them tasks, so we never actually have delved particularly deeply into what most of the party members want to be doing, which is why we're here with this group that's mostly stuck together because they've had jobs to do. I think acknowledging that is an important step, because the task at hand (scouting on Ruidus) is in my opinion within their abilities, but they've been pushed and pushed and have finally reached a point where they can't just keep going. (This by the way is the underlying premise of this post; this is the fundamental reality of Bells Hells as a party. If you like that the most then hell yeah, but a lot of people who claim to love C3 are blaming the entire plot of the campaign for why the party is a mess which is like, so you like the premises of these characters and dislike the vast majority of the actual story in which they exist, and you really just want the story of Campaign 1 or Campaign 2 but Ashton is there.)

With that said though, I do agree that's kind of at the core of Imogen and Laudna. They're so insular, and that's been claimed as a feature, not a bug, for much of the fanon of that relationship. Like, I think Laudna is valid for this specific statement, but unlike Fjord and Jester, who had established in through the course of the campaign both deep ties to each of the rest of the Mighty Nein and a profound sense of responsibility in general, I find myself wondering why Imogen and Laudna don't go off and live in a cottage together and leave the rest of the party to handle this. I mean, Imogen is also impossibly tied up in the fate of Ruidus, but she dithers about the approach so much I wonder why she doesn't decide that perhaps she should stay out of it altogether and retire to that cottage with Laudna until it's all over.

Personally, my thought is that Imogen does in fact secretly like being the special Ruidusborn Exaltant On The Other Side, especially since she's realized her mother wasn't that (as she had hoped). I agree with the fairly common opinion that Imogen and Ashton are in many ways extremely similar people, but whereas Ashton just got a very brutal wake up call of "your parents did fuck up and you're not built different and your desperate attempt to be something special could have hurt everyone" Imogen is still out here going full Javert on everyone's personal thoughts. So I suspect she won't ripcord out in the end, and therefore Laudna won't. But I do think it's valid for Laudna to bring up, and indeed, one of the many things that would make great progress in fixing this party dynamic would be Laudna independently expressing her own needs some more instead of being Imogen's Yes-Woman or projecting her own desires onto other people as I suspect she's doing with Fearne and the shard.

[mothsvein]

Morality Questionare for Character Development 🕯️🧭

A lengthy questionare about your character's moral compass, or lack thereof. Meant to be used as an exercise to think deeper about a character's morality at any point in development.

꧁ ༺ ─── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ─── ༻ ꧂

Does your character consider themselves a moral person?

Does your character consider themselves morally flawless, morally bankrupt, or somewhere inbetween?

Would your character be willing to break their moral code for self preservation?

Would your character be willing to break their moral code to save another person?

Would your character be willing to break their moral code to save someone who was immoral?

Would your character be willing to break their moral code to save someone they didn't know at all?

Can you describe your character's moral code in 3 words?

Can you describe your character's moral code in 1 word?

Could you write a religious text about your character's moral code?

Is your character's moral code inherent to themselves as a person or is their moral code learned from a person or a group of people?

Does your character agree with their community's morals?

Would your character describe themselves as more or less moral than the people around them?

Would you describe your character as more or less moral than the people around them?

Would your character die to defend their morals?

If your character was killed for their morals, who or what in your story would be the killer?

Does your character think its moral to keep promises?

Does your character think its moral to always tell the truth?

Does your character think its moral to always follow authority and never question their leaders?

Does your character think its moral to respect their parents, no matter what?

Does your character think its moral to never cheat?

Does your character value loyalty as a moral code?

Does your character value faith as a moral code?

Does your character think eating animals is immoral?

Does your character find themselves questioning their own morals or bending their morals to get what they want?

Does your character feel guilt for not following their morals?

Does your character think that drugs, alcohol, and other substances are immoral?

Does your character think that pornography, prostitution, or other sexual vices are immoral?

Does your character think the act of sex itself is immoral?

Does your character think cheating in a relationship is immoral, no matter the conditions of the relationship?

Is your character willing to kill?

Is your character willing to lie?

Is your character a backstabber or a snake?

Is your character a social chameleon or two faced?

Is your character a cheater?

Does your character outwardly fake their moral code?

If other characters in their world knew their true moral code, how would they react?

If they knew the morals of the other characters in their world, how would your character react?

Does your character gain anything for sticking to their morals?

Does your character lose anything for sticking to their morals?

Has your character's morals given them any social or personal power over another character in your story?

Does their community agree or disagree with their actions aligning with their morals?

Does their community agree or disagree with their actions contradicting their morals?

Does your character have or want a career that relies on a strong moral compass?

Does your character have or want a career that relies on a weak moral compass?

If your character's morals are tested, would they pass or fail the test?

If they only had one minute to decide whether to save the world or save the person they love, what would they decide?

Would your character consider themselves a villian or a hero?

Is your character a villian or a hero?

Does your character believe that they will be punished by a supernatural force for breaking their moral code?

Does your character believe they will be punished by a natural force for breaking their moral code?

If your character was in a completely different place at the beginning of their life, would their morals be different?

Do you agree or disagree with the morals your character has?

Would your readers and fans agree or disagree with the morals your character has?

Would your family agree or disagree with the morals your character has?

Would the people who love your character still love them after discovering their true morals?

Would the people who hate your character still hate them after discovering their true morals?

What is the biggest obstacle to your character living perfectly by their morals?

Do they believe in the morals of their institution?

Does your character experience riteous justice when their morals are broken or questioned?

Can other characters question their morals without fear of retaliation?

Would your character hurt others in the name of their morality?

Does your character believe in evil?

Does your character believe in good?

To you, does your character do evil?

To you, does your character do good?

If you could change one thing about your character's morality, what would it be?

꧁ ༺ ─── ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ─── ༻ ꧂

[thecynthh]

do you not find it a bit disrespectful to repost/rewrite other peoples fics? i understand that you’re doing it because people really liked them, or whatever, but i also feel like it’s kind of rude to do so.

personally, if i left this app or deleted my account and came back to find someone was posting my hard work, i would be genuinely upset.

if the og writer gave you permission then that’s a completely different story.

not at all hating, just wondering.

so lemme give u my perspective, i am just like everyone else a consumer, meaning i read and i comment and i like and twiddle my thumbs scroll on this app for at least 2 hours a day.

i have favourite accounts and stories with aspirations to write better and more overall and without the inspiration from the friends and writers that have deactivated i would’ve never began writing and posting my own shit

i was just as happy to find out that i could save old stories from deactivated accounts as much as people were happy to find out that i was reposting them. so coming from a writer and a consumer i don’t see that much of a problem considering my terms.

the way that i’ve made my links is if i wanted too, i could delete the whole thing unless that person tries to copy and paste it into something else entirely. so i have control and moderation about how much it can spread.

i have stated multiple times that if the author or someone close to them reaches out to me specifically asking or demanding for me to take it down i will happily comply. I have stated this MULTIPLE TIMES and in every single post that includes the actual link to any of the stories.

then again i’m not personally close with any of the writers but if they say the word it’ll all be gone in seconds. i would understand as a writer, the frustration and seeing it from an outside perspective that it is indeed disrespectful.

would i be butt hurt if someone did do that to me personally? no, because in the end yes it is someone’s personal work but it’s still just a fan fiction about a 21 year old man who will probably have moved on with their life in a couple of years.

mind you all of these fics still exist somewhere on tumblr, all of it is for the public to find. i have simply compiled it into a couple google docs while STILL CREDITING THEM.

what about u anon? are you using the links? do u enjoy the fics ive collected?

as a matter of fact who does use the links and think it’s morally wrong of me to be doing this. because in the end it’s majorities favour.

sorry for the rant/ if this came off bitchy/ i could’ve phrased this whole thing better but thank u if u even read a single paragraph.

[deepdarkdelights]

What are the self-imposed limits of Namjoon cruelty? He does many things throughout the fics that are incredibly cruel but it’s also been shown that his cruelty/sadism doe have some form of limit, there’s a moral line somewhere so where is it? Also Prey was incredible!!!

We will discover it in his fic!

But a big thing with Namjoon, is the actions he takes that we perceive as cruel, he views as mercy. The deaths that are at hands were a mercy, the vampires he created and bound to his will was an act of mercy he was saving them.

Everything he does circles back to this god/savior complex he has. Gods are revered, and although their actions can bring tragedy and command fear and obedience, it comes from a place of "love," and demanding devotion.

And I am so happy that you liked Prey! I think it was a good continuation to JKs story and shows what has been going on since we left him and the MC at the beginning of the series. It was nice to go back and write a traditional "monster" approach to vampires like what I started the series with.

[glacierclear]

im sorry i need to dump all my thoughts about ada x leon somewhere for personal fulfillment reasons,

big disclaimer: resident evil canon/lore is inconsistent and my feelings/thoughts on all this is NOT me stating it as fact. It's 99% speculation and me interpreting context. I'm just having fun!

it's really wild that i started my resident evil experience hating Ada. I did not understand her character and the way she's portrayed is very inconsistent and confusing (probably on purpose) and, like many others, I assumed the choices she made and the pain she inflicted on others was malicious and intentional.

But something clicked recently,,,I understand now that she didn't choose this life. She doesn't WANT to be a spy. She doesn't WANT to be a mercenary. Everything she was and everything she had was taken and stripped from her. She doesn't even have a real name anymore. I think seeing the small insight of her backstory in the biohazard manga really put all the pieces together and brain blasted me with understanding. Her entire character (to me, at least!) revolves around survival and self-preservation. She is a SELFISH character, not because of ego or power, but because of a LACK of power. She no longer has autonomy over her life in a way that matters and so the only thing left for her is to stay alive.

And I just think that ties so beautifully with Leon's struggles. Both of them being forced into this life where they have to live and die at the hands of the people who control them. And, listen...listen...it's overdramatic as fuck and a VERY idealistic/romanticized interpretation of their relationship, but honestly it makes me hella emotional thinking about Leon potentially being one of the few things in life Ada wants to live for other than herself. Him being the only person in the entire series who has ever shown her genuine, selfless kindness and care,,, and the fact that her circumstance and the trappings of her life forced her to betray him and she has to live with that guilt and has to come to terms with the fact that she will never genuinely connect with people because who even is she anymore? She has no sense of self.

And her entire campaign in RE6 resonates me in such a weirdly poignant and impactful way. RE6 has some WONKED UP writing and it's so silly and stupid; but I think if it was tweaked a little bit it would be a genuinely moving story about a woman losing her agency and bodily autonomy to a violent man who wants to own her and her fighting with his fabricated, demented vision of her. It's a manifestation of his greed and possession...and then she kills her clone and immediately after she sees Leon again and his first immediate instinct is to protect her and sacrifice himself again for her and throw himself into MORE bullets for her even after the betrayal of RE2 ........ and then after that she finally snaps and FINALLY chooses to fight for HER morals and HER justice by killing Simmons' bioweapon.

Like, listen, I hate the trope of "woman traumatized being saved by a man" in most cases, but something about the way I see Leon and Ada just makes SENSE man.

The fact that she specifically goes out of her way COUNTLESS times to protect him and save him and none of it is enough to get him to forgive her. None of it will ever be enough but she keeps trying anyways. Like, damn, his entire mission is Spain is only possible because Ada saved his ass like...four times??? And you can make reasonable arguments that she doesn't care about him he's only important for her mission, and to be honest I think that interpretation is also valid, but for me personally I just think she cares about him so much but it's in his best interest to continue believing she doesn't care.

And I just want them to be happy. But it will probably never work out between them, just due to everything...they can't escape their lives. They're both kept alive by two opposing morality systems. Leon's guilt and unyielding need to fight for truth and innocence and to protect everyone he's lost and everyone who depends on him. And Ada to hold onto herself and what whittling remains of self-identity and independence she still has when it was all taken from her, even to the point of someone making a damn clone out of her.

Man I just love them so much I'M SO EMOTIONAL!!!!!!!

[strategicallyignoringmytodolist]

Here's my S3 theory. (I'd be thrilled to hear yours as well.)

I am writing this now so that when S3 finally drops in 24 billion months or whatever, I can look back at my notes and feel very smug and smart. Or laugh at myself for how wrong I got it.

My point is, dolphins. Or rather-- that terrible yet well-written cliffhanger:

At the very very end of S2, as Aziraphale was going up the elevator to Heaven, I'm pretty sure he knew he was going to have to work under cover to prevent the end of the world. Certainly after watching the recordings of Gabriel and what happened when HE protested, Aziraphale would realize that the bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell were determined to get to a final battle.

The Second Coming, from what (admittedly minimal amounts) I've read of it, doesn't have quite as many plot points as the arrival of the Antichrist. Jesus is supposed to show up in a burst of dramatic weather, all the humans who have ever lived are going to be immediately tossed into Heaven or Hell, and... That's about it? (I was actually raised Catholic, but I didn't pay much attention in Sunday school, and as an adult I don't really interact with religion. This isn't my best trivia subject, in other words.)

Anyway, at some sooner-rather-than-later point I think Aziraphale is going to decide to let all the angels and demons who want to fight it out with flaming swords have their go, and he is going to focus on preventing everyone else from getting hurt while that happens. Maybe the final sorting of goodies and baddies is going to involve processing all of humanity through some massive portals. And maybe Aziraphale is going to use his new position of power in Heaven's bureaucracy to change where the portal exit point is. There have been sooo many references to Alpha Centauri in the first two seasons, and that's presumably where Beelzebub and Gabriel went at the end of S2. I bet they would be willing to help with portal setup and receiving refugees on their end.

I'm not entirely certain what Crowley's role will be in S3. I can totally picture Aziraphale coming to him and saying, "Let's run off to Alpha Centauri together, only I've got several billion humans I want to bring with me." Maybe Crowley will have to help with portal setup down in the basement offices of hell. Or maybe he will need to convince Jesus to join Team Save Humanity (Crowley was friendly with Jesus once upon a time and did show him all the kingdoms of the world, after all.)

I think there are going to be some funny bits with the Nazi zombies from past seasons and all the other people who are being raised from the dead.

In the original book, Adam said that Heaven and Hell were a lot like his gang, the Them, and their rival gang, the Johnsonites: They were always trying to beat one another, but it wouldn't be any good if one of them actually did win. Having a rival gives you something to do, after all. I don't think there can ever be a final resolution between good and bad. They're kind of like death -- baked into the system. It's going to be a stalemate.

I also suspect that God is playing a many-layered game. All the demons and angels are helping to judge and deliver consequences to humans for their use of free will. But maybe God is watching all the angels and demons to see whether they understand that being on a team doesn't mean that you can't make your own moral decisions and act outside the party line.

Ultimately I think the battle will end and the human refugees will return to Earth. Our favorite supernatural couple will buy a flat with a garden somewhere, and that's where the story will end -- in a garden, just as it began.

[louisthiccsexyglitteryass]

ROCKSTAR CAN I GET A BREAKDOWN OF YOUR OCS??

OKAY HERE WE GO

This is kinda stupid ngl but fuck it we ball!!!

Answer under the cut;

Basic info:

They all belong to a group of assassins

It's a "book" i'm writing technically

Most of said book is currently in my brain

Set in London

Toxic yaoi!!!!!

I'm only *fully* covering the main 4/5 rn cause I haven't fleshed everyone else out yet:

Bunny. He/They (Trans NB FtM). Queer. From the North of England. His name isn't actually Bunny but you'll see why it's funny in a minute. His father was a mafia boss and was killed in front of Bunny when he was 16. Bunny responded by murdering the culprit. Had a weird childhood that he won't really talk about. Bunny is the leader of the organisation, 30 years old. He's very immoral/morally grey and literally does not care about doing crime. Thrives on gender fuckery. He's a lil twink but very dangerous, unstable and shit. Uses Bunny as a "code name" (refuses to tell anyone his real name). His name is ironic because he's nothing like a cute lil bunny yk. Very flirty/slutty but doesn't commit (supposedly). Bit of a loose canon and refuses to see fault in his own actions. Quick to anger and react violently. Has a lot of enemies. Ends up dating Archer. The only person who can treat him badly is Levi, who is a bastard, and basically manipulates Bunny. (more on him later). Bunny ends up finally getting away from Levi and has a lil thing with Archer, then gets back into contact with Levi and leaves Archer. Shit happens, then finally is endgame with Archer. Nerves of steel.

Archer. He/Him (cis male). Bisexual/Pansexual but won't admit it until later. From London. Archer is 22 and the story is in his POV. He was raised by his aunt and uncle because his mother died and his dad fucked off somewhere. College drop out who was recruited after doing errands. Has this moral compass that slowly deteriorates. Crushes slightly on Isobel then realises he likes Bunny, above arc happens, and then he leaves the organisation temporarily. He finally returns after saving the life of someone important to him and he finds out something. Basically, his father was the founder of the organisation. The code word for a legacy member is "viper" and he gets confused as to why people use it. He discovers all this after saving his Dad's life and returns to the organisation. Archer is a regular dude who doesn't really want to kill. Total himbo, definitely stupid, and fiercely loyal to a fault. Tendency to bail when things get tough. Jumpy.

Isobel. They/She/It (demigirl). Lesbian. From Wales (Nigerian descent and very proud of it). She is a typical femme/girly girl (but still demi) who can and will break your spine. Nice, kind-hearted, but will not hesitate to throw hands. They had a normal childhood and got recruited by Bunny when they met in a bar. They're 25 and have a secret girlfriend. She's a motherly figure at times and serves as a moral compass and guide to Archer, but underneath it all has a lot going on and can be a bit of a people pleaser. They felt really bad when Archer had a crush on them, and let him down gently. Trans guy / lesbian iconic duo with Bunny, but constantly absolutely done with his shit. Background character so maybe not as fleshed out?

Leviathan. He/Him (cis male). Pansexual. From Newcastle-upon-tyne. Levi is a manipulator. He is 34 and has a weird relationship with Bunny. He doesn't care about Bunny and regularly cheated on him when they dated, but also doesn't let Bunny speak to anyone else. Randomly dumped Bunny but now hooks-up with him randomly. Only called "Levi" by Bunny, who doesn't see the problem with his cold, manipulative personality. Basically tries to isolate Bunny and control him. Hates Archer, Isobel and everyone else. ASSHOLE. Ruins everything.

Honourable mentions:

Paul: 50, He/Him, Straight, London. Works with them all and is absolutely done with them all. Very stoic.

Johnno: (stats unknown currently). Recruited Archer, works for the middlemen part of the organisation.

Jasmine: (stats unknown currently). Has an on/off fwb thing with Bunny, totally crushing on Isobel. Might have a toxic turned healthy yuri arc with Isobel if I can work it in.

Mattheo: Italian man who doesn't speak Italian. STRESSED gay guy. Chaos gremlin. Absolute hottie.

Darius: Big buff dude who's friends with Bunny and scares Archer for fun.

Bunny's Personal Bodyguards: No actual names, just known by Archer as "Hair" (he has hair), "Earring" (has an earring), and "Baldy" (bald).

[hopehuntershq]

The Green Light Lab (Lore Explanation) (Topics such as torture and child labor mentioned below. Be careful):

The Green Light Lab is a highly respected scientific organization on the Hope Squad universe.

Some know them as a company that researches meds, chemicals, animals and high tech.

Others might speak about their prodigy system: how they recruit kids to learn their inner workings from young age and use their talents to learn on how to make the world a better place.

However, they are not what they show.

They are actually very corrupt, and make cruel experiments on people, even children, all in the name of science.

The scientists that are a part of the organization can only eat a synthetic meal with a taste somewhere between bitter and bland that only has nutrients, but no flavor.

Their origin was noble. Their founder Matthew Green wanted to find ways of saving humanity from itself during the World War II. He managed to create a green substance that is able of challenging the rules of nature on experiments.

But, as time progressed, their intentions became more and more corrupt. When the story starts, they start a world domination plan, because they think they are the only ones that can fix everything that is wrong with the world. Like crimes, unfairness and selfish rich man.

They have an inner hierarchy made of 6 rankings based on the colors of the rainbow.

Each scientist has a codename that depends on their ranking’s main hue. The prodigies usually use their old names towards each other, but the adults only use the codenames

Green Ranking:

- The Highest Ranking on the Lab.

- The members of this ranking are responsible for the bigger projects of the lab and the direction that the entire organization will be headed into.

- The scientists on this ranking arrived here by being incredibly smart at science, and having no morals to do what ‘has to be done’ to achieve their goals.

- They use codenames like: Pine, Moss, Olive, Sage…

Blue Ranking:

- The Second Highest Ranking at the lab.

- The scientists of this ranking have some good rights: they can also lead their own projects under the orders of their green superiors, and also order any scientist on a lower ranking.

- Punishments here are really rare, except those directed towards children.

- The scientists of this ranking are here because, although they are brilliant in science, they usually have some inhibitions that would interfere on the choices of the Green Ranking.

- The codenames for the scientists here are: Sky, Navy, Ocean, Lapis, Indigo…

Yellow Ranking:

- The Middle Ranking of the Lab.

- The scientists of this ranking are formed by those who have a knowledge that, although isn’t exactly scientific, can still be used by the lab in some way or another.

- Like those that are good at writing speeches, writing, composing songs and playing instruments, drawing and some others…

- Their life isn’t the hardest, but it isn’t the easiest either. They still can receive punishments if their work is seen as insufficient by the Lab, or if they misbehave. But they have some access to other parts of the lab, and can order those in lower rankings.

- The codenames here are: Canary, Mustard, Gold, Daffodil…

Orange Ranking:

-  The second lowest ranking.

- The scientists on these ranking are… on not the best conditions. They have to obey all of the other rankings, and usually have to do the worst works.

- However, they do have a bit of respect because they are seen as hardworking by the lab, even if they don’t have any talent, they find very useful.

- Punishments here are common, but not that much in comparison to next ranking.

- Some codenames are: Tangerine, Marigold, Cinder…

Purple Ranking:

- The Lowest Ranking of the level.

- The scientists on this ranking are usually the prodigies that have just entered the lab, or the scientists that are too ‘rebellious’ for their own good.

- The scientists on this ranking have the worst tasks, are frequently mistreated by the other rankings, and punishments are very frequent.

- The sooner you get promoted from this level the better, or else…

- The codenames are: Lavander, Mauve, Lilac, Magenta…

Red Ranking:

- The Green Scientists consider this a ranking but… calling it a ranking it’s a very bad, bland and tasteless joke.

- The rebel scientists and those that are seen as incompetent or nuisances. They are experimented on this one and became ‘useful’ to the lab in one way or another.

- The experiments made on this ranking are immoral in every way possible.

- Most that are experimented on, loses themselves and forget who they are… turning into monsters for the lab to use and abuse.

The Prodigies all Start at the Purple Ranking, and have the chance of ascending on the hierarchy with their inner semestral Science Fairs. They usually present a report on what they did across the semester, but, that isn’t the most important part. The important part is showing a device or upgrade that can be useful to the lab’s growth. (When they are not good at science, and are content with the yellow ranking, they usually submit a drawing, a plant they made for a construction or something like this).

If it’s satisfying, they are kept on the same ranking without any punishment. If it’s brilliant, they go to the next ranking (there has never been a case of someone who skipped a ranking). If they show something unsatisfying, or worse, nothing… well, they won’t go to the red ranking, or be demoted to a ranking below, but they will be punished with either electricity or burns.