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just-the-hiddles · 4 years ago

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Writer’s Spotlight | myoxisbroken

Happy hump day, peeps! This week’s spotlight is the queen of a historical fic, AU or canon. The maven of food porn in a fic. And the reigning champ of teasing me with smut @myoxisbroken ! Let’s dive in!!

The Basics

MASTERLIST HERE

Any other names you want people to call you?

Miss Ox, myox, whatever you feel like!

How long have you been writing fic?

2 years.

What fandoms and/ships do you write?

MCU (Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes), other Tom Hiddleston characters (Pine, Conrad, Sharpe, Buxton, Nicholls, Plumptre, and ever-growing), and just branching out into Pedro Pascal with The Mandalorian; I also have a few Doctor Who fics in my Masterlist (Ten/Donna Noble)

How did you get started writing fic?

I was reading a ton of Doctor Who fic and enjoying the Doctor/River Song stories. Then I rewatched DW season 4 and was so depressed about Donna's ending that I immediately watched the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version of Much Ado About Nothing. And then I started to ship the Tenth Doctor and Donna.

So I read a bunch of their fic and thought, "You know what would be awesome? If someone wrote a WW2 AU where Donna's a single mother and the Doctor is an injured fighter pilot that she takes in as a boarder." And then I started to get snippets of dialogue in my head, and ideas for scenes, and I wondered if I might be able to write a story myself. I hadn't written anything in years, but I decided to give it a try. And a few months later, I had my first story completed, a 14-chapter Doctor Who AU.

After that, I had the writing bug and I haven't been able to stop coming up with ideas and working to put them into words!

Story Recommendations

Which of your stories are your favorite?

It is honestly so hard to choose. I'm only going to choose completed works, because I always love the WIPs I'm working on. So, let's see: You Bring Me Home is one of them, because it was so fun to just jump into a sexy vacation romp with some playful kink exploration for James Conrad (Kong: Skull Island). With Brooding Wings was my first attempt at a vampire story using multiple Tom Hiddleston characters, and I really enjoyed playing with the dynamics of different personalities and settings in that world.

In A Restless World Like This Is is another, because I had such a great time writing a fluffy love story for Steve Rogers and an older OFC. It started as a spite project because of someone's objections to older characters and turned into such a lovely experience. It was one of the easiest I've ever written in terms of how quickly it flowed from my brain through my fingers. I'd loved writing for Loki (An Excellent Suggestion was my first Loki story, and my first time writing smut) and for Bucky (We Are All Victims of Physics Sometimes was my first dip into capturing Bucky's quiet reserve and depth of emotion).

I honestly could go on and on about stories but would only sound more conceited.

Which story are you most proud of?

I think A Pursuit of the Heart. It was my first time writing in the Regency/Georgian era, and I did a TON of research for it. It was also my first novel-length story, and I didn't even know if I could take on something that big or write a historical romance convincingly, in a way that felt era-appropriate and true. I was so proud of the finished product.

Which of your stories do you think is the most underrated?

Let Your Heart Be Light, a Bucky/OFC story with a Christmas theme - its companion piece, Kissing The New Year In, also didn't get much traction. But I loved writing them!

Someone is new to reading your stories, which story/stories should they read first?

It depends on what actors and characters they like, really, as well as if they like smut or fluff or both. For a smutty one-shot, I'd recommend An Excellent Suggestion (which has a one-shot sequel). For a swoonier longer fic with smut, I'd recommend either You Bring Me Home or my fake relationship Steve Rogers fic The One Thing You Can't See.

For fluff, An Unforeseen Outcome is a Loki one-shot with both fluff and a little emotional hurt/comfort. Interestingly, I've written more not-smut fluff for Loki than for any other character. I think I just want him to find connection and love and acceptance so much.

And if you are a fan of historical romance, I'd recommend either my Thomas Sharpe AU A Compromising Situation, or if you like your fics with a healthy dose of angst, Beside Us When Beauty Brightens, my William Buxton (Return to Cranford) story about what happens after he loses Peggy.

Which Story did you do the most research for?

A Pursuit of the Heart, since it was my first one set in the Georgian era and I had a lot of catching up to do! I research for most of my stories, and definitely for my multi-chapter stories. Even if they're contemporary, I still look up resorts, locations, restaurants and local foods, things to do, etc. I can't help it. It's like I'm addicted to research.

Which Story was the easiest to write?

For a multi-chapter fic, In A Restless World Like This Is. For a one-shot, probably my Loki Christmas fluff All I Want For Christmas Is You.

The Writing Process

What is your favorite part of writing?

When a scene I've had in my head just flies out of my fingers and onto the page, and I can read it back and think, "YES! That's just how I wanted it!"

What is your least favorite part?

When my brain is too scattered and unfocused to actually allow me to do any writing.

Describe your style in 1 to 2 sentences.

Well-researched stories that use the information to make you feel like you're there and that incorporate sweetness into even the smuttiest scenario. Also, food porn, and porn porn.

Who are some of your writing idols and/or influences?

For published novels, Mary Balogh and Sabrina Jeffries are two of my favorite historical romance writers, and I think that reading them has helped to make my writing better. In terms of fic authors (some of whom are also published), @nildespirandum and @caffiend-queen were two of the first I read in the Tom/Loki fandom and their excellent quality and intriguing plots are an inspiration, even if I will never be able to write plots as twisty as theirs. Also, reading @yespolkadotkitty's stories helped me push myself to get better at setting scenes and at incorporating the various senses into stories, because she is so good at both of those things and so much else.

What programs do you use to write and/or edit?

I use Google Docs. I have also been dancing around buying Scrivener for an original novel I plan to write and shop around, so I'll be doing that soon.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Plotter, for sure. My brain would implode if I tried to pants my stories.

Do you write RPF or not?

I have a few chapters of a Tom Hiddleston RPF in draft form but haven't proceeded with it. I'd kind of like to write a Pedro Pascal RPF one-shot. I love reading RPF but feel odd about writing it for some reason.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Again with the tough questions! It might be Loki, because he is such a chameleon and there are so many hidden depths to him. I really want to write some multi-chapter Loki stories, because so far I have done one-shots and one 3-chapter short fic. I'd like to explore a longer character arc for him.

What do you think are your writing strengths?

Authenticity because of my research, realistically depicting emotions, and writing in a style that feels genuine to the setting and era.

What do you struggle with?

PLOT. I do think that there is plenty of room for all kinds of stories, and I like to tell stories about relationships. But I would like to get better at adding outside conflict and other types of plot to my stories.

Favorite Trope?

It's so hard to choose between There Was Only One Bed and Fake Relationship. I think those are my top two.

What is the best piece of writing advice you have heard?

Write something. Anything. Even if you think it's crap, get your first draft done, because you can always go back and rewrite something that's bad and make it better. Also, if you're stuck on your WIP, write something else - a piece of another story or one-shot, a description of something you saw, a character profile, a bit of personal journaling. Keep writing and don't let a temporary roadblock turn into a long-term one.

What would you say to a new fanfic writer starting out?

It's hard when something you wrote doesn't get a lot of attention, especially when you love it. We share stories in the hopes that other people will discover and enjoy them, but you have to at least partly do it for your own satisfaction, or it will get pretty discouraging if the likes/kudos, comments, and reblogs just don't happen.

What is a random bit of research you have not managed to work into a fic yet?

Ladies' drawers (underwear) were not commonly worn until the mid-1800s. They were thought to be gentlemen's garments and it was thus vulgar for a lady to wear them. Yes, ladies of the Georgian (incl. Regency) era were generally commando beneath their skirts, petticoats, and shifts. But that was still a lot of layers.

Any goals or WIPs you want to share?

My goal is to write an original novel (series) set during the Napoleonic Wars. My hope is to get it researched, written, and put in final draft form so that I can send query letters out before the end of 2021.

This or That

Fluff or Angst

Fluff AND Smut

Reader Insert or OC

Canon Divergent or AU

Pepsi or Coke (Neither: Cherry Coke Zero)

Coffee or Tea (Neither: Cocoa)

Sweet AND Savory

And that is it, until next week, remember to check out the masterlist here. And your new fav fic is just around the corner! Until next time, toodles!

#writer's spotlight #myoxisbroken #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #loki #loki fanfiction

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jotunlokisuggestion · 5 years ago

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I’m gonna illustrate to you the Thanos-problem not so quickly.

The studio went to Kenneth Branagh in 2010 and told them they want a villain as good as Magneto for their Avengers film.

And almost 10 years later the MCU wanted to write an interesting, political villain called Thanos for Infinity War/Endgame.

Now, when Kenneth Branagh got the (really annoying) custom-order for a good villain, he didn’t look at the villain the studio liked and copied him. Instead he had the brains to write Loki as a character. With his own personality traits, qualities, quirks, a unique backstory that appeals to Branagh’s strength as a writer, whose origin story can be used and re-used in future films and plots, who has unique and adaptable strengths and weaknesses and who is played by an actor who is really good at playing roles like that.

Meanwhile Thanos is just...going through the Killmonger/Loki/Magneto motions of: political villain: ✅ tragic backstory: ✅ destruction: ✅ big baddie speech ✅ --- but there is no heart to any of that, no sense of detail, no moment for him to shine no personality.

And you know (I really tried to stop myself from adding this) in the 90s we had this flood of dark, gritty anti-heroes with their giant guns and ten thousand pouches. And some of them like Cable were really good while later characters became pale imitations of Cable (think of that famous video of Liefeld inventing a character and he just draws Cable number 8948320 and his backstory is that he’s a cyborg) and all those rehashes of the Killing Joke. And in the end they all lost track of what made these characters good in the first place.

And in the late 2000s and early 2010s we had this wave of young, hip, funny for the lulzs supervillains who just had quirks and no reasons and personality and in the end, basically nothing of substance remains of any of them - an epidemic starting with Heath Ledger’s Joker but were later replaced with young men in suits who were also kinda pop-culturally - ironically Leto’s Joker hopped onto that bandwagon like 9 years late with a starbucks

And I understand why in the last few years, political villains have entered mass-production, but a villain like that doesn’t work unless your writing challenges their ideas. Okay lemme give you another example: Since the (in)famous Far Cry 3 with its very 2012 villain quirky-crazy-Joker-y villain Vaas we now had Far Cry 4 playing in the land of a slightly quirky fashionable young man dictator and Far Cry 5 and New Dawn with an evil Christian cult right in the US.

The transition from early 2010s to late 2010s is obvious but - these are video games and by the time we fight the final boss, we have automatically actually spent a lot of time in their respective worlds. We know why these are horrible people. We are challenging their methods and ideas already when we encounter them. In the MCU, we see Killmonger actually rule over Wakanda and we know while his ideas are good. his methods aren’t - while at the same he challenges Wakanda and forces T’Challa to accept that his father was not perfect. Each time we see Loki rule over Asgard, imperialism is challenged - in the first time when he actually attacks Jötunheim (thus executing exactly the things he had been taught his entire life) and by not intervening in the colonies in Ragnarök. But, you are going to say, Thanos ideas are challenged! We see that people are sad that he killed half the universe! - and I mean yeah, but I didn’t need to watch the movie to know that people would be sad. Instead, everything happens exactly as you expect it would. All these previous examples were interesting because we wouldn’t know what the villains would do and how it would affect the population. Also the final notion - that the universe would eventually be better of if half the universe was destroyed, remains unshaken and unaddressed.

And honestly, their attempt to make Thanos likeable or understandable might be the huge problem of the film. Thanos as a morbid, unlikable killer who’s in love with death works because we don’t need to relate to him for that. We don’t need a connection. Many good villains are absolutely detestable. You can do a lot not by making them seem sympathetic (which is almost impossible with villains like Thanos anyway) but you can make them interesting to the audience-

let’s talk about villains who are absolute giant assholes but I like them:

Yeah him <3 You remember the first season of Hannibal? As members of the audience, we know who Hannibal is before we even start watching. Hannibal Lecter is one of the most famous villains there are. In the movies, he’s arrested in Red Dragon right in the first scene - there is never any doubt about who he is. But in the show, he’s yet an active serial killer and working with the police. The police that solves his murders. The police who doesn’t know that he’s the killer. The killer whose name literally rhymes with cannibal and who makes cannibalism puns. There were hundreds of memes about how fucking frustrating it was that the police always just walked right past him.

That was the thing: We, the audience, knew something the characters didn’t. Like in a horror film when we know the killer is hiding behind the door and the main character doesn’t. You want to fucking scream at the screen in frustration. Okay what does that have to do with Thanos? Imagine all those glimpses and we saw of him in previous movies would have presented him in a likeable light. Imagine if his disciples were actually seen gaining people’s trust or if people in GotG would actually casually mention “oh Thanos will fix this, I heard he has a brilliant plan” or he tried to convince them that there was a huge famine coming. It would have been so frustrating to see people trust him because obviously everyone who reads the comics would know that Thanos is bad news and if we saw people actually trust him? maybe actually give him Infinity Stones to fix the universe because he’s the only one who can use them? Fucking rude.

Reveals :)

I guess I don’t have to tell tumblr who the first guy is but a quick rehash: In season finale of Sherlock, a guy who appears in one scene as the girlfriend of a colleague of Sherlock turns out to be Moriarty.

And guess what? It absolutely doesn’t matter one single fucking bit that Moriarty is the lab guy. And the big reveal doesn’t matter because we’re not given any of the clues. He might as well have been the mailman. Now, the Man In Black from Westworld however? That was a huge reveal. (Major spoilers if you haven’t watched it but I’m keeping it vague). We saw the Man In Black commit the worst crimes imaginable throughout the first season of the show, he killed hundreds of people without remorse. And in his defence, we thought that he thought it was all a robot theme park. Except? We find out that he’s actually the older version of one of the main-characters who absolutely saw robots as people once and evn protected them and loved one. This was both a horrifying reveal, an origin story and it made his crime even worse. That’s good villain-writing.

What does that have to do with Thanos? - Technique. Just how the reveal was written has a huge impact. Imagine if there had been no mention of Thanos at all until Infinity War - and the characters were actually forced to figure out who brought Loki to Earth, who supported Ronan, who attacked Asgard. Maybe you catch some glimpses of his disciples and maybe you get to hear the name of one of them at the very end or Loki even whispers “Thanos” in Thor’s ear before he dies and he as to figure out what that means. Make us work to get there.

Relevance!

Now, they wanted a political villain, right? AHS Cult gave as a political villain who is absolutely detestable every step of the way. But the reason he was scary and interesting is because...it was relevant af. Every word he said, every political opinion he expressed, the way he staged attacks on him by migrant workers and spread fear in his community - that rings very close to home right now. I can get why someone would say you can’t do the same in a Marvel film, but Sci-Fi has always been a projection screen for political subjects for decades now. Star Trek has been doing it since the 1960s and if they had actually committed to making Thanos allude to actual political slogans of today, he would have been way more relevant.

Dynamics (aka how to make someone likeable without condoning their actions)

On my main, I made a post once about Loki and Magneto and how having, forming and developing relationships helps to flesh out a character. In short: We learn to understand them. We see them grow. We see (ideally) how they learn from encounters and how it shapes them. Now we are entering the realm of likeable again with Azula, because what made her a brilliant villain was not her brilliance or her abilities (they made her a great opponent though) but her motivations. The more we see her family, the more we learn that she, too, is a victim of a dysfunctional family. She allows a whole new perspective on the royal family. That scene where she tells Ozai that he ‘can’t treat her like Zuko’? - those were ten fucking books written in one line. Her descent into paranoia basically rewrote every scene of her in the past and is also a reminder that she’s 15 and yes, of course, she’s a victim. She’s a child fighting in a war.

How many meaningful relationships does Thanos have? He’s quite fond of Gamora I guess? Less fond of Nebula? There was an embarrassing attempt to create a connection between him Tony. Now, remember that in the comics, Thanos is someone driven by love. He loves death - that’s the relationship that drives him. It’s important that there is a face to everything. Show me Thanos family, show me his homeworld. Show me his previous desperate attempts to save the people he loved and how he was held back and driven to more and more desperate measures. Show me how he finally gives in and wants to destroy everything.

“show don’t tell”

I’m going to argue for a Thanos solo movie now :) (kinda)

Okay I feel kinda compelled to put David in this when I’m already posting this on my rp blog but also a) I love him and b) shut up. short summary: David was created an android that is programmed to serve humans. He grows to resent them more and more, especially because many of them are petty and abusive towards him until in the second film, he just wants them dead. Now in his first scenes of Prometheus, we see him alone on the ship while the human crew is in cryosleep. We see him eat, play basketball, ride a bicycle, watch people’s dreams. He also watches Lawrence of Arabia while dying his hair to look like him and quotes the above sentence several times just before the rest of the crew wakes up.

It’s a tiny sequence in the film but we learn various things about David: He’s vain, he does things he - as a robot - doesn’t have to do, he identifies strongly with a man torn between two cultures, he has a lot of fun when he’s alone, he habitually spies on people, he is feeling pain in some capacity and he associates it with humans. We learn all of that in those few tiny moments.

compare all of what we learnt in this short sequence to what we know about Thanos. After seeing him in...I think three films by now? And having people talk about him in even more? With literally every character I listed now (excluding Moriarty bc he’s a negative example) we know what drove them to do what they did. We know their pain. We know them. Even if the things they are cruel because here it comes:

They are a Story.

And Thanos is a plot device.

or to quote fellow tumblr user hackedmotionsensors: I’ve never liked Thanos because hes like a video game villain. Like he’s the annoying equivalent of finding the final boss in a FF game and its just a giant head or something stupid.

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