#sequel anyone?

[julius-chronicles]

The brightest star.

[royallyprincesslilly]

Are you planning to do a sequel to love maybe? Or leaving it how it is

You know what, thanks to @sonjashuterbugjohnson who gave me a base idea because I didn’t want to let the characters go just yet, I’ve been plotting and mapping (kind of) and I may have fledged a full on sequel that may be worth exploring.

So it may be possible to see a sequel, it really depends though.😬

[goondis-and-the-plupples]

Steven: I’m cold.

Andrew: Here, have my jacket

Shane: I’m cold.

Ryan, from under twelve scarves and two parkas: Want me to set you on fire?

[notesinthearchives-blog]

Campbellian Paradox [Great Houses: Culture]

“The hero’s journey: where ancient gods and spirits, princesses and gate keepers all conveniently exist to help the village idiot in his quest to grow up”- attributed to Franz Grimm.

The lesser species recruited by the war time powers are often primed for the War prior to recruitment by stories placed within their culture[1]. As a side effect, it is common for such recruits to discuss time travel in terms of story telling conventions, leading to some odd choices in terminology among them. The campbellian paradox is more or less a perfect example of this.

The term originated from late 21st century Earth among media analysts and critics and in its original form runs something like this: as a normally interesting character moves closer to the centre of the narrative, they themselves become less interesting and make the characters around them less interesting in the process.

The idea here being that as the original character is interesting in part because of how they interacted with other characters, in that they had their own goals that weren’t neccesarily opposed to the desires of the other characters but nevertheless caused friction with them. In moving closer to the centre of the narrative, the lives of the other characters start orbiting around the previously interesting one, steadily becoming more flat as the goals they once had start to relate more and more to the now main character. Meaningful drama that was once caused by these clashing perspectives is reduced to contrived conflict, the emotion that was once generated replaced by sentiment and narcicism. Even the main character dying fails to stop this, as it only means that the other characters would orbit the emptyness where the main character once stood.

Whilst the Great Houses themselves don’t use the term, the term itself being distasteful and the very notion of describing the intricacies of time travel with story telling devices being seen as insultingly primitive[2], the term is largely used to describe an alarmingly similar condition that has affected a number of House members since the start of the War. Of course, actual cases are relatively rare: House members often have reason enough to alter the people around them, generally paranoia related. Famously, in one supposed case it turned out that the House soldier in question had grown too attached to the first group of lesser species he had recruited, and was altering his later recruits to be more like his first ones after they had been removed from existence.

Actual cases of campbellian paradox involve the House member in question editing the people and world around them as unconciously as humans control their body temperature. Comrades finding their identities reduced to that of the House soldier’s friend/lover, soldiers on the other side of the War finding themselves warping into being the House soldier’s nemesis, and whole planets that having been briefly visited had taken to worshipping the House soldier as a messiah. The theoretical limits of this condition are unknown: the one case of it occuring on a large enough scale to affect the War was swiftly put down by Franz Grimm in what was later known as the Narcisthal Incident.

The causes of the condition in question are much discussed, but largely unknown. It has been suggested that Fermi Defence Protocols either malfunctioning or functioning far too well could cause it. Whilst the campbellian paradox does seem to be more common among House agents that have a timeship, there is nothing to indicate it as a sole cause. Some have suggested that it is a mutation brought about by the increasing number of experiments done with the House breeding engines and others have suggested that it is simply the House equivalent of narcisicism. Given its rarity, it is more likely to be the unfortunate combination of a number of factors rather than any solitary cause.

What it probably isn’t is a variety of the biodata virus. Whilst this has been proposed, it is exceedingly unlikely simply because no war time power have either the capacity or the desire to do so. The Great Houses, when not denying the campbellian paradox’s existence, find it frustrating in that it in making the lives of the lesser species mere orbits around the life of a single House agent it removes the very qualities that actually makes the lesser species useful. The Faction find it amusing in the abstract but incredibly boring in practice. The Celestis resent the idea that some House agent could potentially make himself the centre of existence, mostly because that’s precisely what they consider themselves. The Enemy have not commented on it, but it is difficult to see how empowering random House agents with greater control of the world around them helps their goals. The Remote are a possibility here, and were involved in the Narcisthal Incident, but by and large they simply have more interesting signals to follow.

This does not stop the paranoia of a number of House operatives regarding some impossible variety of the biodata virus. Ironically, this attitude has been known to tempt them to tinker with the biodata around them in the name of their own safety to such an extent that they end up mistaken as being affected by the campbellian paradox anyway.

[1] Even before the War, it was common for the lesser species to practice this among themselves. These stories, whether they be 19th century “boys own” literature or early 21st century American space opera tend to either invoke their respective nation’s own greatness or warn against its collapse, all against a back drop of an enemy defined entirely by how inimical it is to their nation’s values. As alarming as it is for lesser species to have the war time powers do it to them, it is quite common for the Great Houses to justify such tactics by pointing out that as these potential recruits have comparable relationship to this sort of propaganda that fish do to water, they’d probably end up dying in a war anyway, so it may as well be the one War that actually matters. In any case, for the most part the Great Houses only have to slightly alter stories that already exist in order to have the desired effect.

[2] It has been suggested that the Houses also dislike describing time in this manner because story telling devices imply story tellers and an audience, and the notion that they are not the centre of the spiral politic is frankly horrifying.

[bananaheathen]

someone on Twitter just informed me that Mates is 50K words longer than War and Peace. WAR AND PEACE.

So. I’ll be thinking about that for the rest of my life.

[the-prince-of-professors]

Also, that trans character in Beauty and the Beast makes me so happy. And Le Fou.

[sporkchildren]

Broken

Age 19

I should be happy, laughing along with the rest of the team. I should congratulate my best friend, wish him a happy life. But I couldn’t help and feel like I should be walking down the isle instead of her. I should tell him exactly how I felt. Should being the key word.

Instead I, Dick Grayson, am smiling plasticly at him as he whispers how ‘beautiful she looks.’ Her names Jane Port, soon to be Jane West. And I smiled over at him, he doesn’t know, the lovely fool. And for his sake, I hope he never know about whats she does when she leaves to go see ‘friends.’

The worst part being that she had even asked me, her exact words being ‘I’ll give a quick one, first one’s on the house.’ And when I’d tried to warn Wally, Wally hadn’t talked to me for a month until I’d finally apologized.

And everything went back to normal.

Wally West formally Kid Flash, is getting married. Roy, Kaldur, and Conner are the smirking groomsman. While Megan, Artemis and Rocket are the giggling bridesmaids. While Zatanna is the maid of honor, waiting hopefully for the bouquet.

And the rest of the Justice League and any superhero are here in the big catholic cathedral. The only one who knows about my feeling being Alfred. But now, everything was perfect for Wally. 

This would be her fifth marriage, but only I knew that. Bruce had seen no need to look up the oh so sweet girl. Each click of her too high heals making my heart crack a little more. Wally leans over and whisper to me.

“I must be the luckiest man in the world.” I choke back tears and mutter back, hoping that he doesn’t hear the sadness in my voice.

I gaze at her in a flowing white gown (that showed way to much chest) and veil as she walks down the isle with a beaming Barry Allen (Jane had insisted).

“She looks beautiful Walls.” When Jane gets to the podium and the priest begins the ceremony. 

The vows are exchanged and the clergyman asks for objections. I open my mouth, before I look into Wally’s eyes and I quickly shut my mouth, he looked so happy. And who am I too take that away from him? That’s right, some love struck kid who can’t keep his mouth shut. 

And before I could change my mind, they were running to the limousine and off to the honeymoon. And I was left to hope that she wasn’t faking this for some reason. And I knew I would never have him, he’d never love me-I’m an old toy, she’s new, he’s had me his entire life and he didn’t even know it. 

I force out a smile and a soft goodbye. And as I see their leaving limousine, I take my gaze off it and watch the setting sun. And at that moment, one promise I made long ago echoed in my head, I was only 9 at the time, my innocent promise being

“I will never cry again.” 

And right their, as I sat in my car driving away from what seemed more like a funeral for me, I broke that promise.