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thewhizzyhead · 3 years

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HELLO SOME OF YOU GUYS LIKED MISFITS AND SOME OF YOU GUYS LIKED GRADE 11 (i posted about that musical draft thingy back in march and um yea there have been a lot of changes fjxjf) AND GUESS WHAT DUDES I HAVE MORE MUSICAL CONCEPT SHITS TO RAMBLE ABOUT BECAUSE MY BRAIN IS WAY TOO HYPERACTIVE FOR MY OWN GOOD SO SIT BACK, RELAX AND ENJOY THIS CLUSTERFUCK

@ari-is-anxious have fun with this and i wish you the best of luck in trying to comprehend this-

+ Kasaysayan (which means History) - this is the 2nd musical concept thingy i made (the first one being Misfits) and yea i started thinking of this went I was 14. I kinda wanted it to tell a story of like the entirety of philippine history as narrated by students and i wanted to kinda emphasize how history has many faces and how many different factors essentially blur our perspective of what we view as the past. I also wanted to like draw parallels between what our ancestors have experienced and what we currently experience esp when it comes to sociopolitical and economic stuffs and I wanted to like correct a lot of misconceptions about ph history and provide more insight and info about ph's past (i.e how centuries of colonialism have affected our current culture and overall social mindset esp in regards to our want for validation from foreigners aka the whole #PinoyPride thing; how even though activism and revolution is like the main reason on as to why the Philippines even exists, it continues to be demonized here; the ideologies of some of our revolutionary heroes and presidents and why some of them are dicks; etc etc). Also I wanted to showcase like um PH music, art, and dance and how that has progressed and also regressed throughout the years (*shakes fist at colonizers*) and um YEA YOU CAN SEE WHY I EVENTUALLY AND RATHER QUICKLY DISCONTINUED THIS TJCJSJF THIS IS *NOT* DOABLE AT ALL THSJFHF it could work as a concept album and a one-time performance BUT NOT LIKE A LEGIT PRODUCTION SO YEA FOR NOW IT WILL STAY IN THE DRAFT FOLDER FJXNSJF but yea this idea then led to the next two ideas woo

+ Noli/Fili - started wanting to make this at the start of quarantine so like um march 2020 heck i even made a wholeass word doc for this fjdjdv so it's basically a ph-rock-rap-based musical adaptation of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibuster) (yes these two novels are like tne national novels here since rizal is our national here and yea these were originally written in Spanish) but the protagonist of El Fili (Simoun) takes charge of telling Noli's story in Act 1 while Noli's protag (Crisostomo Ibarra) takes charge of telling Fili's story in Act 2. Those two books have very different tones and those two characters have um VERY DIFFERENT world views so i thought it would be interesting to tell one's story through the eyes of someone different and yet also the same to provide a lot more insight on how the events in the novels affected these two protags (there is a Good Reason for this and um Filipinos who studied this in 9th and 10th grade know what i'm talking about fhshf if u wanna um know what i'm talking about and don't wanna read the novels (they are very long) i suggest looking up El Filibusterismo and um yea check out Simoun fjsjf). Like for example, there would be times that Noli's narrator (Simoun) (whose general demeanor is like um a lot more cunning and cynical and a lot more resentful of the events that have happened compared to Fili's narrator) would directly question the Noli protag's (Ibarra) actions while Fili's narrator (Ibarra) (he is a lot more um hopeful and peaceful compared to Simoun) often questions how Fili's protag (Simoun) turned into well um a very cynical and cunning person with a taste for revenge (I am trying my hardest to NOT spoil the novels here gjdjf) and yea because the story is set in Spanish Colonial times here, i wanna focus more on the sociopolitical aspects and problems in the novels and how those still remain relevant here, hence the ph-rock-rap-based music. Also I would like to point out that the curriculum here barely like goes into depth about the subject matter of the novels (esp the sociopolitcal parts) and how said subject matter shaped the characters here and HOW EVERY SINGLE THING IN THIS DAMN NOVEL IS STILL RELEVANT,,,so um basically the curriculum is currently missing the entire point of the novels since Rizal wrote these two with the intent to provide socioecononic and political commentary on the pure shit that many of the Filipinos experienced under Spanish colonial rule,,,SO THIS THINGY IS BASICALLY MY MIDDLE FINGER TO THE CURRICULUM AND ESSENTIALLY MY ATTEMPT TO SHOW MORE OF THE NOVELS COMPARED TO WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO US FJJSJFV this is gonna be a nightmare to write tho cause wow those novels are jampacked

+ Patron - if this ever becomes a thing, I will consider it the greatest thing i'll ever write gjcjdbc I REALLY WANT THIS TO BE A THINGY AAAA so the plot is barebones atm but it's basically about journalism and activism here in the Philippines (and how both can get you killed fjjsjf i'm not kidding these two can legit get you killed wah redtagging sucks shit and the anti terror law can suck even more shit) and how the youth are expected to be purveyors of the country's advancement and improvement despite the fact that our voices are oftentimes dismissed and even permanently silenced when what we say goes against what those in power want us to say,,,those this is basically Misfit's spiritual successor fjxjdjf both of those musicals share similar themes fjxns so yea expect me ranting about a lot of political stuff here and a lot of talking about the ideologies of past and present politics and revolutions and how those affect the masses and how the masses can shape them in return. There will also be talk on how journalism's role in shaping society and how proper dissemination of information and lack thereof can affect people's mindsets aND HOW JOURNALISM IS OFTENTIMES MANIPULATED TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE'S MINDSETS (STUDENT JOURNALIST AND ASPIRING PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST'S RANTS GO BRRRRR YEA I HAVE A LOT TO RANT ABOUT).

Oh and also this musical is heavily inspired by both the noli and el fili novels and by spring awakening (Everything I Write Will Be Inspired By Spring Awakening dbjxd) in a sense that Act 1's active protagonist (who then becomes Act 2's passive protag) is named Elias and is based on both Elias from Rizal's novels and on Melchior Gabor (which is funny cause rizal's elias is NOTHING LIKE MELCHIOR GABOR SO UM LOOK IT'S GONNA BE HARD TO EXPLAIN JUST UM YEA IT'S MESSY) while the passive protagonist (who becomes the active protag by the end of act 1 and throughout the entire 2nd act) is named Cris Ibarra and is based on Moritz Stiefel and Rizal's Ibarra (more specifically um Rizal's Ibarra's growth into a very different character throughout the events of the two novels).

ALSOOO there is this one concept that made me really REAALLY want to make Patron an actual thingy and that is the existence of um Shadows in the show. Inspired by the voices in Deaf West Speing Awakening, these Shadows can always be found lurking on stage alongside their respective characters like um if Elias is in a scene, his shadow can also be found on stage somewhere. I kinda want them to like represent the characters' innermost thoughts and the other parts of themselves the characters' would like to hide through how the Shadows act on stage and um yea choreography gjsjf Patron is porbably gonna be very dance heavy so um yea it's a bit hard to explain so i'll just point to Alex Boniello and Daniel Durant's Moritz fjxjjf i kinda want it to be like that. The Shadows would be part of the show's ensemble and um yea lots of dancing and prop moving woo also at times they would be singing for the character they are assigned to like um while Elias would be in the middle of doing something on stage, his Shadow would be the one singing in his stead and when his Shadow sings, that's when the character becomes the most vulnerable to the audience because the Shadows often expose their characters' thoughts and worries to the audience that the characters themselves wouldn't really express. So like um the Shadows address the audience a lot gjxjsjd except for one aka Ibarra's Shadow. Instead of addressing the audience, Ibarra's shadow addresses IBARRA directly, often questioning Ibarra's actions (especially their hesitance in Act 1). ig ibarra's shadow is rather representative of what Ibarra would turn into in Act 2 when they take over as the Active protag. But um Ibarra's shadow still questions Ibarra frequently esp in regards to their risky actions so um yea Ibarra's shadow is kinda like the Fates the hadestown wherein they serve to sow doubt but over here Ibarra's shadow is meant to symbolize how insecure they feel in regards to their decisions which well, as the protag, make and break the show. Also um yea the rest of the characters' shadows also start addressing their characters more while the characters themselves start addressing the audience more so woo switcheroo! Also the dynamic that the characters have with each other is similar to the dynamics between the kids in Spring Awakening wherein they are just kids (well in this cause young adults aged 18-20) trying to figure out life in general and all that so woo

(also I would like to note that I really want Ibarra's role to be open to all genders in order to like make a statement that anyone can grow into the character Ibarra becomes throughout Patron but rn hmm i'm still thinking about how that will play out especially given that I kinda wanted Patron's Ibarra to have two love interests here aka Elias and Clara (kiiiiinda based on Maria Clara aka Ibarra's actual love interest from Rizal's novels but um YEA THERE ARE A LOT OF DEVIATIONS GJXSF) but tbh i'm still figuring out a way to make Clara have a much larger role here in terms of pushing the plot cause rn the Elias and Ibarra dynamic have an advantage since um active-passive protagonist switcheroo so I'm kinda thinking of a way to make Clara a secret 3rd protag that is both an active and a passive one? I dunno fjsjd honestly i'm still trying to figure out what Maria Clara represents in the novels cause I know for certain that Rizal did not write her to be a mere demure love interest so um yea WORK IN PROGRESS AND UM ALL IN ALL IBARRA CAN BE PLAYED BY ANY AND ALL GENDERS AND IBARRA IS PANSEXUAL BECAUSE I FUCKING WANT THEM TO BE GJSJJF)

+ Grade 12 - OKI SO LIKE I'VE POSTED ABOUT THIS BEFORE BACK IN MARCH BUT UM I'VE CHANGED SOME STUFF GJXJJD so anyways Grade 12 is well um designed to be a campy-please-don't-take-this-seriously-this-is-just-for-laughs-and-gags musical about 12th graders (i changed the grade to raise the stakes) that makes fun of Filipino TV tropes esp when related to teenagers while also providing a lit more insight on ad to what teenagers go through on a daily basis in terms of trying to grow into the person they want themselves to be while also trying to change to adapt to a world that more often that not goes against them. So yea it's not as heavy as the other musicals, heck I designed this after Preston Max Allen's Carrie 2 musical (dude check it out it has jenny rose baker and it's gold) so woo funsies but i also like this to mean something. Oh and also this is basically me ranting about Everything Wrong In The Philippine Education System (how it more often than not is really detrimental to the students' personal wellbeings through constant overwork and disregard of physical, mental and emotional health issues, its accessibility issues esp the issues experiences by those of the poorer sectors, the um very outdated info at times, how the system perpetuates classism and a shit ton of very detrimental social hierarchy bullshits esp through the implementation of the star sections (speaking as someone who's been in the "lower" sections and has also been in the star sections, I HAVE A LOT TO RANT ABOUT THIS ONE OH BOY FUN FACT I WANTED TO MAKE AN ACADEMIC PAPER ON THIS BUT MY 10TH GRADE TEACHER WOULDN'T LET ME) etc etc) plot is mainly barebones atm but um yea here are some of the updates to the characters: Kyla (formerly named Kate), Noel and Ella haven't changed that much but um I've decided to give the Halos Lagi Nalang number to Kyla and Max (nonbinary student that serves as a foil to Kyla in which Max is constantly being denied opportunities that they want while Kyla constantly refuses opportunities that Max wants; also yea i'll be talking about stories that trans and nonbinary students have experienced in both of my high schools through Max cause i really wanna bring attention to how the trans and nonbinary community is really being shat on despite the um sliiight improvement in the way schools treat the (cisgender) members of the lgbtq+ community; also they are just as ambitious as Ella (i envision her to be like um Draft Eva + Riley jfhdf) um yea major plot pusher woo I'd compare them to Draft Eva + Reese but um I Sincerely And Solemnly Promise To Not Screw Them Over In Act 2 fjjxfj) instead because they will be the ones with queerness being a much bigger factor to their individual plotlines compared to Noel and Ella.

The other main characters are um Marco (typical jock dude who's actually one of the more philosophical and introspective characters in the show; i want to like um highlight the whole sports scholarships debacle, how stereotypes can affect how people are treated in real life and also touch on the machismo culture that's um really being enforced here esp with him being an athlete and all; also he's really good friends with Max and through that friendship he learns that him slightly questioning his sexuality is a good thing so yea), Ruben & Lexi (i don't have that much planned for them atm because woo barebones plot but i do imagine them to be initially framed as the more antagonistic characters and have that like stereotype be taken apart as the show goes on esp considering that both are in the "lower sections" and are um more prone to stereotyping) aND A NARRATOR CHARACTER HMMM WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE GJXJD oki but this Narrator (can be played by any gender as long as the actor IS VERY FUNNY LIKE COMEDIC TIMING IS A *MUST*) is based on the Narrator in PMA's Carrie 2 but I also want the narrator to be like um more crucial to the plot as the story progresses esp as they interact with both the audience and the characters a lot more so like um it's a bit hard to describe their exact role here because um BAREBONES PLOT FJXJD but altho they can't directly affect the story they are telling (cause so far my plan for them is like um they were a former classmate of 7/8 of the characters here but unfortunately they died due to a car accident), they can and do indeed influence the characters in it and all of the characters (except Kyla) know who they are (especially Ruben) so um yea. Also the solo I have planned for them is called Live On (which is um yea a spin off of Move On fjxjd) and through them, I plan to explore the tragedy of unexpected deaths and what happens to those left behind (this will be based on observations and accounts from many of my former schoolmates) and how many have yet to move on and how they choose to live on despite of that because they know that's what their former classmate, schoolmate, and loved on would've wanted.

SO OBVIOUSLY I OWE GRADE 12 TO SIR PRESTON MAX ALLEN GJXJFJD THANK YOU PMA FOR ONCE AGAIN INFLUENCING MY WORK WOO

+ Concepts - oki so this is the only musical so far that i wanna write solely in English nfjsj so this is inspired by Fun Home in which there are like versions of characters in different ages right? Over here there are 2 versions of 6 characters: the 17-18 year old ones, and the 27-28 year old ones. Through them, this musical will explore two main things: (1) the sad and depressing reality of having to give up one's artistic dreams and passions for the sake of practicality and (2) choosing to take a leap of faith and try to grasp on to whatever chances one may have left to live a life that means more than just making ends meet. Act 1 has the teenagers focus on Point 2 while the adults focus on Point 1; Act 2 has the teenagers focus on Point 1 while the adults end up focusing on Act 2. Once again, um barebones plot with even more barebones characters (heck i dont even have NAMES for them gnxnd) but i think it'll be pretty cool to elaborate upon the shitty circumstances here in the ph when it comes to artistic pursuits and how most of the kids I know are terrified of growing up because they don't want to give up dreaming even though that they know that they have to wake up. I also think it'll be cool to point out thay even though that yea situations like these suck, it'll never ever be too late to pick up the pieces and try again cause at the end of the day, life only ends when you say it will end: there will always be chances, you just need to be gutsy enough to grasp them. Also um yea I originally planned to post like a shit ton of poems this month that would basically be the lyrics of the songs that would go into this musical bUT I'M LAZY SO I'M THROWING AWAY THE POSTING SCHEDULE FJXJSJD anyways here r 2 of the poems/songs that i wanna make for this:

+ In 10 Years - a duet between one of the teenagers and their adult counterpart which is um basically the teen singing their optimistic yet really in-depth and mature perspective on chasing Point 2 while the adult sings about Point 1, wishing that they could tell their teen self about how disappointed they will be; i imagine this to be um kinda like the first version of Dear Theodosia but um more intense maybe fjdjf

+ Run - a duet between two teens who are best friends where one girl tries to convince the other to run and play with her in the nearby playground AND YES THIS DUET IS VERY FUCKING GAY JDJSJDF this was um originally part of Grade 12 tbh and it was supposed to be sung by Lexi and it was supposed to be about a 9th grade event that i personally was a part of where um 9th grade student researchers at a research seminar at a different freaking university took over the elementary students' playground when the seminar finished (I SHALL TREASURE THAT MEMORY FOREVER) and um yea it was basically about holding on to your childhood while you still can...aND THEN I UNINTENTIONALLY MADE IT GAY JFJSJSF Lexi is still getting that song about the research seminar event tho but um it won't be Run cause Run basically turned into a song that's not only about holding on to what's left of your childhood but also to the people you treasure that you know you have to leave behind sooner or later and um yea the girl that the one girl tries to convince to go to the playground agrees to that and then boom go duet stylized after 21 and Alone Now + I Don't Care by freaking preston max allen once again woo (i promise that this won't be plagiarism gndnd) (also altho the two girls have to go their separate ways by their graduation, they eventually meet again at the end of act 2 so woo hopeful ending for the sapphics

OKI THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY FHXHSHD THIS IS WAY TOO FUCKING LONG OF A RAMBLE GOOD GOD AAAAA SO UM IF ANYONE ELSE MADE IT TO THE END, I ONCE AGAIN WILL SEND YOU A SHIT TON OF CARBONARA-

#ari i'm so sorry but this is like...so unbelievably long and convoluted tjxjs GOODLUCK #AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS TJXJSF #so moral of the story is: my brain is too hyperactive for my own good #God help me #also God help those who are gonna try to read this fjxjs #so woo more musical concept rambles aaa #move on tw #move on #ask to tag #izzy's rambles and shit

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kissmeinkardasi · 6 years

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I relate to Garak

I contemplated for a good while whether I should even write this post, because I don’t like talking about myself, least of all where literally anyone could read it, but I figured that perhaps it might be constructive to someone, somewhere. I’m not going to go into extreme detail, because when you’re not a lonely child, you don’t own your story alone, and you have to respect the privacy of your siblings, and that they have their own versions of every little thing that happened even in your joint childhood. I have two younger siblings, both of whom have processed all of that shit in their own separate ways, and their stories are not mine to tell.

I’ve grown up in a home without adults. By that I don’t mean that my parents weren’t there, because physically they were. What I mean is that neither of them took on the role of a responsible adult. My father was (is) an incredibly charismatic, immature, insensitive, manipulative, self-centered, prejudiced, ableist, racist piece of trash (who very likely votes for the nazi party these days). My mother crumbled under that. Which drove her too, to do things a mother shouldn’t do.

Without any real intent, I’m pretty sure, I was raised in a way that I unlearned to feel two emotions: Happiness and Anger, both of which were reprimanded. I wasn’t a bad child – I was hyperactive, but I wasn’t malicious, not until I was shaped to be, and even then, as a child, I always wanted to be good and do what was expected of me. Which in my family was hard, because one thing was rewarded one day, and punished the next, in an erratic pattern that was impossible for me to decode.

Now we get to the point where I’ll ask all of you, how, as a child or a teen, would you go about telling anyone about that part of your abuse? The part that isn’t about violence, but about brainwashing? The kind of thing that most people – even adults – aren’t equipped to understand?

I chose to lie – to take my abuse and translate it to something other people understand. Something less abstract.

Media presents this image of what abuse is, and it’s simplified. It’s all about the physical and the blunt. When your dad is a dumbed down version of Skrain Dukat, what you’ve gone through becomes damn hard to explain to anyone, most of all because on some level, you’ll always think that maybe because the physical aspects of your abuse happen relatively rarely, maybe you’re not actually abused. So how can you trust other people to take you seriously, when you don’t take yourself seriously?

You take what you see that other people understand, or what they expect to hear and you say, “this happened to me”, because as human beings, we need confirmation from others.

The psychologist I went through is one example. As a teenager, the combination of trauma, the since-childhood self-taught act of playing the normal family whenever a family friend was over, and the fact that I had issues conducting normal social interactions, lead to an enhanced sense of awareness of what others wanted to hear. This is yet another reason why I relate to Garak – I’ve effortlessly lived as an emotional chameleon, changing myself constantly to neutralize the threat in every social situation. I’d look at people, note the finer patterns in everything they’d do, and I’d know exactly what answers they wanted for their questions, what opinions they wanted to hear when consulting me. As a result, I was so many people that I no longer had a proper sense – which walked hand in hand with the unlearning of anger. Anger is a vital part of ones moral compass, or at least it is for me. When I got my anger back, it was difficult not to fall in love with it.

My psychologist pressured me a lot. I could sense she was after something, but she had failed to establish trust, and I became guarded. I told her the standard things that people – she, too – perceived as abuse. She was frustrated with me, so I hoped that if I pleased her, that threat would go away. It did not.

It didn’t work out between myself and her, and after our last appointment, when she was no longer my psychologist and no longer held to the restrictions of her role, she told me that I’d frustrated her so much that she just wanted to strangle me. That did not help. I had taken the position of vulnerability, I had spoken few truths (the one where my parents forcefully strapped me to a chair tends to evoke a lot of feeling in people – and yet, to me, that is one of the least harmful things done to me), but all the lies had been emotionally attached to me, they were vulnerabilities. And even knowing all of that, she had told me she wanted to hurt me. It did nothing to encourage me not to continue to lie about my abuse, and everything to dissuade me to see a professional.

I have also lied about not being abused. I don’t want to flaunt what hurts. My mother once caught me right after my father had rather violently punished me for not understanding some mathematical formula (I’ve got serious issues with mathematics – I like the logic behind it, but my brain just isn’t wired that way) and she saw us together, and she saw I was crying, and she asked me what happened (me, not him) and I said “nothing”. That was also a lie to protect myself, not my father.

I don’t want comfort! I don’t want to be held and I don’t want to hurt. When I’m hurt I withdraw. I do not cry when other people can see. Therefore I have lied about not being abused – I also lied to my mentor in school when he approached me about how I seemed to be doing poorly. Oh, it was so easy to lie to him. He wanted for it to not be an issue so he didn’t have to deal with it, he didn’t ask because he cared, he asked because he had to, and because it was good for his sense of self and for his image. It was easy. It’s always easy to lie about nothing happening, because people love it when things are good and they don’t have to actually follow up on the pretense that they care.

This is where Garak and the potential lies come in. It should be relatively easy to spot the correlation. I believe it’s fully possible that he lied to Ezri, because he knew what would fly easily with her, and she’d done absolutely zero work on gaining his trust. Even Garak’s outburst at Ezri is relatable to me. The fact that he’d follow up on this potential lie in ASIT would ultimately be that it’s a very comfortable, easy-to-go-to lie, and probably he needed it. Just like I needed mine. That is my interpretation. Just like any of you own yours, and use whatever tools you need. And if I may project myself onto Garak, I’d say that his outburst at Ezri was what helped him. Pent up energy that gets to be released can be immensely helpful. That is also my interpretation, which is my own, and in no way keeps anyone else from having their own interpretation that helps them.

The fact that I lied shouldn’t be used to judge any other survivor of abuse, and vice versa. We’re all individual cases, we’ve all got our ways to cope. We deserve to be seen as individuals with individual ways of dealing with what’s at hand. Garak, too, is an individual. He is also fictional, and I wouldn’t use a real person to cope with my problems or project onto. Just because I play with these concepts, doesn’t mean I would do the same with real actual people.

And then we reach the part about Tain. Tain is not like my father. My father is more like Dukat, like my interpretation of Dukat, which is once again my own interpretation, that does not prohibit anyone else from having other interpretations, nor do I feel threatened by other people’s interpretations of him. But even then, I can very much relate to Garak’s love for his biological father. It, to me, is a love towards what could have been, if Tain hadn’t sacrificed himself for the Order, just like I believe my father could’ve been a good father if he hadn’t sacrificed himself for his ambition and his crappy ego. I feel a great deal of sorrow when I think about my father. I’m never going to forgive him, I’m never going to forget, and if I knew of a way to murder him and get away with it, I would. And yet, that does in no way keep me from loving and mourning the part of him that he killed with the choices he made in his life. These things are never easy. I have had dreams of forgiving him, the human brain abhors conflict, it’s a survival mechanism. And at those points, I’ve had to remind myself of what he’s done, who he is. It’s not easy to take a decision and stick by it, cutting ties isn’t a decision that’s made once – it’s made over and over again.

As for my mother, she was as much a victim as the rest of us. He’d threaten her that he’d be abusive to us kids if she didn’t have sex with him, amongst other things that most likely she never told me and never will. It doesn’t mean my mother has never been abusive. The difference is that I know she loves her children (and I know that my father does not, he loves the idea of children, he loves the idea of being a father, he loves the prestige of having a family, but he doesn’t love us), and I forgive her the things she has done. I can’t dislike her. I know that she often put me in a situation where I had to take her role. She told me instead of my father that she was going to leave him – I knew she’d never tell him. The situation in which I couldn’t contain myself and told him this was a chaotic moment, in which he had assaulted me in front of the rest of the family – my siblings were upset. Enraged. At me. And my mother was just nothing.

That I forgive and love my mother is my choice. It doesn’t invalidate the choices of people who chose not to do so. Everyone should do what’s ultimately the best for them, and no one but them can tell. Which is why when Garak loves Tain, I respect that choice, and I can relate. And that is my interpretation, and no one else has to agree with me. Tain, to me, is a man whose hands are tied behind his back by higher authorities, he lives in a totalitarian society – for him it’s the state, for my mother, it was my father. It was my father for all of us. It’s my interpretation. It’s the reflection I need. No one else have to follow it but me.

#abuse #garak #elim garak #tain #enabran tain #dukat #skrain dukat #personal #star trek #ds9 #ended up a bit longer than I thought it would

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if-only-we-could-read-it · 6 years

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( @ava-burton-writing you mentioned wanting to know more about my oc’s, so I hope you don’t mind me tagging you in this!)

It’s occurred to me (or, rather, it did occur to me, twelve days ago, when I started writing this post) that aside from a few responses to asks, I haven’t actually explained what prov is, or who anyone in it is. Which, considering I’m a writblr, and I made this blog to talk about my wips and oc’s, literally makes no sense. So here’s a post on Prov:

What is Prov?

‘Prov’, short for ‘The Provect Gene’, is my current (main) wip. It’s a YA sci-fi set in a ‘post-dystopian’ society with a (large) ensemble cast.

It’s ‘history’: It’s been building in the back of my brain for so long I can’t actually remember when I first came up with the idea. I do remember making a wattpad and debating uploading it, but instead using the account to read other people’s works and to make notes and write extracts for other works I had planned (including fanfiction). Eventually, some of my friends discovered and decided to write their own books, so I decided to write Prov at the same time. Initially, it was called Psykes, short for Psysimalae (or something like that), for some reason, was written in first person despite being a multipov book, and a lot of the characters were clearly my attempt at just inserting my friends into the book (I didn’t even… change their names…) instead of the half fleshed characters I wanted. It as nothing like what I envisioned and was so badly planned and written that I literally gave up. I tried several times to come back to it and couldn’t because the quality of writing was so poor and there was so many inconsistencies in the story. Considering I could write pretty well at that time, the only thing I could think of is that my desire to get the book written fast/at the same pace as my friends overruled my ability to write. Eventually, after years of continuing to write the story in my mind, I came back to it and started to write it properly.

Summary (that started off ridiculous and somehow got serious at the end): Once upon a time, there was a very rich, very smart, but not particularly nice, man named Cyrus. After years of theorising and making calculations, he came to the conclusion he could create a superpowered race of people for an army. Because he was the kind of person who wants to make superpowered armies. Through coercion, manipulation, lying, the occasional murder and other generally unethical means, he brought the people he wanted to experiment on into his labs and began testing. The only problem was that these people were teenagers, and teenagers are in that in between stage where they’re full of rebelliousness and ‘fight the system’ urges, and didn’t appreciate being locked up and prodded with needles. Eventually one of them who’d figured out he had powers used them to blow up a large portion of the lab, killing some people but freeing many others. The main problem – or, in Cyrus’ case, consolation – was that most of them had not learnt about their powers in the lab, and therefore didn’t know they existed. This made it easier for Cyrus to recapture them. He also managed to spread the word that they were ‘dangerous individuals’, which, in a world that’s fueled by paranoia, has a major impact. So now the police and government are after them too, which isn’t good for them.

The book starts approximately one year after these events, when three small groups of the experiments are forced together, only to discover they have powers. Tired of always hiding and running, they decide it’s time they tried to put a stop to Cyrus and his experiments, and convince everyone that they’re not dangerous. This, along with them trying to figure out their powers, and trying to avoid simply getting caught and thrown back into the tests, make life very hard for them. Along the way, they discover more people like them, and more factors than they ever could have imagined, including corruption that goes far beyond what they thought. Loyalties are questioned, families are torn apart and sanity balances on the edge of a knife. After all, what’s the point of morals if only you stick to them?

Characters

Mains:

Isabelle: Has the power to manipulate light. The literal mother of the group, makes sure everyone eats and sleeps and doesn’t get themselves killed. Knows everybody’s secrets but nobody knows hers. Very sarcastic. Just wants to sleep. Original squad.

Damian*: Can manipulate electricity. Isabelle’s (slightly) younger brother. Kind of an asshole but it’s not intentional. Actually tries to be nice he’s just not used to other people (or their feelings). Very smart. Basically the tactician. Original squad.

Barry: Psychic. Drinks way too much coffee, he’s probably at least 85% caffeine at this point. Hyperactive. Basically the child of the group. Was sick before being taken by Cyptem and missed a lot of schooling. References TV shows a lot. Original squad.

Calypso: Can manipulate water. Very into fashion. Is willing to die for the aesthetic. Seems like the kind of person who in any other situation would have her life together. Isn’t going to let a small thing like people wanting to kill her hold her back. Original squad.

Will: Astral projection. The medic of the group. Wanted to be a doctor. Tries his best. Frequently questions how moral it is to hoard medicinal drugs. The most reasonable of the group. Done with everything. Original squad.

Leo: Can manipulate molecules to cause them to freeze or ignite. Makes a lot of bad jokes. Scared most of the time, but would do anything for his friends. Acts like he knows what’s going on but literally never does. Going through an internal identity crisis. Original squad.

Pyra: Can manipulate her own molecular structure (basically, shapeshift). Smol but could kill you. Took about a million self-defense and fighting lessons. Always ready to fight. Tough exterior, slightly sweeter interior. Original squad.

Beth**: Relationship detection and empathy. Definitely hates you. Virtually unreadable. Good at manipulating people and situations. Thinks she’s the strategist of the team. Pessimistic. Usually right. Smart. Original squad.

Lara: Can teleport. Badass. Basically saves everyone multiple times. Probably better than you at everything. Slightly paranoid. Would kill a man. Acts like she doesn’t like you but secretly would probably die for you. Doesn’t need a squad.

Chris: Telepath and telekinetic. Lived in a cave for like a year. Tries to be skeptical of people to protect himself but can’t resist helping everyone he meets. Uses obscure plants to treat injuries and illnesses. Book two squad.

Matt: Molecular immobilisation. Strong. Good at fighting. Pretends to be quiet and grumpy but is actually a sweet heart. Could crush a rock with his hands. Likes hand-to-hand combat. Finds it funny that people are uncomfortable around him. Book two squad.

Seth: Molecular combustion. Matt’s twin. Not as strong as his brother. Very concerned about Matt’s tendency to get into fights. More prone to panicking in situations. The guy who tries to lean on the wall and act cool only to fall through an open doorway. Book two squad.

Meg: Pain manipulation. Really a nice person but is being manipulated. Starts off hating everyone she meets but warms up to them quickly. Spends a lot of time being used. Doesn’t need anyone else. Technically book two squad, but also doesn’t need a squad.

Cyrus: Can manipulate shadows/darkness. The villain. Spent years trying to prove that superpowers were possible. Loose morals. A good actor. Could probably be a politician with all the lies he makes people believe.

Wyatt: Shield manipulation. Literally a child. Was put through a lot before he was rescued from Cyptem. Is basically adopted by Isabelle. Generally distrustful of people, but very protective of the people he cares about.

Sides

Melody: Sound manipulation. 100% done. Not as mean as she initially seems. Doesn’t like people trying to control her. Would probably become a politician if she didn’t hate the government so much.

Alex: None. Is an intern at Cyptem who discovered what was going on. Is willing to help everyone even though they seem crazy. Has no idea what’s going on most of the time. Spends a lot of his time eyerolling.

Paige: Heat manipulation. Isabelle and Damian’s older sister. Has done very questionable things but is still a good person. Cares about her siblings, but doesn’t show it well. Inadvertently causes drama.

Renee: Illusion manipulation. Also a child. Spends more time in Cyptem than Wyatt. Likes to draw. Hard to explain without spoilers.

Amara: Fear manipulation. Cyrus’s right-hand women. Cold blooded. Willing to apply whatever force is necessary to get the job done – and in this case that involves helping get the kids back in and figure out how to make them more compliant.

*The spelling of Damian has been a bit iffy through the years. When I initially wrote Prov, my friends asked if I’d spelled it wrong, and implied it wasn’t meant to be spelled the way it should. eventually, I changed the spelling, but I kept getting muddled up between the two. Then I went, ‘screw it, my character, my spelling’ - except I’d forgotten which was the original spelling. So for a while I just alternated between the two before settling on ‘Damian’.

**Beth’s name has been subject to repeated change. Initially she was called Beth after someone I knew, and didn’t like, but who was part of my friendship group so I felt obliged to include. When I rewrote it, I changed her name along with everyone else’s, and she became Ellie. Except ‘Beth’ always fit her more so I eventually changed it back, before realising that meant I have a ‘Beth’ and a ‘Seth’ - who also have quite a lot of interaction, which is very important to the plot. I put my foot down at changing Seth’s name, so chances are, Beth is going to become Ellie, or some other not-Beth name.

Tags: Prov tag, Isabelle, Damian/also-Damian, Barry, Calypso, Will, Leo, Pyra, Beth, Lara, Chris, Seth, and Matt. (Some characters have a lot more information in their tags than others, because I’m inconsistent with tagging. Which is going to change from this post on. Meg, Cyrus, Wyatt and the side characters do not yet have tags.)

So, there, finally: my wip and its characters laid out. So now when I talk about it, people will actually know what I’m talking about.

#prov tag #Isabelle #beth #damian #leo #calypso #will #barry #pyra #lara #chris #matt #seth #writing #my writing #my wip #writblr

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whumpster-fire · 4 years

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OC Bios: Wendy Weasel

So I’m going to, like… actually write stories and post them on this blog at some point, so I realized I should probably write some profiles for my main OCs. I’m starting with Wendy Weasel because she’s one of the only ones who has an official “Birth” day, and is from a setting that has the same basic timeline as our world: and that means today, in-universe, is her 22nd birthday! I’m not sure she’ll show up that much on this blog because of how hard she is to write whump content for, but whatever.

Putting the rest of this behind a Keep Reading because Wendy’s story involves quite a few things that are common squicks/triggers even within the whump community.

CW: Minor Whump, Child Abuse, Dehumanization, Fantastic Racism

If you’re thinking Wendy’s name sounds like something out of a children’s book or cartoon… you’re absolutely right! She’s a Toon, i.e. a living cartoon character, from basically the setting of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Toons are living, breathing, three-dimensional creatures, but they follow the laws of Cartoon Physics, and to varying extents can manipulate cartoon physics, bend it to their will, and impose it on others, including on non-toon objects and beings.

Below: pictures I drew like a year ago that I’m not satisfied with but fuck it it’s at least close even though the expressions are way way too stiff. Visual art is HARD damnit!

Also no that signature ain’t mine. That belongs to the scumbag that created her in-universe.

So basically she’s a Looney Tunes character, and in-universe the man who drew her was intentionally trying to emulate them in both name and appearance, because the Looney Tunes cast includes some of the strongest reality warpers out there. Except…

Wendy Weasel, aka Human Resistance Toon Weaponization Program No. 15, is the second toon drawn by animator Herschel Wilson for the program. Herschel’s partner, Lowell Byrd, ended up creating like 90% of the toons drawn by the Resistance, but this was made up for by the fact that that the three he created were terrifyingly powerful. She was drawn as a living weapon, to be used in a genocide against her own species. And by “living weapon” I mean for all intents and purposes a child soldier, but nobody in the Resistance would ever call her that because that would imply the monsters they were creating were people.

Wendy’s a little furry ball of barely-restrained violent chaotic energy. She was designed to be pretty much the personification of everything the Human Resistance (aka anti-Toon terrorist hate group that believed toons would overthrow and replace humans and the only way to prevent that was by wiping them out) feared and hated about toons, an openly sadistic and destructive entity with no morals other than being nominally loyal to her creators, in the body of a small anthropomorphic woodland critter child.

Except… surprise, surprise, due to being created by a delusional scumbag who thought all toons were secretly Like That, Wendy turned out as… an actual child. Sadistic and destructive, yes, but also a hyperactive kid who was only ever exposed to people who hated her and were terrified of her. A kid who wanted approval, who desperately wanted a parental bond with her creator, but was willing to settle for acting out to get attention of any kind, including negative attention. A child who when she finally got a chance to kill someone realized she really didn’t enjoy it, and was developing feelings like guilt and compassion and attachment to her “sibling” that weren’t even supposed to be possible.

Fun Facts About Wendy:

Always wears the classic white cartoon character gloves. Rarely wears anything else unless it’s a disguise or other costume for comedic effect. She used to wear a gas mask on missions. This was because her job was to beat “enemy” (i.e. usually innocent civilian) senseless and line them up for the human members of the Resistance to kill, so she was potentially in danger of being splashed or misted by Dip, and wore it to protect her eyes and lungs from being dissolved. She did not wear any other protective gear because they wanted to maintain the ability to shoot her if she disobeyed or attacked them at all times.

HATES cold temperatures, but will frequently refuse to put on warm / any clothing in favor of complaining and being passive-aggressive to make sure everyone else is as miserable as she is.

Will pick a fight with anyone and everyone. As a toon she’s unkillable by conventional means and extremely difficult to injure in any way you wouldn’t see in a Tom and Jerry or Wile E Coyote cartoon. Likes letting people hit her, shoot her, blow her up, etc. not because she’s a masochist but because she’s a sadist and she enjoys faking getting a kick out of being injured (most stuff is at most really painful and annoying to a toon anyway, though) because it makes her feel powerful and tends to freak out her opponents. However if she’s actually legitimately hurt or in danger this tends to go out the window.

Will still verbally pick a fight with anyone and everyone, and is extremely guarded about openly displaying affection or vulnerability. Her default modes of social interaction are sarcasm, passive-aggression, and regular aggression. The fact that the main sources of positive influence in her life after the defeat of the Human Resistance were also like this did not help.

As a Drawn Toon, is basically ageless, but is permanently stuck at the physical and emotional age she was created, which is around 8-10. She’s matured some with life experience, but her brain is still not physically developed the way an adult’s would be and her emotional regulation and impulse control aren’t as good. She’s technically no longer legally a minor because she passed the psychological exams which were specifically designed to make sure toons drawn as children aren’t permanently deprived of autonomy; so she can technically vote, drink, sign contracts, etc. In practice these tests aren’t exactly difficult and all it means is she can pass herself off as more mature than a really dumb 18-21-year-old.

Has the most Gremlin Energy of any character I’ve ever created.

Claims she’s fine and she’s totally gotten over the abuse and brainwashing, but still gets put into full fight-or-flight mode from the smell of nail polish remover. She also REALLY doesn’t like being physically restrained or muzzled.

#character bios #my writing #dehumanization cw #minor whump cw #fantastic racism cw #child abuse cw #whump #why i dont draw much

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