selfish and untrustworthy.

𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠, 𝙄 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡. she has lied, she has stolen, she has cheated, she has misrepresented herself, she has… lied. but, she also risked her life to warn us that the ori were on their way, and almost sacrificed herself to shut down the very first ori supergate.

#vcla, ind. selective, low activity*, mutuals-only portrayal of vala mal doran, reimagined as an original character, stolen and and saved by odette ( 26, brst, she/her )

a study on: stolen identity, second chances, hiding a lie beneath another lie, and lost girlhood.

i highly recommend giving my rules a read through. discord is available upon request.

* i'm not going to artificially set up a queue to make this blog appear more active.    i am active on this blog (november 2022), but it's more based on interactions and having the right muse to write.   it will go through some activity oscillations but unless i explicitly put this muse on my multi, consider it active!

blogroll: @cptnpike • @nursc • @lcgends • @wcrlds

  Character arc

corruption arc

so. you got worse. and i'm not entirely sure i can blame you for it. maybe it was in you all along, hidden and waiting, or maybe someone planted it in you and watched it grow. either way, it's there now and you hold it in your fist like a second heart - this blood, this hunger, this thrill of having teeth and using them. perhaps you are right to. you are a mirror for the hardness of the world, and a mirror that we could all stand to look in more often. it's hard to watch the bleeding bring about more blood, but it is undeniable that you are very good at wounding.

     ‘YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS to make your point. When the clock strikes zero, I will leave and you will be dead. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t let this building drop on you.”   -   open starter

brush rinsed out and placed down, she turns away from the painting to give vola her full attention. grinning at the suggestion of a secret handshake, flashbacks to hidden meetings in playground equipment scheming ways to sneak extra snacks or similar childish goals. of course, now any scheming would probably involve expensive art or at least something shiny.

“not really one for shouting, but a handshake could work.” orchestrating a fake argument to cement their friendship seemed needlessly complicated and possibly detrimental to the newly labelled connection. “do we go full parent trap or something simple and subtle.”

“     i guess,    ”     shoulders fall, her posture visibly deflating.    it would have been fun to scream and shout without really meaning anything, get the blood bumping;   oh well, not everyone had the same sense of flair that she did:  the world was the worst for it   (   in her view   ).   

the word friends had left her lips before her brain had fully caught up with her rambling. mid-painting, her concentration split between the canvas and vala, her mouth had taken on a mind of its own. leaving her a little embarrassed. she is close to very few people, no longer quite sure what made people friends. nor, was she sure that the other reciprocated her warm feelings. unusual starts not withstanding. at least she got a nice pair of earrings for her troubles that time.

vala’s extended silence does not help her racing heart but she manages to keep quiet. give her possible friend a chance to think through the question and preparing herself to keep a neutral expression should the answer be no.

“acquaintances is a mouthful.” she agrees, returning the vanished smile with one of her own.

it would be more fitting if the words were the other way around  —   friends, a simple and easy word to say, should reflect the clarity of a relationship with an acquaintance.   the word friend carried expectations, responsibilities, created a transactional relationship based on an even more complicated simple word:   trust.     “     than it is settled.    ”

ENDLESS EDITS OF VCLA   (    mutuals may reblog   )

no offense to modern philosophers, vala is sure that they are doing very important work, or that they at least trying very hard to do something worthwhile, however none of them could ever dream of asking such an existential and complicated question.      are they friends?     well, they aren’t enemies, nor are they strangers.    does that constitute a friendship?    the way they met might have disqualified them from ever nurturing any sort of warm or fuzzy feelings towards each other, but they aren’t exactly average people.    a thief stealing from a forger is just how their business works.

“    suppose we must be something.    ”      perching herself on the small stretch of the counter not littered with paints and brushes, she smiles.    not widely as she is prone to do, the beaming which steals the light from the moon and blinds everyone around her, it is small and deceptively sweet, strange and out of place, gone in the next second, hidden by a curtain of dark hair.    

“    better that than enemies and acquaintances sure is a mouthful.    ”

    “     you’re less fun than i thought you would be.    ”

vala waited all of two seconds for him to elaborate before she launched her defense, waving her hands in front of her in increasingly dramatic movements.   “    aren’t you going to ask me for my side of the story?   of course not, no one cares about my side of things, even though i’m right most of the time, don’t even try to deny it mitchell, i’ve started writing it down, i’m collecting...   receipts.    ”    at least that is the word cassandra had used when she described the phenomena.

“     i must be wrong, the lieutenant must be right.    he broke his own arm, do you hear me?    ”