#saintwilllem

this is the six million dollar question, isn't it?

coolverse is my longest running verse and within it there has been so many changes -- it has grown with me as i've gotten older and because it's set in the here and now, a lot of posts on tumblr catch my eye and make me say "oh! coolverse!" but while it's deeply entrenched in my heart and easy to associate things to, i can't say it's the one i am personally most drawn to.

for me, i think vikingverse and gravity fallsverse draw me in the quickest. vikingverse grew from nothing to something in less than a day and gravity fallsverse just ticks so many of my "yes!" boxes.

with vikingverse, it's about going beyond the happy ending and looking at not only what it took to reach that happy ending but also examining who that happy ending is truly for. and can someone carrying the emotional weight of entire family also find a happy ending themselves. it's about the blood, tears, sweat, and bile it takes to reach the end still whole, even if everything about you has been arranged to get there. even if you no longer resemble the person you were when the story started.

and this all started as "what if i let her have a big axe?"

gravity fallsverse is about unravelling centuries old family trauma, about cycle upon cycle of the same mistakes over and over until finally someone says "not me. i won't join this ride." and how much it takes for someone to get there.

it's about the failing of adults to protect children by turning a blind eye to the hurt. and the burden of being the child who is always Ok™.

it about saying, "i might have been hurt by this generational trauma but it stops with me, even if it kills me to stop it."

💟: how is your style different in this work compared to previous ones? has it more shifted for the story or just developed in general?

in many ways it's similar to my usual MO -- i'm a slut for messy family dynamics, morally grey folk, and seeing where anger leads. but now, both with this and with other things, i enjoy personal growth. emphasis on the personal.

and i mean personal growth in negative and positive ways. but the important part is they do it for themselves and this definitely shows more "selfishness" with characters' choices towards fulfilment. before changes of that sort had a reaction upon how others saw them, on how much love they were deserved of, on their goodliness, etc; now, how others react is their own business, the characters' actions and growth are for themselves. if it costs or gains them love, so be it. that is not why they did it.

i also think this is the first time i've divided the family so gorily. usually when there's space between them, the care and familial bond remains. (even in the other variations of this 'verse -- dune and borgia -- the love is there even with thousands of miles between them.) but in this, the siblings are severed both physically by space and emotionally. gemma has no intention of returning to her brothers, and when tom leaves, he truly hates lee. this is definitely the sharpest the split has ever been between them.

💝: who has your favourite character arc? give a brief summary.

since i've already spoken about gemma, let's look at nolan.

and his arc of rising from a sickly young teen brought into the ranks of their pirate horde all the way to filling the space at gemma's side as confidante and right hand, in a way that neither her brothers nor any of her lovers could.

looking at gemma's arc (i know, i haven't shut up) she grows in power the further and further she separates herself from the images of herself put upon her by others. but that is where nolan differs. yes, he has followed gemma, as general, as jarl, and finally as queen, and he respects her as all of those things. but nolan has and always will see her as gemma. underneath the crown, all the blood washed from her hands, he sees her.

he isn't the loudest in his support of her. she has others in her ranks -- travis, chucky, dylan -- who cry her name on a battlefield for strength. nor is he the strongest, which surprises many for when the space at her side became unoccupied with braden's exile, everyone expected another berserker to take the free spot. someone with equal ferocity to her, equally battle hewn and bloody, like connor or jack. nolan is-

he's careful, and quiet in his watchfulness. and she trusts him. because she sees him looking at her and knows that he- that he knows things others have missed. things they don't see because they don't expect to see them in gemma. nolan sees them and doesn't judge them. or use them against her -- like when he finds out about sean (in fact, when sean starts following them in the first place, nolan is the first to notice), gemma doesn't have to beg him not to say anything. because nolan is quiet. and non-judgemental. he merely offers a place for gemma to put her feelings. a shoulder to rest her head. a voice to respond when she needs an echo. if that's what she wants. the lack of expectation in her immediately [if at all] accepting it but offering all the same.

other people's care used to come at a price for her. with nolan it doesn't. gemma isn't afraid to let him know things, to let him see her at her most vulnerable, her messiest. if he did this because he wanted power, gemma would know and would have cut him loose by now. he almost drowned when the ice broke crossing the river, she could have been rid of him long ago if she wanted. but she doesn't. she is content to let him be there. she looks at him the way she could have once looked at tom, or perhaps would have in another life. but instead she is here. telling nolan still shivering in furs after she pulled him from the raging waters that drowning is her worst nightmare. because it's how her mother died. in return he isn't worried his gentle concern for her is going to be pushed away. because they both know she doesn't need him. as gemma rises, it becomes plainly obvious that her succession is purely because of her, no one else. yet when she finally takes her estranged father's crown, trembling from the adrenaline, four months pregnant with her would be enemy's child, a burned to death husband hundreds of miles behind, and covered in dead men's blood, she howls. she howls in triumph, gutteral and aching, but her howl is a solo. the moment is hers and hers alone. and there at her back, barely in the room but undeniably present, is nolan.

even the one time she rages against his concern -- rages against all of those who followed her from lee's rule -- after nick is killed and she hears the news, something inside her snapping in heartache for what used to be, nolan doesn't go far. she screams for everyone to leave, which they do. they respect her too much to argue. but nolan stays on the other side of the door. he sits cross legged upon the ground, leaning his back against it, and lets her sob without judgement. there for when she reopens the door and allows him back in.

[unironically plays toastool's treehouse over their faces] do not enter is written on the doorway / why can't everyone just go away? / except you; / you can stay.

i've had a day of days here today including but not limited to accidentally mistaking hand sanitizer for moisturizer and applying it directly onto raw skin on my face, and knocking my box of tissues into the lit candle and yes, they did immediately catch fire.

so for that, here's two responses.

† 1. witchverse

"Back- your back," Nolan answers, just about in between one shaky inhale and the next. His shaking fingers press into her sweater, his palms pressing warm and heavy enough to feel her ribs beneath her skin. Her lungs underneath them. He tries to focus on those, to match his breathing to yours but up this close, he's distracted-

Up this close, he notices it again. It. The scent of something else, the hum of magic, the unhuman and animalistic shimmer on Gemma's skin. She's not a wolf, not like him. He knows that. They all know that. But she's something, something else. Something he can't name because he doesn't know; he doesn't know what it is, the animal, the creature that lies barely underneath Gemma's skin. Below the toffee apple smell of her body butter and the sea-stained salt scent they all carry from living this close to the sea.

He wants to ask, to at least let her know that he knows. And that he's ok with it. But it isn't the time.

Right now, Gemma's focus is on him. On helping him through this, out the other side of this panic attack, the reason for which he has all but forgotten. His exhale ruffles through her hair down her back and Nolan shuts his eyes.

† 2. balletverse

The last time Sid watched the rehearsal of this pas des deux, Patrice was Ivan and the height difference between Ivan and Anastasiya was much smaller. That was three years ago. Now Gemma stands, even en pointe, almost six inches smaller than Jordy.

Who Sid once would have said was "too blonde" to play the fearsome and menacing figure of Ivan IV the Terrible of Russia. But watching Gemma place herself in his arms, and how Jordy's fingers skim the back collar of her leotard, Sid realises how wrong that statement is.

Patrice's Ivan was martial. Powerful. A force upon the stage for all the eyes of the audience.

Jordy's Ivan only has eyes for Gemma's Anastasiya. He's softer than Patrice's Ivan, impossibly tender in how he holds her, supporting her weight on his shoulders as she places the invisible crown upon her head as his Tsaritza.

hello! thank you so much, wow. i'm genuinely flattered by this ask. i will attempt to keep this "guide" as brief as possible, but i may forget some 'verses cos i am notoriously bad at keeping up with my own tags system, so please bear with me, i'm doing my best.

ftr 99% of this blog is me vibin' with plot ideas and 'verses, writing essays in my tags (in parentheses) for myself, and forgetting to tags pairings. a lot of it is rpf, just cos i'm lazy at naming new characters and sometimes hot faces should make out with other hot faces -- don't get it twisted i don't think any of these folks should date irl. i'm just playin' with barbies and making fake families.

' V E R S E S :

addams family AU: when the adult grandchildren of gomez and morticia gather in the addams family mansion to divide up their inheritence chaos ensues.

anachronistic royalty AU: world war two never happened because after world war one, the imperium of europe -- excluding the UK, france and russia -- was formed and in 1925 the originally figurehead imperial family -- aka: the family that used all their money to bail out as many struggling european governments as they could -- was officially crowned. now, almost 100 years later, the crown princes of canada and the president of america's son [and friends] are trying to marry one of the four children of the current emperor of europe.

asshole immortalverse: post malone, zayn malik, and gemma arterton are immortals who have lived so long they've lost the ability to give a fuck and are playing "who can fuck 'em all" with the NHL. (so far, gemma is winning and post has been disqualified for traumatising mitch marner after throwing himself off the CN tower in toronto cos he's still, after all his years alive, terrible at breakups.)

balletverse: the story of friendships and relationships within a ballet company over the years, told as they rehearse for performances of [in chronological order] pugni's ondine, stravinsky's firebird, adam's giselle, copland's rodeo, tchaikovsky's swan lake, and prokofiev's ivan the terrible.

barrymoreverse: one dad, two divorced wives, one "the one that got away", resulting in five siblings with wildly varying age gaps; they've got a dynastic name in both hollywood and the west end but not one of the kids wants to act, much to the chagrin of their classically trained thespian father, who is about to marry wife number three (who is closer in age to his daughter than him).

collegeverse: has yet to get its own tag cos i'm lazy but to sum it up quickly, it's my favourite faces all attending princeton together and playing on the princeton tigers ice hockey team; mat barzal is really bad at keeping things buddies with post malone while jack eichel shattered his knee and will never skate again. tyler seguin is an astrophysics major.

coolverse: i have a whole sideblog about this, dedicated to the five adopted siblings in boston. can be summed up in two quotes -- "what started as a few heists has become a revolution" and "please relax and let me murder people for money". they're just trying to level the playing field in a game they were set up to lose.

there's also an 80s version. same siblings, different city (LA this time). more coke, more money, more tears for fears. moral compasses not found.

devil in phillyverse: after losing to sidney crosby one too many times, claude giroux sells the entire roster of the philadelphia flyers' souls to the devil in exchange for winning the stanley cup. no one warned him the devil would be hot.

gravity fallsverse: all grown up, the mystery "twins" (and their younger brother) return to gravity falls, oregon, after their grunkles' death to clear out the shack and process their trauma. at least one of them is gonna try and fuck a monster. a local college student who has been obsessed with their story since he was a kid keeps trying to interview them for his masters' dissertation and learns the hard way that those who fight monsters often bear the scars.

killerverse: what woulda happened to half the coolverse kids if they'd never been adopted by ma. straight up murdering their way across the midwest while blasting orville peck and dolly parton.

smartverse: a bunch of mid-twenties to early-thirty-somethings stuck in corporate hell waking up every sunday well rested in a stranger's bed with no idea where they are geographically. or; rooftop bars are all fun and games until it's just you, vodka, and the stairs playing chicken with gravity. or; too many dick jokes, crushing late-stage capitalism, and everyone trying to fuck noah's dad.

(collegeverse is often referenced in the tags on smartverse posts.)

softverse: it's not running away from the spotlight, it's catching your breath and feeling the cold tip of your lover's nose pressed to the nape of your neck as the golden light of the morning floods the kitchen all around you. sometimes things don't need to hurt.

vikingverse: glen described this 'verse as "shum by go_a but every time it gets faster gemma has gained another crown" which is 100% correct. half-based on pseudo-historical scottish/scandinavian/russian myths about the pagan vargarian (old russian name for the vikings) princess who fell in love with a man she saved from a bear attack [after killing her christian husband by locking him in a church and burning it to the ground] and founding the rurik dynasty. it's probably the most solid of the 'verse concepts on my blog -- seriously, so many are just vibe.

after getting abandoned to the ice by their father for his second wife and step-siblings, four siblings are raised by viking raiders to take back their foster father's throne from the man who usurped him. succeeding in that, unrest starts amid their warriors' ranks as different groups support different siblings as their foster father's heir, causing siblings to fracture. while the brothers fight, their sister returns to the homeland they were exiled from, slaughtering her step-family and exiling her birth father to the ice as she was, before razing the city she was born in to the ground. travelling east up the volga with her men, she first marries a christian king, then kills him and has a child with her former enemy's brother (who at first wished to kill her). her brothers continue to splinter away from one another as they scramble to make the best political marriage.

this also comes in game of thrones flavour -- they're all baratheons and they are the cause of the rebellion against the targaryen kings; they remain united -- the borgia family flavour -- they are the borgias and they've just put their eldest brother on the throne -- and dune flavour -- they're all atreides and their mom is playing god; they try to remain united but trauma-and-mommy issues is a helluva drug -- but those don't have separate tags.

witchverse: magical realism with a lot of bureaucracy and more sexy almost-drowning than should probably be allowed. or; a werewolf, a witch, and a changeling go on a long weekend to lake tahoe. not everyone is what they seem. or; "don't let my sister in the ocean after midnight or she will destroy the entire west coast!"

P A I R I N G S :

my ships come in three forms:

"fix him? oh no, i wanna make him way way way worse."

tiny angry goth-adjacent partner getting carried out of the room they're about to fight someone in by large golden retriever partner

"my toxic trait is i know how to love but i don't know how to be loved."

honestly, my tags for shipping are all over the place -- from super specific, this threesome in this 'verse only, to a conceptual ship across the universe. and that's if i actually bother to tag it. sometimes i truly ship something, very deeply, and it hasn't got a tag. the tags are so messy, in fact, i don't think i'm gonna be able to explain them all here but if you have any queries about any ships or what 'verses contain what ships, please don't hesitate to ask. the three most important ships in my heart are:

lady macbeth/lord macduff

apollo/circe (w/ bonus poseidon if he's not being a bitch)

pansy parkinson/neville longbottom/oliver wood in any variation