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philosophika · 2 months

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Hi there friend, sorry it’s been a while, life has been busy. A question about AUs, since this is something I’m currently exploring:

If you were to create an Alternate Universe of your setting, what kind of setting would it be? What changes would you make for you characters to fit?

Hi Aqua (@aquadestinyswriting), thank you for this thought-provoking ask! And no worries <3 Life is life, and it gets us all! I'm always psyched to see you on my blog. To the moots, if you aren't familiar with the fantastic Aqua yet and/or you love the Titan Fighting Fantasy universe, go check out her Writeblr Masterpost for a complete overview of all her projects!

This is the question of the moment for The Sorcerer's Apprentice as I'm currently redesigning the universe. You couldn't have hit the nail more squarely on the head!! Previously, the story had been set in (1) a heavily UK-inspired high-fantasy macrocosm (á la Game of Thrones) and (2) a modern-day psychological horror version of a NYC Fifth Avenue apartment (á la Rosemary's Baby). In these previous universes, Valeriano and Altaluna were, respectively, a King and his heir, and an elderly socialite and his heir. However, since both these settings and their associated character roles eventually chafed against what I was looking to achieve with the story (aka. an exploration of the link between capitalism, colonialism, racism, and environmental disaster), I decided that this time I'd abandon all familiar formulas and rebuild the world from the ground up to highlight the broader social tensions that underlie Valeriano and Altaluna's relationship and, on a meta-narrative level, ensure that the aesthetics of the novel do not in any way reinforce or glorify the issues I'm attempting to criticize.

One of the biggest changes I've made in service of this goal is that I've taken the story completely out of the northern hemisphere. The geography, fauna & flora, religion and culture of the newly minted universe are all based on Colombia and Latin America more generally. In this way, I'm hoping that the novel itself will push back against the idea that our culture and environment are appealing, but only as the setting of a romantic weekend getaway or as the backdrop to a drug and/or human trafficking drama. I want to show that fantasy is possible here, too. That we can dream in our own terms. Furthermore, I want to undermine this general feeling that we (Colombians & Latin Americans more generally) have nothing to be proud of when compared to the US or countries in Europe. By highlighting and praising our architecture, food, natural diversity, and customs my aim is to chip away at that self-deprecating streak and all its associated myths (that we're poor because we're stupid, and lazy because we get too much sun) as much as I can. I would be really happy if my novel could help people see themselves and the world they live in, in a new more positive light...

Of course, this change in the setting/universe means changes for Valeriano and Altaluna as well. It would be tone-deaf to keep Valeriano as a King in a novel that is inspired by a region so heavily marked by the fight for independence from a monarchical society. For this reason, I'm leaning toward keeping the 'socialite' role he played in the Rosemary's Baby edition of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, with a few modifications. I'm actually thinking of using him to show how art can work to perpetuate colonial power (but more on that later! I still need to hash out some details). Similarly, Altaluna will be conserving her 'heir' role from the Rosemary's Baby edition, but with some of the more large-scale social movement/impact she had in the Game of Thrones rendition. If I can successfully adapt both Altaluna and Valeriano to this new universe, then their conflict should expand beyond a family drama into a commentary on the horrors colonialism enacts both on the oppressor and the oppressed (thank you, Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire for opening my eyes). If I'm really lucky, then maybe I'll be able to test possible solutions, like Babel by R.F. Kuang does (the solution there is violence, which is very Fanon adjacent).

Anyway, who knows. We'll see how it goes!

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 3 months

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So, I’m a big fan of the regular stand-up format: funny stories for varying lengths of time that average out to an hour, callbacks, building up a theme, tying threads together, serious and/or sad bit at the end, try getting overly personal or overly political if you think you have the chops to handle it (because it’s fantastic if done well and really hard to watch if done badly), preferably some meta commentary, up to four traditional punchline-driven jokes if there’s enough time. It’s an excellent formula.

I don’t completely object to experimentation. Nick Helm and Rhys James made me realize that spoken word poetry is probably the artsiest thing I really like in a stand-up show. And I often like people who add music in there. Sometimes I even don’t mind a prop or a costume.

What I find it less easy to get into is sketch comedy, and/or character comedy, something with a narrative that’s entirely fictional. Physical comedy. Anything that can be described with the word “clowning”. I think this is why I don’t mind that a lot of the comedy recordings I have are audio only. The visual side isn’t a big part of what I enjoy in most comedy.

Basically, I'm a big fan of stuff that was called alternative comedy twenty or more years ago, when the thing to which it was an alternative was just a misogynist going setup-punchline for 30 minutes straight. Whereas stuff that's called alternative now can be literally anything, and some of it I like, and some of it makes my chest feel weirdly tight in an uncanny valley sort of way. I don't like puppets. I'm glad everyone else is having a good time but I don't like the puppets.

I’ve posted about this before, and usually add that every once in a while I’ll watch something like that to try to expand my horizons. Here’s how that’s gone.

Shows that have made me think – yep, I was right to believe this isn’t for me, I mean I’m really glad everyone’s having a good time and I wish them the best and I can appreciate that this might be technically very well made, but not for me:

- The Delightful Sausage – Nowt But Sea

- Mr. Swallow – Houdini

- Phil Ellis - Excellent Comedy Show

- Anything with that little purple Feltface puppet

- I watched this show called Siblings that was streamed from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe because it was a variety show and I wanted to know what that was like, there was someone who spun hula hoops and removed her clothes and someone else who juggled fire and various sketches and a drag queen and one guy who just slipped on banana skins as his whole act, I was very impressed with some of the technical skills on display but it also felt weird and uncomfortable and the only part where I had any idea what was going on was when Tom Ballard came on to tell jokes about his sex life and made me say “Oh thank God for something I recognize”

- Anna Man – A Sketch Show For Depressives

- Elf Lyons – Swan (to be fair, this is probably a lot funnier if you’re familiar with how ballet works)

- Christopher Bliss – Writing Wrongs (this barely belongs on the list because it’s very accessible, but technically it counts because the whole thing was in character, and the character seemed to pretty much have one joke, and that one joke was quite funny but not for a whole hour)

A lot of it made me laugh but it still gave me this strong sense of "this isn't really my thing":

- Lorna Rose Treen – Skin Pigeon

- Joseph Morpurgo – Hammerhead

Shows that have made me think – actually, I could be cultured and understand outside-the-box comedy, I am enjoying this a lot:

- The Delightful Sausage – Ginster’s Paradise (I don’t think this was actually more accessible than Nowt But Sea, I think it just watched it second and enjoyed it more once I’d figured out what to expect from them)

- John-Luke Roberts in general

- Zoe Coombs Marr in general

- Lazy Susan – Forgive Me, Mother!

- Crizards – Cowboys

- Does Jordan Brookes count? I went into his stuff thinking it might be too experimental for me, but then it ended up being much more accessible than I’d expected, I did really like it though.

Shows that I can definitely tell are very good, and they made me laugh and think at the right places, but also made me really uncomfortable while watching them and I don’t know if I could call the experience enjoyable, but it was still good in some other way I think, I mean I recently mentioned in a post that I find John Robins “pussy line” routine mildly uncomfortable just because I’m a bit squeamish about hearing someone say the word “pussy” that many times in a few minutes and this sure did have a challenge for that side of me, also I find puppets difficult to look at, but seriously, they were really good, they made me feel a lot of things in the way I believe art is supposed to, I mean they made me feel a bit anxious in a squeamish way but also I think made me feel some proper art things alongside that, and they were funny, overall I’d probably pay good money to see her live but only if I’m allowed to close my eyes at some parts, it’s at times like this that I remember I am a jock/athlete that migrated to this level of art appreciation in my thirties, I do not have the type of theatre kid background that may be necessary to be unbothered by all the weird shit going on in this, but still, really really good and I highly recommend them though with the caveat of trigger warning for like everything:

Natalie Palamides – Laid

Natalie Palamides – Nate

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mybrainproblems · 3 years

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grumble grumble dean isn't repressed he's suppressed and there's a major difference

(it's actually more depressing)

#i rarely finish a fic and feel completely satisfied #dude has psychoanalyzed himself so correctly and has called out his own issues. he knows himself!#he just has absolutely no self esteem sense of self so he doesn't act on anything he wants bc that would be selfish and he might be rejecte #so yeah it's still a kind of repression but he knows he's fucking in love with cas he just thinks this is all he'll ever get #up until literally the confession he didn't think angels were capable of love and that when they tried it broke them #THAT HE BROKE THEM. THAT THE VERY TOUCH OF HIM CORRUPTS.#anyway it's funny to read about dean being unaware of his feelings but it doesn't ring true to me #but that's just my onion...#destiel #dean winchester #spn #i could expand on this and actually get into meta but i'm lazy

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violetlunette · 3 years

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Hello~ In the Eri Critical post you mentioned you almost made Toru a makeshift OC and could I ask you to elaborate on that? She's a side character and imo Horikoshi hasn't given much to work with, so isn't any depth or expansion added by other writers gonna make her different to the canon? What metric do you use to judge if you strayed too far? I ask cause I'm writing a fic where Toru is more prominent and thus I will have to expand on her character.

This was a hard question for me to answer because you’re right. We have nearly nothing to work with when it comes to Toru, which sucks when you want to write a story with her. Therefore nearly anything we do is in a way “fanon.” I have run into this problem myself as I’ve tried to write her in a main role as well. So, this where I have to apologize to people who try to write for Eri. It’s near impossible to write for a character where we’re given only crumbs to work with without shifting them into Ocs. So how do we combat it? I dunno. But here’s how I try; The first question I ask myself is this, “is the character performing this action or feeling the way they are because that’s how they would in this situation? Or it because it’s how I want them to respond or feel?” If the answer is ever the latter, then I go back and think some more. For example, Toru likes Caramel. It’s her favorite food. If she turns it down, there has to be a reason; sore tooth, too depressed to eat, etc. She can’t turn down the candy just because I, the author, say so.

Don’t fall into the trap and make a character react the way you would. Make sure to ask yourself if this is how the character would do it.

Next what I try to do is take what little we do see in canon and expand on that. As for the metric for when I've gone too far—it’s complicated-ish? Below is what I know about Toru off the top of my head. If I’ve strayed too far from any of these points without a reason, then I either need to go back or make a reason that would make sense for her to act differently from “canon.” For example, Toru isn’t very strong in canon as she’s the third-worst in class. If I want to make her strong I would have to provide a reason why such as training montage or science magic. Keep in mind all my knowledge comes from the manga as I haven’t watched the anime. Hopefully, it’ll help when writing Toru.

*The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Toru loves her quirk and is very proud of it. In fact, she places a great deal of confidence in it, even when we see over and over that it’s not perfect. She’s vulnerable to cold, she can be revealed easily, etc. Yet she never tries to overcome these flaws, instead, she seems to ignore them. Thinking about it, she seems to have put all her eggs in one basket by focusing sorely on stealth in the story. (It’s said she can fight, but we don’t see anything impressive.) When she discovers her light manipulation, she works on that, but that’s because it's a part of her quirk. This can be a big weakness for her arc, refusing to admit that her quirk isn’t flawless and she needs to focus on other things like agility and strength building. **This would explain why she doesn’t get a real costume (outside of the meta reasons). In her head, she’s thinking she doesn’t need to waste time with armor, she just needs to get better at hiding/sneaking. (And being naked isn’t a big deal to her.) *Something that differs from fanon is that in canon she’s actually fairly confident. She’s usually portrayed as insecure about herself in fanfics because she “doesn’t have a face.” However, in the story, Toru seems to have the most confidence of all the girls. I have never seen an instance where she’s down about herself. This is most likely because her quirk allows her not to be judged by appearances. Actually, now that I seem to think about it, she might be putting her whole identity in her quirk, which is seen as pretty cool. *She seems to like to poke fun and tease others. She’s aware that she’s naked, but she doesn’t see it as a big deal. She sees it as funny—or at least people’s reactions to her being naked. When she strips she usually brings it to attention, then pretends to be shy or upset. **The fact her favorite thing is hidden prank shows adds to this. **She uses the lack of appearance to troll others too by saying she looks like a Geisha and an old saint. ***May have some knowledge in history. *She’s optimistic and always looks on the bright side when she can. *Usually easy going. Doesn’t seem to like dwelling on things. If she’s mad, she’ll huff and puff, but will then move on with her life. Though she may occasionally attack an offender. *She’s very friendly and bubbly. *She’s a bit of a ditz. An example is how she forgot to put a rage away in the light novels and knocked Aizawa out. *VERY SMALL, but I noticed she’s one of the few to get annoyed with Bakagou (for two seconds, but still). She was the only one to call him out when he told Izuku he should have fought Shigaraki and grumbled at him when Bakagou was happy no one else was going to be able to do the internships. YMMV, though. *She’s not a great student. This could be out of laziness or depending way too much on her quirk to get her through school. I think it’s the latter. As I said, she has WAY too much faith in her quirk. *She likes cute stuff, but in the manga, she dresses very casually. **Seems to be fond of no sleeve shirts and knee-high socks. *She worked with the Gadget Hero as an intern, so she may have a SMALL knowledge of robotics. **This feeds into the theory of how she got into UA, which states she found the off button. *She likes caramel candy the best. *She is confirmed to have two parents. Also, a trick I do is that when Canon doesn’t give me enough meat on a character, I look at their astrology! (And blood types for anime as Japanese have fun with the idea that personality can be affected by our blood types.) A lot of authors like to try and make things match for fun.

That’s all I got. I suppose the only thing I can say is that as long as you don’t stray too far from what we see in canon without a reason, write her however you want. Most readers will be forgiving with characters like this.

If anyone else can help, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it!

I really hoped this helped anon. Like I said, I wasn’t sure how to answer this, so there’s a chance I babbled and did everything but answer your question. Thanks for the message!

#toru hakagure #tooru hagakure #bnha #mha #writing for characters when we're given only crumbs #ooc #anon

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kane-and-griffin · 7 years

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Hey so I known you don't particularly ship bellarke, but what do you think of the bellarke/kabby parallels? I'm only asking because I'm curious to see what the other side of the fandom thinks?

I actually do ship Bellarke! Kabby is my #1 but I’ve always been invested in Clarke and Bellamy’s relationship. I have very strong opinions about Kabby/Bellarke parallels and have talked about this at LENGTH on Meta Station, where @reblogginhood, my co-host and best friend, is a ride-or-die Bellarke shipper, so most of the time I feel like I have dual citizenship through Erin (and vice versa, since the Kabby fandom loves her too). We both love both those ships, and we both love all four of those characters, just in rearranged order, and we like to yell about this a LOT.

I’ve meta’d on this before a number of different times, but I’m too lazy to go back and dig up old posts, so here goes.

First of all, if you are a Bellarke shipper (are you a Bellarke shipper? Am I reading this ask correctly? HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIIIIIIIIIIDE), the most important thing I want to say in aid of positive fandom-to-fandom relations is that the phrase “Kabby/Bellarke parallels” has begun to elicit a knee-jerk primal scream reaction among Kabby shippers over the past few months, since we regularly find the Kabby tag full of posts that either describe Kabby as the “old” version of Bellarke, or that it only exists to pave the way for Bellarke, or that the parallels that exist (and they do exist, and we’ll get to that in a second) essentially make Kane and Abby metaphors instead of people who only exist in the narrative to shed light on Bellarke instead of being their own characters with value and storylines of their own. Articles or blog posts highlighting the things that make Kabby special to Kabby shippers will get reblogged with someone saying “if you change the names, it’s about Bellarke!” or with lengthy meta about how Bellarke had that thing first or that the Kabby version of some particular moment or symbol or metaphor or visual cue or phrase only exists because it will become MORE important later, when it’s attached to Bellarke.

So I’m frustrated because I love this ask, I love getting this question, I love talking about the relationship among these four characters, but also it’s hard - as you can imagine - to feel like we’re told over and over again that the things we feel make our ship, and these two characters, really special to us, don’t really matter on their own merits.

Anyway, I’m saying that both A) so the Kabby fandom, where we are perpetually having this conversation, knows MOM’S ON IT, and B) so that you as a Bellarke shipper who seems delightful and asked a great question has some context for why sometimes other asks or posts about this - which aren’t phrased as nicely as yours was - receive a negative response or make Kabby shippers upset. I think the context is important here, because this has been a BIG thing in our world of late and we’re all a little thin-skinned about it right now.

Okay but that being said LET’S MOVE ON TO THE FUN PART AND TALK ABOUT CHARACTER PARALLELS BECAUSE I LOVE CHARACTER PARALLELS AND I THINK ABOUT THESE ONES ALL THE TIME AND I’M FULL OF OPINIONS AND YOU ASKED FOR THEM SO YOU’RE GONNA GET ‘EM

oh wait I found another post where I already did this STILL GONNA YELL ABOUT IT THOUGH, MY HOUSE MY RULES

Okay so FIRST OF ALL let me just real quick BLOW YOUR MIND with my Kabby/Bellarke parallels theory, which is that the REAL parallel is Abby/Bellamy vs. Clarke/Kane and everyone else has it backwards.

I think the easy, default place most people go to when we talk about this is to contrast Kane and Bellamy - the self-doubting, tortured, wannabe martyrs who carry the weight of every sin on their shoulders well past the point of reason - with Abby and Clarke - the resourceful mother and daughter who never give up and will drag all of humanity kicking and screaming to their salvation if it’s the LAST THING THEY FUCKING DO. And I think there’s a lot of interesting character stuff to be mined there, for sure; I think Kane and Bellamy’s parallel redemption arcs are some of the best stuff they’ve done in the whole series (until 3A Bellamy regressed back to an asshole but let’s skip past that for the moment), illustrating the way that for both of them, the Culling was really a turning point where they realized that they will forever carry the burden of having been complicit in that massive loss of innocent life (Bellamy for throwing away Raven’s radio and Kane for not waiting like Abby asked him to) which could have been prevented if they had listened to the Griffins. It’s beautifully executed, even in S1 when these two characters have never interacted onscreen, and it ramps up even more in S2 where we see them meet and immediately butt heads with each other before in S3 developing a real partnership. (Which then got torn to shreds. I’m still bitter over 3A Kellamy I’M GONNA NEED A HUG IN S4 JASON DO U HEAR ME) (I mean I need Kane to hug Bellamy, not like I’m requesting a hug from Jason, TO BE CLEAR). And I think the mother/daughter parallels are drawn beautifully as well, especially in S1 where we see Abby on the Ark and Clarke on the ground filling similar roles and working towards the same goal, barreling through the opposition however they must.

BUT. If we’re talking about which characters are MOST SIMILAR, then I think you CANNOT get away from the reality that the parallels are actually gender-flipped.

Clarke has a lot of her mom in her, clearly, as well as a lot of her dad. But she’s not actually the kind of leader her mom is. She’s the kind of leader Kane is. Abby and Bellamy are the ones with the crowd charisma and the stubborn recklessness; Clarke and Kane are the cool-headed, deliberate strategic thinkers. Bellamy and Abby have quick minds and no fear and will do absolutely anything, no matter how insane, to protect the people they love. You can map, beat-for-beat, so many of the things Bellamy does for Octavia onto the things Abby does for Clarke, and vice versa. Abby sneaking the kids out the back door with guns in the middle of the night to go find Clarke? Bellamy would do that in a second. Bellamy sneaking onto the dropship to make sure Octavia doesn’t go to earth unprotected? ABBY AF. They both begin the show as people who are fiercely focused on keeping the person they love most safe, and it makes them blind to ancillary consequences. Bellamy will fight anyone. Abby will tell any lie. There is no such thing as too far, when the person you love is at stake. WE know Abby’s hope that the kids are alive is borne out by fact, but NO ONE ELSE ON THE ARK KNOWS THAT. From Kane’s point of view, she’s being as unreasonable and reckless as Clarke thinks Bellamy is when she yells at him about the radio. Or think about Abby sneaking Bellamy and Finn out the back door with guns to go hunt for Clarke, even knowing she would get in trouble for it. You know who else would do THAT EXACT SAME THING in those circumstances? BELLAMY BLAKE. I bet they cooked up that scheme together off-camera. So what I think is interesting for both of them is how their circle expands over the course of three seasons to change the way they are as leaders, and the ways in which their recklessness is tempered by their leadership partners.

I’m fascinated by the relationship between Clarke and Kane, and I hope we get more of it in S4. I heard rumblings that they go together to find Kenza, the Nightblood scout, and I’m hoping we get a lil’ dad/daughter road trip bonding, because I think they have a really strong connection and they share a similar leadership brain. Where Abby and Bellamy are quick and passionate and make snap decisions, Clarke and Kane are more calculating. They’re thinking in the big picture and the longer term. Floating 300 people to save the whole Ark, and irradiating the residents of Mt. Weather to save all the Sky People, are identical decision-making processes; not everyone can live, someone is going to have to die, so how to we map out the most effective path where the fewest of my people die as possible for maximum survival? Whereas there’s nothing Bellamy wouldn’t burn to the ground to save Octavia. Leadership isn’t PERSONAL for Clarke and Kane, not right off the bat. It’s about the numbers. It’s about as many people as possible surviving. And so sometimes you have to let the bomb fall on Tondc, because letting those people die is the only way to give your own people the chance to live, even though Abby “there has to be another way” Griffin finds that notion so appalling she can hardly even recognize her daughter in that moment. But you know who understood it immediately, and didn’t judge her? Kane. Kane and Abby’s scene underground in 2x13 is such a beautiful, crucial moment in their relationship, but it’s also the moment the show really begins to lean in on this idea that Kane can see Clarke more clearly than Abby can, because she’s Abby’s baby girl and Abby is still trying to protect her from harm - including from the harm of having to make, and then face the consequences of, terrible decisions. But Kane is the one who tells Abby not to diminish either Clarke or Lexa’s leadership skills just because they’re young. Kane is the one who calmly talks Clarke down when they’re trying to figure out who poisoned Lexa’s drink, using the same kind of coolheaded, rational language we can easily imagine Clarke using to one of the delinquents if the shoe was on the other foot. And so it makes perfect sense that it would be Clarke and Kane who make the strategic decision, together, that Skaikru joining the Grounder Alliance is the smartest long-term tactical decision - a notion we see that Abby and Bellamy don’t like, because they, emotional thinkers that they are, still haven’t forgiven Lexa or decided they can trust her again.

I’m really interested in where the lines end up getting drawn in S4, but it definitely seems to me, from the bits and pieces we’ve seen and heard, that Clarke has some kind of crazy-ass save-the-world plan that other people think is too reckless or too dangerous or will have too high a casualty rate, and that the group sort of divides itself into factions based on who is willing to get on board and who is resisting (or just giving up and waiting to die). And it does seem, from the trailer, that Kane and Abby are using the same language Clarke is using. We’ve also heard that Bellamy and Clarke are back as a power duo again, so my guess is he’ll be on the squad too. So what I’m really excited about, because we’ve never really had this before, is the four of them working together as a co-leadership team. I want to see Chancellor Kane and Ambassador Clarke negotiating with Roan and Luna. I want Abby and Bellamy working together in Arkadia to convince their people to go along with Clarke’s plan. I want Clarke and Abby to talk about Lexa and Jake, about how you go on with a hole in your heart and how to grieve and heal. I want Kane and Bellamy to talk through all the things that happened in S3, how Bellamy almost got Kane executed because he stopped trusting him, how ALIE made Kane almost murder Bellamy in cold blood, and where they go from here. I want us to see the parallel relationship dynamics - the big-hearted, loving Griffins who are used to giving and receiving affection reaching out to the isolated protector men who are still getting used to the idea that they have a place they belong and people who care about them.

TO CONCLUDE: Abby is Bellamy and Clarke is Kane and they’re a big beautiful leadership power squad family and I love them all with my whole heart THANK U AND GOODNIGHT

#Anonymous #From the Inbox #kabby #marcus kane #abby griffin #metas and headcanons #the 100 #the 100 meta #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #bellarke meta

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