Darkly Dreaming Davey

I'm not even sure if it's "writer's block" so much as a complete inability to focus. I have a bunch of concepts that I'm stuck on, or have no clue how to start. I think tomorrow I just need to start fresh, really buckle down, and just... Pick a project and start.

 I know I literally just posted but I do have some thoughts I've been sitting on for a little while that I'd like to try and expand on, or to at least get down in a somewhat coherent format. I've been poking at the poetry collection I've had kicking around in my head since fucking 2020 (god, can you believe?) and once again it seems like giving these ideas time to marinate and grow pays off, because when they stick they become so much richer.

Not that I really know what I'm doing, mind you, but I'm definitely onto something.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of possession as a metaphor, or as a symbol - and I can get into my thoughts on the analysis of horror In General another time, because that whole train of thought is even less organized than this one, if you can believe. I think I just like waxing a bit poetic about the things we find scary, or at the very least how that is portrayed and communicated through media... At some point I need to actually sit down and write an essay about major horror films and the tragedies that took place at the time they were being filmed/released and the parallels there... But, again, a conversation for another time.

I was just thinking about possession, specifically, and all the ways it can be used as a device to communicate the fear of something very different. Sexual assault comes to mind first and foremost - having something enter your body against your will. Pregnancy, ditto, with the addition of it taking up residence there. Possession as a narrative about mental illness, as well, is something I can see; someone you know beginning to act differently, or even in ways that are frightening. Talk about "demonizing" mental illness... Possession as a metaphor for abuse can be applied as well - I mean, look at the original Amityville Horror: there are multiple instances within the book of the parents acting in ways that are just mean toward their children, if not outright abusive, but in the end it was totally "the influence of the house," right? The first The Conjuring film also comes to mind, the possessed mother attacking her family... Now that I think about it, Netflix's adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House applies to that, as well. But you get the idea, I think. The Exorcist, with its portrayal of the possession of a young girl, can be seen as a metaphor for puberty, or just one's child growing up and becoming a person we don't recognize, one's child being "corrupted" by the outside world etc. etc. (And, from that particular angle, there's a lot of room to discuss how the enemy in The Exorcist is the Christian Devil and also...some demon from quote unquote "Middle Eastern mythology" - so is our "enemy" evil and sin or "foreign influence?" I am frothing at the mouth to unpack this, but lord I do not have it in me right now). The Exorcist in particular is hitting home a lot, with the current USAmerican climate around "corrupting our children" rhetoric that's being thrown around...

Possession makes such an interesting and versatile allegory, and I'm chomping at the bit to use it myself.

Ivory Tower is officially finished - honestly, still recovering from writing it. I feel a little bit like I photocopied my guts and posted them online, you know?

So, obviously, I want to do it again. It's really just a question of where I want to start.

I have a handful of other dmmd fic I want to work on - the recapitation au, a new vampire au, possibly a vld crossover fic because of who I am as a person... there's still the 80s punk au, SUPERTOUCH, BLACK STAR, and...god, I really do have a whole lot of ideas just floating around, if I'd just pick one to focus on lmao. And also a mha fic I've just started turning around in my head, a little gothic horror number I'm still stirring around a bit, but that I'm already very excited for.

I think in terms of keeping my sights aimed high, I'd like to take a more serious crack at the 80s punk au. The heel-toe-turn on that one is gonna be crazy to write, and I'm still not sure I have the skill to pull it off like I want to, but if I want to get better...that's probably the place to go. Maybe I can go back and forth between that one and another one for a while, see how things go.

Either way, I'm definitely going to let part 3 sit for a bit. I mean, I was sitting on Ivory for a year before I actually started writing it, I want to make sure the idea has time to like...ferment a little before I start going at it super seriously. I'm not even sure I want to stay married to all the notes and plans I've made at this point, you know?

I've also been poking at Egg Tooth again, and really liking some of the changes I've been making. Still have a lot to figure out, but I'm still in the early stages, so it is what it is. I even poked at Nowhere OH a bit this morning, but I am still a teensy bit lost on how to move forward with it just yet, plot-wise. Much to think about.

I am still working/fixated on this DMMd fic, lmao.

Part of what I'm trying to do is get really into Mink's headspace and really emphasize his character development. In his route in canon, though it doesn't happen within Scrap itself if I recall correctly, Aoba still plants a "seed" within his consciousness that prompts him to decide to keep on living. Since none of that fucking happens in this AU, that has to happen a bit more organically. So I'm working in a lot of introspection and reflection on things he's done, choices he's made - he is constantly grappling with his own propensity for violence, how he isn't sure he even knows how to live "normally" anymore because he's spent so long just fighting to survive, and using others as the means to an end; and he has to try and reconcile that with his life now, where he's making friends, and trying to care for the people around them.

I also am trying to touch a lot on the differences between fighting to avenge people who are already gone, as opposed to fighting to protect people who are still living. The fear of loss. How so much of what he's done has, intentionally or not, just been a distraction from his own grief. Killing Toue, taking care of Sei, even playing vigilante on Midorijima now, these are all tangible actions. Facing his past? Mourning his people? He doesn't know how to do that. Where does he even begin?

I also think he and Sei have ended up being such interesting foils. They're opposites in many ways, but also mirror images of one another in many others. This started as a crackship, but oh no, they actually compliment each other really well and I think about them all the time. The brain rot has thoroughly set in.

And I could seriously go on and on about Sei's development in this as well, and GOD I'm so excited for part 3 because that one is going to be from his POV and I think it's going to be so so interesting aaaaa!!

...But I'm way too sleepy to continue, and I'm mostly just rambling at this point. I don't even know if any of this is coherent, haha.

Ok, still on that idea for a potential Twine game. It would probably still be fairly linear, but I think I could work in a good end/bad end later on, at least, so the format won't feel totally pointless, haha. Don't mind me while I dump some of my notes here.

Summary:

“The key to your salvation,” She intones, “has not yet finished gestating. It has been dreaming all this time.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“That is all you need to know.” She raises one arm, joints creaking as they slowly shift, index finger raising to point imperiously. “Now go.”

For ages, for eons, he has been operating only on what he needs to know—which is, evidently, very little. By now, he should be accustomed to working beneath the ineffable whims of a cold and reticent God. But he is still angry. He’s been burning for longer than human memory can fathom. And he will probably be burning until he is dust... If he ever gets the privilege.

Before he can die, he must collect “1000 evil souls.”
He has collected 999 of them.


Our main character—as yet unnamed, so we’ll just call him Main for now—has been wandering the desiccated wasteland of the world, the result of a decaying God’s psychotic episode projected onto Her creations. He doesn’t know why he was chosen to pass judgment on the last of the humans that have managed to survive the end of the world…if they can even be called that. But he only has one more to find. One more vile motherfucker, and he can finally get the rest that he was promised.

I have a few ideas for names, but haven’t quite chosen yet. I’m caught between Phanuel, the angel of judgment, or Sariel, the angel set over the spirits of sinners, and who looks upon the bloodshed on earth… Either would be very fitting.

(I also want a reveal at the end that Main has, in fact, been an angel all along and therefore has Always worked for God, rather than a mortal man chosen for a seemingly endless task as we initially believe… So I’m thinking it will be in first person POV, and we don’t hear his name until the reveal <3)

Here’s hoping no one is reading this, or you just got a HELL of a spoiler, lmao.

Anyway, as he’s beginning to travel again, looking for his last remaining sinner to kill so he can be done with this world, he finds an egg. And from it, hatches a boy. He calls him Bambi, because of his wobbly legs right after he crawls from his shell, and he’s determined to protect the boy and bring him back to God. After all, he may have hatched from an egg of all things, but he’s the first seemingly normal human Main has encountered in ages. And, it turns out, Bambi has the ability to heal things. Slowly, Main begins to think that this boy may just be the key to restoring the world from God’s madness.

The world hasn’t been destroyed—it is being reborn. Just as Bambi had to wait inside of his egg, in the madness and turmoil of 1000 years of dreams, so did the world, and with his hatching, healing and rebirth can begin. He was the last act of sanity and self-preservation of God. She sealed him up inside an egg to keep him safe, until he was ready, until She was, so that he could restore Her mind and they could create the world anew.

He returns to God with Bambi, only to find out that he is in fact the 1000th soul he is meant to gather—which can’t be, because Bambi is anything but evil. But She has decided that She no longer wants to save the world, she wants to end it for good. Once he kills Bambi, dooming the earth, Main can finally die and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Main, of course, refuses to kill Bambi. From here, there are two choices. Kill God, which unlocks the bad ending, or for Bambi and God to unite and become one. For the bad ending I’m just imagining this image of Bambi sitting on the corpse of God like a throne—a little would-be Christ, taking over after his Mother’s assisted suicide. How lonely it would be. Maybe he decides that it would be better to just restart the world fresh, erase everything and build it from scratch. In the good end, They reunite and decide that the world just needs a second chance. Together they can heal it—nothing will be quite the same as it was before, but that’s okay. The result will still be beautiful. And, of course, Main can finally enter heaven and be free.

I think it will end up being pretty short, all things considered, but I’m very excited to get started on it!!

I have a couple of title ideas as well, I think “Balut” is my favorite—referring to a dish of fertilized egg, served steamed and in the shell. Symbolically I think it’s really fitting. “Germinal Disk” or just “Germinal” would work really well, too—it’s a small white spot on an egg yolk where the female’s genetic material is stored. It would tie in well with the themes of gestation (though eggs don’t technically “gestate”) and birth, Bambi hatching from the egg, as well as the fact that he’s the child of a female God. Something referring to egg teeth could also be good, though possibly a different translation of the word. In Dutch it’s eitand, which has a nice ring to it. At least for the time being, here, I’ll tag this as “egg tooth” and change it later on if need be. I feel like that’s less likely to show up in a search.

But this post has already become so long, I should cut it off here, haha.