knackorcraft

[knackorcraft]

Good Omens Fic Recs: AUs

What do I love more than a good AU?  Not much.  So here’s where I’ll collect some of my favorites.

I would link to A03 here.  

Once I get going, this post will be part of my larger Good Omens Fic Recs Master Post.  Come check it out.  

[knackorcraft]

YES.  THIS.

Okay, but, do you know what we’re not talking about enough? The body swap scene.

So, in my opinion, the mark of a good plot twist is that you shouldn’t see it coming the first time around, but the second time through, you should wonder how you possibly missed it. The body swap scene is that 100%.

David Tennant plays Aziraphale-as-Crowley almost identically to how he plays Crowley. The exceptions are marvelous to watch – seeing the Bentley is my favorite, when Aziraphale-as-Crowley smiles more broadly and easily than Crowley ever lets himself until the end dinner at the Ritz be still my heart.

But in Hell? No discernible difference. The swagger is there. The casual seeming disregard for the danger he’s in. Seriously, the energy of his entrance when he’s brought into the courtroom is identical to his “Hi, guys” in the graveyard at the beginning.

I love this. Because it’s how Aziraphale would play it. Hell doesn’t frighten Aziraphale the way Heaven does. Demons are, in his book, straightforward. He just has to out-intimidate them, and Crowley already does that. So be Crowley, and that’ll do the deed. And he knows Crowley well enough to pull it off without a single hesitation. The only time it felt even slightly not-quite-right (in terms of not questioning that it was Crowley) was the utterly amazing little nose wrinkle. And I’ll forgive Aziraphale that – he knows he’s won; he can gloat a little.

But MICHAEL SHEEN, FRIENDS.

Crowley-as-Aziraphale is a completely different story because Crowley is not as good at the facade as Aziraphale is. 

He almost is. When Crowley-as-Aziraphale is getting dragged away by the angels? That reads as Aziraphale 100%. But in the park with Aziraphale-as-Crowley? In the bookshop? And especially in Heaven opposite the angels? That is so obviously Not-Aziraphale that I DO NOT KNOW how I missed it the first time through. And that is a testament to Michael Sheen’s talent.

Aziraphale is a being who shows emotion with his entire self. He is never still, not his hands, not his body, not his face. Everything he is feeling plays out across every inch of him. He is effusive and genuine and has no idea how to push away any emotion even a little bit.

Think of all the other times we see him in Heaven! He’s nervous, he’s anxious, he’s flustered, he’s doing that thing with his voice and his face when confronted with these beings who genuinely terrify him. He can’t hide it. 

But Crowley is all too familiar with pushing down emotion. Crowley is guarded, he is caution personified, he reserve and preservation, and with his angel’s life in his hands, on Heaven’s home turf? He can’t shake that.

Crowley-as-Aziraphale is so still. His face, his body language, his posture, it’s all this perfectly calm facade hiding a smoldering fury that Aziraphale might be incapable of achieving. But when Crowley-as-Aziraphale is confronted with the angels and see how they treat his soulmate best friend, he cannot hide that fury. It’s in his eyes, his face, his voice. But Michael Sheen-as-Crowley-as-Aziraphale plays it so well because it comes across as Crowley-as-Aziraphale saying to the angels, You broke him. You pushed him too far and you broke him and this is what it looks like, and you should be terrified.

And it’s all so perfect, and they’re both so talented, and I don’t think we talk about it enough.

[knackorcraft]

Good Omens Fic Recs (draft version)

Well.  It’s been a long, loooong time since I’ve been on Tumblr.  Long enough to dispatch some major professional obligations.  Long enough for my young children to be not so young and need not so much of my time.  Long enough for Good Omens to be released and re-engage all my fan-ish instincts.  

Long enough that I’ve honestly forgotten how to create Tumblr posts and tags.  So this is me trying to remember.  :-) 

times

old post

[knackorcraft]

This is an incredible thread! We DEFINITELY need to talk more and finish that draft we started. ❤️

on fanfic & emotional continuity

Writing and reading fanfic is a masterclass in characterisation. 

Consider: in order to successfully write two different “versions” of the same character - let alone ten, or fifty, or a hundred - you have to make an informed judgement about their core personality traits, distinguishing between the results of nature and nurture, and decide how best to replicate those conditions in a new narrative context. The character you produce has to be recognisably congruent with the canonical version, yet distinct enough to fit within a different - perhaps wildly so - story. And you physically can’t accomplish this if the character in question is poorly understood, or viewed as a stereotype, or one-dimensional. Yes, you can still produce the fic, but chances are, if your interest in or knowledge of the character(s) is that shallow, you’re not going to bother in the first place. 

Because ficwriters care about nuance, and they especially care about continuity - not just literal continuity, in the sense of corroborating established facts, but the far more important (and yet more frequently neglected) emotional continuity. Too often in film and TV canons in particular, emotional continuity is mistakenly viewed as a synonym for static characterisation, and therefore held anathema: if the character(s) don’t change, then where’s the story? But emotional continuity isn’t anti-change; it’s pro-context. It means showing how the character gets from Point A to Point B as an actual journey, not just dumping them in a new location and yelling Because Reasons! while moving on to the next development. Emotional continuity requires a close reading, not just of the letter of the canon, but its spirit - the beats between the dialogue; the implications never overtly stated, but which must logically occur off-screen. As such, emotional continuity is often the first casualty of canonical forward momentum: when each new TV season demands the creation of a new challenge for the protagonists, regardless of where and how we left them last, then dealing with the consequences of what’s already happened is automatically put on the backburner.

Fanfic does not do this. 

Fanfic embraces the gaps in the narrative, the gracenotes in characterisation that the original story glosses, forgets or simply doesn’t find time for. That’s not all it does, of course, but in the context of learning how to write characters, it’s vital, because it teaches ficwriters - and fic readers - the difference between rich and cardboard characters. A rich character is one whose original incarnation is detailed enough that, in order to put them in fanfic, the writer has to consider which elements of their personality are integral to their existence, which clash irreparably with the new setting, and which can be modified to fit, to say nothing of how this adapted version works with other similarly adapted characters. A cardboard character, by contrast, boasts so few original or distinct attributes that the ficwriter has to invent them almost out of whole cloth. Note, please, that attributes are not necessarily synonymous with details in this context: we might know a character’s favourite song and their number of siblings, but if this information gives us no actual insight into them as a person, then it’s only window-dressing. By the same token, we might know very few concrete facts about a character, but still have an incredibly well-developed sense of their personhood on the basis of their actions. 

The fact that ficwriters en masse - or even the same ficwriter in different AUs - can produce multiple contradictory yet still fundamentally believable incarnations of the same person is a testament to their understanding of characterisation, emotional continuity and narrative. 

[knackorcraft]

AU'S

“i just committed a crime and i need to use you as a hostage i am so sorry” au

you were my rival in first grade and damn you’ve gotten really hot since then au

i was shrunk to 4 inches tall by a witch and now i kinda live in your kitchen without you knowing au

i am actually good at math but the math tutor is really hot so i’m pretending to be dumb au

two strangers locked inside a grocery store at three am together au

 i’m mute and you’re the lead singer of my favorite band who just pulled me on stage to sing with you au 

who can sell the most cookies contest au

we’re strangers but i absolutely hate your music taste and i feel the need to tell you this on a crowded subway au

 i’m a fisherman and you’re  a  mermaid who got tangled in one of my nets au

i purposely get your coffee order wrong just so you’ll talk to me again au

we’re both sick and we both grabbed for the last can of soup at the store au

tree climbing contest but we both got stuck up on the top branches and now we have to wait for the fire department au

you’re singing my favorite song but you’re singing it wrong au

you’re the crazy cat person next door and your cats keep on wandering into my yard   + now we have to wait for the fire department au 

i’m a ghost and you’re a ghost hunter au

you’re my siblings’s best friend and i absolutely hate you but pretend to be my boy/girlfriend to piss off my family au

you look exactly like the main character in my novel au

[knackorcraft]

Some examples of why the Oxford comma is generally a good idea

[knackorcraft]

Maxine Peake as Hamlet

[knackorcraft]

Arthur works at an upscale bar in the evenings to pay off his student debts. Working for ambitious Dominic Cobb as his PA/lackey might be lucrative in the long run but it didn’t pay his rent. 

Handsome but secretive Eames came into the upscale hotel bar once every few weeks. Arthur was intrigued but knew better than to get involved with a patron especially since he needed the money and tips to afford his tiny but expensive walkup that he had fallen in love with and was slowly renovating.

Would Arthur take Eames up on his offer?

[knackorcraft]

naps are the worst kind of temptation.. they promise u rest and wellness but leave you with a cloudy headache and an inescapable drowsiness the rest of the day

[knackorcraft]

Ugh.  Gross.

First look at Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man, which tells the story of  a philosophy professor in existential crisis, who gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.

[knackorcraft]

I have discovered Mincing Mockingbird’s Guide to Troubled Birds.  It is an amazing, hilarious window into the dark corners of my soul.  

Expect to see more of these on my dash.

(Is it wrong that I want to order a copy of this for myself for Mother’s Day?)

[knackorcraft]

This reminds me that I need to update my AU list.  But there are already so many great AUs.  Come nominate some!

AU (ALTERNATE UNIVERSE)

Guys. My love for a good AU fic is so intense that I’m almost frozen in the face of this category. (Oh, and also remembering that I missed this up in my nominations last time, didn’t I?) This fandom has SO MANY IMPORTANT AMAZING AUs. I do not even know where to start. 

At first I was like, “I will only nominate whatever springs first to my mind,” and then literally without thinking I had, like, a dozen fantastic AUs in my head. TOO MANY GOOD AUs. 

Anyway, there are already some fabulous nominations in THIS THREAD that you should go and check out. And you should add your own. I know you have your favorites. I know one popped into your brain right now. Go! Nominate it!

And don’t forget we’ve got plenty of other categories, too!

(P.S. I know there’s some thing where LJ is marking some posts as spam if you’re not a member or something. We’re monitoring and will unmark those posts asap.)

[knackorcraft]

Sooooo much delicious angst!  Come nominate your favorites!!!!

ANGST

Did that get your attention? 

It’s Dreaming Readers nomination time, and today I’m highlighting the particular category of ANGST. You know, those fics you read where you kind of want to claw your weeping eyes out because of how much weeping because of the ~exquisite angst~? 

I’m actually not much of an angst reader myself, so we really extra-need your help here! What are your favorite angsty Inception fics? What angsty fic’s been on your radar to read and you haven’t yet but you’ve heard good things? 

The best I am going to do, I think, is nominating @toomuchplor‘s  Whither Thou Goest, which is part of the larger Steinwayverse and when I was at this point in the ‘verse and they were being angsty I felt like they were going to KILL ME with this. 

Oh! Or I could nominate @nolaespoir‘s I Kept It from You, which I honestly read accidentally and then it also KILLED ME. 

So, you should GO HERE and nominate your favorite angst fics. 

And if angst isn’t your thing, there are lots of other categories!

[knackorcraft]

Agreed. I finally caught a clearer view on one of my 17,493 rewatches. :-)

I’m sure this is all over my dash already (it’s been a busy day) but can we talk about the perfection that is the Hamilton cast mashing up Sweeney Todd with “Alexander Hamilton”?

Daveed’s waistcoat!  Yum.

Oak singing about Green Finch and how he strikes the pose on “his arm was complete again”

Valjean reference

L-MM channeling his inner George Hearn.  And The Work, Waits.

Renee’s hair though!!!!!!

Come on, that shit IS sick.

Andrew Chappelle!!!!

That’s King Rorge dropping with a shout, right?

How they weave all the ST lyrics in on the “just you wait” beats.

“What happens next, well that’s the play.”  You know, I knew these numbers had many parallels, but I just got punched in the gut by it watching this.  I even see the parallels in the sets now.

Young Anthony. Is Anthony.  I see what you did there and I LOVE IT.

Is that Pippa under the shawl as the wife?

MEAT PIE!GROFF

(And just cause it makes me laugh, LOJr reading from the phone at the start. Heh.)

[knackorcraft]

Thanks for this!  I remember it now.

Drum major!Arthur?

I’m at my kid’s multi-school band event and I swear to god the posture and gestures and slicked back hair on this drum major just screams high school Arthur to me. Is this a thing? Can it be a thing?

Now they are playing Uptown Funk.

[knackorcraft]

IKR?!?!?!?!

I’m sure this is all over my dash already (it’s been a busy day) but can we talk about the perfection that is the Hamilton cast mashing up Sweeney Todd with “Alexander Hamilton”?

Daveed’s waistcoat!  Yum.

Oak singing about Green Finch and how he strikes the pose on “his arm was complete again”

Valjean reference

L-MM channeling his inner George Hearn.  And The Work, Waits.

Renee’s hair though!!!!!!

Come on, that shit IS sick.

Andrew Chappelle!!!!

That’s King Rorge dropping with a shout, right?

How they weave all the ST lyrics in on the “just you wait” beats.

“What happens next, well that’s the play.”  You know, I knew these numbers had many parallels, but I just got punched in the gut by it watching this.  I even see the parallels in the sets now.

Young Anthony. Is Anthony.  I see what you did there and I LOVE IT.

Is that Pippa under the shawl as the wife?

MEAT PIE!GROFF

(And just cause it makes me laugh, LOJr reading from the phone at the start. Heh.)

[knackorcraft]

I’m sure this is all over my dash already (it’s been a busy day) but can we talk about the perfection that is the Hamilton cast mashing up Sweeney Todd with “Alexander Hamilton”?

Daveed’s waistcoat!  Yum.

Oak singing about Green Finch and how he strikes the pose on “his arm was complete again”

Valjean reference

L-MM channeling his inner George Hearn.  And The Work, Waits.

Renee’s hair though!!!!!!

Come on, that shit IS sick.

Andrew Chappelle!!!!

That’s King Rorge dropping with a shout, right?

How they weave all the ST lyrics in on the “just you wait” beats.

“What happens next, well that’s the play.”  You know, I knew these numbers had many parallels, but I just got punched in the gut by it watching this.  I even see the parallels in the sets now.

Young Anthony. Is Anthony.  I see what you did there and I LOVE IT.

Is that Pippa under the shawl as the wife?

MEAT PIE!GROFF

(And just cause it makes me laugh, LOJr reading from the phone at the start. Heh.)