Plots from characters
Dec. 27th, 2020 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI am trying to think of plots to go with characters, and my brain feels all drag through treacle, and I mostly just want everyone to go live together and get enough eats and possibly sit around a fire. So. Plot not entirely happeming.
Also, many of them, the plot always looks like 'now kiss'.
But the kissing does not fix things, so that ism't the actual plot.
Like, Mick and Len might be kissing, might not. Assuming they're both alive, the kissing is not the actual proboem. (Quite often they are not both alive which is a different problem but fixable by ignoring it in fanfic.) Len is afraid both of and for Mick, because fire, and when Len is afraid he tries to be in control, and gives orders, and gets snappish. Mick will tell others that partnership is about respect and communication, but on bad days, his partner is all 'I'm the brains, you're the muscle' and doesnt listen, and their communicate is down to single words harking back to old plans that they might not even see the same way. Len can make great 'winning speeches' and when he wants Mick back he'll tell him all about his skillset, but then he's dishonest about his motives and the details of the plans. So they're all hot and cold. And we only got an au of ai Len responding to Mick's writing, but that wasn't respect. Working theory, Len's life has always been high stakes, no room for play that wasn't preparation, so he gets super critical because you do it right or you end up in prison again. Or dead. And if that's the problem, writing is a solution, there are no stakes in writing, it can be fine. But then there's all the emotional vulnerability built in. Connection, human connection, is the good stuff, and the chance to get betrayed or stabbed in your weakness. Expecting that makes both of them defensive, but Mick's way ahead now, due to the extra time.
I mean, that is a whole tangle of Stuff to deal with. Kissing fixes precisely none of it and probably covers over the cracks in unhelpful ways. So you need a plot where they get to the happy communicate place and Len also picks a hobby and like expresses a thing without it being the end of the world, or a deliberate manipulation. And you need to do that without turning him into Leo.
That's a lot!
Any two other characters I get hung up on it is the same, the kissing is nice but not fixing anything. I meam Xavier and Magneto have to either fix the entire world or change their fundamental politics before anything truly works out for them. Eobard and Barry... are probably too broken to really fix, it would have to start with Barry accepting that sometimes it is legit Barry's fault, and Eobard sharing something other than hate as a reason. Little bit far from canon for both of them. Steve and Tony had a whole thing where alongside the sometime political differences Tony represents joining us in the future, but canon torpedoed that one badly. Obviously screw canon. But. The values distance between MCU Steve and the one who would stay... that's a bridge to build. And Bucky isn't necessarily a problem to the whole join us in the future thing, he's just the version that shows the dents and the mileage and the down side of how we got here. Needs some optimisim and ... well I like the ones where he's a cook or a carpenter or something. He needs to not be at war any more. But as he and Steve are reflecting aspects of America, that gets... complicated.
Ethan and Giles as two mystics who had one bad experience and skewed in completely opposite directions alignment wise. That becomes a story about power, and about Giles' choice not to use it. Giles engaging in cover ups while Ethan puts spells on the whole town at once. Just diametrically opposed reactions to knowing the danger is out there. And the delight. So to get them together, you have to make some choices about values and alignment and how they can meet in the middle. Law and Chaos and the productive mixing of the two, instead of simple conflict. But if you completely agree with either of them then the other has to move a Very long way from baseline and it's a tough sell. To keep the parts you like that made them distinctive whilst also fitting their lives together.
I think part of why I focus on the 'villains' so often is that team good guy in a lot of these stories is working from the theory that the world is basically okay. They shall protect and preserve. The status quo, and the power relations in it. Even when said powers are Eating People. Or when the future the actual protagonists know is coming involves all the dark stuff rhe Arrowverse had going on, and the extinction the Time Masters saw coming. Deliberately changing things somehow becomes a Bad Guy Plan, and it's never fully articulated why.
I can see a why: informed consent, democracy, and free will. You need to get people's buy in, not rewrite them wholesale. Changing the past in one fell swoop changes everyone in it, to order, will they or no, and against their originally demonstrated nature. Casting spells on entire towns at once is a form of assault that violates their right to choose, even if technically they did choose, the whole not knowing part screws that. Bad guy plans are the ones that dont give anyone a choice.
That's a defensible position that the source texts only sometimes nod at.
But it presents options to solve the problem. Bad guy starts campaigning for votes, that's not a bad guy plan. Get people to choose them.
Bad guy plans get out and push though.
I dislike how there's a lot of legit problems that are then ignored because the bad guy Crossed The Line, wherever this particular hero put it.
Often to get people together you'd have to do things to wildly transform the setting.
A lot of the stories exist in that pretended space where it could be happening, you'd never know. Cover ups! The truth is out there!
But then to deal with consequences they'd have to move away from that. Get people to know true things. And then you can't pretend your world is just around the corner, and you have to buold out on a tangent that makes it wilder and stranger by the episode.
Or, you can be Doctor Who, and everyone forgets the last Dalek invasion in time for the next one.
Both have disadvantages in terms of satisfying storytelling. Both lose some in terms of relatability and working like an actual human.
But I see so many of these worlds and the story starts with oh no werewolves in such danfer the world must never know, and my preferred end point for the story is then Werewolf For President, after a whole werewolf rights arc.
Which seldom happens.
Fanfic does a lot of this stuff though. Easier when you can go off in a thousand directions and start back and baseline whenever you please.
Werewolf for President is a really big Adventure Path sized arc. A good five seasons, easy. Building the Supernatural Alliance and getting full recognition of rights? Five years would be ridiculously fast. Like going from first contact to full holiday in spain relations, but without the weight of an existing power bloc to keep everyone respectful, or with the push of paranoia from realising they've always been here.
A story sized plot. A reasonable episode sized plot. That may or may not involve kissing.
That's the tough stuff.
Also, many of them, the plot always looks like 'now kiss'.
But the kissing does not fix things, so that ism't the actual plot.
Like, Mick and Len might be kissing, might not. Assuming they're both alive, the kissing is not the actual proboem. (Quite often they are not both alive which is a different problem but fixable by ignoring it in fanfic.) Len is afraid both of and for Mick, because fire, and when Len is afraid he tries to be in control, and gives orders, and gets snappish. Mick will tell others that partnership is about respect and communication, but on bad days, his partner is all 'I'm the brains, you're the muscle' and doesnt listen, and their communicate is down to single words harking back to old plans that they might not even see the same way. Len can make great 'winning speeches' and when he wants Mick back he'll tell him all about his skillset, but then he's dishonest about his motives and the details of the plans. So they're all hot and cold. And we only got an au of ai Len responding to Mick's writing, but that wasn't respect. Working theory, Len's life has always been high stakes, no room for play that wasn't preparation, so he gets super critical because you do it right or you end up in prison again. Or dead. And if that's the problem, writing is a solution, there are no stakes in writing, it can be fine. But then there's all the emotional vulnerability built in. Connection, human connection, is the good stuff, and the chance to get betrayed or stabbed in your weakness. Expecting that makes both of them defensive, but Mick's way ahead now, due to the extra time.
I mean, that is a whole tangle of Stuff to deal with. Kissing fixes precisely none of it and probably covers over the cracks in unhelpful ways. So you need a plot where they get to the happy communicate place and Len also picks a hobby and like expresses a thing without it being the end of the world, or a deliberate manipulation. And you need to do that without turning him into Leo.
That's a lot!
Any two other characters I get hung up on it is the same, the kissing is nice but not fixing anything. I meam Xavier and Magneto have to either fix the entire world or change their fundamental politics before anything truly works out for them. Eobard and Barry... are probably too broken to really fix, it would have to start with Barry accepting that sometimes it is legit Barry's fault, and Eobard sharing something other than hate as a reason. Little bit far from canon for both of them. Steve and Tony had a whole thing where alongside the sometime political differences Tony represents joining us in the future, but canon torpedoed that one badly. Obviously screw canon. But. The values distance between MCU Steve and the one who would stay... that's a bridge to build. And Bucky isn't necessarily a problem to the whole join us in the future thing, he's just the version that shows the dents and the mileage and the down side of how we got here. Needs some optimisim and ... well I like the ones where he's a cook or a carpenter or something. He needs to not be at war any more. But as he and Steve are reflecting aspects of America, that gets... complicated.
Ethan and Giles as two mystics who had one bad experience and skewed in completely opposite directions alignment wise. That becomes a story about power, and about Giles' choice not to use it. Giles engaging in cover ups while Ethan puts spells on the whole town at once. Just diametrically opposed reactions to knowing the danger is out there. And the delight. So to get them together, you have to make some choices about values and alignment and how they can meet in the middle. Law and Chaos and the productive mixing of the two, instead of simple conflict. But if you completely agree with either of them then the other has to move a Very long way from baseline and it's a tough sell. To keep the parts you like that made them distinctive whilst also fitting their lives together.
I think part of why I focus on the 'villains' so often is that team good guy in a lot of these stories is working from the theory that the world is basically okay. They shall protect and preserve. The status quo, and the power relations in it. Even when said powers are Eating People. Or when the future the actual protagonists know is coming involves all the dark stuff rhe Arrowverse had going on, and the extinction the Time Masters saw coming. Deliberately changing things somehow becomes a Bad Guy Plan, and it's never fully articulated why.
I can see a why: informed consent, democracy, and free will. You need to get people's buy in, not rewrite them wholesale. Changing the past in one fell swoop changes everyone in it, to order, will they or no, and against their originally demonstrated nature. Casting spells on entire towns at once is a form of assault that violates their right to choose, even if technically they did choose, the whole not knowing part screws that. Bad guy plans are the ones that dont give anyone a choice.
That's a defensible position that the source texts only sometimes nod at.
But it presents options to solve the problem. Bad guy starts campaigning for votes, that's not a bad guy plan. Get people to choose them.
Bad guy plans get out and push though.
I dislike how there's a lot of legit problems that are then ignored because the bad guy Crossed The Line, wherever this particular hero put it.
Often to get people together you'd have to do things to wildly transform the setting.
A lot of the stories exist in that pretended space where it could be happening, you'd never know. Cover ups! The truth is out there!
But then to deal with consequences they'd have to move away from that. Get people to know true things. And then you can't pretend your world is just around the corner, and you have to buold out on a tangent that makes it wilder and stranger by the episode.
Or, you can be Doctor Who, and everyone forgets the last Dalek invasion in time for the next one.
Both have disadvantages in terms of satisfying storytelling. Both lose some in terms of relatability and working like an actual human.
But I see so many of these worlds and the story starts with oh no werewolves in such danfer the world must never know, and my preferred end point for the story is then Werewolf For President, after a whole werewolf rights arc.
Which seldom happens.
Fanfic does a lot of this stuff though. Easier when you can go off in a thousand directions and start back and baseline whenever you please.
Werewolf for President is a really big Adventure Path sized arc. A good five seasons, easy. Building the Supernatural Alliance and getting full recognition of rights? Five years would be ridiculously fast. Like going from first contact to full holiday in spain relations, but without the weight of an existing power bloc to keep everyone respectful, or with the push of paranoia from realising they've always been here.
A story sized plot. A reasonable episode sized plot. That may or may not involve kissing.
That's the tough stuff.