#this ask took 9 years to let me add a read more w/o destroying the rest of the ask thansk tumblr

[ziracona]

One aspect I find fascinating about your fics is that Meg and a lot of the other characters are pop culture savvy, but also live in a universe where some of the most popular horror characters were real people. So, how do you think they would've reacted to meeting Nancy and Steve, who come from a universe where Michael, Laurie, and Freddy are all horror movie characters?

Ahhh thank you so much! I’m really glad you liked that. Pop culture was a really big element for a lot of the cast, & it is kinda funny I guess that several of them /are/ core horror pop culture.

So, this is kind of a hard one for me to answer, because I didn’t do ILM canon like DbD official canon. I do explicitly reference Stranger Things as fiction in Nearly Departed, but that was because I had not the foggiest clue DbD would /add/ a Stranger Things chapter—both because it’s super new and ongoing unlike their other horror “classic” staples, & because I wouldn’t even really call Stranger Things horror. I had been so damn careful 😂—I think the only horror film I name is Friday the 13th, which felt safe at the time because it’s got its own similar game & thus seemed unlikely to give DbD rights. If I had included Nancy & Steve, I would have gone back and replaced that segment with something similar, and just had ST exist in the same world as Halloween, NOES 2010, and Saw/all of the ILM cast. It’s the best solution, and you really don’t have to change any of the stories to do it. All that would have to change is that in this version of ST, Max wore a different Halloween costume, & three lines of dialogue are different. Fundamentally it’s exactly the same world. I know that’s maybe not the most exciting answer TuT, but it’s what I’d have done for a few reasons. Ima drop the rest under a read more bc I go way into writing & a little w horror meta tho: 💙

For one, it’s just kinda sad. It lowers the storytelling stakes because even a best-case scenario would be kind of a letdown for everyone. Not as much to gain: Not as much to lose. So, sad emotionally & kinda less motivating story-wise. Like, if any version of a happy ending even hypothetically would always mean these people who have bonded through years of self sacrifice and friendship and trauma and growth either /never/ see each other again, or go to one world together where only maybe one person would ever get to see their OG family again, and might also have to suffer with seeing their life as a film on that planet? Joked about, critiques, not taken seriously, no privacy? That’s just. It’s not a happy ending, or a satisfying one, even for the characters to /fight/ for, regardless of if they can win it or not. 

I’m aware that official DbD is multiverse, and there’s no assurance for even say Claudette and Meg being from the same world, let alone the world Halloween happens in, and was when I started writing. I just elected to ignore it. The devs even also explain a lot of the cosmetics as “alternate world versions” of the characters, instead of just fun costumes. I personally think that’s silly? And I’ve really never liked the multiverse decision. I got nothing at all against multiverse stories—they can be amazing—but you’ve got to have a reason if you do, and as far as I can tell, the only reason DbD is multiverse was so the Devs could release a bunch of classic horror characters into their game without worrying about continuity, which is lazy & not a great reason to pick multiverse. It can be great for stories, but in DbD, it would if anything just detract from the reality of the situation & the storytelling? Like, if I showed up in a hell pocket universe, and Michael Myers was there, it would be hard to take that situation entirely seriously, and it would fundamentally change how I interacted with others & they with me. If I knew his history, I’d use that to try to get through to him (what’s the worst that’ll happen? I’ll die like I do every day anyway?), but it would also be just weird & hard for people to relate. Like, if Steve Harrington has had conversations with a buddy about Laurie Strode being careless for not double-tapping her dead assailant & thinks of her as Jamie Lee Curtis & in some ways knows more about her life & family & universe than she does, but knows it all as an element of fiction? And at the same time, Kate’s seen Steve’s actor do interviews & play other roles and caught continuity errors in his /life/ while watching ST??? Hypothetically, someone /could/ unpack all that to tell a story, & maybe a fan has, but the Devs/game really, really haven’t, and in most instances, it’ll just mess up the characters’ abilities to relate to each other as human beings, as well as being miserable for the ones told they’re just characters from horror films in other people’s worlds.

The way DbD is set up really doesn’t lend itself to the kind of meta character vs humanity, role relationships between fiction & life narrative of, say, The Final Girls. Really all it does is make the world less real feeling. Less whole, more artificial. Less to be taken seriously, less belief willing to be suspended. Why are Laurie & Quentin fake in someone’s world? Does Meg not being in a story in Quentin’s universe mean she’s more real? It’s just messy. Multiverse is fine, but if you pick multiverse solely to make your job easier, at the cost of a more coherent, real, and engagable story (@ Devs >.>) that’s lazy/bad writing. I’ve read & enjoyed multiverse stories, but I’d never write DbD that way, bc I’d need a reason to, and I don’t have one. There was really no need for the devs to feel like they had to either, except pure ease w no work at all thinking about how or needing to explain anything, and I wish they hadn’t. : /

Like. Technically, Halloween & Scream shouldn’t be in the same canon—Halloween H20 plays a chunk of Scream 2 on TV, Scream 1 they’re watching Halloween 1978 & Scream 4 Sidney is asked “Who are you? Michael fucking Myers?” When she survives a murder attempt. But that’s not a big deal. It’s not a pivotal piece of world building and canon for either franchise. Scream is not fundamentally different if Randy is watching Friday the 13th or even some made up film, instead of Halloween. On top of that, a lot of horror references each other for fun and as tribute and I’m a huge nerd who adores this tradition. 😂 Scream & Halloween are so tight as franchises by the time Halloween H20 was released, that it actually uses chunks of Scream’s OST. It’s much better narratively for DbD if they’re all from one world, and in a way, it’s just a cool next step to the preexisting horror friendship metas between a lot of films. It’s really fun to figure out how they’d function together in one universe.

Anyway, that was long but I have so many thoughts on DbD & writing thank you for giving me an excuse to gush!! And thank you again for the compliment. I’m really happy you like my writing. It means a lot. 💙

[babysackville]

Saturday 6th November 1824

8

2 ½

Breakfast at 9 20/60 from 9 ¾ to 10 ¾ (3/4 hour translating the Italian and the other ¼ turning into French) about a page of Jacopo Ortis – Mrs Heath then came to call on me and staid ¾ hour – she talked to me unreservedly of herself – she seems amiable and good tempered and I really like her. She spoke of her great affliction in losing her husband the ruin of all her fair prospects, and the envy she could not help feeling of the prosperity, she had left home because instead of rejoicing at her sisters happiness who was just returned from India. She could not bear to see it, it made her miserable and she sought to hide herself among strangers, she knew what virtue was and nobody admired it more but she could not help these bad envious passions. She spoke with a degree of candor and simplicity that pleased. I told her I had never met with anyone so candid, many were like her but would not own it, there was a proverb, misery likes companions and it was true of all the world – 

Just before Mrs Heath went Mrs Barlow came and sat with me till 3 20/60 all the while Mme Galvani was here who came at 1 40/60 and staid till 3 ¼ - I changed her this morning to oblige Young de Boyve spent all the time in conversation – said I had translated too little and would shew it another time - Mme Galvani had expressly for me gained permission for me to visit the Catacombs – nobody allowed to see them now but I might go with the inspector general of the public works – asked for Mrs Barlow to go – that she would accomplish - saying Mrs Barlow was my Castor and I her Pollux – She would get me [abs] billets tickets to see the Fusco paintings at the Pantheon (Ste.Genervieve) the column in our Place Vendȏme, &c &c. I like Mme Galvani

She may have been galante, Mrs Barlow told me she had made out from her conversation she had had three amants [lovers] but I care not for this, she is an Italian – flirting and lovemaking to Mrs Barlow but nothing particular save that she said she was not fond of kissing, never let her friends do it, it was not like her to let me do so. Wondered why she did, could not quite excuse herself I said it was all my fault but she knew not the pleasure it gave me to kiss her, it could do no harm and was kind of her to indulge me. I liked not the thing in general nor liked seeing ladies kiss each other but I myself had different feelings and only did it when I felt them interested. She certainly resists me less and less I put my arms round her waist and she said nothing but stood quietly, my thigh touching hers all its length – 

Mrs Barlow went to her daughter who arrived from school at 3 20/60 at 3 40/60 we went out – bought gloves in the rue de la parix, took the round of the Tuileries gardens and came in at 4 40/60 – Looked at the books M.Cologue lent me the other day – Cuvier’s Mammalia, Temminck’s birds, and another work on birds – Sat down to dinner at 5 40/60 – Sat all the eveing close to Mrs Barlow (near the fire and latterly apart from all the rest) talking only to her – M.Le Viconte de Nappe (mad as the winds to all appearances, singing and playing a thousand pranks – he had been in confinement and M. Dacier and M. de Billevue came – they played at secretaire all sitting round the table and before that they party has assembled round the table and Miss Harvey read aloud to them – still I sat talking to Mrs Barlow – 

At first mere badinage then somehow or other told her the Blackstone Edge business with Pi [Mariana] last September, said I had promised to forget it but could not. Pi [Mariana] had mentioned it to and consulted one of her friends who said Pi [Mariana] was wrong but I took it too seriously. I asked what Mrs B [Barlow] thought, she said she could tell me better if she knew whether Mrs L [Lawton] had given me the rings, and why should I tell her first one thing then another what could it signify whether she did or not fearing to make a mystery of it. I said Pi [Mariana] did give them, said they were binding so far as this (Mrs Barlow had before desired me to look at them) if Pi [Mariana] was a widow our living together would be judicious and convenient to all parties and in a foolish moment as one often does, we had so agreed but it was mere friendship, and if I met with anything beyond this of course it was a different thing and was at liberty to take, but it would seem necessary to give some explanation and to tell Pi [Mariana] the nature of the circumstance, which might be awkward and disagreeable. 

Mrs Barlow said and seemed to think and feel yes but said it would never pass farther but Mrs Barlow said she thought Pi [Mariana] liked me, ah said I significantly, if she liked me as well as you do I should (but she acted properly she was married and it would not be right now -) be satisfied and perhaps, she answered she likes you better, no no said the circumstance I have just told you [Blackstone Edge] is proof against that. Yes, said Mrs Barlow, if there had been love in it she would not have consulted a third person but she added she would suit you best for many things, I am too old for you and she will have a good fortune to add to yours, what will she have. Oh, said I, perhaps a thousand a year but she must have five hundred and I never like to think of the most and therefore only calculate on the latter sum. This led me to ask what will be your income should your daughter marry, said she, that depends upon myself and I have not calculated them, said I, would it be three hundred a year or tell me what is your income now, I would answer you any question you asked me here. We were interrupted but I do not think she liked or meant to give me a direct answer. 

She had said in the morning she thought Pi [Mariana] liked me, I declared not and said besides that I had no inclination I always went on as I had begun I had begun with friendship to Pi [Mariana] and should end with it. I was too much accustomed to her, the charm the witchery of something dearer was destroyed forever, but I have begun differently with Mrs Barlow and be my fate what it may, I must end with her too as I have begun. I asked if she understood me, she said yes. I had before told her I preferred the society of married ladies, single old ladies who had not been married had not so much tact, one could take more liberties with them, their conversation was more lax &c. We agreed, said I spoke from one or two instances, hinted Anne Belcombe and Miss V [Vallance] but almost wholly at the former. I had begun by disliking but her assiduity had worn this off, she used to come to my room, had staid till three in the morning and I should have been tired if I could not have amused myself. I said ladies sometimes made curious presents, said no more but hinted at the hair of their privy parts. 

Told her when she asked me I should be thirty two the third of April next – she said tonight after I had told her the Blackstone Edge business she had often told me, before Mrs Mackenzie she was, I had been in love she was sure I could love deeply she knew it from the distinction made tho only in joke but perhaps after this (told her it happened last September), did I not like Pi [Mariana] well now as before – said I thought she, Mrs Barlow, would not have done so in such a case she thought perhaps, but said she, you know I am very romantic, too much so yet I would not part with it – In coming away with Mrs Barlow, Madame de Boyve wished me goodnight saying she had not seen a great deal of me I gravely said I was sorry I had seen nothing at all of her she asked me to go with them to the Oratoire tomorrow and then to call on Madame Galvani. I said I was sorry I had promised to accompany Mrs Barlow and Miss de Sans and M. Dacier to M Denons at two and could not – she seemed disappointed and is deadly jealous I will make up to her a little on Monday – Mrs Barlow certainly enjoys the attention I pay herself – Came upstairs at 11 10/60 – parted with Mrs Barlow at her room door – very fine day –from 11 55/60 to 1 ½ writing all this journal of today – Fahrenheit 58 at 1 1/2 p.m E… O.. –

[Left Margin:  ✓ - Social Call]

Fun Fact:  Secretaire - is apparently a French parlor game ‘in which players try to communicate in sentences reduced to their initial letters.’

(Diary reference: SH7MLE80072 & SH7MLE80073)