#and a very concrete example of this kind of scene

[sam-glade]

Happy Tuesday!!

What is your absolute favorite scene to write?

Hi! Thanks for the question💜

I want to say dialogue-heavy scenes, with characters sitting around a table, and with banter and discussion how the plot will progress, but that's not quite it.

It's when I have 3-4 characters, who have come together from different situations. For example: One has a headache and is unusually snappy. One has learnt some impactful news earlier that day and is struggling to focus, but doesn't want to share the news either. Another one for whatever reason has a thing on their mind and slightly derails the conversation when they're reminded of it. Another one is a nerd and oh look they accidentally gave a paragraph of exposition about the world, before the others shushed them.

Yes, it's 'just' dialogue. But I love testing just how much stuff I can pack alongside it. And I love the feeling of writing characters that act differently because of the most recent developments, but it's still consistent with their characterisation. When you know exactly where the deviation from the norm comes from.

[shut-up-danny-kun]

I've read hundreds of Star Trek TOS fics by now and it never ceases to amuse me how many different ways there are to fuck up Spock's characterization...now hold on just a minute - this post has a more interesting point than “fanfic writers stupid”, I promise you.

Every time, it's a spin on the massacre wheel. It's kind of amazing. Will he be overly emotional to the point where he's not himself anymore? Will he be so cold it's unpleasant and kind of hard to understand how he's lived to this point? Will he be extremely horny for no good reason? Will he speak in a way that sounds complety wrong?

I chuckle and shake my head. Of course, I KNOW what Spock is like, and MY interpretation of him is the most perfect and correct one. Obviously. He's just a very nuanced character, formed by many people in an unconventional way, with traits that seem to contradict each other at first but ultimately form a rich and unique character that so many people fell in love with specifically because he's so complicated...

Or...is he?

Let's entertain the idea that there isn't one correct interpretation of Spock, that all of these messy bits of characterization are not part of a bigger picture, but...just what they are: a product of many people with starkly different visions, working on a show that refuses to properly develop its characters. What then? Well, then Spock is a Rorschach test. Each viewer connects the random dots in their own way, and ignores the ones they don't like.

Let's use an example: me! In my interpretation of Spock (the most correct one, of course) he is, first of all, gay and on the asexual spectrum, reserved, largely uninterested in casual flirting or sex. When he is interested in the aforementioned things, he tends to be quite ashamed of it.

Makes sense, right? I can show you plenty of evidence for why that could be true. However, in the beginning of the first bloody season, Uhura sings a song about how Spock is actually kind of a heartthrob who likes to drive women insane with how hot he is, and Spock smiles. He smiles at her, as if agreeing and being very amused by all this! This interaction goes against pretty much everything I think about Spock. So what do I do? I explain it away in the most bizzare fucking way possible. See, Uhura and Spock are friends (there is no evidence for this), and Uhura knows everything I've just told you about him (through telepathy I guess? Not like he'd ever tell her!) and she's just trolling him (why would she do that? That is NOTHING like Uhura!). I need to do some Olympics-level mental gymnastics here, the opposite of Occam's razor.

“But Danny,” I hear you say, “it's just the start of the show! They hadn't figured out his character yet!”

To which I say: you can say that about anything! You can blame it all on a bad writer for that episode, and ignore virtually any scene that doesn't jive with your headcanons. It's there, and I can't ignore it.

So...how am I different from the people that want Spock to be thar heartthrob Uhura is singing about? That evidence is as much a part of canon as my favorite lines. Well, I'm not any different, that's the thing. And all those writers I complained about also have a point.

It's kind of a nihilistic take, I know, but maybe the reason Spock is such a cultural icon is because he is...whatever you want him to be: just concrete enough to spur on your imagination, yet vague and contradictory enough to let your brain fill in the gaps.

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely do not believe in this. In my mind, it just so happens that I'm one of the, like, 5 people ever who truly understood Spock (and one of them is Jim Kirk himself). But I still think it's something worth thinking about next time you're mad at a fic.

[siriusblack-the-third]

Sirius Black: Looks and Behaviour

Honestly, a few of these are canon, and I'll put that in brackets. Most of them are shamelessly self indulgent tho. Please note that this is the first part of The Sirius Black Headcanons Series, and I hope you enjoy!

.

Tall ASF. He towers over everybody, and combine that with his tendency to stick to the etiquette lessons he had been given as a child— he stands with his shoulders rolled back and his chin held high, straight-backed and arms at his side, sometimes with his hands in his pockets— he looks intimidating. He never slouches. (see: literally every time Harry mentions him)

He walks powerfully. Long strides, feet perfectly placed, arms swinging just right. Sometimes he walks with one hand in his pocket, curled around the pocket watch he carries around, given to him by James' parents for his 17th birthday and engraved with the Potter crest. People see him coming and clear out of his way immediately, and he does not even notice. He is the kind of person that attracts attention everywhere he goes.

Silvery grey eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose, strong jaw and determined eyebrows, full lips that make him look intimidating. Dense, silky hair, pitch black in colour and slightly wavy. Sirius is a living example of the fact that True Beauty is striking and terrifying. (see: again, literally every time Harry mentions him. Boy is calling Sirius handsome even during his death scene.)

He prefers to keep his hair long like his grandfather does, with the difference of tying a bun instead of a proper gentleman's queue. If not for the leather jackets and the ratty muggle jeans and the band t-shirts, he would have always been mistaken for Arcturus.

He has a lot of body hair, and he hates that his facial hair grows so fast, because he likes to stay clean shaven. His arms and legs and chest are hairy and he does not care much about that, but he likes it when his face looks clean and well-groomed, so he shaves every other day.

When he speaks, he is very articulate and concise, and often gets teased for it by Remus and Sirius (James is the same as him). His grammar is immaculate, and he prefers not to use expletives. He does use them, especially when he stubs his toe or drops something or some such happening, but he does not use them when insulting people.

He is always polite to people, even when he is arguing with them (see: ootp, his argument with molly). He will argue without raising his voice, because he firmly believes that greater volume does not equal improved argument, and only raises his voice in extremely stressful situations where he needs to bring attention to what he is saying.

Has concrete values and views, and refuses to bend or change them for anyone (the only exceptions are James and Harry). He is the kind to research and read before he forms an opinion, and does not hesitate to say that he is not educated enough to have an opinion on something if that is the case. He hates people who behave like sheep, and much prefers to do his own independent research and form his own independent opinions. (see: gof, he tells Harry he isn't sure Snape is a DE)

#1 Overbearing Fusspot™. James might have been the mother hen of their group, but Sirius was the Stressed Dad™. He is that overprepared airport dad; always worrying about this and that and making sure everyone has everything ready, and he extends that same parent behaviour to Harry after Prisoner of Azkaban (see: literally every interaction between him and Harry, he is such a parent).

Cares about only a few select people: James, Lily, Harry, Mr and Mrs Potter, Remus, Peter, Andromeda and Ted and Baby Tonks. He could not give less of a fuck about everybody else— he has a small circle and he likes it that way. After Peter's betrayal, that list reduces down only to Harry, Andy, Ted and Baby Tonks.

[howtofightwrite]

Do you have any advice for writing an intense, overwhelming chase scene?

So, this is a little unusual, in that it's something I haven't really thought a lot about.

For a real world situation, the process is to identify or create an opening, and escape. Usually this advice is more focused for situations for situations where someone's cornered you.

Also, the real world advice is to avoid a chase if at all possible. You don't want to get into a situation where you're directly testing your endurance against your enemy.

As for writing a chase scene. This is one of those times when you want to be efficient with your words, keep things as concise as possible. When you get more verbose it “slows down” the scene because it is literally slowing your reader's progress down.

Chases can be very logistically intensive for you, simply because you need a fairly coherent mental image of how the locations in your story fit together. Maps can be extremely helpful for this, whether you choose to share them or not.

I don't think I've talked about this on the blog, maps can be very helpful for getting a concrete image of how your world is put together, though, they can also, easily, start soaking up more time than the value they offer. That said, even pretty crude maps could be very useful in planning a chase scene. This is one of the times when your world needs to lock together into a unified space, instead of being able to move characters between loosely connected locations.

If you want the reader to have a detailed mental image for the locations, then you should probably have them in those spaces before the chase. Though, this is a situation where some, “stock locations,” could work for you. Liminal spaces can work pretty well for this, because most of your readers are going to have a preexisting basis for understanding what those areas look like. For example: even if their image of an airport causeway is different from yours, you'll both be close enough to the same space that you shouldn't run into many problems where you need to define the entire area.

It's also worth considering that as the chase progresses, it's possible to get gradually more verbose. As mentioned above, this will slow the reader, and as a result the scene, but it can convey the loss of inertia as your character tires or finds themselves having to slow down because they're now in unfamiliar (and possibly unsafe) territory, without being extremely direct about your character's exhaustion. This is an area that can benefit from some pretty careful word selection to hint at fatigue without outright stating it.

I do apologize that this is all pretty high level, concept advice, and a lot of this can be applied in other contexts. And, a lot of the above advice are things to keep in mind for all of your writing, but chases do stress these specific parts of your writing and world building.

Beyond that, it's the normal advice: Remember your world is a living place, so other people would be going about their daily lives while the chase rampages through. Remember persistence consequences, such as prior injuries, or injuries inflicted during the chase. Chases might lead into situations where other kinds of consequences might become unexpectedly relevant, such as your character being forced to run through the territory of a gang they angered earlier in the story. This is an opportunity to bring in unexpected consequences. Even if you don't stick to it, at least have an initial idea for what you want from the chase, then let the sequence play out as you go. (Cleaning this up is what rewrites are for, but it is important to let the chase flow, before you go back and worry about cleaning it up.)

Like I said at the beginning, this is something I don't generally think about, so it's been a bit before I could get back to this question, and I hope this helps.

-Starke

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[sporesgalaxy]

PLS.. share thoughts on zoro n sanji relationship........ i dont ship them but they are so. SOOOOO.

THEY MAKE ME CRAZZYYYYY. and honestly the way their dynamic make me insane doesnt even HAVE to be read as romantic. But i feel so much crazier when i see them shipped and its not even capitalizing on all the shit theyve got going on.

So anyways here's my Zoro and Sanji retrospective I spent several hours on I guess. As if it's my fault.

▪︎

When Zoro and Sanji meet, Sanji has given up on his dream to see the All-Blue in favor of supporting Zeff.

Zoro is still throwing himself at his dream to be the greatest swordsman with all his might, and nearly dies to Mihawk for it.

Initially, from Sanji's outside perspective, it seems like a waste of precious life.

Zoro promising never to disappoint Luffy when he's on death's door clearly makes Sanji reconsider, though.

•••

The next time Sanji and Zoro really interact after Zoro's defeat is when they go after Nami at Arlong Park.

And the first thing Sanji learns about Zoro is.......that he's willing to hit girls!

To Sanji, Zoro seems like he's willing to turn on someone-- and worse, willing to hurt a girl-- just because he's angry for an apparent betrayal that no one has any concrete proof of yet. What a jerk! Surely that earned him the dig Sanji makes about his loss to Mihawk.

Unbeknownst to Sanji, however, Zoro has already bet his life on Nami's friendship being genuine by almost drowning himself.

Zoro doesn't want to bother explaining this to some stupid new guy who's willing to side with a stranger purely on the basis of her gender. Clearly, Sanji doesn't understand ANYTHING about this crew, and should just stay out of things.

And so their initial mutual dislike is born!!!

They tend to bicker a lot after this, but I think the next time Sanji brings up Mihawk is in Alabasta.

Once again, Sanji is hitting below the belt because he's convinced Zoro's done something nigh-unforgivable: doubting Luffy. It's a reminder that their rivalry at this point is still built on genuinely misjudging each others' character.

Now at this point I've run out of my 100 daily shounen jump chapters so I can't find for you the PRECISE moment thet are mutually like "yeah ok fine you're a DECENT guy I GUESS" in Alabasta but I think it's the clock tower maybe? The point is that the whole crew has to work together VERY HARD to defeat Crocodile and it shows Sanji and Zoro that they can count on each other to support the crew, at least.

Their improved relationship is apparent in one of my fave downtime scenes so far: Sky Island jungle dinner :)

I...don't think we've seen Sanji ask for help cooking before this point?? Much less from Zoro. So I fucking love that. And Zoro goes along with it, even though he complains!!!!! It shows perfectly how they now trust each other to help take care of the crew.

Another one if my fave examples of them counting on each other in a kind of funny way is when they're fighting Zombie Oars.

Zoro pushes Sanji's buttons on purpose to get him to go along with it, and it works. But it also shows that Zoro was counting on him to give him a boost! The middle panel could even imply Zoro jumped before Sanji agreed to anything, which really proves how much they're willing to couny on each other now.

Which of course brings us to the conclusion of Thriller Bark and a WILD curveball in their relationship: thes self-sacrificial x2 combo.

What Sanji does here floored me. At this point not only does he trust Zoro as a part of the crew, but he considers Zoro a more irreplacable member of the crew than himself.

And Zoro refuses to let him.

Now, we know from his initial fight with Mihawk that Zoro being willing to kill himself doesn't mean he considers his life unimportant. Zoro and Luffy are both unafraid of death, because they have to be willing to die to even have a ghost of a chance of achieving their dreams.

That's why Zoro chooses to take on Luffy's pain and why he is able to survive it.

Zoro's sacrifice obviously means a lot to Sanji. When Zoro refuses to acknowledge his sacrifice, Sanji goes along with that and covers for him.

And of course he understands. The pain Sanji mentions here that Zoro is trying to spare Luffy from is the exact same pain that lead Sanji to give up on his dream of finding the All-Blue in favor of trying to repay his life debt to Zeff. Sanji wouldn't wish the guilt he feels for Zeff's leg on anybody.

Sanji shows a lot of concern for Zoro after this point up until the time skip!! He calls Zoro a hero to Brook, and tries to help Zoro deal with his excess injuries without drawing attention to them. Zoro is of course surly about it, because he's frustrated by his own limits. He got a taste of what Luffy goes through and it just made him more desperate to become strong enough to lighten Luffy's load.

I find their sort-of reset after the timeskip hilarious.

Sanji was already feeling deeply insecure when he got sent to the island of question your gender and sexuality-- things Sanji clearly considers very important to his identity. Since he can't bear to question himself, he relies on reacting combatively to things that challenge his masculinity. Kicking them, mostly. I'm sure he picked that up from Zeff.

Meanwhile, Zoro is THE most traditionally Masculine member of the crew besides Sanji by a long shot (Franky is in 3rd place as a self-professed freak with blue hair and pronouns who refuses to wear pants). Zoro is buffer than Sanji. And seemingly more stoic than Sanji. And Zoro has cool scars and uses three swords and his muscles are bigger and half the time he's not even wearing a shirt.

This masculinity contest between them was present before the timeskip too, but it's really the only good explanation for the extremeness of Sanji's sour attitude the moment he lays eyes on post-timeskip Zoro and remarks, aloud, "He's back. Like I really care..." after how much appreciation Sanji showed for Zoro's sacrifice before the timeskip.

Sanji WOULD be annoyed at his crewmate's seemingly effortless, unshakeable masculinity after two years of doggedly avoiding non-consensual crossdressing and constantly fighting for his life to outrun gay thoughts.

Zoro's side of things so far post-timeskip seems a bit less wound-up than Sanji. Zoro never takes an insult sitting down, and also just enjoys making snide remarks, so if Sanji's going to argue with him there's no reason for Zoro not to argue back.

This is why I am a gay Zoro truther, even if that gayness has nothing to do with anyone on the crew. Because its fucking hilarious if Sanji is one-sidedly trying to out-hetero-masculinity a literal gay man.

[nocturnalazure]

Not-a-tutorial - Camera shots: Part I

Absolutely nobody: ...

Me: I’ll share with you tips and tricks about Sims storytelling and camera shots!

And this is how it all started.

I’m far from being an expert and this probably won’t be new to many people, but I just felt the drive to ramble about camera shots because I think it’s such an interesting topic. (warning: long – see under the cut)

I sometimes have a feeling that we, as simmers, tend to repeat the same angles over and over again when telling a story. And I think that may be because we still adopt a player’s perspective. We may want to show how the Sim is dressed because we spend one hour in CAS dressing them up. Or we want to see the Sim but also the background because we spent hours decorating the scene. Or simply because we like the background and think it deserves to be shown! Zooming up on a Sim’s face is uncomfortable because that’s not how we play the game: we zoom out to see what we are doing. I know, because that’s what I used to do too in the past. Many of my screenshots were taken at hip/knee level.

And at shoulder level when I wanted to “zoom in”.

That was okay, but not necessarily very engaging. The thing is, I started using more and more screenshots in my story, dropping descriptive text entirely and using only dialogues. Soon my story became a graphic novel. Telling a story using mostly visual means implies that 1) I have to shorten the dialogues as much as possible to keep it dynamic, and 2) I have to find visual ways to express what characters are not saying but what I want the reader to understand (note that my Sims are no longer Sims but characters xD). This comes very close to storyboarding and it is what I’m doing now. It is much more planned and requires more work. But it pays! (at least according to me: I rather like my way even if there are many ways I can still improve!) So I'm going to show you a few concrete examples of how I apply to my shots some techniques from photography, comics, mangas and filmmaking.

First, I use wide, establishing shots to show the reader where the action is taking place.

Sometimes to express an idea, like that of a crowded place for example:

What I do A LOT is use a random landscape or zoom in on a detail to indicate the passage of time, like for transitions within the same scene: we find the same characters in the same place but they are leaving, or they are now seated, or they are still in the same building but not in the same room, etc. I often use sky pictures because I like them, sue me. :D

I use full shots when there are several characters in the room and I need to show whom and where they stand in relation to each other.

It is actually quite important for the reader to be able to locate a character in space. It sounds pretty basic, but we as authors tend to forget that the reader is not in our head. The reader needs to be able to follow your story every step of the way, even (particularly!) at the most basic level. The more characters in a scene, the more important this step is. A wider shot is perfect for this.

Or a bird eye view.

This is a standard shot of two characters having a seated convo:

What I I try to do is vary the angles as much as possible in a single conversation. It’s easy to use only an “over-the-shoulder” perspective but if the conversation is long, using only that kind of shots can give an impression that it drags on and on.

The character that is talking should be to one to which the eye is attracted to. If I used only that kind of shot, the eye would quickly get bored going from one character to the other, and since the conversation here was long, I used different angles to make it more interesting and play with different effects depending on what the characters were saying.

First, I reminded the reader of where the characters are in space:

Then, I got some close-up on small details while the characters are talking. This one shows that they have finished their meal.

I used an overhead shot for variety, but also to suggest that my characters are confronting their points of view, with the table separating them.

When a character is having a long monologue, I like taking my time to show a bit of the décor. It allows to break a long block of text into several more digestible parts and it gives the eye something more relaxing to look at so that it can focus on the text.

Doing a close-up on an interesting detail works too. It can add an emotional impact as readers do not see the character's face and will try to connect what the character is saying to what he does not say.

Same idea here, more experimental. You like it or you don’t. I chose not to show the character’s face while she’s asking a personal question. It fits her and it fits the story.

In general, I like cutting off part of a character’s face to maximize impact.

Another way to show emotions is a close-up. Like here, Anh is shocked so I chose a low angle to emphasize it.

I use close-ups for the reader to better see a character’s emotions. This close, emotions can be read and interpreted right away.

On to Part II!

[writingwithfolklore]

Hii, I've been wondering, well having troubles actually, writing children interactions with other children, for example I have this scene in which my MC has 7 years old and meets another one of 6, so I have no idea how to write the scene where they "become friends" you know introduce each other.

Hi! Sorry this took me soo long to get to. It is in part because of a vacation + moving house combo, but also because I wasn't quite sure on the best advice to give here. I am not super experienced writing children, though writing for children is something I'm very passionate about, so here's what I'll say:

I would start with a basic understanding of child development, specifically for the age of the children you're writing. Piaget's four stages of cognitive development puts children 2-7 at the Preoperational stage. Some key things about this stage is:

Children still think in concretes (things they can see or touch)

They struggle with logic or abstract concepts, but they are beginning to form reasoning skills

They think very egocentrically--they don't understand yet that their experiences may not be universal to everyone (have you ever had a kid ask if you needed help putting on your shoes? Because they have trouble putting on shoes without help, they assume everyone else, even adults, may struggle with this too.)

This gives you a kind of base-line of what children would even talk about, though it doesn't help much with how they would say it. While you could delve deeper into the rabbit hole of psychology and language development, there are a lot of different theories and I couldn't really find anything that was very practical for writing purposes when I tried to do a bit of research.

Instead, I would suggest watching shows made for or featuring children. Off the top of my head, Bluey (available on Disney+) has 4 years to 6 year old main characters, or Arthur has 6-8 year old characters, or otherwise there's tons on streaming platforms--even Youtube Kids if you don't own any streamers.

While media can be a bit inconsistent for how they portray children's language, it's a good starting point. The one thing I would say for certain is: don't underestimate children. They have much more complex and interesting thoughts than a lot of media gives them credit for.

(Here's more on Piaget's stages)

Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development | Lifespan Development (lumenlearning.com)

Good luck!

[henrysglock]

Superspy!

This post is just me breaking off the UD double agent section from my time loop theory post (14 Jan. 2024). It's not new, just wanted it separate for ease of referencing.

I'm not sure if anyone else outside the my discord server has noticed this, but in every season there's at least one instance of the UD just...offering up information.

"It does?"

Yup! Let me explain.

On first glance, we look at things like Nancy's vision and even El's vision with Billy in the cabin, and we go "Oh, it's because [insert "the bad guy's cruel/he wants to scare her/his hubris will be his downfall/all serial killers want to be known for their crimes" etc here]"...but maybe that's not the case.

For example: Vecna told Nancy his backstory, and then he immediately went

"Oh hey, so not only am I revealing my identity (Which may help you find out more about me via lab records later on, things like...maybe a list of my abilities, or my weaknesses, like the fact that I have a nut allegry. Allegedly.), but I'm also gonna give you a sneak peek of my apocalypse plans. For free. As a treat. Don't use these to prepare or anything. I'm totally not giving you a head start".

Terrifying, yes. A taunt and a threat on surface view, yes...but also showing his hand. "I want you to tell Eleven everything you see" Why. Why would he want that? He may be confident in his plans, arrogant, even...but he's not that stupid.

I'm serious, though. Check it out in comparison to Henrys visions of the future. The pattern is patterning:

We can track that back to El's cabin scene with Billy, wherein he tells her she shouldn't have looked for him, warns her that they all can see her, and that they're going to be coming after her...and he cries about it. That's vision Billy. That's someone else who piggybacked into El's mind from Billy's mind. Billy doesn't have powers. He can't piggyback into minds. That's not real Billy, just like how Billy in Max's vision wasn't the real Billy. That's someone with the ability to piggyback into minds (sit with that for a beat, it'll come to you). The person giving El that vision warns her.

Why on earth would that person tell her that they can see her, that they're coming for her? That's sensitive information! It would be smarter to let her think she's safe and use that false sense of security to catch her off guard.

In fact, this pattern patterns so well that I'd like to argue this: Henry's TFS visions, Nancy's vision, and El's vision are all the same type of behavior displayed in NINA's chess scene, just in different contexts.

Henry ("Henry") gives some kind of scary prophetic information ("He and the others are going to attempt to kill you", "I would very much like to show you where I am going", "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"), and then we're left to question if it's a scare tactic, manipulative misinformation, or helpful inside information.

It's not that the Mindflayer or Vecna can't hide things from people (see: "Somewhere he didn't want me to see")...like, say, the fact that the Mindflayer is now able to see El, or that Vecna's planning to open 4 gates with his 4 kills.

It's always this miraculous "Huh! Weird info-dropping behavior from the UD's side. Shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth though. It's probably just a writing oversight or a shoehorned exposé, so really there's no need to question it." situation where it's just...information that's offered up with no real explanation.

Some of my favorite examples:

...and it's all topped off with Max's line:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time".

That is to say...You're telling me:

The first message from the Upside Down isn't any of the messages that are concretely Will's, but instead it's the one that's a repetitive Henry line...and it's conveyed in a distinctly not-Will style? A message that saves Joyce, something that's definitely not in the UD's best interest given her tenacity in finding her boy...but is definitely coming from the UD nonetheless?

Will, who fell total prey to the Mindflayer in less than 3 days, was not only able to figure out how to defeat the Mindflayer, but was also strong enough to convey it in Morse code? The Mindflayer, who is able to keep secrets (see below), just...let that information slip?

El, who acknowledges that the Mindflayer is more than able to hide things from her, is suddenly sent into Billy's memories and allowed to find the source completely unimpeded? (and she was sent, you can look at the positioning on "Billy's" hand in real time if you think I'm exaggerating)

The Mindflayer, as "Billy" (Remember: not actually Billy, because Billy can't give visions or invade minds), is telling El that because he's able to see her now, and that she shouldn't have looked for him? The Mindflayer, which was supposedly building the Fleshflayer to track El down and kill her? Suddenly he's telling her she shouldn't have done the very thing that allowed him to find her more easily?

Vecna's giving up all the information about himself and his plans before he's even gotten the 4th gate open, despite him being so secretive about it up until that point? He's not cocky enough to broadcast his plans earlier, but he is cocky enough to tip off the girl who found his family and drew all the connections...the "detective" of the group in ST3, about what's happening/going to happen...and tell her that she needs to tell Eleven, the girl who kicked his ass into Dimension X as an eight year old, all the future plans she sees?

Henry's visions in TFS are scaring him into resisting the Mindflayer, making it less likely that he's going to upgrade to killing humans, i.e. the very thing the Mindflayer wants him to do?

None of that makes any damn sense...until we hit this last point:

Orderly Henry is known for giving inside information about "Papa" to El with no clear motive other than getting her to leave the lab.

So, with this new frame of view, I'd like you to chew on this:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." vs "He's been telling us His plan this whole time."

By which I mean: "He's been telling us some other man's plan this whole time."

[Mike voice] Superspy.

As a parting thought, I made it all into a nice, neat set of collages:

I'll leave you all with this final, parting bit, too:

None of this even touches on them shoehorning in an entire arc about a spy who goes by the name Enzo/"Henry".

He isn't actually named Enzo/Henry (he's Dmitri), though (hello Edward), but he is working as a guard and feeding inside info about the KGB (CIA equivalent) to Hopper/a "bald" American:

...in hopes of setting said bald American free from prison/hell:

...only to get himself caught up in a creature massacre:

That kills off all the other guards and shaved-head inmates (while he himself is the sole "inmate" with longer hair) and sent on the run afterward.

Okay. I guess. That's fine. Nothing smells Creel-y about that.

Not mention, of course, the interpretation of the Russia arc paralleling Vecna and Hopper rather than El and Hopper. Local father figure gets his ass kicked and sent to "hell" from which he has to escape to go home. Like. Yeah, I get it.

I'd like to posit that this might be a spot for further exploration irt multiple parallels -> multiple versions of events, as per my series on the NINA fight (which showed us at least 3 tangibly different endings for the 4.07 fight). We could very well have one version focused on a Murray/Yuri type deal, one with a Hopper type deal, and one with an Enzo type deal depending on which ending they were involved in. That's just speculation atm though.

[mage-ical-character-person]

I’ve seen a lot of people bring up the pilot outfits in this scene and stuff, but never the fact that Charlie is out here looking for injured survivors of the extermination to bandage up. Like I can’t think of any other reason she’d be wandering around in an alleyway with bandages in her pocket right after the extermination.

Is Vaggie the only one she found that day? Did Vaggie follow her as she bandaged up others whose injuries she and her peers were responsible for? It’s just really intriguing and one of those small moments that says a lot.

Also this sort of brings to mind an instance of missed opportunity. Both the pilot and the first actual episode are supposed to take place shortly after an extermination, and I wish we’d seen Charlie doing this then, too. I know there was a lot of exposition to get out of the way in both cases to introduce the series, but still. Could’ve had that happening during Chasing Rainbows, with Charlie seeing the carnage up-close and doing everything she can to help instead of singing on a balcony, never in the same shot as the tragedy she laments.

And honestly when I watched Overture and she was singing Happy Day In Hell… like is it not the single worst day of the year, with the extermination, which motivates your whole… everything? If she were actively trying to make it a Happy Day in Hell during the song and, again, helping her people in the aftermath of the extermination that would be one thing. A much better introduction to her character is the thing it would probably be.

I like her boundless optimism better when it comes from a place of knowing more than one of ignorance and naivety, which is what Happy Day in Hell sort of feels like. It almost feels out of character in that way? She’s grown up in hell, spent her whole life among the carnage and the sinners, and her hope is most impactful when it’s framed with this.

If someone who’s known nothing but literal hell can believe there’s good in everyone, that really says something, and that’s what I love about Charlie. She’s seen the worst of the worst and believes in the best in people anyway. It’s almost funny to see the sinners doubt her when she knows better than anyone that there is always good to be found. She’s a living example that, like flowers growing through cracks in the concrete, positivity can take root anywhere. Characters like Alastor (as much as I love that freak) are frankly stupid to doubt her or think of her as naive. You think you know the nature of sinners better than someone who’s spent their entire ridiculously long life in hell, actively involving herself in the lives of her people? (Unlike her father, who despite being around since the beginning is a shut-in who avoids sinners)

So this scene in Vaggie’s backstory where Charlie is shown up close and personal with the people struggling in her realm, where she’s the shining embodiment of the good in the hostile: it’s a scene that’s very important for more reasons than it initially seems.

Not only is Charlie unknowingly showing Vaggie that what the angels say about hell is wrong by being the one to show kindness and mercy after those Vaggie trusted punished her for her own act of mercy, but it’s a great moment for Charlie’s character when we don’t often see her helping hell’s general population all that directly.

Anyway who wants to bet that in the years since they met Vaggie has joined Charlie as they search for and patch up survivors in the aftermath of the extermination? Because that would be really great I think and would be a great way to show how much things have changed for Vaggie.

So that’s that. I tend to latch on to random details so sorry for that long rant thing. This show has so many good ideas that I wish we saw more of. This was supposed to just be about that one scene and I got carried away.

EDIT: whoops Overture doesn’t take place on extermination day. Point still partially stands because extermination day was recent but yeah. I forgot. Sorry

[highpriestofpalkism]

Also, if I may ask, how do you interpret the Creation Trio + Arceus as deities? In other words, do you think they're benevolent and merciful or wrathful and quick to anger? For instance, the story of the human and the sword in D/P/Pt indicates that while they will certainly intimidate, they seem hesitant to kill, even in retaliation. On the other hand, in PMD and the anime, they seem all too eager to eliminate humans because of perceived slights.

Now! This sure is a question, because I've basically created my set of headcanons for all of the Creation family throughout the years, since they're one of my the main objects of my brainrot DJHDGD

To me, they all act differently, and also situationally.

Dialga is the most cynical one. He is benevolent and enacts the role and purpose Arceus gave him fully, and he can show warmer emotions such as gratefulness when in the right situations (PMD2 being the biggest example), but, normally, in my opinion Dialga is neutral at best and has a certain disregard for mortals at worst, thinking of them as mere droplets of water in the vast river of time; thus, he often ignores them and their troubles, unless they do trouble him directly, unless reverence and worship is shown to him. He can also be very merciless.

Palkia is instead pretty emotional. He's the kindest and warmest of the three, and appreciates mortals as their own unique microcosms that should be respected as such, and he offers thankfulness to those who worship him. However he can also turn out to be very ruthless and instinctive in what he's doing, and he doesn't stand when his dominion is messed with by someone or something (PMD2), often harbouring to brute force. Despite his naturally kind nature, he can turn out to be as solemn as Dialga when the situation requires it.

Giratina despises mortals, be it Pokémon or humans. He sees them as the "perfect creations of his father" whom he wants to destroy as vengeance for what has been done to him: not only banished, but also forgotten by all. While probably the most brutal of the three, he is still very subtle most times, being deceptive and persuading to mortals as to use them as means for his own schemes (Volo). For short, in his eyes mortals are just a means to an end, so easily fooled and tricked.

Arceus, instead, is generally emotionally far from the mortal world, but they love their own creations and cares for them from the distance, as they watch over all (PMD2, Legends). They're not very prone to anger, but rather tends to resolve conflict with intricancies behind the scenes as to solve the universe's biggest problems. Regarding the mainline universe, they originally thought of Pokémon as the only creatures to inhabit this world, as humans were born as a "mistake of evolution"; but once the Ancient Hero of Hisuian mythos proved human dignity to them by challenging them in a friendly match, Arceus got that Pokémon and humans deserved equal respect, and even more did deserve the bond between them

I hope I haven't been too long with this DJDGDHDHDH, I know these are mostly headcanons and don't have much concrete proof in the games (be it DPPT, PLA or PMD), but I've grown to imagine them as their own characters, and with such personalities! I hope I answered your question in a satisfying way ♥️😭🙏

[thesherrinfordfacility]

left vs. right framing - part one (flashbacks)

ive talked about, very basically, ineloquently, and with very little academic reference*, the linguistic and symbolic connotations behind the concept of left vs. right - and i don't think it's escaped anyone's attention that s2 has a lot more noticeable examples of the 'reverse placement' than we see in s1.

*also please ignore the bit where i say that the only time they reverse in s1 is in 1601 because i lied like a rug, i was a fool, and my god does it happen at some auspicious moments in s1 - in fact it happens way more than i originally thought... because it's not just a case of when aziraphale is physically positioned to crowley's left vs. right, but also when the audience perceives him on the left vs. right hand side of the screen.

neil has also acknowledged their deliberate placements (which i hadnt realised before i wrote the above, but im nonetheless glad i wasnt reading into it baselessly). he invites fans in 2019 to their hcs on why this would be the case, so fuck it im going to give it a go.

im going to go in the chronological order of their timeline, not just because it's more logical, but because i think the placement directly relates to aziraphale, and his development since the beginning.

by way of an introduction, i think it should be noted that in the pre-fall scene, on the wall of eden, and in mesopotamia, aziraphale is positioned resolutely to the right of crowley. there are some shots where the audience sees from behind them, but their placement does not change. this gives us the baseline - their traditional positioning - upon which to contrast the occasions that follow where this changes. when we are introduced to aziraphale, he is shown as being (for the most part) conventionally angelic, and very clear in what is the heavenly, right path, derisive at crowley's alternative perspective as a demon.

aziraphale is pointedly on crowley's right for most of the show, or at least shown to the audience as being on the left-hand side of the screen. the way i interpret this 'traditional' position of his, is that it connotes that aziraphale in a state of certainty or conviction. when aziraphale is shown in the opposite placement - to crowley's left or on the right-hand side of the screen - it suggests that aziraphale is battling some kind of internal conflict.

2500 BC

i debated whether or not to go into the job minisode, but i do think there's a very important moment that whilst maybe they do not deliberately swap their habitual places (ie. it could be for blocking reasons), there is a moment where, to the audience, they are shown in a switched position.

for most of the minisode, aziraphale is shown in the traditional position in relation to crawly. there is no doubt in his mind that the children should not die, that is the part that is concrete. his hesitation in this minisode comes, however, from whether he should question what, as crawly states, is the exact will of god.

aziraphale seems to toy with the idea, as far as i see it, that god is not actively supporting or discouraging harm being done to the children; she is, simply, letting her creations decide for themselves, and no answer - to her mind - is wrong. it's all down to free will, and what her creations think is right or wrong. aziraphale seems to understand this to a limited extent (albeit then later on considers that maybe it was the will of god after all); he contradicts crawly, but nonetheless goes by his own moral code of thwarting job's children's fate... as heaven deems it should occur.

but in order to do so, he has to lie - and therein sits the moral dilemma. he baldly lies to the face of two powerful archangels, one the highest angelic (?) representative of god, outright defying what he considers may be the will of god, and does the bad thing to ensure the right thing. what is the greater crime, to his mind? well, he makes up his mind, protects the children, and lies:

it could very well just be because this is how the scene is set up, and there's nothing else to it. but for aziraphale to not only be placed to the left of crawly, but for a) aziraphale to be placed to the left of all parties present, and b) crowley to be placed to the right, with all the angels between them, indicates just how difficult aziraphale finds navigating this situation - absolutely supported by his later anticipation that he will be made to fall for his 'transgression'.

1601

so i think we can pretty much agree that despite not being the only time in s1 for them to deliberately or pointedly switch within the scene, it is the first, and perhaps most pivotal, time that they do. between job and 1601, all of the flashbacks have had aziraphale placed traditionally on crowley's right, and connote aziraphale's moral conviction.

by 1601, we know that aziraphale has been resistant to the Arrangement when crowley proposed it in 537 AD. aziraphale sticks to the heavenly, angelic principle that it would be lying and dishonest; probably scared out his wits by the close-call in uz, but also out of fear that if they were to be found out, michael and gabriel would rain shit on him.

(which, given how their 'fraternisation' got revealed in 2019, may or may not have been unfounded, depending on how you look at it. gabriel is hesitant to accept that it was anything other than aziraphale doing his job - "im sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation." - and it falls to the archangel baddie trio to rough aziraphale up for it)

but by 1601, aziraphale's resolve in this regard has wavered. he admits that he and crowley have been doing favours for each other, but doesn't want the title 'Arrangement' given to it, and certainly not out loud. but when crowley continues, as he did in 537 AD, to persuade (tempt?) aziraphale into it, the reasoning as to why he's resistant has changed. he no longer gives the explanation that it would mean disaster for him in heaven, but that it would spell annihilation for crowley with hell.

i feel like this is something crowley is well aware of - that aziraphale is not necessarily against the idea (after all, they've done it "dozens of times now"), that aziraphale certainly sees the benefit of being slightly slopey-shouldered, and all he needs is the final nudge to betray his morals, and disregard his, frankly, valid worry that crowley being caught either fraternising with an angel, or indeed doing good things, would be an unmitigated catastrophe. (see: 1827 death-slide into hell, and 1941 literally caught red-handed)

by all accounts, the Arrangement is a Bad Idea, and if aziraphale isn't blatantly clairvoyant about this, he's certainly got the better measure of hell and heaven than crowley seems to. imo crowley, however, chronically underestimates them both - hell, in particular. his platitude that hell will not care as long as they get the paperwork is proven false in the next few flashbacks, and yet he continues; if nothing else, it stops being an excuse to slack off, and instead becomes a way to keep seeing aziraphale. aziraphale is evidently reassured by crowley's conviction sufficiently enough (as well as likely wanting the same excuse) to agree.

but again, this goes against what he believes is the right thing - whether it's wrong because it's not angelic or because it would mean crowley could get hurt, take your pick (both are equally compelling) - and this is represented, for me, by crowley literally oscillating behind him. it constantly puts aziraphale on the edge of that conflict, and when he lands - when he chooses to accept the Arrangement - crowley is on his right, not his left.

1793

from the audience's perspective, this whole scene has crowley on aziraphale's right. all of it. now before anyone comes to say it's just blocking - yeah, sure, okay, maybe it is. but it could, i would imagine, have rather easily been set where crowley is on his left. when aziraphale turns around, the camera deliberately looks over his right shoulder as he spins round, and places crowley on the left hand side of the screen. so let's look at it closer with the above 1601 turning point in mind.

there's the whole thought process that aziraphale set up this 'scene' as a way to get crowley to play the hero, his knight in shining armour - and whilst ive said it in multiple posts, i'll say it again; this is not quite how i interpret it. aziraphale definitely has a means to get out of the situation (there's no miracle blocker, he changes his clothes - even if that miracle "barely counts"), but he doesn't want to perform another because of the reprimand from gabriel. that being said, the risk of discorporation, especially when he'd have to explain the embarrassing predicament that he just wanted his sweet, sweet crepes (and brioche), would probably be a viable excuse to use a miracle; it's hardly frivolous, by definition. arguably, wasting a body would be more frivolous.

so by the point that aziraphale's tried - and failed - to talk his way out of the situation, and not noticed the guard being stopped in his tracks, crowley has appeared. crowley seems to definitely have a way of tracking him - whether it's a demonic-ish power, or because of the instruction left in the book furfur has in 1941, whatever. crowley knows aziraphale is there, comes to 'save the day', and aziraphale seems genuinely elated that he's done so. he asks why he's there, crowley avoids the question, and aziraphale assumes the worst (which crowley quicky clarifies is not the case... but still very neatly sidesteps giving a full answer).

it stands to reason that after this, and 1941's 'rescue', that aziraphale would get into his head the conclusion that he vocalises in s2 - that crowley is coming to his aid, even when it's not strictly needed (and aziraphale is just simply trying a different escape route before resorting immediately to a miracle to get himself out of scrape), because he wants to, and it makes him happy. regardless, it makes aziraphale happy in kind to see him, and to make crowley happy.

but the thing is - they both err on the precipice of acknowledging this. the way crowley drawls out his "lucky i was in the area", and aziraphale similarly says he is indeed lucky... the delivery suggests that they're both aware that this is an excuse to see each other... or, at least, aziraphale suspects that crowley isn't there by accident or coincidence.

ultimately, crowley rescuing aziraphale, as he remarks, is something that if fully acknowledged, out loud, could get himself into some hot water. aziraphale accepts this, but insists that he thanks crowley somehow - so, what about lunch? the whole scene reads as them starting to shake off the excuse of the Arrangement, and (even if only to themselves) admit that they want to spend time together. which, at the very least, places aziraphale in a moral quandary - should he want to? what danger does it place them in? what does it say about him?

the scene ends however with aziraphale placing himself firmly back in the standard position - to crowley's right - as the guard is led out to his mistaken execution. the scene obviously doesn't go into much detail about the sociopolitical landscape of the reign of terror, but i find it intriguing that aziraphale's moral conflict over his association with crowley (positioned to his left) as opposed to his apathy over the execution of the guard (positioned to his right) is as blatant as it is.

1827

okay, so now we get to one of the biggest moral dilemmas aziraphale faces. in case you missed this, im still more convinced than not that the s2 flashbacks are from crowley's POV than aziraphale's, and so there may be, to my mind, a degree of bias in how this flashback is recounted... but that's by the by. aziraphale definitely has, same as in job, a huge introspection on what he considers to be right vs. wrong, and... arguably still misses the point for the majority of the minisode.

but it's interesting to note that where aziraphale has conviction in his beliefs, he is placed on crowley's right - as per usual. where he falters, however, is in his conversations with crowley of humanity's choice between right and wrong. he claims that humanity's suffering gives them more chances to choose the right thing, which crowley counters doesn't make sense, given that their suffering - especially poverty - makes it so humanity will choose whatever improves their lives or ends their suffering, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

despite his vocal conviction in his principle, the angelic line, aziraphale seems to doubt it privately - you can see that in his expression - he's not entirely sure, or doesn't fully understand it at the very least. when he doesn't quite know how to give things a logical explanation, he falls back to the old standby of claiming that it's all ineffable, which... okay, sure, maybe that's true. who is he to question what god has deemed to be so?

aziraphale is not an unfeeling or unsympathetic person. so his view on suffering here is, in some ways, is completely at odds with some of the lesson he learnt in job; that suffering doesn't necessarily make you more susceptible to do right or wrong things, it only drives you to do whatever it takes to survive, to escape that suffering, and its fairly immaterial whether it's right or wrong. he learns in job to go by what he thinks is right, not by what someone else has dictated he do - and here, in this scene, i do think he begins to question whether things are as black and white as he has previously rationalised - that the situation with job is not a one-off. hence, to me, he is on crowley's left - occupying the position of examining his moral identity, and his conscience.

and just for the avoidance of doubt, he seems to reach a conclusion that, no, he has the right of it - indicated by his return to crowley's right. he thwarts elspeth with the body, and tries to further thwart the necessity of bodysnatching by attempting to convince dalrymple that if he wants the bodies so bad, he is at fault for exploiting the poor and desperate. once he holds the little boy's tumour, however, his moral stance shifts, and he starts to see the benefit to the whole endeavour - and returns to elspeth and morag, but still on crowley's right. he hasn't had a dilemma here, just a sharp realignment now that he has the context of human suffering literally handed to him. his stance on the issue literally turns on a dime.

1941

it's not until the graveyard, when crowley points out that only the rich have the means to safeguard their remains, and that by aziraphale's reckoning that sounds like the right way of the world, that aziraphale is once again forced to reconcile his moral dissonance. in this scene, aziraphale is once again on crowley's left as he examines this.

he continues to be on crowley's left, funnily enough, when they enter the mausoleum. aziraphale is warring with the decision to save morag, citing that it's not technically allowed but he has the power to do so, and it's his fault, so he ought to do it. regrettably, however, he's too late - and morag dies. and when elspeth intends to take her body to dalrymple, crowley still pointedly places himself to aziraphale's right, suggesting that aziraphale continues to be in internal conflict over the situation. something he feels is wrong but... well, "it's a bit different when it's someone you know."

for the rest of the minisode, however, crowley and aziraphale return to their traditional positions; and i think this marks where aziraphale does, in fact, learn something from the whole encounter. he still hesitates at giving the money to elspeth, but it's weaker than it was before; he follows crowley instructions to hand it over with little protest, possibly having seen that humans having a means to survive will, in fact, make it easier for them to make choices.

be warned; the 1941 examination is lengthy. however, i think it especially poignant in that this seems to be where we depart from aziraphale having issues reconciling his morals as concerns right and wrong in general terms, and instead it contextually hinges in direct response to how his relationship with crowley himself changes. it becomes a more specific introspection into how aziraphale handles the predicament of realising that he's fallen in love with crowley, and the conflict that this poses for him.

for all of the church scene, we see that crowley is positioned to aziraphale's right. this is in stark contrast to where we left off in 1862, when crowley is completely on aziraphale's left as per tradition - where aziraphale stuck by his principles on the issue of the holy water, that there is no way he'd ever give crowley the means to destroy himself (and then adds, when that doesn't dissuade crowley, that gaining it would also place aziraphale himself in a dangerous position), and doesn't sway from this. in 1862, he enters, remains, and exits entirely on crowley's right.

but back to 1941; upon reflection of the specific moments where he and crowley switch positions, or at least their positioning is reversed to the audience - as i said, i think 1941 might be where aziraphale starts to particularly feel conflict around crowley on a personal level.

crowley enters the church, and throughout is, on aziraphale's right instead. we could look at this the same way as we do the 1793 scene. but in 1941, with the context of the holy water, it feels like more than that (especially when you consider that crowley calls attention to the holy water in the church itself - holy water that doesn't serve any purpose within the 1941 flashbacks, but obviously inspires his heist plans 26 years later). aziraphale and crowley left off, canonically, on a bad note; they argued over it, biggest argument they've had (perhaps even the first?), and they've been disconnected as a result ever since.

but here crowley is once again, by my reckoning, very suspiciously arriving at the exact right moment (and before aziraphale even has a chance to get himself out of the situation which - let's face it - aziraphale absolutely could do), to 'save' aziraphale even after everything that happened, even after a huge argument that, again, canonically separated them for 79 years.

this arguably puts aziraphale into a quandary yet again; crowley has been the bigger person, to reach out first, and on top of that has done so by way of 'saving' him from literal discorporation, as well as associated embarrassment. aziraphale is still angry with crowley by the time he arrives at the church, and this is only added to by his assumption that crowley Has Something To Do With The Nazis, but he's made to very quickly re-evaluate his bias, his anger, and the measure that he previously had of crowley as residue from 1862. perhaps (spitballing here) aziraphale thought in 1862 that crowley was exploiting their friendship, and was manipulating him. and look - crowley may have in fact been doing just that, out of fear, but he still came to aziraphale when aziraphale 'needed' him, like nothing had ever gone amiss. and i daresay that fucks with aziraphale's head ever so slightly - makes him question, once again, what is the right or wrong thing to do.

and then we move to the post-bombshell but pre-Bombshell moment; 'lo and behold, crowley is now suddenly shown to the audience as being to aziraphale's left - back in the usual positioning. in those few moments, as the dust settles, aziraphale seems to have made up his mind, resolved his moral dilemma, and attempts to break the ice; "that was very kind of you." it works, puts them back into their familiar territory and dynamic... he's resolved his inner conflict that crowley did the right thing, the better thing - to set aside and (even if temporarily) let go of their argument, because they ultimately care very much about each other, and can always rely upon each other.

but the thing is, the positioning is the traditional way around... but only temporarily. crowley reveals that he saved aziraphale's books, hands them to aziraphale, and crosses over him, placing aziraphale back on crowley's left, rather than his right. in this scene, as we all know, aziraphale abruptly realises that not only does he love crowley, but that crowley, maybe, might just love him too. and it plunges, i think, aziraphale right back into the theme that continues through the 1941 minisode in s2; that he's now at war with himself, all over again, over his newly processed feelings for crowley.

with that in mind, let's continue with the s2 1941 minisode. because wow do we really get into the weeds of this left/right placement. so we've left the s1 1941 flashback where aziraphale has abruptly realised the depth of what he feels for crowley. regardless of the saucy subtext of aziraphale's lines in the bentley, he tries to coax out of crowley a way in which he could possibly repay his kindness, and is knocked back*. but once we get into the windwill, aziraphale volunteers to cover for crowley when he bollockses up with the whisky bottles, an act of reciprocation as far as aziraphale can brave at this early stage - and all the while, aziraphale continues, from the rubble scene where crowley crosses from the right of the screen to the left, to be on crowley's left, rather than his right.

(*i do however find it rather telling that instead of crowley delivering on "lift home?", he chooses to take a detour and bring aziraphale along with him... a scheme? to keep in aziraphale's company for longer? who knows)

we could interpret this as aziraphale being at odds with himself because he's doing what is ultimately a personal favour for a demon, and in reciprocation - but i think he's far beyond that being An Issue at this point. yes, he's taking this opportunity to pay back the favour he feels he owes crowley for the "very nice thing [he] did" because road head wasn't cutting it, apparently, but his line? about crowley being his friend? no - aziraphale is still sitting on his inner conflict of realising, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, that he's in love with him. this positioning continues all the way through the bookshop scenes.

given the dialogue in the scene, it's a continuation of the above moment in the windmill; aziraphale is fully cognizant of his newly realised feelings for crowley - we know this from his twice-hesitation of the word 'friend' - and is still stuck in that realisation, possibly even warring with himself internally as to where to tread that fine line... does he go for it, acknowledge it out loud? is now the time? has he fully understood what crowley was, he thinks, trying to communicate to aziraphale? is it right? would it put them in danger?

this whole internal conflict is set aside somewhat by the magician plot, and when they leave the bookshop, leave its safety and enter into unfamiliar territory, aziraphale is back on crowley's right. i don't think it's because he's made a decision, or resolved to anything, but more he's had to bury it momentarily, and put the mask back on again. it doesn't slip until aziraphale is trying to convince crowley to engage in the bullet catch, in a small moment that aziraphale thinks is unobserved by anyone. i don't think aziraphale can't quite miss crowley's hesitancy, and even mimics his head movements to maintain eye contact, cornering crowley into agreeing to the trick.

however, i think the fact that - once again - aziraphale ends up placed to the right of the screen, rather than the left, indicates potentially that aziraphale is still conflicted. his interactions with crowley here scream of aziraphale levelling up their dynamic by placing his complete trust and faith in crowley, of wanting crowley to help him - of reciprocation.

and yet there is still the suggestion that perhaps this is cutting it too close, and that aziraphale is, in his overall excitement, losing sight of what they - as an angel and a demon - can and can't risk. this foreshadowing ultimately pays dividends later on in the minisode; this very closeness is what brings them, as close as they have been so far, to near-destruction as a result of their affiliation... and that's just when, ultimately, they were just friends; what would happen if something more was acknowledged?

let's continue this onto the stage; crowley crosses aziraphale in the reverse motion that we saw at the end of the church scene, entering the screen from the non-traditional left hand side, and crossing back over to aziraphale's left/right hand side of the screen.

this to me feels like aziraphale is resolute in his faith in crowley, despite the issue surrounding the miracles; he doesn't abandon the performance... not just because it could be embarrassing for him to do so, but because, miracles or no miracles, he trusts crowley to do this. the issue that remains is convincing crowley to trust in his trust which, ultimately, crowley does - and the trick is performed flawlessly, only cementing aziraphale's conviction that his faith in crowley is not misplaced. sure, he's scared in the scene once he realises miracles are no longer a safety net, but his trust in crowley doesn't waver.

but then! then! we get to the dressing room. we see most of the scene, understandably, from behind aziraphale and facing furfur - this places aziraphale on the left-hand side of the screen as per usual. but in the context of his position vs. crowley's, they are reversed. aziraphale is positioned to crowley's left, instead of his right.

this calls back to the dilemma aziraphale faces right back in the bookshop; what risk is there in aziraphale potentially acknowledging his feelings out loud to crowley? or reciprocating, as he suspects it would be?

crowley is being threatened, and their closeness, their affiliation, their fraternisation, has directly brought the threat to their door. it's the bucket of ice water poured over them, over aziraphale in particular, that to be anything beyond idle acquaintances will bring danger and despair - because it literally would place crowley in harm's way. that brief moment of elation and contentment, of possibly even considering confessing what he feels - reciprocating, as he sees it - to crowley, is suddenly wiped away.

aziraphale saves the day of course, but it's a close call. it's too close, and not something that he can risk again. once furfur and the nazis leave, and aziraphale and crowley return to the bookshop, aziraphale is back on crowley's right. he's resolved to keep the status quo, because he's now been directly exposed to the risk of there being something more. that continued closeness with crowley as friends, let alone as anything else, puts crowley directly in harm's way. and it's a risk he cannot take; his dialogue speaks of him trying to impress on crowley that he cares for him, but compared to before, he now is keeping him at arms length.

a brief moment of consideration for how s3's 1941 flashback could go. it may initially continue on with this traditional placement; that aziraphale is resolute that despite what he feels, and suspects what crowley might feel, it is not worth the risk of losing him completely.

if there is any romantic push from crowley, as i suspect hope there will be, i'd imagine the positioning to be reversed, to show the last glimpse of aziraphale being tempted to it, of having to make a very clear, firm decision on whether to pass the point of no return.

but then aziraphale, id imagine, would come to his senses, and as he stands firm on keeping his emotional distance from crowley, to not risk his safety, and ultimately reject him, their placements would return to their traditional position.

1967

im finally going to finish off part one (part two will be written... eventually, and look at 2008 onwards) with a small look at 1967. this is difficult, because - for our sins - uk vehicles are right-hand drive... so there is literally no option but to have them in the reverse positioning.

because of this, i don't think it's fair to single out this one interaction of them in the bentley as being an instance that fits the above pattern - at least, not until all bentley interactions are examined. plus, neil confirmed that the positioning of aziraphale and crowley to each other (and, i imagine, to the audience) was very deliberate, but something they couldn't account for in scenes in the bentley.

regardless - the dialogue therefore, in my opinion, has to pull even more weight (and by god does it ever) in this scene to show aziraphale's turmoil over the holy water. that being said, even in the first few sentences, we know that aziraphale has actually made up his mind to give crowley the holy water; he doesn't like it, hates it in fact, and we can even see how much it devastates him to do so - but he has surrendered to handing it over in order to prevent crowley doing something dangerous and stupid in order to obtain it without aziraphale's involvement.

it's the lesser of two evils - aziraphale is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea - but he chooses to give it to him. wraps it in a tartan flask to remind crowley of what exactly the holy water means to aziraphale, and remind him of the gravity of the request. remind him of what aziraphale stands to lose if crowley was lying, if crowley in fact does intends to use it on himself, and also to remind him that the request is - at this point - a breaking point for aziraphale. their relationship to each other, whatever it is, is re-contextualised by this.

a lot of the context of aziraphale's last line is clearly wrapped up in the missing s3 1941 flashback, but it's still nonetheless clear that aziraphale is not necessarily conflicted over this decision anymore; he doesn't hesitate to give it to crowley, but merely states that he will do this for him, knowing the risk, because the alternative is worse still. whatever happened in 1941 means that aziraphale still can't quite bring himself to be close to crowley, cant risk anything anymore, but he still doesn't hesitate.

part two to come soon!

[moonliched]

I really love Y/N's look, what led you to add things like double rows of teeth? What led you to that design? Was there another one design before?

bonks my head against yours like a cat!! thenks :3

i repurposed an old self insert oc i had as a teenager bc i wanted to be self indulgent! some edgy gothic white haired girl with a fringe over one eye lmao😋 i miss her...

their colour palette is pale and greyish as a nod to the grey Y/Ns in this community, their hair is white bc mine used to be white, and their hairstyle is one i used to wear swimming! i was also inspired by futuristic white aesthetics and Suichu Niso underwater modelling shoots.

i pretty much immediately settled on Y/N as they are here including webbed feet and finger scarring, and then built on more alien features later. the 4th image down is actually the first time i drew them. i think i got the idea for the teeth about a month into writing, prior to the first chapter going up. mostly i decide on things by daydreaming a funny or angsty scenario based on their alien heritage, and then seeing if i can work it into the story without it seeming clumsy or overcomplicating matters for myself. i overcomplicate things a lot😅 for example i'm regretting having two suits. and two subs. why did i do that?? lol

there's a scene coming up soon after chapter 12 involving the teeth and Vanessa - that's the scenario that inspired Y/N's lil shark teeth. i was also thinking that if i met a mermaid i would totally want a scale as a souvenir, but what would be the mermaid equivalent? hair? a fingernail makes me shiver. but teeth, when losing a row is a semi-regular affair, would be cool. even humans collect teeth!

i don't have a concrete image in mind yet for the natives of Y/N's home planet, but it's something in the realm of humanoid-fish-person, scaly, they have hair but it's not human-grade. an alien unfamiliar with humanoids would easily mistake them for regular humans (they got four legs and a little round head, right?) whereas humans and the fish people would be very offended to be lumped in together lmao. as a result i got a lot of freedom with what Y/N gets to inherit! their human-ness is bit of a disappointment to their guardian tho, so they don't get the full deck of fishy cards.

this might be tmi, some rambling about MEEE!! at first the evidence of having alien features removed was going to be more drastic - i thought over flippers surgically mutated into human feet, a missing tail, scales laser-removed - but decided against those. i was having a really tough time with my disability and chronic pain, and i wanted to live vicariously through Y/N, so they pass as able-bodied. i can't run or swim anymore so it's nice that they can. i think the missing finger webbing counts as a disability, esp when taking into account their issues with managing the discomfort from the scar tissue, and having to actively maintain their health to avoid the drawbacks that would arise from this kind of amputation. Y/N should be grateful i wanted to cosplay as able-bodied, otherwise they'd be far worse off😌🫰

[brotrustmeicanwrite]

Using Schrödinger’s Mary Sue In Creative Writing

Every once in a while, out of nowhere, the idea of something like a cool fight scene, a witty exchange between the villain and hero or a very dramatic finale just ✨pop✨ into a writer’s head; usually accompanied with a sudden burst of inspiration. When those scenes involve established characters and stories, more often than not the writer regains consciousness several hours later having fully thought through the most epic thing they’ve ever written, contemplating weather or not they should rewrite the entire story to be able to properly include that scene.

But sometimes those scenes are just about A hero, A villain, A couple, not about someone specific. When that happens we often get stumped in the creative process because we have to sit down and actively create characters or fledge out vague character ideas we’ve had on the back burner to have material to continue the train of thought. And that usually kills that burst of inspiration.

That’s where what I call “Schrödinger’s Mary/Gary Sue” comes into play.

A SM/GS is a character concept for a specific archetype of character who possesses only the characteristics that you tend to give these archetypes, as well as all of the abilities for them that you came up with but weren’t able to include but wanted to.

To give an example, this is how my own SM/GS for the MC/Part Time Hero looks like:

- personality and appearance -

Vaguely Male

Light Hair

Kind (optional, might have been beaten out of them)

Intelligent

- abilities/roles -

Teleportation

Ghost sight

Half human / half spirit

Fox spirit

Dragon shifter

Follower of / reaper for the god of death

Genius magician and high priest

A planet throwing heavenly knight who helps the gods of creation fight evil gods from other dimensions

A literal god

Etc. etc. bc yes there is much more

That list on its own looks pretty Mary Suey. What makes that character a Schrödinger’s Mary Sue however is how to use them: Once that character has been placed into a scene their abilities are limited to just one, or if compatible and not over the top a few of those abilities.

This setup gives us the opportunity to experiment with not only that scene that originally came to mind but also old ideas that we didn’t want to abandon but couldn’t make work at that time. Basically what we’re doing is instead of playing with air, we play with an unpainted, unclothed, wig-less doll. It’s not concrete enough to just be copies of pre-existing characters but gives us enough substance to develop the scene; and if all goes well that doll won’t stay in that state for too long and become its own fully fledged out character.

(I used to really struggle with losing that burst of inspiration but since I’ve started using the SM/GS approach my brain has probably become the fastest and most effective recycling machine on the planet.)

Also, I you end up trying this for yourself, keep in mind to keep the SM/GS’s personality and characteristics as vague and basic as possible before going into the scene, else you risk writing the same character over and over again. Once you start working you can add proper personality traits and make a real character from that base concept. And of course, don’t be afraid to change those basic characteristics if you feel like it or the story develops into a direction that calls for it.

Happy writing :D

[septemberlikeastorm]

hi! love your acolyte fic on ao3 <3! i was wondering how you manage to pace your story so well and if you have any advice for new fic weiters on pacing out longer fics? i'm working on my first ever fic but i'm really struggling with keeping my chapters from being all over the place or certain scenes not progressing as far as i'd like them to.

ahhh hello my friend, thank you for being so kind & i am so glad you are looking to start writing fic!!!!

the really ugly & unsatisfying answer is experience, you can't tell from my ao3 profile but i am a battle-hardened fic veteran come from the trenches of FFN.net, riparoni to a real one

hopefully the more helpful & immediately applicable answer for a new fic writer is, i personally never think about pacing, only about throughlines, by which i mean, i never really am trying to go TO somewhere, but rather come FROM somewhere in the story

which looks like: i CONSTANTLY reread earlier chapters (or, if i've not begun the work yet, religiously pore over the canon) & go okay, what's been left open-ended? which character is pushing themselves too hard & bound to collapse soon? when they collapse, how does the other character react? what does Character B's reaction to the collapse reveal to Character A? etc

a concrete example is: i never ever conceived of the scene at the end of chapter 3 of cascade ocean wave blues come, where osha's interrogating qimir over his intentions toward her. i'd planned to end that chapter with them having Brat Summer but it was getting way too long (because when you write like this, all scenes progress WAY further than you ever intended, it's why my chapter count keeps rising lmao) & i needed to come up with something else meaningful to end the chapter on

so i reread what i'd written so far & said okay, osha's been having a really overwhelming day where she's discovering she really gets along well with this guy who Murdered Her Friends & she's kind of starting to understand why he did it & see that potential for violence in herself which is pretty upsetting, on top of which she's just found out he also kills for pay, which like, what the fuck but in the same breath he assures her, very seriously but also very casually, that if anyone hurt even a hair on her head he'd raze an entire planet. & they've known each other for like two weeks

& like. how's a girl meant to respond to all that at once??? so i thought an impactful way to end the chapter might be to have her try to take stock of the situation by asking what he really wants from her, a scene i'd never planned on but turned out to be one of my favorites & be really well-received by readers!

so hopefully this approach might help push scenes to progress fully/really allow you to mine each one for all its potential? as for chapters being all over the place, i think what could help is applying this method of unspooling threads from canon/past chapters not just to plot beats but to themes & metaphors

so for example, i never started cascade intending to liken qimir's most intimate feelings to shattering & to red birds, those were just throwaway lines from the first chapter that, upon obsessive rereads, i thought i could beat the horse dead about extend further to explore how his perceptions of himself & of his capacity for love & joy evolve throughout the story

& even if you've got a chapter that doesn't feel, in terms of action, like a cohesive whole, if you can touch on those themes/metaphors/that emotional through-line in most of the scenes, it can really tie everything together & show how a character's emotional journey carries a story through chapters & to the end - not necessarily to where you'd started the fic intending to go

i hope that is even A Little Bit helpful!!!!!

[rraaarr]

I think Aziraphale should at least get a little credit that the Only Line Crowley couldn't, and most ppl seem to agree(including me) Shouldn't have crossed to be with Aziraphale is the Same Line Aziraphale was Constantly risking by socializing/making heart eyes at/associating with Crowley for 6000 years

And I want to be clear, it seems pretty obvious that Crowley most likely suffered very real and terrible consequences from hell bc of his relationship with Aziraphale. We see a very concrete example with the Wee Morag and Elspeth situation (though we don't actually see what happens, but I feel that it's implied that it's very awful). And Crowley Should and often Does get credit for this. So, this isn't a "who risked more" post, because the Whole Point is that they both risked basically everything to just...hang out together. This is more about What Exactly Aziraphale Was risking in light of the S2 breakup scene, and that thing is Identity.

Because the S2 breakup scene, and really the audience's reaction to it, shows us that Aziraphale is out of pocket for offering Crowley to become an Angel because (whether or not Aziraphale realizes-I say not- but that's another post) it Fundamentally Changes Who Crowley IS. And this heavily suggests that Angel and Demon function as a kind of identity (as opposed to a job, which is, in my opinion, slightly more the book's take). And if we are looking at Demon and Angel as at least Some Kind of form of identity, then I think it is relevant to recognize that Aziraphale was Always risking his identity for the better part of 6000 years. {And It is very important to Also recognize that it is Crowley who spares him this in the Job episode (perhaps in a way Aziraphale Doesn't in the breakup scene. But here is where I would like to point out that Aziraphale was possibly Excited about being together as Angels with Crowley, but he never actually made that decision for her, as Aziraphale never actually made a decision at all. Crowley is possibly upset that Aziraphale didn't know them well enough to understand that Demon is a functionality of their identity and to say No Immediately.....and this is another post,lol)}

The worst that could happen to Aziraphale is Fall, to have his identity stripped from him. (which, arguably, Crowley did have their identity stripped from them when they fell, though Probably not because of Aziraphale-or who knows-,but I feel this really convolutes things, OR clarifies, because, I guess it makes a lot of sense if you view Angel as an identity that Crowley had stripped from him, then it would Make Sense that Aziraphale would Want to Restore that, but then it also means that Aziraphale is losing sight of the 6000 years of identity as Demon, so restoring would perhaps Erase those 6000 years, as opposed to what Aziraphale is possibly thinking, which is that he can give a piece of Crowley's identity Back to them, not really realizing that having that piece of identity Removed is Part of their identity now...and it gets complicated)

I just think that if in the Good Omens show universe, If Heaven and Hell are The Same (as the show frequently points out), and If Angel and Demon are viewed as forms of identity, then I don't think Aziraphale falling is any better than Crowley becoming an Angel. And I just think Aziraphale should get Some credit for risking his very identity this whole time.

[desceros]

How do you personally plan out your fics, especially with one as long as Symphony? Like what's the process behind creating the chapter outlines before you start writing?

so in the very beginning, all of my fic ideas start out the same regardless of length. it always starts with a little kernel of an idea. for example, with symphony, i wanted to write a fic exploring donnie having touch starvation after developing ptsd post-krang. hence why the google doc title is "touch-starved donnie."

then what happens is i start thinking about scenes that i want to have happen in the fic. i'm not really paying attention to anything chronological just yet, just Cool Shit That I Want To Write. this is when i start getting a vague idea of length; the more scenes that pop into my head, the less connected they are (thus requiring more things written between them To connect them) the more i'm like haha! uh oh! this is gonna be a big one huh! and eventually i'll get to a point where i realize that yep, this is gonna be a chaptered fic.

at that point, i start to kind of... pin things into place in my head in a chronological timeline. (this is all still very early in the planning process, mind you.) i'll think of when i want certain things to happen, what key points i'd like to have occur, when they'd make sense together. so this would look kind of like... i knew i wanted to have a scene in symphony where you went on an aquarium date with donnie. and i knew i wanted there to be a scene where you touched him and he was overwhelmed bc it's been so, so long. and i knew i wanted there to be a scene where he kisses you to 4'33. and i knew i wanted to have a scene where leo smelled donnie on you. so you can figure out it goes learning to touch donnie -> leo smelling him on you -> 4'33 kiss -> date with donnie. you do that over and over with all the scenes in your head until you have a general timeline of things.

this is when i start writing things down properly. before this, i'll write down, like. lines of dialogue that i want to have happen or key things to have happen. (e.g. "do you wanna try it?" -> you asking donnie out was planned before i had a single chapter written. i had a list of the escalation of touch that you do with him. a list of the subplots i wanted to incorporate. etc.) but i'll kind of write a... summary of the fic. truncated, but with enough detail that i know exactly what i want to have happen, as seen here in my plan for chapter 9/the beginning of 10:

you'll notice it isn't completely faithful to what happens in the fic... and that's because sometimes while i'm writing, i'll have a better idea of how i want something to happen, or i'll tie in something from a future/past chapter that fits better, or i just straight up change my mind. you're allowed to deviate from your plan!

sometimes, if i'm Really getting into the weeds or if scheduling is important (like. say. if you're writing a character who is a bit of a workaholic and has a tight schedule with things, cough, violist-chan) i'll make a calendar. this lets me keep things straight with when they happen without creating any time paradoxes. (this particular one is color coded later on as i realized i had to track certain things, but don't worry about that. not relevant for this question!)

so at this point, i have an outline of the fic on very broad strokes, most of the chapters summarized out specifically (usually a few chapters ahead, and the last. hm. three or four or so, with the last chapter very specifically planned out) (...yes i do know exactly how the fic is going to end and you're all going to die. but not as hard as i am!), and a calendar with when things happen.

then what i do is i open the google doc, put the summary for what's supposed to happen on the left, and get writing.

and voila. that's my planning process! simultaneously very nebulous but also...... extremely concrete. hehe