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loonysama · 2 years

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For the meta asks for writers: 2, 6, 7

Thanks @calenlily for the ask! These were thinkers!

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Right now I'm working on a spicy one-shot for Anna from Frozen's birthday and an exchange piece for a multi-fandom challenge that's top secret! But I have too many WIPs that I've already started posting and my goal for this year is to finish them, or at least finish some of them. I also have the Kristanna Halloween Days challenge to look forward to in October (some ficlet ideas are swirling around already!)

One of the WIPs I have out there is gonna get a rewrite. It's a Frozen x Tangled ghost story with a Kristoff/Anna and Anna & Elsa focus set in modern times called "Seeing is Believing, Hearing is Deceiving." The family lives at a haunted Victorian mansion and Anna has the ability to see but not hear ghosts (which she fully embraces) and Elsa can hear but not see them (which negatively affects her mental well-being). Anna gives ghost tours of their estate and Kristoff is the estate's conservator/maintenance tech. Both of them have an interest in Victoriana, and both live with one foot in the past. One day Kristoff is doing some repairs in the basement and discovers a literal skeleton in the bricked in dumb waiter shaft, which awakens some malevolent spirits that had been contained until then. Anna and Elsa (with the help of Kristoff and their father, Agnarr) have to work together using their combined abilities to stop a ghost that tries to use a loved one to complete their unfinished business. There's a story within the story that parallels with a history of the estate and its inhabitants with clues for how to solve the mystery, along with passages from a diary kept by the former governess. And throughout this whole thing there's also a Kristoff/Anna love story and a tragic love story about two of the ghosts. I spent so much time on world building and character development, and researching, not to see this project through. I still have two white boards with the family tree and character arcs set up, along with schematics of the Victorian mansions on the estate! I'm hoping to have it fully posted by Halloween, but I'd also rather take the time to be happy with it this time around, even if it means finishing in December or whenever. Needless to say, I have my work cut out!

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Anna from Frozen! She's lived through so much sadness but she's still bright and sunny and never gives up hope that things will be better. And she always sees the best in people. That ends up being her downfall in some ways, but in other ways it's a strength. Her character also shows incredible growth from F1 to F2, and in a lot of ways she's kind of written off, being the spare to Elsa's heir, but then her true talents are acknowledged when Elsa abdicates and names her as the new queen. And she is her own hero. She gets help from Kristoff along the way (and I love him and his non-toxic brand of masculinity), but ultimately she's the one that saves the day. It's a flip of the damsel in distress/knight in shining armor, which I can't get enough of.

I love writing her as strong and formidable (especially when no one expects that from her) despite whatever challenges she faces. And sometimes I write about some really dark and heavy stuff and it's nice to have a little ball of sunshine to part the clouds for all of us.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

I'm not 100% sure how to answer this, but here goes:

I like to push myself to be diverse in my writing, so every fic is a little different. Although, they do tend to bleed into each other a little. Usually there's something I like from one that I use for the next story but I turn it around. But there are other things that run through my stories, I'm sure.

I write a lot about relationships, so I rely on a lot of dialogue to tell the story at least as much as prose. Prose doesn't exactly make for good banter! I will say that my best fics are less dependent on dialogue, so it is something I've been exploring.

I also tend to write from one character's perspective most of the time (usually the female). I like to really focus on that character's development, and it's ultimately more interesting to me than an action-packed plot. Sometimes that means 1st person!

Most of the time my female characters are dominant or at least equal to their male counterparts, and usually they're the ones to save the day. And there's almost always a trace of trauma and mental illness there, even if it's not apparent to the reader. Sometimes I write things in layers, one specifically for the readers that have experienced trauma, because they will see things there that others won't, and an overall story arc meant for everyone. Not sure how successful I am there, but it's always in my mind anyway.

I'm a huge fan of AUs. I love writing them and reading them, even just thinking them up and filing them in the "some day" folder. Most of the time I come up with the AU before anything else, then the characters, then the plot. I think it makes for good world-building and character development, which I love. Sometimes my plots get overly complicated as a result, but for them, I tend more to just write it as I go with only basic plot points that change by the time I get there.

I have a tendency towards run-ons and over-using commas. (Don't we all, right?) I am a chronic under-editor and gun-runner that hardly ever uses betas, so I've been known to notice errors a week after posting and going in to fix it (I know I'm not the only one). I'm not gonna bring up my other flaws except that I'm always working on getting better.

I think people would agree with that? At least I hope they agree with the good stuff anyway.

#asked and answered #my two cents

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jewrocker · 3 years

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Biden’s “Impossible Dream”

Along with the other eighty-million Americans with an IQ over five, I too am doing backflips at the prospect we’re just weeks away from flushing this unprecedentedly corrupt and incomprehensibly cruel administration into the cesspool of infamy where they belong. However, as ecstatic as I am at the thought of an actual human being once again occupying the Oval Office, one must still be realistic as to what to expect going forward. Sadly, it seems, to the contrary of our president-elect.

President Biden’s statement that he intends to be a president ‘...to all Americans’, while admirable and more than a welcome change from the incoherent ramblings of the Mad King, seems to be more than a bit out of touch with what’s actually going on in this country in 2020, and beyond. While he may indeed devote every ounce of energy to this seemingly insurmountable task, unity is still a two-way street. Last we checked, there’s a massive concrete divider in the middle of this one. A concept that the president-elect inexplicably doesn’t seem to fully have grasped. Especially, considering, as a former vice-president, he lived through eight years of Senate Republicans sticking it to his boss every chance they got. I mean, “Hello, McFly?” Do you really believe Congressional Republicans are just going to snap out of their near twenty-year trance because you’re friends with them?

Exhibit One: Leader McConnell.

If you’re old enough to remember the Obama years, you’ll have no trouble recalling the now-infamous line uttered by that bastion of Honor and Ethics, Mitch McConnell. That being, “My only goal for the next four years is to make Obama a one-term president.” Aside from being borderline treason for a Senator to openly admit he’s going to spend every waking moment betraying his oath in order to achieve his despicably anti-American goal, “Moscow Mitch,” as he’s now affectionately known, hasn’t changed a bit. In fact, he’s gotten worse, and, thanks to his miraculous re-election in a state that had him at just an 18% approval rating, more emboldened.

After shamelessly defending our Russian-asset POTUS at every opportunity, including predicting the outcome of an impeachment hearing before it actually took place, the worst leader in the history of the United States Senate spent the past four years doing NOTHING, but filling an unprecedented number of conservative judgeships; including, surprise, the Supreme Court, where the louse seemed to actually revel in reneging on his own call to wait until after the election to choose a replacement for Justice Ginsberg. No policy. No compromise. No nothing. Nothing, that is, but increasing the deficit by trillions and making sure his corporate cronies are exempt from responsibility due to their shameful response to the pandemic. I guess that’s something.

Thus, unless our incoming president is suffering from severe amnesia, he should have no illusions that, following the Georgia runoffs (should Republicans maintain the stranglehold they currently enjoy), there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell McConnell, the demonic amphibian he is, will allow any dissenters to side with the president, on anything. Not a bill to curtail the amount of robocalls one gets on a daily basis, nor a motion to change the ketchup dispenser in the congressional cafeteria.

Exhibit Two: Trump’s Minions

If, after witnessing 126 House Republicans sign onto what is nothing short of a statement supporting the overthrowing of our Democracy, as well as several Republican Senators coming out in support of objecting to the States’ already-certified electors, anyone who thinks president Biden will somehow get these cockroaches to join hands singing Kumbaya, is living on another planet. In fact, from what we’ve seen in the last six weeks, alone, it’s fair to say Congressional Republicans are now more of a threat to our nation than ISIS. Yes, that ISIS. At least, the Islamic State have the decency to tell you to your face exactly what their objective is: The total destruction of American Democracy. Period. Modern day Republicans have proven they have the same exact goal; they just do it from within, disguised as “patriots.”

Exhibit Three: Seventy-Million Idiots

In spite of the Deplorables on The Hill, the biggest hurdle the president, and vice-president, have in front of them may very well be the American People, themselves. While there’s got to be a few million in the human Chernobyl’s base of seventy-million-plus who aren’t full-blown, racist psychopaths, there are still way too many who’ve shown they’re fully committed to the cult of Trump. Even now. Even though their government led them into a year-long nightmare of misery and misinformation: even as their apathetic leaders choose to bail out their billionaire buddies, while sending them a $600 slap in the face, they continue to support them. Unmoved.

Even though Benedict Donald has spent the past two months proving he has zero interest in/reverence for this Democracy and in a peaceful transference of power, truth is, outside of maybe a handful of ‘awoke’ individuals who’ve finally seen enough, he’s most likely not lost a single one of his hardcore supporters. In fact, many of them have doubled down in their support of the village idiot - going as far as to organize a “parallel inauguration” on Universe Two - the fantasy world where Trump will still be president (Most pundits refer to Trump supporters as living on ‘Earth 2,’ but their thinking is so alien to facts/common sense, IMO, they deserve their own universe.). These sad, sorry fools fell hook, line and sinker for the president’s claims of “fraud”, to the tune of stocking his post-election war chest with a cool quarter-billion dollars. Translation: you’re looking at an entire sect of people who have no basis in reality. So, who’s worse? The Trump supporter? Or the one who tries to reason with the Trump supporter?

These Trump-described “suckers,” who, in spite of everything they’ve seen, in spite of the fact we have a president who’s golfing while millions can’t even put food on their table during the holidays (those still alive that is) are still so consumed with hate for the other side, they’d rather see their nation brought to the brink of civil war than be governed by a Democrat. They’d rather elect a corrupt, bottom-dwelling QAnon conspirator to Congress, than an honest, sane liberal whose major crime is refusing to believe Tom Hanks and Bill Gates are partners in a global kiddie porn empire. Case in point, the more than dozen House seats that flipped red this past November, and, with them, some who actually believe the above. This kind of unhinged, spiteful, masochistic thinking suggests the hate modern day Republicans have towards liberals is greater than the love they have for their own children. Good luck overcoming that type of home-grown martyr, Mr. President.

Exhibit Four: Biden, Himself:

The welcome, sorely needed public comments seeking to reunite a hopelessly divided nation, notwithstanding, by stating what the New York Times calls “no interest” in pursuing any type of retribution/Justice, re: the myriad of crimes committed by this horrific administration, IMO, the president-elect has already stepped in it. Especially after the Georgia phone call.

It’s never a good idea to address your supporters, many of whom feel they’re owed some form of payback after being forced to watch helplessly as their Constitution was consistently used as toilet paper by a mob boss POTUS for four, long years, and, right out of the gate, say you’re just going to forget the whole thing. After all, this isn’t Nixon we’re talking about here. This is a thousand Nixons... on steroids. This is treason in all its forms. The attempt to “find” 11,780 votes, just one more than Biden, is the most egregious crime ever committed by a U.S. President. Yet, the president-elect continues to spew this type of disappointing, non-confrontational rhetoric. While hopefully just said for the cameras, it definitely gives many of the incoming president’s supporters, including Yours Truly, night sweats.

In fact, IMO, SDNY aside, letting these, spineless, racist, anti-American miscreants sail off into the sunset, with free health care for life and full pensions, on us, would be worse than all their crimes put together. As it will not only show the next corrupt bunch of lawless idiots to come down the pike they can do whatever they want and they’re guaranteed a free pass from the next guy, it will end our experiment in Democracy as we know it; as it will have all-but-proved the president is, in fact, above the law. I really hope I’m wrong. Fingers crossed Biden is just doing his job and saying all the right things, while privately working to nominate Sally Yates for A.G. IMO, should Ms. Yates get the nod, she will see to it Justice is served on all fronts. If not, you can bet there’s a damn good reason.

Mueller made the fatal mistake of playing fair with Trump and Barr, and their legion of sycophantic sheep in Congress, and wound up looking like a timid, outmatched eunuch. After living through the Obama years, after living through The Trump years, after seeing the literal definition of treason on a daily basis, it appears Biden is choosing to ignore these screaming red sirens and walk down that path, as well, at least with his words.

How much more proof does the president-elect need to know these individuals on the other side of the aisle are only interested in one thing? Total Dominance, by any means necessary. Even if it’s a flagrant violation of their oaths to defend The Constitution. Every single low-life choosing to join a wanna-be fascist in his reprehensible attempt to overturn our national election are only Americans by birth. That’s where it ends.

In Alan Parker’s classic film, Mississippi Burning, there’s a great line in the scene where the two FBI agents, played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, realize playing by the rules with these racist bastards will never get them the Justice they seek. Straight-laced Dafoe says, “Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson.” To which, no-nonsense Hackman replies, “These people crawled out of a sewer, Mr. Ward! Maybe the gutter’s where we outta be!” Here’s hoping there’s more of Anderson than Ward in our next president.

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benjaminabelmeirhaeghe · 5 years

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Originally born in Eine, the now Brussels-based Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe graduated in Performance Arts at Maastricht’s Theatre Academy. Besides working as a theatre maker, performer and director, Meirhaeghe avidly responds to nicknames such as self-proclaimed narcissist, wannabe countertenor and (medieval) fool. He relativizes and banalizes the socials groups and world he abides in on a very adolescent and self-conscious level, while ironically praising what is not to be praised. As he looks his own devils and those of others straight in the eyes, he channels critique on the thin line between witty humour and seriousness, masterly wielding his enchanting voice as his powerful weapon.

His musical performances are in collaboration with musician/producer Alien Observer. Meirhaeghe is fond of tackling themes such as indifferent free speech and virtual worlds, which divulge his keen sometimes mischievous reflections on deep-rooted concepts. Having previously searched for naturally yet uncomfortably intimate atmospheres in My Inner Songs (2016), he has gone all out in Mea Big Culpa (2017) by centralizing and omni-presenting his persona in music, image and language. With the exalting My Protest (2018) he deliberately causes us to reflect on contemporary tensions and orchestrates an awakening which unleashes a less rose-coloured reality, ultimately freeing us from the bittersweet, transcendent dreamy atmosphere. The precarious tension field between entertaining and criticizing becomes almost tangible in each performance. As he remains an enfant terrible, he mercilessly charms, alleviates and bombards us. The fool becomes king.

Furthermore, he often supports projects and ideas of other performers, positioning him as a metteur en scène. The pieces consistently project a certain, fleeting moment – a lingering echo from his photographic past. Operatesque elements are never hard to find, and explicitly harmonise in his own shows as well. The Dying (Het Sterven) (2017), a collaboration between Kim Karssen and Meirhaeghe, mirrors the process of someone dying in a one-hour long death scene, an outlined drama reciting the foundations of a pathetic theatre. With a nod towards Friedrich Nietzsche’s eponymous, philosophical novel, Also Sprach Zarathustra (2017) gladly flirts with philosophical issues regarding technology and depression instead of honouring the philosophical core of the book. In a prophetic and existential story, Anna Luka Da Silva and Meirhaeghe introduce a robot and human being on stage. The former as an übermensch, equilibrist and semi-fool, the latter as the narrator of Nietzsche’s novel with the infiltrating intention of “We didn’t even read the whole book”. Le Carnaval de Venise (2018), though stripped from its original score, rejuvenates the 17th century libretto by French composer André Campra in a contemporary setting. Using gongs and other atypical sounds, the play develops a special rhythm with references and an accompanying visual language, all conveyed by a five-headed corps de ballet. Every moment alludes to something else. Yet it’s a static physical work, a commedia dell’arte meets the Japanese noh. And despite the stringent score with defined queues, the play embraces avant-gardist and Dadaist influences.

Meirhaeghe allocates himself on the dramatic crossroads between old and contemporary mechanisms of opera. Both are subject to an almost sophisticated decomposition, arranged by yours truly. Shows such as The War (2016), Black Pole (2018) and, as his graduation project, The Ballet (2018) revolt against the classical, archaic opera systems and experiment with diverse forms of artistic autopsy of that conservative world. Meirhaeghe unravels different mechanisms indebted to opera and ballet, and unfolds them, exposing them one by one before creating a new, composed narrative. Movements in the machinery reveal themselves, the suggestive connotation dissolves. The theatrical rigging system is played as if it were a marionet, our range of vision becomes manipulated. The structures, entangled in a hierarchy, answer to his direction. Intense emotions overwhelm us. Oh, the pain, the tragedy, the laughter! His shows bathe in bipolarity, and all the while the fool looks over everyone. He rises on stage and in our souls. Moreover, he sacks the idea of a constant, almost competitive need to prove oneself worthy of something – and with it, stardom and artistic prodigies are suddenly plunged in an ice-cold bath.

The War, a joint effort by Marieke De Zwaan and Daan Couzijn, presents a still image, an extended snapshot of a wounded person who receives first aid by a relief worker. There’s a complete absence of context and background information of the characters. The structure of Le Carnaval de Venise is applied here as well: a stationary, visual language with innuendoes which attentively mirror fixed queues and seek out repetitions in image, sound and wordplay. Armed with extensive timbres and medicinal mantras for the soul, Meirhaeghe elevates the war’s intrinsic ferocity and its aesthetics. Each attempt to revive the heartbeat of the wounded, only ends in the rhythm of the play – whether the heart rate is restored, remains unanswered. A tragedy in a constant, rhythmic spiral.

Another show, again with De Zwaan, thrives on an alternative impetus. Unlike The War, where drama is key, Black Pole utters a non-mesmerising, rather rebellious meta-narrative about tourism. Twenty volunteers, who honestly don’t fake being bored, are followed during their dull flight. When they finally arrive at their destination, multicultural entertainment awaits them and the public. Chinese lions! Indian dance rituals! Turkish music! As fast it came, the excitement disappears, and everyone is back in the same monotonous situation, now homeward bound. Both the audience and the actors endure similar emotions: from disappointment to thrilling ecstasy to severe disappointment. The revolutionary, revolting characteristics of Meirhaeghe’s personality are not only ever-present in his artistic practice, in this play specifically they crave an unusual, alienating experience.

Crowning his four-year study is The Ballet, a humble yet laudable, real feat. Aligned with Kunstencentrum Vooruit’s iconic theatre hall, the play is a benchmark in his ambition of establishing a new artistic discourse. Besides appropriating the structure from an opera-ballet, The Ballet includes operatesque stage props, a historical interior, the sky-high tailored stage curtains, live piano by Maya Dhondt and captivating movements by Emiel Vanderberghe, a professional ballet dancer. The tragedy, soaked in all that splendour, is now and then comically illumed – thus unmasking Meirhaeghe’s bipolarity – and parallels present-day suffering with 18th century, romantic and heart-rending love stories. The Ballet has intensely impersonated emotions in abundance, and as it shifts between melancholy and deep nostalgic desires, the peculiar romance results in an almost adolescent waterloo. While both men eagerly showcase their virtuosity and self-discipline, the play sooths the audience with moving tales and grandeur. Meirhaeghe cunningly addresses two pressing issues: refreshing archaic stories and repertoires in a modern life setting and, as a young artist, taking over a rather rigid institute.

The need to reread, reinterpret and restructure the opera circuit is germinated while studying performance arts. The course encourages experiment and focuses on interdisciplinary approaches, and ultimately helps Meirhaeghe’s evolution from being an autodidact countertenor and solo performer to a director and creator. His then microscopic eye, primarily focused on activating a space, gets a macroscopic upgrade. Or as Peter Missotten describes it: “If you have a problem, make it worse.” On his terms, Meirhaeghe orchestrates a marriage between the traditional opera-ballet genre, experimental and contemporary theatre. The twofold relationship between intense emotions, abstraction, musicality and virtuosity is not to be sacrificed but to be preserved and maintained. And with this calculated disruption of hard-boiled structures, he invites the fool back on stage as the ultimate metaphor.

Also, Vanderberghe’s appearance in The Ballet is not a coincidence. A lot of his works, if not all, are influenced by male muses, Meirhaeghe’s photographic background and the maturing process of his self-conscious, rebellious persona. As a young boy he often captured drama in static snapshots of sudden moments and preferred that momentary feeling as his subject. He evoked his own absent beauty through literally imagining the present, young male nudity, and gradually created several muses, making him experiment with his models. The disentanglement of that emerging balance of power made him appropriate the beauty of others, nearly embodying their charm. Vanderberghe can be perceived as the glorification and idolization of that process: he’s ubiquitous in every work, except The War, and becomes almost a worshipped and praised figure. As a huge influence on Meirhaeghe’s practice, Vanderberghe plays a pivotal and clearly crucial role in his life. The dichotomy becomes once again apparent due to the echoing struggle between uncertainty and self-confidence – a dilemma which also forges a path to focus more on his own shows. And in the wake of previous, great artists and stars that created everlasting masterpieces before him, he immortalizes that nowadays recurring need to prove oneself with the nickname self-proclaimed narcissist. A hyper-personal work with the fool as the catalyst of his art practice and as the personification of that ceaseless ambiguity.

However, in his future repertoire the muses cut back their decisive cameo. The emphasis shifts to a more cross-disciplinary, collaborative and open approach bundled in a more receptive discourse regarding opera and ballet. Considering the involvement of a supportive, engaged group of people as essential, he transcends opera-ballet through an interdependence with contemporary visual art and design without disrespectfully treating the theatrical canon and old repertoire. Think of it as an opera in transition, transformation and (r)evolution. In addition, he concentrates on boundless engagement, exceeding love, in a search for the world’s manifestation and its salvation. For example, Meirhaeghe revamps Ballet de la Nuit, an originally 13-hours long spectacle in which the notorious French king Louis XIV makes his debut as Apollo, and reduces it to an epitome of one hour. He bridges the gap between the French baroque and the now, between classical opera-ballet and 21st century pop. At the same time, he questions the magnificence of that medium because of its immense production without a lot of resources. Other pieces he plans on updating, are Erwartung (1909) by Arnold Schönberg, the proto-opera L’Europe galante (1697) by André Campra, the revolutionizing La muette de Portici (1828) by Daniel Auber and Combattimenti di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) by Claudio Monteverdi. Every show values the powerful, reciting potential of opera. Whether it is a tableau vivant rendering songs of love and war or stimulates an independence war or drawing a heart-breaking metaphor of Europe: Meirhaeghe calls for change.

Theatre as a time machine with the fool as our guide.

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