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tushanshu_ooc2013-09-01 04:43 pm
angermanaging) wrote in tushanshu_ooc2013-09-01 04:43 pm
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Tl;dr Mega Meme Bonanza
Comment with a list of your characters, receive questions, or just tl;dr on your own unprompted! Here's some suggestions. ◘ What does your character think of mine? ◘ What goes on during our handwaved CR? How much handwaved CR do we have? ◘ Canon information, for those unfamiliar with your canon. ◘ All sorts of headcanon questions-- sleeping positions, childhoods, past sexual or romantic history, etc. ◘ Would your character date mine? ◘ If they were put under a truth spell, what would come out? ◘ Where do you want to go with your character, story arc wise? ◘ Give an example of their daily routine in Keeliai. ◘ Who do they miss most from home? Would they go back if they could? ◘ What kind of music do you listen to while tagging? What does your character listen to ICly? ◘ Elaborate on what you've been working on improving in your writing style lately. ◘ What would their daemon spirit animal be, as from His Dark Materials? ◘ What have been your favorite threads with me? And much, much more! Go wild! I recommend making a plain top level comment with just your list of characters, and replying to yourself to fill out things on your own. |
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Una Persson // Michael Moorcock's Multiverse //
...in case y'all aren't already bored with the tl;dr herd that's been my plurk this week.
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so how do you feel about adapted versions of Lord HenryFirst! Favourite beverages for each of them. Like, what kinds of coffees, teas, alcoholic drinks, and other kinds of drinks do they like? Tell me about preferences and dislikes!
Now: how does Una feel about being all linear-like here?
Also, how do you feel about how Harry has developed here, and what do you want to explore in him/where do you want to go with him?
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are you trying to torture meFavourite beverages: Henry likes to start his day with tea, and he's done his level best to get the nearest Keeliai equivalent of a decent English Breakfast-style black tea. He can now make said tea without setting anything on fire. This is an improvement. He likes any kind of good wine, especially champagne, as well as port and fine cognac. He's managed to find near equivalents for most of his favourites in Keeliai, but he misses good French champagne like burning; he would do almost anything for a good vintage Krug.
Una has a taste for instant coffee, originally born of necessity and now just a habit, and she actually likes the stuff—to the extent that she actually misses it here. She likes good Scottish whiskys and wine, and isn't so much a fan of beer (though in a proper pub, she'll have a pint of bitter because that's what you do).
Una and living in a linear mode: She's okay with it for now; there has been a generous amount of excitement and intrigue to keep boredom at bay, and she also hasn't been here long enough to get itchy feet. She is mildly frustrated at not being able to move through this world's history, because she knows it would be extremely helpful if she could. Eventually she's probably going to start getting twitchy. Also, luckily, so far nothing has happened to disrupt her current sense of time, place, and identity—the upshot of which is that no one has really seen her frayed out of all recognition. Yet. She's going to get out of Sinbrilee with her sanity largely intact, despite the Dreaming adventures, so that's a plus.
Harry's development here: Ah, this is the big one. Okay.
So right now the poor guy is actually depressed. He brought this on himself, of course, what with his insistence on learning his own future, which is forcing him to grapple with both betrayals that have happened and those that haven't happened yet for him, and it's finally starting to truly sink in for him just how much of a gap there is between him and Dorian—temporally, psychologically, in every other respect. And his usual defences—to keep everything at arm's length and try to be a spectator in his own life—they're not working as well as they used to.
I feel like he's maybe one to three major incidents away from a proper nervous breakdown, where he can no longer hide from the reality that 1. his erstwhile protégé murdered his oldest friend, 2. said erstwhile protégé will betray the shit out of him by abandoning him in extremis after revealing all his secrets to Oscar which are then published, 3. he's going to die alone and worn out, 4. nothing he does in Keeliai can possibly change any of this. And he's got to own up to his own responsibility in his own downfall, and in Dorian's.
There's a very real question as to whether he'd survive this, frankly, and if so, how.
There's just no escaping the fact that he is a hideously tragic figure, and he can only evade this fuckupery for so long. I'm not sure if he will ever be in a position to truly repent? Or if he can understand the full magnitude of what he might have to repent for? I feel like there's a very deep pit into which he's inevitably going to fall, and it's unclear to me whether he can be raised out of it. He's so fucking paradoxical—like, I believe he actually understands himself quite well, but he refuses to admit that he is affected by his own actions, if that makes any sense? To say nothing of how hard it is for him to recognise that anything he's ever said (and he's only ever talked, as we keep reminding ourselves) has led to so much pain in both his own life and Dorian's.
...I don't even know if any of that made any sense because I'm still really emotional about the BFA PoDG and that's definitely messing with my analytical abilities right now.
tl;dr: Henry is teetering on the edge of the abyss; something is going to make him fall; and I am genuinely curious whether he can be extracted from it, and if so, how. I don't know, but I think I'd like to find out.
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...also, sometimes I am slightly astounded at the extent to which I've somehow managed to work out a semi-coherent argument that someone who everyone else sees as one of literature's great amoral villains is actually a tragic figure.
(With more than a little help from my friends, it must be said.)
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I instantly want to make Una fray somehowIt's good she's handling it well so far! No surprise that adventure helps. It will be fun to see what here shakes her out of her comfort zone, or I suppose out of her comfort zone of being in danger in a positive way? ...Una's love of danger makes this hard to discuss.no subject
me tooThe main thing that will shake her up, most likely, is intense personal tragedy related to a close friend, OR some kind of psychic/temporal event that really digs into her sense of self and her location in spacetime. Ordinary crisis and threats from supernatural entities are one thing; when it gets personal, that's another altogether.no subject
How about bothI look forward to seeing it happen. And facilitating wherever necessary.(no subject)
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But... yeah. It's been in his threads, I've noticed, and progressively so, as thing upon thing is set upon him. Well, at least a breakdown will be a new experience! It's been great to watch him though, if very sad. And I'm interested to see where you'll take it on there, and how he'll recover. Would he be difficult to play if he never pulled out of that pit?
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I think it is possible for him to get back out of the depths, though. Possibly because he has relationships that are very different to those he has at home, for all that he tries to fit them into the same general boxes. If nothing else, if he can find a purpose and a direction, it would help him get out of that place.
Of course, he's not even there yet, so this is still largely speculative on my part, but. It does seem like this is where we're headed.
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Beesley, at least, would have the benefit of being amusing. He consumes sweets like drugs (I think I vaguely recall him snorting sherbet powder like cocaine at one point) and is so grossly, comically awful that at least Una would get some entertainment out of watching him try to get on and make something of himself.
Miss Brunner, on the other hand, can make herself worryingly plausible, and would be well able to insinuate herself with the science-y types to suit her own ends. In The Final Programme, she creates a supercomputer into which the sum total of human knowledge is fed, and which combines her and Jerry Cornelius into this fabulous, amoral hermaphrodite who eventually leads the populace of Europe to drown in the Black Sea.
(Have I ever mentioned how weird Una's canon, particularly the Cornelius Quartet, can be?)
So yeah, either of those two would mess up Una's day pretty badly. Both of them would ruin her year.
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I haven't even gotten to Jerry Cornelius himself (assassin, physicist, rock star), who spends the entirety of one book basically a negative image of himself (black skin, black teeth, white hair), or the people of the End of Time, or the alternate worlds from the Nomad of the Time Streams books. The Cornelius Quartet was kind of my first proper exposure to experimental fiction when I was 14-15, and I've never really recovered.
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His exotic appearance is plenty appealing right off the bat, and he is a musician too! Henry loves musicians. And he has very intriguing ideas and a curiously decadent and world-weary manner that really catches Henry's attention and engages his curiosity. He wants to know more!
I will undoubtedly have more to say as they talk. Henry's attention is well and truly gotten, anyway, and he will very likely follow Sei's lead wherever it takes him, out of sheer curiosity if nothing else. And Sei provides a delightful distraction from his current troubles.
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una: if she and bruce ever get around to sex will she ever entertain the curiosity of getting him to leave the mask on?
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Yes, he's overreacting. The thing is, Aisha is a massive outside context problem for him, and as far as he's concerned, she's a crazy person who could do literally anything at the drop of a hat, and so he reacts to her as he would any dangerous lunatic—by keeping the hell away.
Una: The thought will definitely occur to her. She might even ask. Not for the first time, because that'll almost certainly be plenty odd without her terrible sense of humour getting in the way, but if she were to get comfortable enough to crack that kind of joke? She would. And she'd only mostly be joking.
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As for Bryn herself: I think he has actually developed some surprisingly tender feelings for her. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he's fallen in love or anything like that, but she, ah, happened to be what he needed when he needed it, and as much of a self-centred ass as he can be, he genuinely appreciates that. He is also thoroughly charmed by her compliance, which unfortunately perhaps dovetails all too neatly with his general ideas about women and women's desire for a masterful man in their lives. :| The good side of this is that he really is genuinely fond of her, even protective. The downside is that he is even more determined to gently lob interesting and dangerous ideas at her and to see where they lead. It's possible that he's repeating some of the same behaviours he exhibited toward young Dorian. (His insistence on helping her decorate her bar? Same impulse as how he used to help Dorian plan his society dinners.) So you know. That bodes well.
Anyway, as for the clusterfuck: he actually might talk to Bryn about it, but something will have to prompt or force his hand to make him do it. If he really crashes, he may very well turn to her for comfort, and under those circumstances, he would try and explain it. In what terms, and how he frames his own role within the story, would depend on exactly what brought it about. The possibility is definitely there, anyway, and his friendship with Bryn just might be one of the saving graces that helps him survive.
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Stage: Una started out as an actress, then went on to politics. Both, as she has often pointed out, are modes of performance; her entire life is, to an extent, a performative act. Merely the act of travelling through time requires her to perform a role, wherever she might end up.
Gun: She's not a violent person, exactly. But she doesn't shy away from using violence if it's necessary. She understands brutal necessity. She's pragmatic and idealistic; she would like a world where a gun is never necessary, but she knows that such a thing doesn't exist.
Mask: Related to Stage, but on a closer, more intimate level. In her persona of the Harlequin, she wears a mask, even when she wears nothing else. She is forever conscious of her public face, and of being who and what she needs to be in any given moment.
Clock: Obvious, probably; any symbol suggestive of Time would probably do. But Una's clock is a multidimensional affair, and doesn't just go forwards and backwards. She'd never call herself a master of Time—there is no such thing—but she can navigate its rapids and whirlpools better than most.
Coat: She is almost always seen wearing what TVTropes would call a Badass Longcoat—a military greatcoat, sometimes with insignia, other times not. It's practical, but it's also a kind of armour, a way of smoothing over one's gender and any other things one doesn't want exposed. It's also a kind of signifier of authority—like the gun, a thing she would rather not have to wield at all, but for which she understands the necessity.
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Cigarette: A symbol at the time of a kind of louche, decadent, artistic sort of person. Henry's perpetual accessory. A personal symbol of evanescent pleasure—Henry wants nothing that will stale on the palate; he enjoys his pleasures the most when they leave him wanting more. And the cigarette really is, for him, the epitome of such a thing.
Persian Carpet: "I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal." A signifier of Henry's love of the exotic and, not to put too fine a point on it, his orientalist streak. His love of beautiful things, beautiful and not completely useful, and a little bit surreal.
Book: He poisoned Dorian with a book. He might never write a book himself, but he spins words with all the artfulness of a writer all the same. He might deny it, but there are few people with as intense an appreciation for what words can do as he.
Flower: "There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life over again." Flowers, another evanescent pleasure, but strongly evocative for him at all times: the lilacs in Basil's garden, his decision to wear nothing but violets for a season, the odour of flowers that brings back memories.
Piano: I don't think he actually plays it himself—but he loves for Dorian to play. He wants Chopin nocturnes for when he's melancholy. His wife runs away with a man who plays Chopin beautifully. And it's yet another pleasure that once heard, only remains in memory.