OPNERO

BLOG FOR MY WRITING PROJECT

[operationero]

MASTERPOST

HI im the artist @nexad0n

This is the blog for my writing project with the working title Operation NERO. I'm not sure what format its meant to be published in, but I do know I want to share it as I work on it.

This masterpost will host some cursory information about the project and my tagging system for easy navigation. Also links to other websites.

BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

"OPNERO" is a historical fiction apocalypse narrative that takes place between the late 1960s and early 1970s. It explores themes relating to religion, fatalism, patriarchy, power, and war.

As a narrative set in the late 1960s / early 1970s, characters in OPNERO should be expected to speak and behave in accordance with the era.

As a narrative about power and patriarchy, characters in OPNERO can be expected to say and do things that are deeply inappropriate by both modern and period standards. The narrative contains explicit and implicit racism, homophobia, and misogyny. Multiple varieties of sexual violence are explored, along with systemic and domestic abuse. The characters perpetrating these misdeeds are not necessarily evil people, nor are they intended to be taken lightly. SAVE YOURSELF THE EMBARRASSMENT AND REFRAIN FROM MAKING ANNOYING SEXUAL COMMENTS ABOUT MY ART OR CHARACTERS.

OPNERO is a work in progress. information WILL change. go with the flow!

TAG DIRECTORY

#ASK : responses to questions both on and off platform

#MUSING : unprompted, unserious thoughts and notes

#INSIGHT : analytical writing intended to illuminate my thought process,

#PUBLISH : actual snippets of raw writing

#BIO : Bios!

Figure out the character tags on your own honestly.

MY TOYHOUSE HOSTS CROSSPOSTS OF SOME WRITINGS AND IMAGES AND FUN STUFF!

A community for collaborative character creation and trading, worldbuilding and roleplay.

[operationero]

if you ever had the opportunity, would you want to adapt operation nero into something like a tv show or movie? given that its of good quality and respects the original story

I think that OPNero as a whole is a really large and kind of ridiculous project that wouldn’t translate well to any medium. Even the “main narrative” (aka the events on the island exclusively from Rajiva’s perspective) is really pushing it in terms of annoying rambling. But i think some of it might be nicely adapted into the format of like, a prestige TV drama. The Terror is a fairly large inspiration for me generally.

But i honestly dont know if it will ever be “good enough” to adapt. I think projects like that need to be smartly designed collaborative efforts and not individual passion projects, as much as i take opnero seriously in a way it is still my own personal hazbin hotel.

Thank you for your ask… MWAH

[operationero]

Oh to be clear; the format i intend for it is a series of short stories. Errr vignettes. I hope you like WORDS.

[operationero]

would love to hear a breakdown on your recent here

Hmnn i feel like this one has less symbolic context and more like. Red background information which i try to give out very sparingly because i think it ruins his image.

CW for sexual abuseeee? Related? Self harm? General gorch fare.

I feel like its pretty clear red is a kinda unhappy person, right? Like hes a gleeful grinner but… ehh

He is and has been persistently somewhat depressed for the last 20 years, despite otherwise leading a very stable life. Existing in this space where nothing is “that bad” but just painful enough to monopolize most of his attention. Like a blister. One might be able to hash out why after reading his bio.

In order to manifest this malaise physically (probably in an attempt to care for or resolve something that can’t actually be dispelled) red engages in a lot of self harm behavior. That’s where most of his avoidant personality comes from and it defines a lot of his character that he destroys his own life in flights of fancy. He’s particularly prone to extreme risk taking behavior, mostly in the realm of dangerous sex, illegal businesses, cultivating career destroying scandal and burroughs-esq levels of narcotic experience seeking.

Image related, seeking out abusive relationships in which he was the victimized party as respite from his “idyllic” married life was his primary pastime as a young man. I think, in his mind he’s grown up past this suite of behaviors, hence why in the narrative he’s so domineering and has big boy grown up addictions. like liquor and prescription valium. The impulse is persistent though it may be baked into him at this point.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR OPNERO PROPER:

it is notable that he, despite being this untenably strict authority figure (from dannys perspective) i frequently demonstrate red being uncharacteristically tolerant of danny being disinterested in, threatening or cruel to him. This is the same guy that freaked out caustically when he was politely turned down by rajiva a decade ago shrugging off clear insane red flag behavior repeatedly and to immediate detriment to his mental (and sometimes physical) health.

This is the result of a combination of factors but underpinning all of them is the fact that red has this long history of putting himself in danger. As well as being classically desperate for attention (though only when he wants it and not for a moment longer)

THE ACTUAL FUCKING IMAGE JESUS:

This image chronologically takes place way after their professional relationship has long since been torn to tiny little pieces anyways. This is a post-trumpets scene, probably inches away from the end of his soggy life. This weird dirty fucked up version of red also shows up in this artwork and post:

Post by @operationero · 6 images

💬 0  🔁 0  ❤️ 16 · Post by @operationero · 2 images · breakdown on this one please ! I WILL! CW: sexual assault, abuse and exploitation Ok

Yay more text. Uh kinda related image!

Ill say the symbolism is light, i was listening to a kind of tacky song (pinc louds take me tie me) that i liked the imagery of (begging a scorned lover to grab you by the legs and otherwise beat the fuck out of you as repentance) even if i didn’t think it tracked 1:1 to reds mentality. I liked dressing him in a calculated way when he is objectively at his most vulnerable, these are his jammies but the shoes and garters are both aesthetically distinctly gorchlike and are, in my mind, defensively coded. It’s a weird way of reaffirming his authority even if it isn’t strictly literal (no idea what kind of rags hes running around in atp, ill figure it out later) also like, clearly he has a gun. (Ainsleys service pistol as introduced in the “diana” piece, another one about fleeing fate lol) I’ll get into the gun later.

The big red stars are directly representative of his brain tumor, which has grown up just enough to start causing him notable symptoms. He isn’t strictly aware of it, but he is under the impression that something “broke inside his head” when danny attacked him on new years. I like the idea of red being uniquely doomed, while being the character who is most stubbornly insistent on continuing to live and suffer. In aforementioned post i pose the question of “why not just kill yourself when faced with the alternative? (that being torture humiliation and eventual death)” and i still don’t have an answer for that. Ive never been terminally ill, but i also can’t imagine living past the immediate future. I can then imagine a character as listless and stagnant as red unable to make definitive choices even when the path of least resistance is obvious. I was thinking of the claw as a less immediately obvious representation of the “close” of the arc of Babylon the Great and The Beast. (Another use for the stockings symbolically is that they are distinctly feminine)

Maybe he’s recognized this failure to assert within himself. And the choice to arm himself gun-wise even though it statistically poses more of a risk to his own life if he crosses paths with danny while armed is an intentional choice, making it exceedingly easy for danny to kill him in the hopes he’ll forgot about all the wrath he was planning on enacting. Or maybe he’s fully intending to put some lead in that crazy bitch italian. Somewhere inbetween? Red is very contradictory to his core, and prone to making weird decisions under pressure and kicking the metaphorical can farther down the metaphorical road all the way to metaphorical hell. I would not be his friend.

Thank you for your question you are always. TOOKIND! I hope this wasn’t too much of a bomb i try to keep some stuff on here vague until clarification is sought out to keep the overall conversation light. Its hard to talk about certain characters because i dont want to prime people to think about any of them in a way that feels flat or prescriptive. Ive typed up and deleted posts like this before so i cant guarantee this one will stay up if i find it disagreeable in the future. :3

[operationero]

if you ever had the opportunity, would you want to adapt operation nero into something like a tv show or movie? given that its of good quality and respects the original story

I think that OPNero as a whole is a really large and kind of ridiculous project that wouldn’t translate well to any medium. Even the “main narrative” (aka the events on the island exclusively from Rajiva’s perspective) is really pushing it in terms of annoying rambling. But i think some of it might be nicely adapted into the format of like, a prestige TV drama. The Terror is a fairly large inspiration for me generally.

But i honestly dont know if it will ever be “good enough” to adapt. I think projects like that need to be smartly designed collaborative efforts and not individual passion projects, as much as i take opnero seriously in a way it is still my own personal hazbin hotel.

Thank you for your ask… MWAH

[operationero]

Random comic bullshit

[operationero]

new banner because idk danny cool

[operationero]

Some…. Stuff!

[operationero]

ON SALVATION / ON REDEMPTION

I've gotten this question multiple times, and I'd like to put it to rest definitively. Mostly because I feel like YOU asking ME what the "answer" is releases you from the burden of having to examine your own relationship with concepts like morality, redemption, and salvation.

TLDR: (but if you dont read it... why.)

I'm not telling you that. You will not know the ultimate cosmic status of all the characters in OPNERO because that completely defangs the premise and removes all the horror and tragedy of being trapped in a dying world with no true promise of salvation.

(TO BE CLEAR THIS IS A PERFECTLY NORMAL QUESTION AND I APPRECIATE BEING ASKED IT BUT IVE SAID ALL I CAN AND DONT WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT AGAIN HENCE ME PUTTING IT ON MY BLOG. NO ILL WILL AND IM NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN OR HARSH)

REASONING BELOW!

Firstly: A foreword about OPNERO as a project. I personally am extremely interested in religion as a device for interpreting the world around us, ecclesiastical canon presents a lot of fantastical narratives you can interpret as strictly literal OR entirely metaphorical fables. OPNERO does not take place in a reality in which the bible is "true" and it neither explicitly confirms nor denies the existence of a god of any kind (because we in real life are equally incapable of knowing). HOWEVER, my new testament inspiration is obvious, the literal events of OPNERO are interpreted by characters in the narrative as the confirmation of a premonition transcribed by John of Revelation. SO, for clarity's sake I will operate under the assumption that in OPNERO; Revelation is in fact occurring and all the associated happenings I don't depict (everything past Armageddon, loosely. So, the second coming, the millennial reign and the final judgement) WILL happen and they WILL happen more or less as written. JUST keep in mind that my preferred interpretation is less strict than this, and 1:1 retelling of Revelation is not what I plan on doing, it's not that black and white I fear....

1, THE STAKES:

And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth Matthew 13:42

while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 8:12

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched Mark 9:43-48

Hell, as described so very briefly in the text of the bible, is a place of either eternal suffering or total annihilation (see "Annihilationist" interpretation, that directly opposes the pop culture idea of hell popularized by the divine comedy, and h@zbin hotel check it out if you want) Functionally, even though I consider total destruction of the soul a better outcome than eternal suffering, we can understand that both of these interpretations as "hell is really really bad and you dont want to go there because doing something that gets you sent to hell severs you irreparably from gods light" However, what that "something" is varies between individual interpretation. What "redeems" any given person is a topic of great debate. "Faith" for example is a mandated qualification, however what "Faith" means is then up to the fallible individual to interpret. A stricter interpretation of the bible (THAT ALSO CONSIDERS THE BIBLE TO BE DIRECT WORD OF GOD AND NOT MANS INTERPRETATION OF THE WORD OF GOD) would tell you that there is not a single OPNERO character that will experience "salvation" not even for their observable mortal sins, but just for not being a truly faithful Christian. In that case, the only place for them is Hell, which isn't split into tiers of severity like pop culture would have you believe. Hell in the bible is nothing but unimaginable torment, either because it is a destruction of the immortal soul or the eternal torture of the wicked.

I do not personally earnestly believe that anyone EVER deserves cosmic punishment on that scale, because my moral framework does not allow me to justify torture or capital punishment (seriously, think about it.) Dante's interpretation of hell intentionally softens this reality to make a point about the nature of sin, but hell is not tiered, you are either there or you're not. I FW Pope Francis when he said "I like to think that Hell is empty" because I like to think God has infinite love and mercy for humanity.

2, THESE FUCKING CHARACTERS BROOOO:

I did not make the characters in OPNERO bad people because I want you to hate them. Spending time thinking about how to "redeem" these characters is a waste in my honest opinion, the narrative I've written does not give them the time or space to improve or redeem themselves of their various crimes (as if you can even quantify good and bad actions in a way that allows them to neutralize themselves) what is done is done. They are bad people because everyone is a bad person, just as everyone is a good person, because good/bad morality is a flimsy framework by which to build your understanding of art (AND THE WORLD) off of. Do characters in OPNERO take actions that benefit others to the detriment of themselves? yes. Do they experience shame and regret? yep. Do they try to make amends and atone? sometimes! Does any of that ever negate the harm they caused? Nope.

CHECKPOINT TO ENSURE YOU, THE READER, ARE CAPABLE OF INTERNALIZING THIS INFORMATION WITH AS LITTLE BIAS AS POSSIBLE. OKAY? OKAY. I MADE THESE CHARACTERS FOR MY WRITING PROJECT THAT I SOMETIMES JOKE ABOUT (because it is, in some ways, a comedy) BUT ACTUALLY TAKE QUITE SERIOUSLY.

I'm NOT interested in the redemption of my characters because it is irrelevant to their arcs, not a single character (barring Ulysses, lol) seeks to be redeemed, not in the eyes of their peers nor to God. None of them think they have anything to atone for, do you go about your life seeking opportunities to get right with Jesus? Heal everyone you've ever wronged? you probably just feel bad about it sometimes but move on. In the framework of each of these characters morality, they do not necessarily consider themselves evil people. Even Danny, who is most self aware about his actions does not think of the innumerable lives he took as a significant weight on his soul, he has not been primed by his authority to think of the havoc he contributed to during his occupation of Vietnam as anything other than an act of self defense. In fact, Danny considers most of his actions to be self defense, and that is his lived reality which cannot be right or wrong.

If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him,  but if the sun has risen on him, there shall be bloodguilt for him. He shall surely pay. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. Exodus 22:2-3

Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle Psalm 144:1

Is Danny, for example, a bad person? Yes oh my god. yes. YES? In OPNERO he is personally culpable for and complicit in the destruction, murder, rape and exploitation of the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam war. However, by that metric, Rajiva who is an unrepentant warmonger who directly profits from the cold war arms race, is ALSO culpable and complicit in the same. Any character who is a soldier fighting in the army of a global power, any character who profits from the continued march of the war machine, any of your stupid little "war criminal" blorbos, have far reaching implications beyond the immediate interpretation of the character. Are you, the reader, willing to accept that they are ultimately the same? Does that interfere with your understanding of these characters when they start to victimize eachother? I haven't asked you to sort them into "good" and "bad" or "victim" and "abuser" categories. If I did, you'd have a hard time finding a place to put Jan or Red. I could write huge essays on the morality of each character. I'm not going to do that because my intention is to present their actions and words with as much neutrality as possible, because the last thing I want is people thinking I find mindless condemnation of a character based on the viewers own moral framework an acceptable approach to my writing.

to answer the ACTUAL QUESTION: (TLDR) I'm not telling you that, you will not know the ultimate cosmic status of all the characters in OPNERO because that completely defangs the premise and removes all the horror and tragedy of being trapped in a dying world with no true promise of salvation.

Red is just as likely to go to heaven as anyone else, honestly I hope he does, for reasons I've already expressed above. Do any of them have a path they can take that can lead them to salvation? No, that would require them being born in a different time and space. No "redemptive" or "noble" action can meaningfully change the actions a character has taken in their past. Or, Ainsley who has ultimately done nothing of substance in her life except cop girl thought crimes and being a slightly abusive girlfriend, kind of has nothing to cosmically atone for. Nor can any of the characters redeem themselves via suffering because what kind of message does that send? That Red can be meaningfully redeemed by being tortured?

3, COMPLAINING:

This ties into a greater gripe i have with the "oc art community" and their ilk. The Strictly black and white understanding that people have of morality, specifically in art spaces, clashes horrifically with how I personally understand human behavior. UNLIKE the biblical interpretation of hell, real life morality exists in thousands of shades of grey that are reliant on surrounding context to reveal their tone. Murder is wrong, but what about self defense? What if the murderer lived in a reality where their actions were self defense, but in your reality they weren't? Rape? where does the definition for that start and end? Do you have to be a bad person to be a rapist by strict definition? WHAT is a war crime? who gets to decide that? even the language we use was built to serve a justice system that categorizes injustices based on a popularly accepted moral framework. while i personally (KINDA) like the framework we built, what is and isn't rape or murder or theft or "crimes against humanity" (as codified by the Nuremburg charter, which you should really look into the results of! it may not reflect your understanding of reality!) ultimately cannot be defined by law. Which isn't to say you can't or shouldn't have a "moral compass". but that truly understanding a piece of fiction may ask you to reexamine what you consider to be "truth."

long as post thats barely about opnero at all i know dats right. some other stuff ive said about it here. sorry of this is hard to parse i dont proofread anything.

[operationero]

Parents!!!!!

Ok well this is just for fun info on some of the alive parents in opnero

Danny

Claretta:

Big danny apologist. Huge danny apologist he will always be her little baby. Like she’ll get mad at him but never substantially. She’s happy when he’s happy, and danny will say his mom is a positive figure in his life he really loves her, just not enough to respect her because well. Misogynist. He lives with her and his sister. She doesn’t intervene when danny mistreats martina because she doesn’t really know how to stop him. She kind of cant stop him.

Red

Nikolai:

He’s a bit generally disappointed that red isn’t his firstborn but is now his eldest son, hes just an underwhelming man to have as your immediate heir. He doesn’t trust him an inch because he thinks hes weak willed and bad at investments. Assertions that are true but only established based on his childhood behavior. Definitely still sees red as a child, and is therefore generally fond of him. He refuses to wear glasses and is always squinting which has more of a psychological impact on red than it should (always appeared stern)

Yulia:

Intervened in reds suicide attempt and has henceforth failed to treat him like an adult man. Him avoiding her or “going missing” stresses her out. You wouldn’t be able to tell based on her outward expression, she is extremely cold. Suffered insane postpartum depression after all her children so she associates them with a lot of pain even though she does care for them. She just prefers the “easier” ones. Red finds her cloying and nosy. Doesn’t like how intertwined they are.

Ainsley

Chrissy:

Party girl turned to god. Her family is extremely mismatched, but shes kind of just happy to be alive. She has become devoutly religious lately, and has been showing early signs of dementia. Ainsley spends a lot of time helping around her house, but resents having to take time out of her own life to do so because she feels she cannot coexist naturally with her mother. Who she loves but thinks is too lackadaisical. Chrissy thinks the opposite of her. But is proud of her for her perseverance. Kind of a hands off mother.

Rajiva

Manoj:

Asks rajiva a lot of annoying questions. He isn’t all that mad that Raj wanted to study physics, is privately a little hurt that he didn’t want to take over his medical practice. He thinks raj is really fucking weird but is glad he has gotten less weird, finds him stubborn. Rajiva doesn’t like his dad, feels a little uneasy even if they aren’t hostile in the slightest. The way he treated him as a child continues to resonate

Shweta:

She is on so many barbiturates she lowkey doesn’t care anymore. Also asks a lot of questions but raj perceives hers as more vapid. He thinks she smothers him but shes actually pretty hands off and respectful of his personal space, sometimes she just cant help herself and starts fixing his hair. Raj is infinitely more fond of his mother, who only ever asks him to do one thing as opposed to his fathers total unilateral control over his development. Unfortunately that one thing is get married and make her some grandchildren. Ew.

[operationero]

PLAYLISTS:

Here's a masterpost of all my playlists. Shuffling is highly recommended. I like making them have consistent "sounds" so I hope the listening is easy.

CATCHALL PROJECT PLAYLIST:

I try to keep consistent "tones" on my character playlists, so all the random overflow stuff goes in here. Along with anything nonspecific in the way that I feel it fits no place or many places. I would say this is the weakest one because of that.

DANNY:

Just bullshit, odd merger of Primus and Primus-adjacent. I could probably put all of Highball With The Devil and El Oso on here but to spare you the agony I wont.

RAJIVA:

Literally just Everything Everything. There are few Everything Everything songs I would refuse to put on Raj's playlist. At that point why don't I just go listen to Get To Heaven? It's a kind of stilted and desperate playlist with some random one-offs.

JAN:

Just fucking impossible to make a playlist for and always has been. Especially if it's a playlist for HIM and not his interaction with Rajiva. I could probably incorporate more interpol but thats because every interpol song sounds the same.

AINSLEY:

Also totally random, but I've been collecting music with a very "frantic" feel for her. Everything on here feels slightly off. EXCEPT SLIPPERSHELL. I really like the vocals for Sloppy Jane, AJJ and The Sugarcubes, but never feel like the lyrics also make sense for her character.

RED:

Easiest to put together. Especially because none of these songs are particularly moving. Lots of Oingo Boingo and Momus, which isn't a combination I think otherwise makes sense but what can I say. The only "sincere" addition to this playlist has to be Plowing Into The Field of Love.

[nexad0n]

Do you like me? Will you say so?

2026

[operationero]

Hmn! I wonder what that means!

[operationero]

I didn’t expect more than like one ask today so i also drafted a breakdown on the Choke Up piece. But since its about danny its pretty tonally heavy and i think I’ll hold onto it for a second.

[operationero]

i kind of cant post this its literally too much information. as neutrally as i present danny's mindset the fact that i am unable to explain red's psychology leaves him without challenge. do i have to explain red? i dont want to. does danny need to be challenged? those are his feelings. this is the bad part about this blog is that theres some things i do not want to talk about because i cant tell you how to feel about them.

[operationero]

I love your characters so much, I feel like people tend to sanitize their ocs and water them down but yours feel so real and complex, it’s so tasty. And of course your command of colors and composition elevate the whole thing. It would make a great graphic novel!

Thanks! I take a very particular but very hardline stance on character writing that places an emphasis on their function in a narrative as characters, but i also think pretty extensively about them as realistic people beyond that. so in my actual writing you may never learn about their intricacies explicitly, thats part of what makes this blog kind of fun.

I have a webcomic, albeit totally unrelated to OPNERO (smaller scale psychological horror project i update once in a blue moon) i don't think im cut out for large scale comic projects. My dialogue meanders too much and im too attached to my sensory descriptions. ideally i think OPNERO could be a short story collection. i love to pair one illustration with one piece of writing. smiles serenely. maybe a SHORT comic? idk.

[operationero]

Is Raj also transfem or does he have something else going on? Absolutely enthralled by him and Jan’s dynamic

“Woman” is a source of anxiety for Raj. He is persistently avoidant, even afraid of female affection. Wife-mother-sister etc. are all defined by their smothering, he understands womanhood as an overflowing font of care and affection. With that mindset he could never conceptualize himself as a woman, as there is no desire inside of him to nurture others. He’s a misogynist in that he cannot conceptualize of a female identity unconnected from the root form of “mother” and because he is not a “mother” he cannot be a woman in his own eyes. He’s also attached a lot of pride to his identity as a man, he operates pretty normally as one. (Like i need to express that despite all the jokes i make hes not a sniveling virgin. he just doesn’t want a girlfriend)

Because of his familial/social baggage, regardless of wether or not i think he would be happier as a woman (maybe, but then he would have to contend with misogyny) he would never even begin to consider that he could be anything like jan at all. Jan is already alien to him, while he’s fully internalized that he is a woman “because he acts like one” part of the reason why he is so capable of doing so is because he mostly just sees jans transgenderism as a weird thing that mostly happens to white people. LOL? Ok.

IF, Raj could get WOKER. Then yes he would at least consider the idea that he could be transfem. But probably more nonbinary, because his gender expression is already so androgynous (his idea of peak masculinity is like, the hypermanicured business man because wealth = power and displaying wealth via keeping up your appearance in excessively fancy ways is a permanent physical demonstration of wealth.) He plucks his eyebrows and takes care of his nails. I mean look at his fucking mustache it’s like a topiary. Im sure he has skincare routines of sorts. None of these things correlate with womanhood obviously but in pursuit of his perfect body he would probably find himself in a sexless and genderless limbo. Post human. The “fem” element of transfem would just be directly tied to his lesbianism he is distinctly lesbian in demeanor. Look at him he acts like an evil autistic femme.

In his current state, in isolation, no. He’s a prissy bisexual cis man. But he has a unique interiority that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways

Hes really divalicious here.

[operationero]

I didn’t expect more than like one ask today so i also drafted a breakdown on the Choke Up piece. But since its about danny its pretty tonally heavy and i think I’ll hold onto it for a second.

[operationero]

so how do others react to ulysses positioning otho and sp on a sliding scale of christlikeness contingent on essentially autonomy when he resurfaces and is exhausted/psychotic. like there's just such a clear disparity in his props so surely others react. or are they all just going through way too much shit to see

also i didn't know he was a volcanologist i smiled so so so big as a geohead

also smiling so big at madonna raj limp cig in hand

well, if you approach it from the angle of "most people actually don't fully understand what's happening at all" like real life, you wouldn't be primed to make antichrists out of molehills.

People on the island at this point are desperate, if not also driven to psychosis or generalized nonspecific delusion. They are looking for a way out through the storm and Ulysses is offering a CHANCE at salvation to people who believe they are condemned. He's also not asking much of them (at least at first) so.... why not!

It helps that he can be perceived as mystical, but has to go through a personality shift to be an effective cult leader. He's not even all that convincing, and hes drunk his own kool-aid, he's just the only real spiritual authority. Raj isn't likely to believe him, neither is Jan who finds his menagerie horrifying and sad. Ainsley is conflicted and scared, Danny has accepted hell as long as he can really earn his place there, and Red, well, uh. He has other things to worry about.

Yesss he has actually always been a volcanologist if you can believe it. he is not un-influenced by the rhythms of the earth. and yes. mommy needs a cigarette.

[operationero]

EVIL WHITE THING!!!!

only in opnero will the objectively most evil character in the narrative be relegated to side character status because he doesn't gossip. heres a truncated bio for him too! just some stuff ive written.

Gerald Masters is the second youngest son of a ranching family, previously his father worked in a steel mill. He is the only one of his five siblings to live past the age of 25, and watched his father go to his grave thinking he may die at any minute. Growing up surrounded by death seemingly destroyed his empathizing skills. as far as Gerard is aware, he has seen and felt the worst anyone can feel in the world, and if he survived that every other challenge is trivial. He left his childhood home and his father in Reno, and moved to Vegas at 15 to be a valet for The Flamingo. He traded in stolen cars and weed until he turned 18, returned to Reno to bury his father, and enlisted in the army so he would have somewhere to sleep. He fought in WW2 on the Italian front in the us army air corps. He is a viciously efficient member of a B-17 bomber crew. His plane was only downed once leading to his capture and torture as a POW. Gerald did not spend a lot of time in Nazi custody and when he returned from a brief leave he very quickly attained Colonel status following the surrender of the axis powers. He immediately retires to domestic duties, specifically administering basic training and bootcamps. Gerald elects to involve himself in US imperial espionage, leaving Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee to participate in the great war against communism. He has been in the Panama Canal zone for the past few years, but he is no real patriot, and simply enjoys torturing communists, and privates, and basically anyone he can get his hands on.

Gerald is psychosexually obsessed with pain and endurance. He gets sexual gratification from experiencing or administering discomfort. He has regularly volunteered to be tortured and abused in drills and expects the same from every US soldier. He seems completely unshakable, almost deranged in his apparent bravery. Most men under his long-term command are personally abused and humiliated by him, BUT HE KEEPS IT ABOVE BOARD! as above board as the army can be I suppose. Nothing matters to him more than American military supremacy and he doesn't really believe in war crimes as a rule. He's gay, also voluntarily celibate. He likes cruises.

Of course he has a particular bone to pick with Danny. Danny genuinely thinks Gerald wants to kill him, and while he wouldn't be opposed i think he whales on him so fucking hard because he reminds gerald of himself as a young man.

there is a visual similarity i suppose. Gerald is way taller though. and more moe.

ANYWAYS, he compares his teenage stint of grand theft auto to dannys own short life of crime. But unlike him, danny is refusing to change his evil ways. Ostensibly because he hasn't been beaten enough by a paternalistic male authority. Gerald can fix this, he will. He has a fondness for little daniel however, and often trusts him with tasks that are in direct opposition to the hatred he knows danny has for him. Just to test his resolve. Like putting a loaded gun to his head and telling danny to leave the trigger be.