OPNERO

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!

It’s getting dark, just barely getting dark, you could be forgiven for just assuming it’s overcast if you didn’t have a watch. 

She does have a watch, but something has gone wrong inside it, some mote of dust jammed some tiny gear and now it won’t tick. It was a gift from her mother, the kind you nearly go through with returning. Ainsley had been able to ignore the watch jamming for a while, too preoccupied with other more important issues, all life and death in her mind. There were big glossy wall clocks everywhere, all ticking in strict military time, barring the one by the restroom in the rec hall. That thing ran two minutes fast, but nobody is in a hurry to fix a fast clock. 

It encourages punctuality, and when someone tells you that you’re two minutes early you can look down at your fast watch, incredulously declare that you sure are glad it wasn't two minutes behind. Though the misalignment was bound to make someone with a control issue and an ear to bend irritated eventually. One day it would be back to normal, and everyone accustomed to its fastness would be thrown off by the sudden unannounced change. 

Her watch was stuck at 2:35 AM, it had died in its sleep. Really a shame for such an expensive thing, so much so that she had gotten halfway through opening the door of the shop with the name on the sweet little bag it came in before she stopped and thought about it. About how her mother didn’t need to go to an establishment with lovely embossed thick paper gift bags to buy her a watch she really shouldn’t have. That one from a pawn, or an ugly toothless little foreign man on the street, or something of her fathers that lived at the back of a drawer all would have done the job just fine. That’s all you need a watch for, one job! tell time.

Gorchakov has a nice watch, it still works. She eyed it as it ticked seamlessly just the other day, puttering along like a sports car. The Cadillac Eldorado of watches. Gorgeous understated face on a brushed finish gold-filled saucer-like body, the numbers glowed radium green in the dark, even in overcast weather they had a hollow quality to them. It was a gift from his wife, which Ainsley is coming to understand that every thing the Mr. Gorchakov wears that she would ever want to mug him at gunpoint for was a gift from that same, thoughtful and tasteful, wife. It’s the kind of watch you would mug someone for. Not even to pawn, just to have. 

Mr. Gorchakov wouldn’t drive an Eldorado. He doesn’t, Ainsley had asked when they got to the point of their relationship where you launch random questions to try to glean some semblance of an understanding of the silhouette of the person you gaze across the canyon at. 

Her mother had bought her a nice watch, because to be engaged in serious business it helps to have a watch that people like to eye. It is not ideal to wear anything that would make any of your compatriots want to rob you.

He drives a Porsche 911 Lux.

When she thought of how her mother had gone out of her way to find her a watch, paid out of her budget to get a nice watch in a nice box, in a fancy paper bag with ribbon handles, she didn’t push open the door. In fact, she turned around and went back to her car (her mother’s car) and opened the box in the little bag, put on and wound the watch, and hasn’t taken it off since except to shower and do dishes.

It’s green, the Porsche. 

She hadn’t had time to dwell on the watch. Thinking she’d take it to be fixed when she met San Francisco again. Looking at it now, in the dying light its numbers are woefully dark. She feels a deep, implacable shame, burning a glowing green hole in her gut, as if she had jammed the springs herself in an act of petulant vandalism. She didn’t love it enough, perhaps that's why it died in its sleep. 

It's fast. He lisps around a cigarette, imminently lit. It’s two minutes fast. 

She’s long since exhausted every other conversation topic with him, they've both grown keenly aware of the fact that they have nothing else to talk about, and they won't until one of them goes to the mainland, or receives a phone call, maybe a letter. Asking about a watch, maybe.

It’s balmy, twilight humidity swelling, pooling under his fatigues. Uphill from some milling figures, short, fat, white males, something like that. That’s what good binocs were for, what man cannot make out under cover of dusk from 300 yards off.

Private Green is unhappy, up on his hill, because he is uncomfortable.

He has become intimately familiar with all possible forms of discomfort, of the physical and otherwise. 

Tell the nice doctor where it hurts.

A stomachache presented simply provides no path to resolution. The belly spans from sternum to asshole, there’s a lot of blood and guts packed in there, all ready to slide out and hit the concrete slab you stand and sweat like a pig on.

Show the nice doctor where it hurts.

He would argue that he has greater bodily awareness than the average man. To the degree where he can track his organs shifting inside him. Acidity, a sour stomach could be neutralized by water, he doesn’t drink enough sometimes, going days just licking the hard water from the shower off his lips before realizing he could just pour a cup of it to drink at dinner. All coffee and tomato paste burns you inside, up where your stomach actually sits, nearly in your chest. 

Bloat is bloat, reflux the same, Danny doesn’t cramp up like some of the other guys. That’s good, he worries about appendicitis. Subsequent sepsis killing a guy he knew from somewhere, somehow, jersey or wherever.

Imagine dying from appendicitis, at 18, probably before you ever tried anal. What a life.

Right now he’s bloated, whatever has decided to ferment in his stomach, the real one, making his breath hot. If he really cried about it to Jefferies he’d probably get portioned out some pepto bismol and sent to bed. Danny doesn’t want to go to bed, because his bed right now is a cot.

Being that they weren’t in fucking basic, and that they get beat like dogs, and shit on, and left out in the elements. He had assumed he could get away with an ugly bunk. So had Quincy and that stupid ginger faggot he forgot the name of, but Colonel Masters didn’t like watching anyone but him squirm, and thats all danny wants to think about that. It makes him uncomfortable. 

It’s roughly 18:00, so he needs to move. In the fifteen minutes he spent at the jeep barn he was meant to patrol it, point a flashlight in all the dusty corners. His flashlight is dead, and he’s not a security guard, he’s a fucking American soldier. 

There’s another kind of discomfort, milder on your stomach than most other ailments of the belly, little bit tougher on the head. He thinks about a pink bismuth salve, coating his brain with it, in a big syringe with a needle like a straw. Showing the doctor where it hurts. Some guys are so afraid of reliving their first examination that they sit and rot for days.

The guy died from sepsis in Khe Sanh. Not New Jersey, he wouldn’t see anyone in the hospital in Jersey after Nonna went. He wouldn’t see anyone in the hospitals in Chicago, cuz if he walked into one of those they wouldn’t let him out. Danny meanders away from the barn, out into the hot wet night. Mostly because he looked like he was stealing, all skinny and covered in pockets. The orderlies and paramedics didn’t know he didn’t like to steal, sneak around and shove needles in his jacket. They didn’t know he was more of a mugger, that he had a little mauser he couldn’t afford ammo for shoved between his belt and his gut, that he liked to point it at guys heads and watch them go to jelly. The money was a bonus, though at the time he didn’t see it as legal tender with great potential energy, a handful of cash became a ticket to ride. It was as worthless at the grocers as an arcade token off of coney island.

He trots down the driveway, looping around the long way to his next assignment, which is his last for tonight. Danny has to decide what to do with his free time now. The fat white American males have wandered off too, probably to go drink reasonably and go to bed at a normal time. He thinks he wants to lie down for a while, but the issue of the cot continues to prod at him with a hot iron. That’s the kind of discomfort that's harder on the mind than the body. The dying light casts everything in a dusty blue, even his own hands grow paler, then darker in the din. Other guys wouldn’t even think about going anywhere without a flashlight, half of them afraid of the dark now, like there’s slopes running around in fucking Alaska. You cannot reason with a scared G.I. in the dark, there's so much you both don’t know. Danny is more afraid to ask for a new battery than he is to walk out into the yawning night. Admit you don’t have one? Admit that yours died? And when he has that information about you what will he do with it? What will he make you do? What is danny willing to do for a battery, blowjob, klondike bar, mosquito net, hit, a good nights sleep, pepto-fuck-bismol-christ, whatever? He’d rather get reamed on a bayonet. In the dark.

He feels it, physically, turn his stomach over. Whipping himself hot and red for no reason at all in anticipation of humiliation that is not yet fated to grace him. Yet! Really, it did feel good to point a pistol up through a guy’s jaw, and slur, pretending to be inebriated, that he betterfucking get his goddamnwallet out of his pocket and pay him, Danny, for all his hard work. To smile, cheese through grinding teeth, laugh a little, it is a game after all. The gun isn’t loaded, it never is. Though, if his bluff was ever called, Danny had a six inch switchblade in his sock, the kind with a rose inlaid on its handle. They tended to flip out, try to calm him down, and when that didn’t work, cry. 

One time, and he told Kinsley this story, who thought it was funny, Danny really was high. His slurring and teeth grinding was authentic, and when the guy started to cry, a little black guy in a faggy yellow shirt, Danny started crying too. 

Mr. G didn’t like that story, he didn’t like hearing about Chicago, his face went all tight when Danny said “faggy” and “yellah.” He kicks a porous rock down the road. When he said that, that was sad, too. It was maybe because G didn’t want to hear about him crying, which is embarrassing. 

Now, it was too dark. The bulb of the lamplight whining above her pings and flickers, washing the blue ground with lemon yellow. Each paved road was set up with enormous floodlights on soaring black necks, but the generators that powered them were loud enough to feel and so none were installed anywhere near anyone trying to sleep. Every other woman traveled in packs, ran and shrank from the night. Ainsley thinks twice before stepping out of the ring of light, her flashlight weighs at least two kilos, her briefcase is steel. All is well, and she is not afraid of the dark.

You wanna hear something real funny? He had said it low and venomous, to put his hackles up. He had to be honest, he liked him better in a fear sweat, all bloodless and dilated. 

I could have afforded to load the damn thing.

What? He bears down hard on the H, it barely sounds like a word at all.

The mauser, the mauser I stole from the french guy who left it on a booth seat in a sticky bar in Brooklyn. Danny keeps going until his face changes, the one I told you I liked to mug people with.

I don’t think that’s funny.

I could have bought ammo for it, how many times I had to wrestle what I’m owed for out of some stinkin’ fence. A loaded gun would have been a blessing, man.

The coin of cold white light with the faded ring at the center, warped by the wave of the glass, behind which a hot bulb sits. You have to point it out in front of you, lighting your next three steps while your feet are always dark. Ainsley doesn’t mind the dark, so long as it’s a nice temperature and she has something in her hand, a beer bottle, maybe a brick if it was dire enough. Nobody bothers her, though, because they can’t get close enough in the low light to figure out that she isn’t a man. She thought, initially and stupidly, that being on a military base and all wouldn’t be so dire when the sun went down. Especially for how long the sun is down sometimes. 

I imagine it was difficult to get you to spend a dime on anything that wasn’t heroin, Daniel.

I wrote away for it twice, out of a catalogue. Twice, I filled out the form and the money, and I never sent either of them.

Because you couldn’t sit on cash for more than two hours, right? 

Because, and he points at Gorchakov from across the room, empty except for his body, which is also empty. Because I knew if I loaded that gun, I’d end up killing a man. It made it too fucking easy for me to kill some yellow shirted faggot just because I could, because he was already ready for me to do it. 

There is a long, ringing, pause. The empty room resonates.

It isn’t a long walk, and nobody has any reason to loiter outside in this weather, wet and hot. Ainsley begins to feel uncomfortable, shirt sticking to and irritating her sweat slicked back. Some unknown organ in her gut starts to ache. Something she would have to sleep on to decide if it was important enough to worry about. She would hate to be sick out here, trapped in her apartment for fear of the dark.

There is someone with a flashlight out here. Someone small. Without thinking about how or why, Danny pushes through the nighttime.

Ainsley can’t help but go cold and prickly when her flashlight passes over some big, clay stained american combat boots. He yelps when she points it directly in his fat, toothy face. The hand that shields his face casts everything past his nose in shadow, so much darker for it’s contrast to the gleam of sweat and stained enamel. 

Good evening, Private. He just laughs, and doesn’t reply, shouldering past her and disappearing into the dark, Ainsley hears him stumble, but doesn’t turn her flashlight around, he’d have to readjust to the dark. That was what she was worried about, skulking american dog-men without flashlights on paths designed for young intelligent women who wear skirts and tasteful kitten heels to follow to their homes. Hence the caution, out of habit, she checks her watch. Having to point her flashlight down, concentrate the beam onto one point, finally lighting up her own feet. It still reads 2:35 AM.

Ooh, he finally coos. Aren’t you such a big, scary, man?

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

All from Revelation 12.

Lots of fighting about what this shit even means, loosely it describes an eternal struggle between good and evil, contextually the woman is probably intended to refer to the people of Israel (Not literally the contemporary entity, but as a term for God's chosen people, the proverbial "Good" in the good vs evil thing. Though it is worth noting that Jan is Jewish.) The Dragon is satan and all his evil works, okay?

a common theme for Jan is how he frequently perceives himself to benefit from being isolationist. If he doesn't open some final door of intimacy, a meaningful bond cannot ever be formed, and when the inevitable horror comes he cannot have anything ripped out of him via that door. He is intensely emotionally shut off from everyone, while still being able to perform intimacy and empathy because he "holds the door shut", it's bordering on psychopathy.

Jan is positioned by the narrative as noble for this, his dignity and detachment from earthly concerns and passions are what would make him "worthy" of salvation from an outside perspective. He has an interesting relationship with Ulysses later on that compounds on this, because well, he isn't of saintlike devotion to God, he is just completely undevoted to anything else. His gentleness and occasional nurturing behavior are only extended to the disenfranchised, a result of his residual empathy for the passion of others, he knows angry, really outright angry, people are hurting in some way. He was, at one point, a very angry person.

He would have let Danny punch red in the face, had he witnessed that part, out of respect for his anger.

(TO BE CLEAR, EVERY OTHER CHARACTER IN OPNERO IS FULLY IN THE DARK ABOUT WHAT DANNY AND RED ARE EVEN DOING! THEY ARE REALLY GOOD AT PRETENDING NOT TO KNOW EACHOTHER)

he would even hesitate to stop him from beating the shit out of red, because Jan doesn't like him all that much anyways. but the second Danny seems to tip over into intent to kill, and his language starts getting delusional and sexually violent, he chooses to intervene. As opposed to Ainsley, who would litigate against Danny if he pinched red's arm.

Danny perceives himself as critically weakened in this moment, that as good as it feels to get this close to killing red the way he went about it was raw and embarrassing. Mostly because other people saw it and got to halt it, he hates Jan and very briefly he becomes his number one enemy that he avoids to prevent further conflict he knows isn't good for his reputation. in the same way that nothing can rattle or hurt Jan, nothing can dispel danny's grudges and satisfy him spiritually. I kind of think of him as a pit that hates consuming. Le Devil.

(Though, Danny also privately percieves of Red as the devil)

With regards to the parallels between the conflict between the woman and the dragon, I do kind of feel like this battle is an intimate one. surely the dragon could be a thoughtless force of destruction, but that is impossible to track onto an interpersonal relationship. I prefer to think of their fight being a misdirection of all the anger and disgust danny feels for red and for himself being involved with red onto Jan, who is simultaneously shut-off and perceptive and has the power (physically, in that moment) to pacify him, and make it clear to danny that he knows he is hurting about something. Which danny haaaaaates, mostly because he is, for obvious reasons, really sensitive about his relationship with red and scared about how red perceives him. It's like walking into a glass door with someone on the other side watching. embarrassing! Danny eventually gets distracted by other more antagonistic issues, leaving Jan to slip off into the background until he remembers he exists and remembers that he hates him.

comic about it, and about Jan's thoughts on it. He really doesn't know any details, because as close as he gets to red by professing empathy for him (he is under the impression that Danny is abusing Red, and red would like to think that he is a victim of Danny) he still isn't interested in actually talking about any of it, and Jan doesn't care to pry further than a kind of self-satisfied resolution that red was a lifelong rape victim all along, which makes his nastiness towards him a petulant emotional reaction and not true bigotry. like a "ohhh youre so fucked up in the head thats why youre transphobic <3" thing. which isn't really it... and kind of weird, Jan.

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:

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.

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.

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:

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: