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kierongillen · 6 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 1923

Spoilers, obv.

Jamie said that for once, an issue of WicDiv will have more of my prose in it than are in the writers note. I joked that “We'll see about that” but I think I'm actually going to keep this one relatively tight. There is a lot of allusions and nods, and if I start doing the full Jess Nevins League Annotations, it's going to take forever, be over-explaining the joke and generally come across as a bad look.

The 1923 special was one of the logical pantheons to go back to, not least as the implicit floating question of “Who the hell were those four people at the start of issue one.” Not that alone made it happen – hell, maybe to the contrary. WicDiv is so big in historical implication that half the way it works is by implication. You choose a detail, and let the imagination populate around it. This nervous stand-off between saying too little and saying too much is very much a core balancing act.

I've had people ask what I knew about them back in issue one. The core, necessary stuff. The nature of what led to the suicide pact, the Gatsby-ish setting and the emotional underpinings between the four – Susanoo and Amaterasu's divine bro-sis complications, the history with Amon-Ra, the broad strokes of their personality, what movement in art they were representing, etc. But stuff changes, and lots of stuff added.

I forget where the core idea came from, but it was there and immediate and obvious in its “Oh yeah – that's clearly something that is intellectually and artistically valid, and also dumbly hilarious.” Which is very much the go-to WicDiv move. The way I described it to people was “Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but with a bunch of modernist figures getting bumped off. Theme of high art versus low art, the birth of the 20th century culture, the war, etc.”

Details added to that – the gods' suicide pact to try and avert WW2 – which started to lead to the gods we wanted to cast elsewhere. A number of figures who echo with the war interestingly – Orwell, Hemingway, Piccasso started to appear in there. There were figures I just knew I wanted – Woolf, etc.

The form came there – I had the idea of being a prose/comics hybrid early, but resisted it, because I knew it would be a lot of work. I say that not out of laziness, but out of simple possibility. In the end, I was right – there was no time to do this along my usual workload, and I ended up working over the Christmas holiday to write this. I had Christmas off, but otherwise, I was with the gods. Still – it was done quickly. As the lady says, “The deadlines were crushing”

The other options were to do in multiple issues. I found myself thinking that two issues may work – and that idea was before the Christmas Annual. That was rejected, as I was aware that while it wasn't laziness, it was to some degree cowardice. A prose/comics hybrid was the right idea to support the story. Commit.

So we did, and I started playing for time. There is a lot of research – obviously involving reading a bunch of the relevant figures, not least Christie to think of structure. I was picking my cast, and seeing how they fit together, and so on.

There was a problem. I still didn't have a plot. What were these gods doing?

At which point, on the suggestion of a reader on twitter, I read John Carey's The Intellectuals And the Masses and the scales fell from my eyes. Of course. I've been so blind.

The book is a gleeful, sustained and viscous intellectual evisceration of high Modernism. Much of it I already knew, but this specifically argued case made me realise the obvious: intellectually speaking, a bunch of them were fellow travellers with totalitarianism and had nothing but disgust for the common person. In other words, in WicDiv's universe, it made me realise I could step past my actual admiration for many of the figures in question and just follow those implications through.

And suddenly, there's the plot rather than the concept. In my head, I was thinking everyone would be very anti fascism. By realising some of them wouldn't necessarily be (or, at least, “Hey – it won't be that bad, and what really matters is art and the people who can actually appreciate art”.) I have multiple sides with multiple questions and a bunch of place to explore.

At which point, we needed our artist. Aud worked with Al on the Ultimates, which was my first extended exposure to her bar individual bits of art – we loved it, and thought she'd be perfect. We approached her, and she said yes.

At which point, the problems of scripting. I played with time to actually write the prose to get more and more research. The script I wrote her had the comic pages, but only included a synopsis of what happened in the prose bits, so Aud could follow the narrative. I'll include one of them later in this to give you an idea. The point being – the structure, and the primary clues (and red-herrings) were in existence at that point. I just had to execute them. I could put that off.

I did.

I ended up actually writing the prose two months after Aud got the script, so I had all her pages to look at while working. This obviously led to a lot of inspirational material back and forth. There's a few problems – some fun ideas I had in the process of writing aren't ever shown in the art, and some areas where I had to write around a problem. But some of those writing around a problem led to some of the more memorable bits in the story.

It was fine. This is a dense issue of WicDiv. I did the math, and I think in terms of material, you'd be pushed to do it in any less than 4 issues without compressing, and maybe even five. However, that was necessary to be what it was required to be. It was a dragon, and we killed it.

Here's a section from the opening letter to Aud, which basically speaks to the core intent...

The mood is basically an Agatha Christie Murder Mystery. This is pulp and light. It just happens to star riffs on some of the most intellectual writers of all time. As such, we kind of mock them. They're trapped in this kind of story – and this story kills them all.

At the same time, this is a story about form. What is comics? What is prose? Is illustrated prose just a comic with a really big caption? This is arguably the most modernist issue of WicDiv that we've ever done. As such, we're saying the exact opposite to the above as well – that we are the successors to these geniuses, and this is our ultimate tribute to them.

My tongue is in cheek with the above, but perhaps less than it should be.

I smile. There's a lot about this issue that makes me smile. And readers too – it went down in basically the most optimistic scenario it could have been. We knew that there would be some people who just rejected it due to the comics/prose hybrid form – and hell, I don't even necessarily think those people are wrong to do so. However, with a handful of exceptions – none of whom were reviewers – the only people who didn't like the issue were those who rejected it because of formal reasons.

I admit, this has led me to unpacking why people did, and some theories will come below. I also get the feeling this is an issue which I am at risk from taking the wrong lessons from.

Let's do this.

Jamie Cover: Minimalistic, clean, book cover. Instantly classy. Instantly foreshadowing That Fucking Lighthouse.

I notice the $4.99 price here. Yeah, we decided to sort of stack the odds in people liking the oddness. This is a lot of content for five dollars. If people like the way I think, you get your money's worth.

Aud's Cover: In giving Aud a brief, I wanted to do a scene which we likely weren't going to see inside. Plus the final cast hadn't been sorted out at this point, so we wanted to do something with the four figures from issue 1. As such, doing Amaterasu and Susanoo in a waltz among the living light dead struck us as fun. Aud wanted to integrate the title, which also works well. The doomed romance of the pair of them is certainly a key nature part, and felt good to foreshadow here.

Image Expo Cover: This was done far later than the other ones, and is so good we tried to work out if there was a way of switching it with the main cover. Alas, too late. This is inspired by Weimer Pursell's World Fair poster. Jamie is almost unrecognisable in style due to the lack of classical inking. I especially like this as it shows Lucifer on the cover, which obviously adds to the impact when we kill him.

IFC

The headshots were done last by Aud, after she done the rest – it was a “If we have time, it'd be good to do this too.” We played with some ideas for using them in different places (perhaps even as far as topping each bit of prose) but decided that was too much. That we go in deep with the prose at the start causes big problems. Oddly, my main take from reading Christie is how the opening of the books are the hardest parts – they're trying to set up so many characters, and I had a tendency (especially with my somewhat loose relationship with names) to lose which dude was which dude. That was always going to be a sticking point in this issue, so I felt a Dramatis Personnae to open would work as a visual anchor to the cast. “Dionysus? Who's Dionysus.” <Flips back> “Ah!”> and then back in.

Lovely design here by Sergio. I'll want to rave about Sergio throughout, but let's say it here loudly. This is amazing work.

Okay! The gods. Let's do what everyone's been asking for and saying who's influenced by who. Or at least, broadly.

Part of the reason why I wanted to do 1923 in prose was it would give the opportunity to have all 12 gods. The specials have gone down well, but there's been a regular undercurrent of “We want to know more about the others”. In 25 pages, that's not going to happen, at least in any way which is useful. We have to focus to some degree. In this case, for once, we wanted to give a full image of a full pantheon, just to show how it worked in another period – and with that, a readers' imagination can populate others with more guidance.

Secondary issue: while I've been describing the comic as “Modernist poets in an Agatha Christie Murder Mystery” that clearly wasn't true. We'd already shown four gods from 1923, so it clearly couldn't just be modernist poets. Of course, this is the theme – high art versus low art and the various different approaches to the gods is key.

Essentially, the 1923 pantheon is half way between the 1831 and 2013 pantheons in approach, with elements of both. As a mid-way point between the two, that seems to work. The gods that hark to the future have an approach more similar to the 2013 pantheon. The defeated gods have an approach which has a little more to the past. It's more complicated than that, and there's obvious exceptions, but that's what the backbone is.

So some gods are based on an archetypal sort of creator or artform, with a few nods to specific things, (Amon-Ra, Susanoo, Amaterasu, Minerva, Baal) while others are inspired an actual figure with a few grace notes from elsewhere (Neptune, Dionysus, Morrigan) and others are inspired by a creator merged with something from their fiction (Lucifer, Norns, Set). And then there's Woden, who isn't a god, so the rules change.

I swapped “based on” for “inspired” just now in the above. WicDiv may be inspired by figures, but the real figures also exist in the world of WicDiv. This gives us the narrative distance required to do what we do with them.

So, from the top, and in broad strokes. If you want more of the indirect influences and some theories, I think TWATD has the best round up.

Baal: One part of the conspiracy. Researching the period, there is a lot of white elitist dudes of various stripes, and Baal ends up being them all. In terms of actual references, there's a lot of TS Elliot in there, but there's strong notes of Ezra Pound and the big reference only a few people have spotted is Wyndham Lewis, who I think provides the majority of the look. I'm not sure Jamie was thinking of that explicitly, but he wanted to definitely have someone who looks like an elitist. Of all the older-gods, he's the broadest and most archetypal, and that's because there's a lot of this sort of guy, and it felt like repeating the same character multiple times. It's also a pretty white pantheon anyway.

Amaterasu: The concept of her in issue one was “all of Dramatic Film”. As such, she recalls a lot of early movie heroines. In terms of her powers, she recalls Georges Méliès in several places. I wasn't aware of The Four Troublesome Heads at the time of writing, but I really wish I was.

Lucifer: Fitzgerald meets Gatsby.

Susanoo: If Amaterasu is dramatic film, Susanoo is comedy. Biggest influence in terms of me thinking of how he moves is Buster Keaton, and for me, Susanoo's movement was the thing that was always on my mind.

The Morrigan: Primarily Joyce. Jamie using the later-period Joyce eyepatch is one of my favourite notes in all of this, but Aud just makes him sing as the bedraggled writer. He's a heartbreaker. He's notably the Modernist who is against the Modernists' elitists and topics, which is one of the beats to complicate things.(Random quote from Woolf on Joyce: “a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating.”)

Neptune: Hemingway, with a few random grace notes from Nemo. I smile at “Sea god. Short sentences.” I had far too much fun writing Hemingway parody – the active character with the active voice.

The Norns: Wells, Huxley and Orwell, with grace notes in Little Brother from all their books. The idea of a triple-god who are all Future was the core of it, and I yelped in excitement.

Set: Woolf meets Orlando (which basically means it's Woolf meets her literary love portrait of Vita Sackville-West). Her historical-anecdote-for-any-occasion twitch comes from Orlando done in the style of Baron Munchausen's loving hyper-parody, but I can't deny it does come off a little like Tahani from the Good Place. The Set from Bloomsbury is my favourite pun in the issue, not least because people either get it immediately or just miss it completely. The figure I'm least comfortable with throwing under the bus, but I've already written her as a hero figure in Uber, so it probably evens out. I also remember things like the quote from the Morrigan above, which as a self-taught nauseating working man, does tend to soothe things somewhat. Like the Baal, her position is less being pro fascism (and Set is distinctly less pro fascism than Baal) and more a complete lack of interest in anything which isn't art. It's definitely one when the “inspired by” distance is key.

Amon-Ra: Embodiment of Jazz and Blues – primarily blues – with a little of the Harlem Renaissance. Most of the tiny nods are Robert Johnson ones.

Woden: Most of the visual language is are from German Expressionism (most obviously Fritz Lang) and the political beliefs (to state the obvious) Nazism. Like 2013 Woden, Woden isn't a god. He's a god who's killed someone and stolen their place and turned it to his own awful ends. When researching Uber, I found people like Hitler difficult to get on a human level. I've never known anyone like Hitler. Conversely, Joseph Goebbels? If you take the guy in his 20s propping up the the bar talking about how he's working on his novel and add virulent anti-semitism, then you basically have Goebbels. You can almost see him shiver in delight that he murdered his way into controlling art in his country... but there isn't a note of art in him. That's basically Woden. He's appropriated the art of a country at gunpoint. He looks like a villain, but even that look isn't his, and his villainy more profound. He would rule a people through sound and light. As Morrigan is the Modernist against Modernist's elitism, Woden is the Populist Against The People.

Minerva: Child-star archetype generally, Shirley Temple specifically. (I just typoed “Shirley Crabtree.” Now that is a very different look) In terms of personality though, I found myself falling into a slightly frenzied Enid Blighton Famous Five-ish voice.

Dionysus: Picasso as living Guernica. As good a place as any to mention the time-mashing in all of this – basically, the Spanish Civil War experience was moved from the thirties to WW1. That's the sort of editing we do with the figures. This is about (broadly speaking) “Between the wars and what that felt like, and giving birth to the 20th century.”

I lobbed a bunch of ideas at Jamie, and he did full body length plans for each. We'll probably include them in the trade when we get there.

Page 3-5

Right – 3000 words in and I haven't started the story yet. Things are going to be looser now – most of the thinking is above.

The second two pages were originally written as a splash, but Aud wanted to do it widescreen. I originally WANTED it as a two-page splash, but I didn't have the space to spare, so this re-creating it pleased me. Obviously this sets out the visual location of the whole story – here we have the island, here we have a lighthouse, etc.

Aud suggested doing it in a limited palette form, with the ink washes, and we clearly loved it. When actually describing the sea in the text bits, I was trying to evoke these actual seas, which is a fun way to do interplay.

But yeah – it's our “Here's Ananke.” As I suspect many have noticed, the specials main connective tissues are Ananke and Lucifer. The backbone of the specials trade is the meetings of Anankes and Lucifers across the centuries.

The “This will have to be my masterpiece” is lots of fun. I suspect this is how Christie felt about And Then There Was None. It's interesting that in all the conversation around the issue I haven't seen anyone realise that Ananke is Christie – some kind of demonic Miss Marple figure, writing the plot. It's also the first red herring. Clearly we know Ananke is a murderer at this point, so she's always the logical suspect. The story is based around flirting with that, stepping away from that, then stepping back to it.

The title was decided late – literally when this page was being laid out. I felt it was a little too obvious, but decided it was just obvious enough. Layout minimalistic, clipped, recalling both books and film (especially of the period). It's the first of that sort of thing, and far from the last.

Page 5

We initially decided we didn't need the icon page. We didn't think we'd have space.

Then the do-a-splash-as--two-pages actually created some problems, in terms of leading to all the early death reveals to be on the right. We were in a position of either padding the first text section by a page (and when that was long, it felt bad) or strimming it (which is bad, in a different way). Then we did some math and realised if we had an interstitial here it would actually bring us to the exact 56 pages.

So Jamie did the icons and everything became perfect.

Here he picks up the Art Deco from issue 1, which is a delight. Much to love here – I think his personal favourite is Dionysus' icon, which is understandable, as that's just awesome. I'm glad we actually found space to do this – yes, part of the book was showing a complete pantheon... but a pantheon isn't really complete until you see their icons.

In other notes, I'm considering using these icons as shoulder transfers for my Space Marine chapter.

7-12

Chapter 1!

Here's the synopsis of what I wrote in Aud's drawing script...

This is basically a series of short chapters, ala the opening of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (but shorter), introducing the various parties making their way to the island. I suspect they will be three, who will be...

The first ship reaching the island – Dionysus, the Norns, Woden, Morrigan, Minerva, Neptune. Possibly two ships. We set up some key relationships here – at least, Morrigan and Minerva seem to be getting on.

The Awesome Egyptian-mode approach carrying the Egyptian gods. It belongs to Set. Baal tells Amon-Ra Set is getting reading ready, before Amon-Ra then teleports down to the island, having seen...

...Amaterasu/Susanoo's approach, setting up their own somewhat populist beliefs in art (and light) and their fear they may be in an incestuous relationship. Amon meets them.

(Regarding teleportation: the gods have their selection of appropriate abilities to their archetypes – it's perhaps worth noting that the “Good” gods in this story tend to be sun or light gods. In the 2014 pantheon, the underworld gods tend to be the “Good” ones.)

One of his servants – made of living light, projected from the house – tell them that the final gods are arriving now. “Give them five minutes, then send them down.” Alone, drinking, he muses on all he's done to build this place? Will she finally be impressed with him? Someone arrives. He asks “Does this impress? “They smile, say it's perfect and for a second he's happy, before they click their fingers.

So there's the shape of it there, especially the key beats – it's enough for me to know there IS a solution.

This is the longest of the prose sections, and unavoidably so. The first movement of a Murder Mystery is to reveal the cast. It's also the longest section anyway – we start primarily in prose and we move towards primarily to comics. Prose is high art, old europe, etc and comics is low art, the new world, etc.

In terms of prose style, I weighed up what to do. I started thinking a pure Christie homage in actual prose, but backed away – it's a fun card trick to show, but I think it'd be less satisfying to the reader (who may or may not like Christie), and more easy to fuck up (So high risk for little reward). So structurally it was based on Christie, and instead the found a voice I found fun – a little period, but also a performance. And far too reference heavy for its own good. But Fun.

Fun is a key thing. The more I decided to be playful with the book, the better it seemed to work. As said, this is a key WicDiv stance. I haven't re-read it in detail (and I'm only skimming now) but I'm not too angry with what's here. That'll do.

The d____ was one of the Christie stylistic choices I chose to keep for period. It's fun.

Morrigan basically speaks in stream-of-consciousness parody throughout, including bits of Joycean scripts. Part of me was tempted to do the ““MORRIGAN: (softly). Aye.” said Morrigan, softly.” joke throughout. I can imagine Neptune wanting to punch him for the adjectives, evidently.

Hmm. Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking “I really don't need to say much about the prose sections.”

Page 13-14

The structure is key visual and plot relevant scenes are played out in comics. The stuff you need to see and we want to show you. Plus, abstractly, I suspect someone could just read the comic pages and get the core of the story.

(The things are prose are also things which are inefficient in comics – drawing room discussions are rarely riveting visual prose, and nightmarishly tricky to do with a large cast. Not that it's impossible – see THE WATCH chapter in Imperial Phase)

I like Ananke's complicity-inducing glance-to-read in the fourth panel of thirteen.

I do like the Butler.

And the reveal! These splashes were considered a bunch – my original idea was actually to have them in a frame, to REALLY AGGRESSIVELY make them works of art, and turn it into a gallery wall. In the end, the distance from reader seemed too much, and we went a way which took a lot of it in (as in, we're still looking at an image, the caption is designed to evoke a plaque in an exhibit, the caption of the prose also a framing in art) but just let Aud be Aud and blow people away.

So much here - First appearance of a non-sepia cover. I wish I did something with that apple too, for the full Lucifer-in-Paradise.

Page 15-18

Chapter 2!

The Metropolitan are definitely the great-lost-visual from the issue. Clearly, the robot from Metropolis as a servant.

Honestly, getting the cast to go at each other here is fun, in the dual conversation of what they're talking about (the murders) and what they're really talking about (Art). Also, they're mostly funny – some I like more than others, but when doing the prose, I rapidly found how much I enjoyed doing these affectionate mockeries.

Skimming through this, I'm considering who the lead actually is. In some ways, obviously, it doesn't have one – in my head, the Norns are the lead, and Verondi, specifically, but I suspect Susanoo is the moral and human backbone of it. People seem to like him too: everyone loves a sad clown.

19-20

See – this is where the “comic pages alone are still readable.” As in, we specifically show the core clues you need to know in the comics. There's other clues in the prose, and there's certainly red herrings in the comic (Ananke's sinister nature is played up).

I really like how Aud does the Butler here, which is good, considering it's the last we see of him – that fade in between the second and third panel.

Yes, page 20 is probably the most PAINFUL pun in the issue.

21-24

Chapter 3!

Man, the small change which nags at me most which I may change for the trade is Woden saying “We're not too different. Perhaps... two-thirds different.” Clearly, it should be one-third different.

The word “posset” is my tribute to The Box Of Delights, which is a traditional Xmas watching in my house.

25-26

And the last two pager – prose firmly dominating as the old world dominates the plot, to state the obvious.

Oddly tricky first panel to letter – I kept on trying to get a BIG BROTHER WATCHING YOU joke into it, but it always felt clunky. Or rather, clunkier than normal.

The red seaweed is a lovely touch for Neptune.

27-28

Pace-pace-pace. Neptune not being able to swim is, I suspect, my favourite character beat. Masculinity is one hell of a drug.

This whole sequence I imagined Ananke as a passive-aggressive Sherlock Holmes pretending to be Watson.

29-33

And Set giving serious pose at the end of 29. Well done, Set. You've risen to this occasion.

Quiet tension leading to violence. Honestly, I really like the My Chemical Romance vibe to the Norns – Verondi is very much the star here.

First appearance of the full on screen interstitial card – obviously saving the full explanation until later, nearer the climax, but the edging into comics formalism aping period cinema necessity.

I think the most chilling of the death scenes is this one.

34-35

Chapter 5

Always the shortest of the interstitial texts, this expanded with the end of Perhaps the biggest change from the synopsis was bringing forward the Amon-Ra/Amaterasu/Susanoo plot as the counter-plot to the issue. It was a case of me realising it served as a distraction, but also a useful human arc to them. I wanted to see it. If I wanted to see it, it implies that the reader would too.

Obviously Minerva is the player to watch at this point. I'm reminded of one of the minor influences on Minerva – namely, Alice of Wonderland fame. I say the core stuff earlier, but there's a bunch of that kind of thing.

Really nice how Sergio fills the half page at the end of this sequence – as I've said on twitter, it's interesting that many people have said “Most” of the comic is prose. That's not true – the majority of the book is comics. Prose just takes longer to read in the same given space. For readers, I get it, but it did grate slightly when reviewers did it. Basic fact-checking is the basic minimum.

36-39

We finally get Morrigan' dialogue in comics form – it was the first Morrigan wrote. Courier seemed the right choice.

I laughed when writing TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. No, this is not what Woolf was writing about.

40-42

Chapter 6.

The Modernists' last flourish – I was considering doing this section in the style of From the Lighthouse, with the floating perspective and virtuoso parenthesis use, but decided it wasn't worth the risk. Even if done in the parodic style, it's still a huge risk, and not necessarily one which will travel to more than a proportion of the audience. Plus, this is the Explain Everything To The Readers bit, so we really do want it to be clear.

I did consider going back to it at the last minute after I had done this take, but decided against it, in favour of a heavy smattering of Modernist injokes. Most obvious is that Orlando opens with Orlando playing around with someone's decapitated head.

43-49

And the climatic fight scene! Where things get sillier, but also more pointed. The ironic distance is opening up again with the cards.

“It's not all fine” a flirtation with WicDiv's core “It's going to be okay”

I kind of admire Susanoo's determination to pretend it isn't all this bad.

Aud suggested the multiple panels on 43 to show the disappearing of the light, which is a good call.

I also feel a little iffy about the quasi-Wells of Urdr – he's a mess of faults, and certainly was fond of many of these ideas, but he also was an avowed pacifist. I suspect he's the flip of Woolf – she got her hero spotlight in Uber, and now we get a twisted take. He appears like he does here, murdered after he gets in over his head while not realising what was actually happening, and is someone considerably more heroic in Spangly New Thing. But you'll have to wait for that, right?

Set's blowing of them apart is A+. And the dagger-twist of the core quote of Room of One's Own is... well, it's hyperbolic, but if you read Room, it's absolutely there. Room is an economic argument as much as anything else.

The final sequence being a Keaton-stunt married to pure-cinema-magic train creation (a nod towards the famous L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat which reputedly had people running out the cinema as they thought a train was going to hit them). Metaphorically, a lot of people were like Baal here. They got run over too.

There were some dialogue tweaks here to ensure clarity – Minerva's “Goodbye Set” to ensure it was clear it was Set who was alive.

50-52

Chapter 7!

If I went the FULL HOMAGE route, if Chapter 6 was going to be a To The Lighthouse homage, the first section of this would have been written as a screenplay while the second bit would be written like a propaganda news report. Ultimately, I don't think we needed to disrupt the reader any more than we already did.

Especially as clarity here is absolutely the key thing – we have a statement in Chapter 6 of what Set/Baal thought they were doing... and now we have a different reading presented by Ananke to the gods of light and then ANOTHER reading of what Woden thought he was going on with the Zeitgeist which is then immediately undercut by Ananke.

The key thing was making the mystery of it as plain as possible – we give you what we can, and then underline the fact “Perhaps someone will work it out” of it.

(Minor detail here, ala Alice – Woden gets Lovecraftian nod with the Colour Out Of Space)

Ananke's last lines came to me as wrapping it up, and one of those “Yes, this is exactly how to end this)

I suspect for all the monstering of the modernists, there's more of a fundamental ambivalence than you expect. If given a choice between Art Elitism and fascism or populist arts and advanced consumerism, I'd choose the latter... but doesn't mean the latter is ideal, especially when it's clear how all the gods of light have been played as much as the literary gods. As always with WicDiv, we're not really interested in easy answers.

53-54

And once more we return.

Back tomorrow, where Mothering Invention kicks off.

Thanks for reading.

#the wicked and the divine #WicDiv #aud koch #writer notes

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ddaddsprompts · 7 years

Note

Can I ask for a sequel for the heatstroke one? Either dadsona waking up in the hospital or dads taking care of him after he gets out

Craig; You in the hospital took a toll on him, so when you were discharged he was almost relieved. Almost. The doctor mentioned to him you weren’t fully recovered and that he had to watch over you as much as possible to see if you needed further hospitalization. Craig agreed to this and made adjustments to his schedule, cutting his morning runs a couple minutes short, having a friend take over the softball team for a while and substituting going to the gym with some pull-ups in the doorway and a few extra pushes while Briar and Hazel sat on his back. His full attention was on you. ‘I never knew there’d come a day where Keg Stand Craig would actively take care of someone recovering from a heatstroke.’ You joked as he handed you your medicine. ‘You sure this is the same Craig I went to college with?’ Craig smiled and sat next to you as you took your medicine. ‘The one and only, bro.’ This went on for a few days, and you were surprised at how well Craig managed with the lack of exercise. However, days turned into weeks and you saw that as he sat in your shared bedroom, he would often look out the window longingly as if he were reminiscing his long daily jogs. You noticed this and decided to say something about it. Reaching for his hand, you squeezed it with all your might. ‘Craig, if you wanna go back to exercising and spending time with the kids, I totally understand. I’m sure I can handle myself-’ ‘No, bro.’ He answered firmly. ‘I want to make sure what happened to you that day won’t ever happen again. Even if that means missing a few days of gym.’ ‘Bro, listen to me.You look like you just lost a pet to an avalanche, and I can’t stand seeing my dude like that if I’m sick. I can’t get better if you don’t feel better.’ It took a bit more convincing, but in the end, Craig rested his forehead against yours. ‘Promise you’ll be okay?’ ‘Yeah, man.’ ‘Drink a lot of water.’ ‘Mhm.’ ‘Call me if you don’t feel well again.’ ‘Yep.’ ‘And don’t forget your meds-’ ‘Okay, Craig. I get it. Will you go to the gym now?’ He laughed and stood up, grabbing his water bottle. ‘I’ll be home as soon as I can, bro.’’Try not to almost die like me, bro!’ You called out as he left the house.Hugo; The heatstroke left a silent but painful scar on him, from the moment he found you collapsed on the ground to your discharge several weeks later. Every day during your time in the hospital, he’d turn on the television and watch the latest wrestling matches together, careful not to get you too hyped up as you were still in critical condition. Hugo often asked you if you were feeling alright and suggested calling a nurse when you even felt the slightest uncomfortable. The protectiveness continued even after your discharge. Now juggling work and taking care of his family, Hugo prioritized you and took days off school to make sure you were fine. He had multiple alarms in his phone of the exact time you needed to take your medicine and always made sure that the room wasn’t too hot. It wasn’t just his workload you noticed; it was fairly obvious that he was very affected by your accident and often began sobbing whenever he gave you your medicine, getting flashbacks of the day you got the heatstroke and almost crying in front of you, but to be strong, he simply walked out of the room to let it all out on his own. And you were getting sick of seeing him that way. ‘Alright, time for your afternoon meds. You know the drill, honey.’ Hugo arrived in your room with your pills and a glass of water in hand. His face had a sad smile plastered over it, his eyes a bit puffy. He had definitely choked up a bit before coming here. As he sat down beside you, you grabbed his wrist after he handed you the pills. ‘Hugo, you do believe I’m getting better, right?’ Your question drove him into a mini panic mode. ‘W-What? Why? Are the medicines not working? Should we go back to the hospital?’ ‘No! It’s not that at all!’ You sighed. ‘It’s just that you’re acting like you’re slowly killing me, honey. Like all this medication isn’t doing anything and that I’m going to give out again. Are you alright?’ Hugo stared at you as you downed your medication, taking a seat beside you and putting his head in his hands. ‘Y/N, I care about you so much. You’re one of the first people I’ve felt comfortable being around in a long time.’ He gulped. ‘I didn’t want you to see me so, troubled and I knew it would make you feel worse and-’ You grabbed his hand and forced him to look at you. ‘Hugo Vega. You listen and you listen well.’ You demanded. ‘I don’t give a damn if you cried so much that this room would be filled to the brim with tears if you keep in what you’re feeling, it’s just going to make things worse for the both of us. Don’t you dare think you don’t deserve to feel what you’re feeling around me. I love you, and love includes being honest with one another’s feelings.’ Almost immediately, Hugo began tearing up and buried his face into your shoulder. ‘I just don’t want to lose you…’ ‘You never will.’Robert; While you were in the hospital, Robert was an absolute wreck. He picked up heavier drinking habits and cried to himself, holding on to your pillow in desperate longing. He was missing you so much that when the hospital called to tell him you were free to be visited, he raced over to the hospital and nearly crushed you on your bed. ‘Fuck, kid. I thought you…’ Robert whispered as his tears stained your sheets. He gripped on to you so tightly that you had to ask him to loosen up a bit, as you were still weak and very vulnerable to pain. It took a while, but you were finally discharged, the doctor instructing Robert to let you take your medicine and never stay too long in warm areas. The doctor looked a bit skeptical upon looking at Robert’s rugged appearance and asked if you were sure he was responsible enough to take care of you. You assured him that you were perfectly fine in Robert’s care. To say the recovery process was perfect wasn’t exactly true. Of course, Robert did his best to take care of you, give you your medicines on time and all that. Then again, there were times you missed your medicine and had to take it yourself which involved getting out of bed, which the doctor advised to not do unless necessary. When he remembered that he made you miss your meds, Robert would beat himself up about it to no end. ‘What kind of dumbass am I, huh?’ He put his hands through his hair and sighed in frustration. ‘You deserve so much better than me, Y/N. I wish I wasn’t such a fuck up.’ He repeated multiple self-degrading sentences whenever he forgot to give you your medicine or turn on the air conditioning, and it got to the point where you couldn’t handle seeing him that way. You were simply lying together at night, him wrapping his arms around you gently but protectively as if you were made of glass. ‘Robert, you really shouldn’t beat yourself up over all this. You’re trying, and I really appreciate that.’ You mentioned and snuggled into him. ‘Ah, shit. I can’t help it.’ He groaned. ‘I just…don’t want to see you like that again. It fucking scared me so bad and I thought you were gonna… you know.’ Tears started to well up in his eyes and he began to sniffle, so you held Robert close and wiped away his tears in silence. Neither of you had to say anything, for the comforting silence around you was enough to lull you into serene and calm moods.Joseph; Everybody knew him as the happy go lucky youth minister, the man who always looked on the bright side of things. But once you got hit with the heatstroke and he found you there, nearly dead on the bathroom floor, something in him just broke and he’s hardly been the same. True, Joseph was so utterly happy that you were back, but something about him just seemed off. His once merry blue eyes were now dull and full of fear, fear that the entire thing would happen again, losing you in the process. At night, you’d keep one eye secretly open as Joseph tossed and turned, sometimes getting up and pacing the room. He even looked more awful than you, and he didn’t even have a heatstroke. When you brought this up to Joseph, he denied it at first and insisted that he was perfectly normal. You knew it was a lie, but he seemed to try so hard to prove it was true, going to church again, baking with the kids, but it all seemed too forced. It wasn’t the Joseph Christansen you knew and loved. So you had to confront him again. ‘Joseph, you have to stop this.’ You wrapped your arms around his waist, back hugging him as he poured your medicine. ‘Trying to force yourself to be normal isn’t going to solve anything. It’s only going to make things worse for the both of us.’ Again, he tried denying it. ‘Darling, I’m perfectly fine, see?’ Joseph insisted and put on a fake smile. You glared at his poor attempts. ‘You may trick the neighbors and the kids, but you aren’t fooling me. I know what you’re like when you’re afraid, but I’m here now. I’m getting better, and you’re going to make sure I will, right?’ You explained. He sighed and turned around, giving you a big hug. ‘Y-You’re right. I should be more honest with myself.I’m sorry, Y/N.’ The man sniffed, gripping the bag of your shirt tightly. You squeezed back as tightly as your weak body could muster.Damien; A not so strong hearted man, he wasn’t in the best shape when you woke up in the hospital. In fact, Damien was sobbing on your hospital bed, silently begging for you to wake up when he felt your hand on his head. He pressed a light kiss on your cheek, knowing that you were still in pain and called a nurse. Once you were discharged, Damien turned into your personal butler, delivering all your needs in a flash and making sure you were nice and comfortable as you tried to recover. The thing was, he was trying a bit too hard. You’d catch him with a few tears dripping down his cheeks before excusing himself and running to the next room. Hell, he even refused to sleep in the same bed as you since his body heat might be too much and you’d overheat again. Instead, he settled for the slightly uncomfortable couch in your bedroom, watching you from afar. You looked at him one night, he was settled on the couch, reading a book with a blanket over his legs. His feet dangled over the couch arm. Damien was obviously uncomfortable but was trying to hide it for your sake. You suddenly got so sick of this and decided to speak up.

‘Damien, listen to me.’ The man looked up from his book, smiling as he put it down. ‘What is it, love?’ ‘This, thing you’re doing? This sacrifice?’ You motioned to him on the couch. ‘It’s a little too much, don’t you think? You’re bottling up your emotions again, Damien. It isn’t good for either of us.’ With his eyes widened, he took a big sigh and walked towards you. ‘I’ll admit I’ve been a bit…overwhelming with my ways of caring for you, and I apologize for that. However, I’m only doing what’s best-’ ‘Don’t give me that bull, Damien.’ You groaned. ‘I just want some boyfriend cuddles, damn it.’ He was obviously taken aback by this statement, but from the stubborn (and adorable) tugging of his sleeve, he had to comply with your actual needs. Cuddles. Kisses. Hugs. A lot of them. Mat; Probably the most emotional of the bunch, Mat would full on cry lakes of tears while you were in the hospital. His eyes would be puffy from crying and his throat would be raspy from crying out. It felt like a million years as he waited for you to be stable enough to be seen. But it finally happened; the phone call from the hospital saying he could visit. Mat broke down again when he saw you in the bed, this time showering you with tears and kisses of joy until the nurse had to ask him to back away so you could get some air. Once you were discharged, Mat nearly worked himself to the bone taking care of you. He’d give you all your meals in bed and (often) get your medication on time. There were moments at night when he talked in his sleep, calling out for your name and begging you not to go. When he’d start crying, you’d shake him awake and give him a hug. This lasted a while until you knew you had to do something about it. ‘Mat, what are you most afraid of?’ You blurted out during a movie session, pressing the pause button. ‘Well, losing the people I care about the most.’ He replied uncomfortably as if he knew where this was going. ‘Why?’ You grabbed his chin and forced him to look into your eyes. ‘You know why. I know about the dreams, Mat. Do you not think I’m getting better?’ ‘It’s not that at all!’ He choked up and began to sob. ‘I-It’s just… I…’ He buried himself into your chest, staining your shirt as you patted his back. ‘I’m scared that I’m going to lose you too. In all those nightmares, you’re back on the floor, you aren’t moving, the ambulance doesn’t pick up the damn phone and-’ You chuckled and kissed him. ‘Look at me, Mat. I’m here. I’m alive. And you’re here. That’s all that matters right now.’Brian; He thought of you as his everything, so when he found you nearly dead with his daughter who he thought the world of as well, Brian felt as if his entire universe was shattering to bits. He cried softly as they put you into the ambulance and promised to call when you were stabilized, or if you were… Brian shook that thought off and went to bed. When he was told he could finally visit, he dropped everything and raced to the hospital, to your hospital room and immediately enveloping you into a very much awaited bear hug. ‘I… oh God…you’re okay…’ Brian whispered and held you tightly, releasing you after realizing you probably couldn’t breathe. When you returned, Brian insisted on doing everything for you, cleaning up the house, washing the dishes, taking care of you, just with a snap of your fingers, Brian’s by your side and ready to take care of you. It was sweet at first, but it got to a point where you couldn’t even walk without Brian asking if you wanted to be carried or insisting that you head back to bed. Yes, you were still in pain, but it wasn’t as if you were a pathetic baby, no older than Daisy, who was always in bed and cried when they needed something. ‘Brian? We need to talk.’ You uttered, leaning against the doorway as he did the dishes. He turned around to face you in shock. ‘Y/N? You should be in bed, it’s almost time for your medicine!’ He gasped and grabbed your pills from the cupboard before you walked up and shut it for him. ‘The pills can wait. This is serious, Brian.’ You demanded and sat down on a dining chair. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, taking care of me and all, but for God’s sake, I can do things on my own. I’m not a child that is just going to break under your touch.’ There was a moment of silence before he nodded and rubbed his neck in embarrassment. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I did go pretty overboard with the nursing, huh?’ He bashfully agreed and helped you off the chair. ‘Dad instincts, eh? You can never shake them no matter who you’re with.’ You nodded and swiped your pills from him, dry swallowing before realizing it was a big mistake without water and quickly searched for a glass. Brian laughed and poured you a glass without panic, handing it to you. ‘Well, I guess my overprotective instincts helped there. Shall I carry you up the stairs, too?’ ‘Brian!’ ‘I’m kidding. Unless you want me to, of course.’((yes im still alive, school’s been rough but sembreak is coming up soon and i promise i’ll go on an answering spree just for you guys!!)) -mod coffee cake

#dream dad #joseph christiansen #robert small #hugo vega #brian harding #mat sella #damien bloodmarch #craig cahn

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