#also i don't have the escapist notion :(

[sleepanonymous]

For today's Lost Media post, I have another video for you. As always, no face or identifying features are shown.

Corelia- Aviation Live Piano Cover

So the video was from Ves's YouTube channel, but this screenshot of the description is not. I'm also pretty sure this is the description for the original Aviation cover (which I do not have) and not this live piano version. Also, either the person who uncovered this video cropped it and zoomed in, or the poor girl filming was so zoned out by this point she didn't realize lmao.

[asofterhibou]

This post from @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier making it as good a time as any for a The Magicians brain dump I guess: like the post says the Qualice reunion scene is a weird and weirdly perfunctory scene, and honestly who knows what the writers were smoking for those last two episodes, but. in the secretly good show in my head, the scene is perfunctory and not particularly romantic because it's not really supposed to be, or at least the main purpose of the scene is not exactly Quentin and Alice's romance. To me the narrative problem/tension of Qualice at this point in the show is not whether they love each other. They do. They've said it and shown it in multiple ways, there's not really any need for romantic declarations. In fact Alice made a romantic declaration at the end of s3 on the muntjac, saying that Quentin was the one she loved etc. And then still destroyed the keys in Blackspire, which Quentin clearly takes as a personal betrayal, why he can't trust her. In s3 Alice loves Quentin but she doesn't trust him, not with her feelings, or with her secret plans. Which is where the many many parallels of Alice and Eliot in s4 begin! If the plot of s3 (magic gone and fairy takeover) is mostly the consequences of Quentin and Margo's choices in s2, the plot of s4 (the monster and the library) is mostly the consequences of Alice and Eliot's choices at the end of s3 (with help from Fogg). In s4 Alice and Eliot are both prisoners, and they both escape their prisons, in different ways. And a lot of the tension of this scene for me, which is linked also with the flower scene, is - can Quentin escape his prison? He's repeating the same story he told himself in pilot episode, that false dichotomy: there is the escapist dream of Fillory/fantasy/magic where Quentin finally finds the secret door and becomes someone he wants to be, where his life becomes something he wants it to be, which is childish and must be left behind for the cold hard wasteland of the adult world, of harsh reality, and you just have to suck it up and deal with it. I don't think this scene feels particularly romantic because it's not supposed to be: Quentin says he can forgive Alice, can change his notions, his expectations, but he's still trapped. He can't see the third option yet, in the garden he says: isn't the idea of Fillory enough, but does he see it yet? It's not the idea of Fillory, it's his idea of Fillory, Quentin's idea, when it says in the magicians books that the world might be a wasteland but we are not, we're the source, there's no oasis out there waiting, we create the oasis ourselves.

Tldr this scene has Quentin and Alice getting back together but it's not actually about them, it's about Quentin's fucked-up-ness. Does the show actually know this? could not tell you if you paid me.

[marciabrady]

What do you think of the Love at First Sight trope, especially when it comes to the early Disney Princess movies? Some people may find love at first sight to be hackneyed or outdated these days, but I am very interested in what you have to say about it. I don't think you ever talked about it at length.

I think it's beautiful. A lot of people bash on it for not being realistic, but there's something to be said for things that are either aspirational or simply escapist. And, honestly, I don't think it's that bad of a thing to glorify or like? It's a fantasy- Cinderella has a pumpkin coach, not an uber lol it's totally feasible that she'd meet the love of her life while going to a ball that her Fairy Godmother sent to and it is to distinguish that, in these universes, these are the loves of their life (otherwise Snow White and Aurora still would've been under sleeping curses). And I think, in the age where most people can't even get someone to commit or a text back after a first date, being able to see the example of someone as steadfast as Snow White's Prince, who continues to look for her for seasons even when she seems lost to him, is something that is refreshing and healthy.

They each go about showcasing this notion in different ways. Snow White is an orphan with no one in the world that loves her, and her wish in the well is very clear. "I'm dreaming of the nice things he'll say." Before it can echo back to her, she finds him- the literal answer to her hopes and dreams. That's so empowering to me? That she believed she was enough and wanted better for herself, and knew what she wanted, and that his existence was contingent upon her wish in the well. It's a young, sweet romance- that's so pure. When he sings of his love being "constant and true," we see it in the film, as he continues to search for her until the very end and which lends credence to Snow White singing "Someday My Prince Will Come." She doesn't stress over whether they will ever see one another, because despite the time or distance that might separate them, they're never lost to one another. That's why she tells the hag, "Well, there is someone" when she's asked if that's someone she loves.

Cinderella and Charming's love is also different- neither of them were looking for it or expected it. Cinderella never mentions wanting love, nor does Charming; to the contrary, Charming is placed in front of an endless bevy of beautiful women, decked out in the finest clothing they have, and he's unimpressed (I dare anyone to tell me that his interest in Cinderella was based on looks). Appearances mean little to nothing to him. While we listen to the Grand Duke's metatextual speech though, we see Charming spot Cinderella out from the crowd and approach her. "There she stands, the girl of his dreams. Who she is or whence she came, he knows not. Nor does he care. But his heart tells him that here, here is the maid predestined to be his bride." It's a pure vibes thing, and when you are in contact with that person you were meant for, many consider this to be a twin flame, it changes everything. That's why Charming knew he could never go back to life the way it was before the ball after Cinderella left; he couldn't live a life without her. I also think it's so fitting for them and cute that they vibed out for hours at the ball, considering Cinderella fighting so hard to go to a party so that she could enjoy herself.

Aurora and Phillip also have their unique connection. They're both extremely romantic and fantasy oriented- Phillip literally slays a dragon for Aurora's honor and promises to renounce the throne after meeting her for a single afternoon. Aurora, while she returns to the castle to fulfill her royal obligation, feels that life without him is empty and can't contemplate a life without love- it'd be like a bird without a song. While they have different temperaments and characters, I think they compliment one another beautifully and have such great chemistry that it truly does feel as though they'd met once upon a dream.

In any of these cases, if the connections were shallow or something where one forgot about the other the next day, that'd be another matter entirely. But they were all willing to fight for their love, show commitment under extreme circumstances, a unyielding devotion, and both a chemistry and a connection that was special unto each pairing and underlined a natural affinity toward one another so I don't see what's wrong with it and I lean more toward these types of relationships over the Disney ones where they just yell at one another repeatedly or resort to physical violence for comedy.

[mxbitters]

no but seriously white people food is just    .  gross   .  i don’t know how my family can do thanksgiving like the only thing that’s seasoned is the turkey and the smell of turkey gives me a headache just thinking about it,, this is one of the most unpopular opinions ever i think but thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday for several reasons and when i get my own place you better believe i’m not celebrating colonialism, gross ass food and doing the dishes bc nobody else can do them apparently

[the-lake-king]

Hi! I followed your username from Men of no Country to here and right to your fic questionnaire, where you've said one of your strong points is writing OCs (and, considering Peter is '90% of my own devising', as you said). So as a fellow writer I wanted to ask you: how do you go about making your OCs? I always make them too bland, personally, but that might just be lack of practice.

Wow, what a question! Sorry for not seeing this earlier; I don't check Tumblr very often these days. I think coming up with characters is a process that varies wildly from one author to another, and there is no 'right' answer. Also, it's something that's always been fairly organic for me, so I don't know that I'm the best person to actually give advice if that's something you have trouble with. That being said, I'm flattered you would think to ask me, and I'll try to break down my process.

First, what is this character for? I don't mean this in a big, existential way, more of a 'what do I need this person to do in the story?' I pretty much constructed the Peter of Men of No Country while writing the first chapter, so let's start with that. I wanted to have someone who would ultimately be kind of an opposite to Thomas, so what does that mean? I came up with some things that I thought this person could be:

outwardly anxious

free with his emotions

awkward

Okay, that's enough to start with. From canon, we have that he's:

an artist

an aristocrat

he has a good relationship with his cousin

he's run off to Tangier

heavily, heavily implied to be gay

This stuff could just as easily be things that you or I came up with for a character that was 100% out of whole cloth, but we have it here so might as well use it. So, we're going to have a hyper-visual, somewhat flamboyant escapist, who, idk, doesn't like the cold?

At this point when thinking about a character, I like to step into their shoes for a bit. This guy is back in England for his cousin's wedding. Let's start on a minute alone with him. Maybe Bertie is coming to meet up with him in London so they can go north together, and he's waiting by himself. What is he doing? What is he thinking about? What is he looking at? Maybe he's cupping his hands around his tea for warmth. Maybe he's looking out the window, people-watching. Maybe he's worried that somehow he'll mess things up. Maybe he's excited to meet his cousin's fiancée. A lot of the specifics don't really matter in themselves. The point is that I try to become this person in my head for a while, and understand how it feels.

I find that at this point, for me, the character will start to get a voice and a life of their own. This is the part where I really couldn't tell you how to do it. Peter capitalizes Certain Ideas in his head. I didn't exactly decide that he does that. I didn't decide that he counts backwards to calm himself down, either. I can only say that I find it's a bit like starting a snowball and rolling it down a hill. If you get a big enough core packed properly, it just picks up more snow and adds to itself. The only sensible notion I can pluck out of it is not to just stick random quirks in where they don't naturally come up, and instead let the little things flow from the big things you decided at the beginning.

The last thing I do is steal. Peter gets extremely nauseous on ships, a little on trains, but not at all in cars speeding through winding city streets. That's someone I knew in school. Peter's hands shake so much sometimes that it interferes with his work, and it freaks him out even though he's dealt with it for a long time. That's me. Those are my hands, and that's my ruined drawing. They feel real because they are. Simple as that.

I don't know how much help this is, or if this is the kind of answer you wanted, but this is just about how I do it. Hopefully, you can pull something useful out of it all. Good luck, and I'm sure that one way or another, with practice, you will find you get better :)

[nocompromise-noregrets]

for the WIP game — I read the first part of All I Want Is You earlier this week and I’d love to know more about it!

Oh yay, thank you! <3333 (and thank you for your comments on It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like..., they've made my week and I shall do my best to answer them tomorrow! :D :D :D )

So I absolutely did not intend to have two long ongoing series, nor did I really intend to have a modern AU (I'm no good at AUs XD ), but the whole Christmas movie thing just happened at me in December 2020, when I really needed something to cheer me up, and then after that I couldn't just leave them where they were (and I'd had to leave all the smut out of the first one as it was firmly T-rated XD ) so I ended up writing a sequel, and at this point it's all got thoroughly out of hand, and the events it's describing get further and further away every moment that passes and aargh.

Anyway, I wanted to do something about the whole lockdown experience, but in a fluffy escapist sort of way, where the lockdown made Bard and Thranduil get round to doing something about everything much quicker than they otherwise would have done (Sigrid would like to point out that if it hadn't been for lockdown, they'd probably still be dancing around each other now), Bard and the kids could get out of the situation they were in, and I could vicariously get out of my tiny house and into Greenwood Hall (when I was writing the early chapters we were locked down again, between January and March, which is my least favourite time of the year anyway, and I was struggling with a lot of stuff, and writing about getting to go and live in a great big lovely house with lots of lovely people was enormously comforting). I've ended up weaving all manner of stuff into it from my work - I'm an archivist and one of my jobs involves spending a certain amount of time working in the cellar of a real life stately home that's not open to the public - and the house, the gardens, the pikes in the hall, the photographer great-aunt and gardener great-grandmother are all inspired by real places, objects and people :D Which is fun :D (I've also done what I never ever do and written myself into one of the side-stories XD I feel less weird about it because the character is an old friend/colleague of Bard's and is otherwise not at all involved in the character dynamics...)

I don't quite know how this one is going to end, although I do have a couple of beats to hit and an event to work towards - and I have written a series of ficlets set at Christmas 2020, so after the notional end of the story - but I'm not entirely sure quite what to do with it. I've been struggling with all my WIPs for a while now, the insane fit of creativity that hit me in June 2020 having well and truly run out by last summer, and I could really do with getting on with this one, but also weaving work into it is coming back to bite me in the arse a bit because all the rummaging-in-the-attics-and-cellars stuff is intriguing to readers (I hope!) but it's work to me and a bit run-of-the-mill XDD so I'm struggling to feel like writing it. But I do have to, because one of the beats I want to hit is the kids setting up a youtube channel with videos of them testing out all the historic weaponry they've been finding in the house :D with a certain amount of flurry in the comments when Bard, supervising and instructing, gets caught on camera (and another when Thranduil happens to walk past in the back of a shot XD ).

hee! Thank you for asking! If there's anyone else you'd like to know, just ask :D (and anyone else, if you want to ask about any of my published WIPs, please do, I love rambling about this stuff!) <333333