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helix-studios117 · 2 months

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Halo: A Beginner's Guide

For all of you newcomers out there, here's a list that I've wanted to do for a while now. For those who are new to Halo, likely introduced by the TV Show, and want to get into it, here's my 2 cents on how to ease into the franchise.

The Games

Play the original four games PLUS Halo Infinite in chronological order. The spin-off games (Reach, ODST, the Wars games and the Spartan games) are all completely optional, but they are there for people who want play other games that aren't centered around the Master Chief. I recommend just watching all of the cutscenes of Halo 5: Guardians in some supercut "movie" Youtube video, since the 5th game is... bad and, story wise, you're not missing much.

So in this order WITHOUT the spin-offs:

Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo 2

Halo 3

Halo 4

Halo Infinite

If you want to play the games WITH the spin-offs included, then in this order:

Halo Wars

Halo Reach

Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo 2

Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3

Halo: Spartan Assault

Halo: Spartan Strike (Note: This game takes place in two different time-periods, so just play this after Spartan Assault for convenience sake)

Halo 4

Halo Wars 2

Halo Infinite

My advice: Play the main four (+ Infinite) FIRST, then replay the main-games WITH the spin-offs in chronological-order.

Books & Comics

Here comes my favorite part!

Books

Halo: The Fall Of Reach, Halo: First Strike & Halo: Contact Harvest - The FIRST books in the entire franchise, these books set the stage for the entire setting of the Halo world. The first half of The Fall Of Reach is Master Chief's origin story, while the second half is about, well, "the fall of Reach." First Strike is a book that takes place in-between the first and second game AND, for a high-octane action-book, has a shocking amount of shipping material. And finally, Contact Harvest details the early years of the Human-Covenant War AND further fleshes out the Covenant as an antagonistic force by showing their side of things.

Halo: Silent Storm & Halo: Oblivion - For those who want MOAR Master Chief, these two books focus on a younger Chief fighting the Covenant in the earlier uears of the war. These two are probably my favorite Halo books thus far.

Halo: Ghosts Of Onyx & The Kilo-5 Trilogy - It's crucial to read Ghosts Of Onyx first BEFORE delving into Glasslands, the first book in The K5-Trilogy, since Glasslands takes place IMMEDIATELY after Ghosts Of Onyx. Anyways, these stories are for those who are bored of Master Chief and want to read about other, admittedly more fascinating Spartans. Kurt and Naomi are definitely among my favorite Spartans that aren't named "Master Chief," "Blue-Team" and "Silver-Team."

Halo Evolutions - An anthology book with each story taking place in some corner of the Halo universe or another, this is a book I recommend for world-building purposes.

Comics

Halo: The Graphic Novel - Just like Evolutions, Halo: The Graphic Novel is an anthology series thay tells different stories from different corners of the Halo universe for world-building purposes. These stories are all new stories and are NOT comic-adaptations of any of the stories in Evolutions, so don't worry about basically reading the same stories twice; The Graphic Novel has a similar concept, but all of the stories are different.

Halo: Blood Line - Black-Team is the coolest group of Spartans in the entire Spartan-II Program; they're group of misfit loners (who secretly have feelings for each other) who answer ONLY to ONI (the CIA of the Halo universe) and wear black suits of armor with roman-numerals etched onto their visors. They do cool-guy shit together, and this comic follows their story.

Other Material

Audio-Dramas

I Love Bees - Taking place in various different points in time, I Love Bees was an ARG that was turned into an audio-play long after it was deciphered. I won't spoil anything that happens, but I will say this: Shit gets kinda crazy.

Hunt The Truth - Another ARG. This fictional podcast was made to promote Halo 5: Guardians and... it's the best damn part to come out of that stinker of a game; Hunt The Truth's narrative is SO much more interesting than Halo 5's story, it HURTS. Anyways, it's about a reporter uncovering the truth of the Spartan-II Program as ONI starts a smear campaign against the Master Chief to cover their own asses.

Movies & Shows

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn - This web-film was promotional material for Halo 4 (as it's title suggests), and it follows a group teenaged military-school students going about their lives as Lasky, a confused cadet who is struggling to find a direction in life and live up to his family's reputation, grapples with the struggles of military-life in his academy.

Halo: The Series - If, by some off-chance, you WEREN'T introduced to Halo via the show, here's the recommendation. Form your own opinion, but here's my advice: Like what you want to like and don't follow the word of mouth.

Halo Legends - An anime anthology that, just like Evolutions and The Graphic Novel, world-builds the mythology of Halo by telling different, disconnected but ultimately in-continuity stories set within the game's universe. Odd One Out, Homecoming and The Package are my favorite shorts in the film.

Machinimas

Red Vs Blue - What else? Seasons 1 - 14 are my recommendations, don't watch anything else beyond that because it SERIOUSLY drops in quality. Just wait for it's final season, Season 20, to come out; you're not missing much with seasons 15 - 19.

The Spartan Legacy - A seriously underrated series. Made by a Youtuber under the name: 'Chronicler177,' The Spartan Legacy takes place in an alternate-continuity where Chief disappears and never comes back after the events of Halo 3. As a result, the Spartan-IVs and Vs (both of which are more interesting than in-canon; and the Spartan-Vs are a new creation within this web-show itself) are created to take his place.

WHEW! That's all, ladies and gents.

@authortobenamedlater, @silverpelt3600, @ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask, @makowrites, @mrtobenamedlater, @biomecharnotaurus, @killer-orca-cosplay, @cheezbot, @caffeineyum, @asimplesimpsimping.

#halo #halo the series #halo infinite #halo au #halo expanded universe #halo fanfic #halo fanfiction #halo series #halo tv #halo tv series #halo tv show #halo reach #halo 3 #master chief #john 117 #halo reloaded #helix studios117

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short-wooloo · 2 months

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Ok so, clearly I have a thing for 7 ft Cyborg Supersoldier Sniper Women, because every time there's a Spartan team with one they end up being my favorite character of the group

August-099

Linda-058

Kai-125

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gladsomevarangian · 2 years

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This is just Castor and Inslaan 'Gadogai's dynamic in Shadows of Reach/Divine Wind, except every few scenes they swap roles

#halo #keepers of the one freedom #halo novels #halo expanded universe

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lumi-klovstad-games · 8 months

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Hey, 343. We call "expanded universes" that for a reason.

It also hurt for those of us who actually LIKED Fireteam Osiris and saw potential in the characters. Halo 5 sets up a neat "Brothers in Arms" relationship between Chief and Locke like Chief had with Arbiter in 3, maybe even a little bit of Master & Apprentice, with Locke standing to learn a lot in the days and battles to come from the much older and more experienced Master Chief. But then the next game comes and... wait where is everyone? 343 wants me to buy more books?! A lot of fans already had to buy half a library's worth just to grock Halo 5, and here's 343 repeating that mistake again!

The Halo games really have just become a means by which 343 plugs the Halo novels. "There's a book that explains that" is the constant refrain I hear these days. No. I WANT THE GAMES TO EXPLAIN IT. The games are the only thing literally EVERY Halo fan buys. EXPLAIN IT IN THE GAMES.

I will give the audio logs in Infinite SOME credit for answering SOME questions I had, but mostly it was used to introduce irrelevant subplots that actually WOULD be better as a novel. Escharum doing his damnedest to keep the ragtag and ill-fitting family that are the Banished together with the disappearance of his protege Atriox, a warrior who was like a son to him, knowing full well he doesn't have Atriox's charisma and he can't maintain the cult of personality Atriox cultivated at the core of the Banished in the same way? Or a fireteam of Spartans, feeling lost and surviving without any real support, realizing that they'll likely die one way or another, deciding to risk it all on a single desperate all-or-nothing Hail Mary attempt at cutting the head off the snake, only to fail, with their only monument being their broken bodies, and their armor that Chief has to scavenge for gear with little if any knowledge of what happened to his comrades? These are plots TAILOR MADE for a spin-off novel. But instead a HUGE CHUNK of the total audio logs gets devoted to this kind of stuff, instead of explaining where Blue and Osiris are, if they survived, and setting up a reunion in a later story — you know, something actually relevant to Master Chief's story that connects with the plot players are already familiar with.

I get that 343 wants the Halo Universe to feel like this big connected thing while keeping the "mysterious" feel of the original trilogy, but for 343 that takes the form of locking players out of the loop: deny the players critical information necessary to understanding characters or the plot (even if the players can operate without that information) and then demand they cough up $8-15 a pop to gain access to that information (or just wait until Halopedia editors inevitably do). What they keep forgetting is that the original trilogy told players everything they needed to know as the game naturally progressed. The Bungie novels were interesting and sundry, but nothing they related was essential — not even The Fall of Reach (often considered the most important book in the expanded universe) was necessary to understand anything in the games proper. And then, when Bungie actually made a GAME about Reach, they made a point to showcase a separate cast of characters on a different part of the planet, playing a different role in the battle, with an entirely different team dynamic, all for the express purpose of keeping it so that the book wasn't essential to understanding what was going on. That's the secret that 343 just doesn't get: keep the books interesting, but keep them at arm's length — the GAME should tell the players everything they need to know.

More than game mechanics or graphics, if 343 can learn to tell stories in the games the way Bungie did, and learn to keep the books away from the games, then that alone will MASSIVELY improve Halo's appeal and bring back much of what was lost.

#video games #halo #halo infinite #343 industries #halo 5 #halo 4 #halo reach #the fall of reach #master chief #spartan locke #Bungie #expanded universe #blue team #fireteam osiris #the arbiter #microsoft game studios

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legendscon · 8 months

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Panel Announcement: Storytelling in a Shared Universe

Authors Jason Fry, Barbara Hambly, Michael Kogge and Sean Stewart discuss the highs and lows of the creative process in writing stories as a team within a shared franchise. This panel will be on Sunday.

Buy tickets now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067

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apoemaday · 3 months

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Monet Refuses the Operation

by Lisel Mueller

Doctor, you say that there are no halos around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? I will not return to a universe of objects that don’t know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent. The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and changes our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

#poetry #lisel mueller #monet refuses the operation

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wyrmmaster · 2 months

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Discussing Blue Archive Lore and going progressively insane has been an experience. The Mystics, for example:

Each academy has its thing, right. Abydos is ancient Egyptian pantheon, Trinity is Christianity (+English/Irish/Scottish myth), Gehenna are the 72 demons, Valkyrie and SRT are Norse, Hyakkiyako is Japanese myth, and so on. So it's easy to establish a framework: "They're representative of cultural figures from x place".

So:

You have the ones that are Obvious: Shiroko is Anubis, Hoshino is Horus, Mika is the Archangel Michael, Seia is Gabriel, Hina is Baal, Wakamo is Tamamo no Mae, Niya is Ootakemaru, Kazusa is Cath Palug, Ako is Astaroth, among others

Then you have the ones that are "Obvious" as in "probably": Serika as Bastet, Saori as Lucifer, Nonomi as Nephtys, Nagisa as Uriel, Suzumi as Sariel, Koharu as Metatron, Hasumi as Sandalphon, Hinata as Jegudiel, Kanna as Odin, Miyako as Mimir, and so on.

Now you start getting a little out there, as you have to expand your the concept of "figure from x place" to "the concept from x place".

Shit like "well, Rin's family name is Nanagami, "Seven Gods", she's currently the highest authority at least on paper, so what if she's The Seven Holy Names of God per Jewish faith? If we assume the GSC President was capital G monotheistic God it'd make even more sense" "What if she's the seven heavenly virtues instead?" "Also possible but I think it's the former".

Then you get to fucking Millenium.

"Yuuka's halo is a simple perfect circle that looks artificial. Her birthday is 3/14. She is insanely good at math. She's pi. Stop laughing. Look at her twintails. π. Come on, keep up."

"Rio is either the Theory of Relativity both as a relation to Himari's potential Quantum Theory of Light and as an important foundation of our concept of physics, which would fit with her being MIllenium's president OR as she's the President of Millenium and created the city of Eridu, she's supposed to be the Sumerian Deity Enki, God of creation, knowledge, and water and patron deity of the ancient city Eridu." "Maybe she's both." "SHE'S PROBABLY BOTH, THANKS."

"Himari could be the Quantum Theory of Light in relation to Rio - being a more modern and complete concept, or she could be Isaac Newton, who had a mild obsession in the paranormal, like her." "What if she's also got a Mesopotamian-" "It'd be Ishtar, both because of her antagonism towards Enki in some myth her interest in the stars and as a riff on her whole conceit about her beauty. Further backed up by Eimi being her assistant that handles all the physical work, making her the Bull of Heaven. Eimi even had horns in her concept art." "Someone just put forth Euler's Identity, because it's considered a representation of mathematical beauty, like a sonnet is for poetry."

"The Game Development Department are Eroge Company references. Yuzu is Yuzusoft, Aris is Alicesoft, and the Saiba twins are Cyberworks's Wendybell and Tinkerbell. We can maybe assume that's just what they are." "Oh, thank god something stupid to end this post on-" "Aris's whole universally loved hero thing with an almighty weapon integral in saving the world might make her Gilgamesh-" "FINE OUR DAUGHTER IS GILGAMESH."

#wyrmarchive

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sofasoap · 1 year

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Little swallow

Random idea that pops into my brain, thanks to @homicidal-slvt letting me using her fic ideas. Sorry supposedly our great Russian pilot Nikolai x Reader fic but... somehow it took a strange turn. I will write another one to make up to you later lol. No beta'd or proof-read. Set in the Mini MacTavish universe, after Zero Distance

“masterlist” for Mini MacTavish expanded verse.

“HOLD ON TIGHT!!” Letting out a loud scream ,Gaz tried and failed to grab you as you started sliding out of the helicopter. You were trying to patch poor Gaz up in the helicopter when you heard the warning from Nikolai before the helicopter made a sharp turn, narrowly avoiding the direct hit from the rocket launcher.

“MINI!!!” Arms out, trying to shield yourself from the falling debris as you tumble out of the side, thinking this is the end, you realise the cliche of your whole life flashing in front of you before you die was real, at same time you are mumbling apologies to everyone you know you will not see them for the one last time for a proper goodbye. You don’t know how you got roped into this mission. You were supposed to be just a medical backup. The boys were already not pleased that you were shoved into the frontline into the danger zone. But order is order, even with protests to the higher up from the team, you had to follow the order.

Feeling the jerk of the rope as it comes to a halt before you hit the ground, you realise you are still safe and sound. Thank heaven. You will not tell any of the boys, especially your brother, you nearly wet yourself in the process.

Braving to open your eyes, you are hanging upside down, looking up towards the sky,the helicopter already pulling up, with sounds of gunshots and screams below you getting further away.

“I am going to pull you up now, stay tight!” You heard Gaz shouting down from the helicopter as you try to catch your breath, head still reeling from the near death experience.

“Status update Nik?!!” You heard Price’s voice through the comm. “Mini fell out of the halo, Sergeant is pulling her up right now!” “Say what?!!” You can feel Price’s anger sipping through even over the comm.

“Nik.”Price growled as he pulled you into embrace after the helicopter landed at the rendezvous point. “I would really appreciate it if you stop making attempts to kill off any of my crews.”

Raising his hands up, shaking his head, “I am sorry, I am trying. It’s either that or all of us go down together. I did tell them to tighten up the seatbelt before we lifted off. Luckily this ласточка (little swallow) listened to me.” Nikolai gives you a wink as you feel your cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“What do you say, милая ( darling ), I'll buy you a drink as an apology?” “Nik.”

“What.” “STOP flirting with my wife.”

Nikolai has a tendency of throwing Price's crew out of the helicopter, to his dismay. Price is chomping Nik's head off for trying to flirt with Mini.

#captain john price #john price x you #john price x reader #john price imagine #john price #captain price x reader #captain price #captain john price x reader #captain john price x you #captain john price x female reader #call of duty #nikolai cod #kyle gaz garrick

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gattnk · 1 month

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As long as we insist on forgetting the past, we'll need teachers like Omnia and Gnosis to remind us of our history.

Would you look at that, I'm done with all the canon teachers from the cartoon! I'm only missing those from the comics now, and then the humans and locations. I really liked how season 2 dedicated time to expanding the Golden School and included more staff, Omnia and Gnosis were fun characters to redesign.

Omnia and Gnosis had pretty solid character designs: the contrast between them in terms of shape and colors was especially good, and I wanted to retain and expand on these traits to the best of my abilities.

I started by simplifying their original shapes as much as possible, and then I exaggerated them further. I took some inspiration from mountains to further define their designs (I'm currently reading a nice book on world geography and it seeped in).

After making Omnia taller and lankier in her design, she reminded me of China's Tianzi mountains; they inspired me to make Omia's hair cloud-shaped, since these famous pillar-like mountains often touch the clouds.

Meanwhile, Gnosis' flat and bulky body reminded me of the mesa formations found in Colorado's Grand Valley (USA). His horns and wing claws start with a flat shape and then curve upwards almost vertically, like the butte formations often found around plateaus and mesas.

Their original color palettes were honestly among my favorites in the series, so I kept them for the most part, though I sought to simplify them even further. Omnia's key colors (pastel green, soft pink and white) were easy enough to figure out, but Gnosis took a lot of testing; at one point I considered switching him to purples and oranges, but I'm glad I stuck to earthy browns, yellow and orange, and added a washed black to the roster for contrast.

Like Arkan and Temptel, Omnia and Gnosis are much older than they seem: Omnia sports two sets of wings and a carved halo (I was inspired by the Ohm symbol because... OHM-nia, :B), and Gnosis has clawed wings and a tail. These traits mark them as older Eternals.

Just like Terence and Scarlett, these two professors got assigned as Academic Deans to their very own Universal Law and History faculty! their clothes are a bit more old-fashioned in a way to reflect this. They are definitely my most normal-looking pair of teachers.

With this I think we're halfway through with the Golden School staff, since we're only missing two more faculties. They're sketched out and everything, I just need to figure out the colors next. Don't forget to check out my AF rewrite fic, I'll Fly With You, if you haven't yet. I'm pouring my soul into it and I'm currently working on the next chapter :D

#my art tag #angel's friends #angels friends #IFWY #character redesign #omnia #gnosis

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drconstellation · 6 months

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The Great War of Tadfield Manor

Future Echoes of the Past #1

One of the books on the shelf that Jimbriel is organizing is Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. I have to admit it’s been a while since I read it, (er, several decades, if I’m truthful about it) but my enduring memory is it seemed like the author wrote it in a linear fashion, then took all the chapters and threw them up in the air and put them back together at random, because it bounces back and forth in time in a confusing kind of way. There is a method to this madness, however, and the structure is deliberate. It’s also dealing with bureaucratic absurdity, but that’s not what I’m trying to explore in this particular meta. It’s the bouncing back and forth in time bit.

Now we have two series of GO to feast on, we seem to be slowly piecing together the expanded history of the GO universe in an inferred kind of way. It’s rarely given to us directly in a chunk, it’s mostly by a comment here and there and then we try to join the dots.

So we’ve learnt that there was a great deal of time that existed for Heaven before time on Earth got started, in 4004 BC, maybe an ineffably long period of time, maybe millions of years, maybe not. Sometime prior to 4004 BC, however, there was a rebellion in Heaven between at least two factions of the angels. This event is sometimes called the Great War - which is what Aziraphale is referring to in S2E6 when he is removing his halo for demon-detonating purposes; he’s not referring to what us humans would call World War 1 in the early 20th century. The result of the Great War led to the formation of Hell. The angel known as Lucifer was the leader of the losing side, and he was known as Satan afterwords. A third of the heavenly host of angels were sent with him down to Hell, and this event is called the Fall. They became fallen angels, or demons. At some point, there is supposed to be a second War, one that will decide who is the winner once and for all time. Well, that’s supposed to be the Plan - God’s Ineffable Great Plan, right? And we all know how the first attempt for that to get started ended up, don’t we?

As we start to look more closely into parallel stories and scenes between the two series, some curious pairs of parallels are starting to emerge. And even more interesting is that some of these pairs indicate that they will get a third presentation - I’m not just talking about the 1941 Blitz scene here, there are others! And I’m going to try and talk about one of them here, that I think has largely slipped under the radar up until just recently.

There was a meta by @newfangledfancy here about the two parallel scenes in S1 and S2 involving miraculous escapes from being shot with a loaded gun, and we should expect a third one in S3. It’s worth pausing and heading over to read it at this point, but if you don’t, I’ll try to fill you in - and I will revisit in the future, as while it contained the seeds of inspiration for this meta, it also reveals something interesting about Crowley's backstory that's worth discussing on its own. You probably know what and where the S2 “miraculous escape” is referring to: the Bullet Catch scene during the 1941 Blitz minisode in S2E4. But where is the one in S1? It’s at Tadfield Manor, in S1E2, after Crowley has turned all the paintball guns into real guns, and Norman, on the yellow team, cracks it, does a big rant about his life and charges into the firing line of the opposing red team, only to be shot straight in the heart.

Let’s rewind this a little bit, because I want to talk about when Crowley and Aziraphale first arrive at Tadfield Manor. All seems calm and quiet. They stroll in side by side – and are each shot by a paintball. Yep, this has been watched over and over, comments made about the colours of the paint, how they represent their various “sides”, and the sexual innuendo in way Crowley miracles it away after Aziraphale makes heart-eyes at him. But you’ve all missed once very important clue about what was about to go down in the next few minutes that was right in front of you all along.

Maybe I should pause this meta just here and refer back to my big colour meta I posted recently. I specifically went to all that work so I could come here and discuss the following event at Tadfield Manor.

Firstly, the paintball colours. There are three: blue, yellow and red.

There is a discrepancy between the colour that book!Crowley and screen!Crowley gets hit by. In the book its yellow, but in the tv series its red. Just at this point I’m going to emphasize that yellow is not the same as gold; gold is one of the colours of Heaven, but yellow is usually associated with fear.

Secondly, Aziraphale is hit with blue paint. That’s consistent with both book and tv. Then Crowley blows the blue taint of Heaven away, because Aziraphale needs help to escape its abusive clutches, its not something he can do on his own. Ah, a cute demonstrative metaphor there, another layer to that little scene.

BUT YOU DON’T SEE A BLUE COLOURED TEAM IN THE FOLLOWING BATTLE! Where is the blue team, that supposedly represents Heaven in the following battle? Did they just vanish when Crowley snapped his demon-miracle into place? I dunno, but we just see a yellow and a red coded team for the rest of the battle. But if blue is always Heaven-coded, yellow is fear, and red, while often demon-associated should be seen more as an indication of passion…what it really going on? Who is at war with who? It can’t be Heaven against Hell, because Heaven is not present, per se, as you know it, and neither is Hell, which is usually green. Oh no, it’s not that black and white…because we are watching a battle where Hell doesn’t yet exist, there is only Heaven at this point. One side, one faction, in fear, the other fighting with passion, and the division that actually creates the ‘blue’ side is yet to occur…

We’re watching a re-enactment of the Great War.

Let’s take another step back, to here: S1E2, around 15.46 minutes in. Newton Pulsifer is about to start a new job (wait, what? What the Hell is Newt doing mixed up in this? To honest, I'm not quite sure...*looks at a certain at note she made IN ALLCAPS again*...oh ffs- that is the worst joke, its got to be one of Terry's...now I can't stop cackling...oh, god now I've spotted another awful, awful joke...poor Newt, I love you more every second...)

*ahem* Back to the impending battle. Because it's here in the office of UNITED WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS (HOLDINGS) - an office *wink wink* of management and bureaucracy, that we establish the tension. As Newt slides into his seat, Nigel the manager arrives to ask who is exited about the upcoming "training initiative." Turns out, not really anyone has much enthusiasm for it.

Janice is going to complain to HR. Nigel points out there is no "I" in team, and Norman, who apparently organized the whole thing, proceeds to pick the three 'eyes' out of the "team building exercise."

This is going well, isn't it? [Newt departs. His role here is done.]

Lets skip to Tadfield Manor and the "training initiative" is underway. The Red team, lead by Nigel the Manager, seem to have the upper hand. The Yellow team see to be pleased at a chance to let off some steam with anyone who has annoyed them, the bitches.

Then God drops in to make an interesting observation.

Firms these days expected more than that. They wanted to establish leadership potential, group cooperation, and initiative, which allowed their employees to fire paintballs at any colleagues who irritated them.

Oh. Right. Lets deliberately cause a little chaos so we can see who's got leadership potential, who works together, and who actually has some brains? Go God! Lets start a little War and we'll pick the new Archangels out of the winners? Nice one. Plus, we get rid of all the troublemakers in the process, and we'll just be left with those who like to follow management's orders...

Then Crowley ups the ante. As the young woman who was the only keen employee to come, and is on the Red team, no less, runs past and asks "Who's winning?" he snaps his fingers and to change all the paintball guns to real guns.

Cr: You're all going to lose. Az: What - what the Hell did you just do? Cr: Oh, they wanted real guns, so I gave them what they wanted.

You're all going to lose.

Aziraphale does his best to protest at the demon's bit of wicked mischief.

Az: But there are people out there shooting at each other! Cr: Well - Lends weight to their moral argument. Everyone has free will, including the right to murder. Just think of it as a microcosm of the universe.

A microcosm of the universe?

Who's universe, Crowley? Yours? The humans? It's a big universe out there...

Things don't seem to be going to well for some, and Norman, on the Yellow team, has finally reached his breaking point. He makes a declaration. I'm only going to quote the last bit of his little speech, as I want to deal with the first bit in another meta. As he takes off his tie, and wraps it around his head, he says:

"They want war, we're going to give 'em war! OK guys, let's go get the bastards!"

Hmmm. Do the visuals remind you of anything?...

He turns around to charge out - and is promptly shot in the heart. While it's Nigel the manager he is facing when it happens, it's actually the young woman from the Red Team who ran past Crowley and Aziraphale inside the Manor, who asked who was winning, that fired the shot. The implications of this? I'm going to save that for another meta.

The sequence moves on to the infamous wall-slam encounter, which I don't think we need to go over here, so lets skip to where Crowley and Aziraphale have finished questioning the past-Sister Mary Loquacious and have decided they've found all they are going to find here its time to leave. The police have arrived and have broken up the fight. The fun and games are over. As they walk, floating unnoticed and serene, through the chaos, Aziraphale starts to ponder.

Az: You'd think he'd show up, wouldn't you? You'd think we could detect him in some way. Cr: He wont show up, not to us. Protective camouflage. He wont even know that his powers will keep him hidden from prying occult forces. Az: Occult forces? Cr: You and me. Az: I'm not occult. Angels aren't occult, we're ethereal.

Crowley refers to the two of them as one kind of entity, but Aziraphale insists there is a difference - they aren't the same. Not any more.

The War is over, and the division between Heaven and Hell has been created.

[Edit: I've since finished a meta on the Bentley and it's connection to crossing the thresholds between worlds. I mention this scene in it, as it is actually a beautiful example of two different times and places existing at once, overlaid on one another, as indicated by the smoke - that's a sign we are in a subliminal space. Its why Aziraphale and Crowley seem to just glide through untouched and noticed, as they aren't really there, in a way.]

Will we see another echo of the Great War in S3? Possibly.

It's the 3-card Monte. Its the three cowrie shells and a lone caraway seed. It's the Professor's Nightmare, where you don't know how long a piece of string rope is.

It's a f*cking Mobius strip that has no beginning and no end, infinitely going around and around.

It's God's game. Only She knows where it stops.

Further reading in this series:

#2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror-Parallel in S1

#3: "Not Even At Gunpoint!"

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens analysis #tadfield manor #the great war #paintball scene #miraculous escapes #he did the thing with halo #lucifer and the guys #newton pulsifer #combating the forces of darkness #mobius strip #future echoes of the past

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months

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(Image 'Leicester Square at Night', Monet)

* * * * *

Leicester Square At Night :: Monet +

Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers... I will not return to a universe of objects that don't know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent.... Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

~ Lisel Mueller, 'Monet Refuses the Operation'

[thanks Ian Sanders]

#Monet #Lisel Mueller #about art #poem #poetry #vision #seeing

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helix-studios117 · 7 days

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Halo Reloaded: Heartbeats

John and Linda found themselves a rare slice of normalcy—or as normal as it could get for two Spartan supersoldiers who had seen more war than weddings. Their living space, though sparsely decorated, offered a comforting sanctuary from the never-ending chaos of their lives. A couple of mismatched armchairs, a rugged sofa that had seen better days, and a few personal mementos made up the decor. It was hardly the cover of "Better Homes and Gardens," but it was theirs.

Linda, barefoot and in her athletic-wear (her personal substitute for pajamas), lounged on the sofa, her legs stretched out as one leg is lazily crossed over the other. Since coming back from the brink of death with those new Forerunner-imbued powers, she'd been different—more distant, like she was listening to a song only she could hear. John, dead on his feet from the day's drills, decided to collapse right there, his head finding a soft spot in her lap. He sighed, the sound more akin to relief than exhaustion.

"What’s that? The fifth sigh in the last half hour?" Linda teased, threading her fingers through his hair.

"Just enjoying the quiet," John grunted, his voice muffled by the cushion. "It’s nice... not having to shoot at anything or anyone for a few minutes."

"Yeah, peace and quiet, the rarest commodities in the galaxy," Linda quipped, her tone light but her eyes betraying a hint of the weight she carried. "This whole telekinesis thing... it’s like learning to walk again, in someone else’s gravity."

John opened one eye and peered up at her. "But you're handling it like a champ. Always do."Linda smirked, a flash of her old self flickering through. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Spartan."

The room was steeped in a comfortable silence again, broken only by the subtle hum of the ship's engines. It was during these moments of quiet that John's senses, honed to near-perfection, picked up something new—a second set of heartbeats, faint but unmistakable.

He bolted upright, his soldier’s instincts momentarily flaring.

"Linda, are we—"

"Expecting?" she finished for him, a sly smile playing on her lips as she touched her stomach subtly. "Turns out, the artifact didn’t just bring me back and give me fancy new party tricks—it also kicked the baby factory into gear."

John’s face morphed from shock to awe as the information sank in. "Twins? Seriously?" he asked, his voice a mix of disbelief and excitement.

"Seriously," she confirmed, her eyes alight with a mixture of joy and terror. "We're going to need a bigger boat."

John laughed, the sound echoing off the metal walls, warm and genuine. "A boat, huh? What about two cribs, more diapers than we can count, and... oh, right, figuring out how to be parents?"

Linda leaned back, her laughter mingling with his. "We’ve tackled ancient alien races and saved the galaxy—how hard can raising kids be?"

"Famous last words," John quipped, his hand finding hers, fingers intertwining. "But whatever it takes, we'll figure it out. Together."

"As always," Linda agreed, her voice steady, her grip firm.

#halo #halo fanfic #halo fanfiction #master chief #master chief fanfiction #master chief fanfic #halo au #halo headcanon #helix studios117 #halo reloaded #ultimate halo #halo expanded universe #linda 058 #john 117 x linda 058 #john/linda #john 117

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short-wooloo · 2 months

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According to a new Halo Waypoint Canon Fodder update, the Silver Team Spartans now officially exist in the Prime Halo universe, and actually appear in Halo Wars no less

See in the Halo Wars mission Arcadia Outskirts you encounter Omega Team, a six-Spartan unit, half of Omega Team was established in Halo Wars 2 DLCs to be August-099, Leon-011, and Robert-025, but the other half was left unnamed, until now

#wooloo-writes #wooloo writes #halo expanded universe #halo spartan #halo #halo eu #halo lore #halo silver team #silver team #silver team halo #riz 028 #kai 125 #vannak 134 #halo wars #spartan ii #halopedia #halo waypoint

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argentumcor · 26 days

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Part of the problem with expanded universes in this the era of slow IP suicide is that, when you like a part of the EU, you find yourself waiting years to see those characters again. Whoever owns the IP is always, always like "we need new characters" and you're like "no! first, my favs need to have another hug at least! oh no please not more characters." And you get two books a year at best and chances are they're about some kids you don't care about.

Like the people reading your Halo novels want the end of the stories they already got before we get "new heroes". You can do dart board characters all you want but there will be no readers brought in by it. Please stop. Just give me more of the part I love, please. I am a fan, service me, I will pay you.

#fandom #reading

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dim-3kx · 2 years

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i’ve been trying to think of how to rank mxtx protags and it is. surprisingly difficult because

a) lbh has that protagonist halo making him basically unbeatable but

b) xl and hc are ancient and powerful beings. one is a literal god and yes they aren’t infallible but could a heavenly demon defeat a god? are they stronger? hc was able to beat those 33 officials and i suspect that other than xl, hc is stronger than the rest of the heavenly court

c) wwx practices demonic cultivation which could potentially affect both lbh and hc - HOWEVER, expanding on point b), hc is probably strong enough to be immune to wwx and referring to point a) again, lbh has his protagonist halo BUT

d) does lbh’s halo stretch to the rest of the universe? or does it stop working once they leave the PIDW universe since technically he isn’t the protagonist anymore.

i haven’t included lwj and sqq because yes i love them but they definitely aren’t the strongest, sorry luvs <\3

conclusion: xl is canonically stronger than hc who i believe would be stronger than wwx (plus wwx’s cultivation wouldn’t even work against xl). the only problem i can see is lbh’s halo, so the mantle for strongest mxtx character definitely goes to either xl or lbh

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prettyboyavasilva · 9 months

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thinking about pretty boy ava and a poem by ocean vuong with this line that goes “he lay beside me and placed a word on the nape of my neck, where it melted into a bead of whiskey. Gold rust down my back. We had been sailing for months. Salt in our sentences. We had been sailing - but the edge of the world was nowhere in sight.”

something inarticulate in that about the idea of ava going on t and beatrice also coming to understand things about her gender. how binary stars often exchange mass, how they can appear as a single star until you look more closely; their light eclipsing each other into a single burning point.

just, pretty boy ava and the way he shifts bea’s notion of magnetic north. of gender, too. bea getting braver, wearing a binder under her t-shirt, ava’s fingers tracing patterns on her sternum when they’re out together, hand-in-hand and the scent of their different colognes mingling in the air like tongues.

ava with short-cropped blond hair artfully or artlessly tousled, sometimes darting strands of other colors shot through it in comet-tails. ava doing his first muscle-up and hurrying down off the bar, grinning wide and finding beatrice watching, beaming. ava kissing her there with all the fresh hard lines of her body flush against bea’s chest, hips, and ava telling her that even touching is different now. mourning how bea used to feel under his fingers but memorizing her again with this new phenomenology.

the halo’s response to things… glowy sections at ava’s throat where it’s inspecting the slight thickening of vocal cords (though ava’s not on a high enough dose or on it for long enough to dip his voice down far). bea watching in amazement, in fear because what if the halo doesn’t want ava anymore? (it does and they have that in common) glimmers of light in ava’s jaw, his chest, as the halo learns to tell between change and injury.

ava going out in a tank top and bea staring dry-mouthed at the new lines of muscle picked out on his arms. bea brushing her mouth over faintly stubbly spots on ava’s jaw. bottom growth one of the first things ava notices and beatrice having read about 900 articles about it so she’s ready but she isn’t.

not for the way ava arches into her hand, the newness of it all in bea’s mouth and against her fingers. and there’s always been divinity in ava but there’s something about this reclamation of body, the solidness of ava’s arms and his shoulders and the hunger that comes with it. beatrice watching ava mow through protein bars and buy those 32 oz bottles of chocolate milk in the store. oddly abashed in the face of this enormous appetite that extends to her, to everything, to life itself.

oh this is incredible. 10/10. no notes. knew it was gonna slap the moment i saw there's a section of poetry

i dont know if i straight up mentioned it here but butch bea and prettyboy ava exist in the same universe in my head. love love the part with the halo, the halo is def a little bit aware and alive to me and plays favourites.

just so in love with how both of them relearning each other. ava's expanding energy and appetite. their love... their gender. OUGH... thank you anon

#tbh butch bea is in every version of them in my head #this has been marinating in my head since i got it #anon #ask #original #writing #pretty boy ava #avatrice #ava #beatrice

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