#i have written you...an opera...

[smooth-boob]

⭐ !!!

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut Game

Thank you for sending this, and once again I am literally so sorry, but this is just going to be a long diary entry about The Bustle in a House, a Bridgerton fic I wrote, particularly the epilogue. My inner monologue is loud, and normally it's just me in here! Apart from being unhinged in tags, I don't post a lot of personal things on here, but I have something to say!

I feel like I talk about The Bustle in a House a lot on here, and in terms of hits/kudos/statistics, it's not one of my most popular fics (I mean, it's not shippy and it's aggressively sad, so I get it lol), but it was really a breakthrough story for me! Link at the bottom for shameless self promo, woo.

It's funny, looking at my google docs now, I guess it only took me six weeks to write, but it was literally all I thought about for those six weeks. I was scratching at the walls of my enclosure writing this thing. Apart from a couple Bridgerton one-shots and a quickly abandoned fic, I hadn't written almost anything on my own in such a long time. It was also emotionally charged and gritty and I was so impatient to get the story out but I needed to get it out the way that felt right.

Beyond that, I struggle(d) to write complete stories that aren't just scenes stitched to each other. Honestly, Bustle is still like that, but it all stitches together very nicely if I do say so myself. Still, I had been agonizing a little bit over the fact that I didn't know how the fic was going to end. I couldn't keep writing it forever...I mean, I guess I could, because it's really not that long, and there's actually more of it in my drafts, but I was trying to tell a very particular story and also have I mentioned that I am impatient? But the story didn't have an end because it's an origin story about unhealed trauma, so what was I going to do with that?

So, at least to give myself a bookend to the real story, I wrote the epilogue. I wrote it in a thirty-minute fit of inspiration one evening while tipsy on red wine, sitting at a desk in my parents' house where I'd been living for about three years because y'know, pandemic, and I was feeling trapped and burnt out and indecisive and afraid, etc. and if you read it, you might see me staring at you through Anthony, wink wink. (Quick caveat that, unlike Anthony, living with my parents was an overall loving experience at that point in my life!)

Anyway, in true Hemingway spirit, I wrote drunk, and when I went to edit sober, I was delighted that it didn't need much help. I obsessed over details, like changing scotch to whisky and then to brandy (it's sweeter, and he's so young). This is not to say that the epilogue is perfect; it's not, but it is what it needed to be.

It is a love poem of a kind for a character that hit me hard. It's a short prose poem about grief and loneliness and the 'wrong' ways to heal and it's about thinking you're at the acceptance stage of grief but really it's just depression. It's about losing parts of yourself and coming of age into something that doesn't feel right but feels inevitable, and so you stop fighting and just get on with it. It's about the before, and Anthony not knowing that he has an after and eventually, yes, years later eventually, he's going to be okay. More than okay, he's going to be happy.

(And he only has a year until Doing The Voices, and I let him be happy for at least a few nights in that! He doesn't know that he's doing the right things when taking care of his family. Not always, but more than he knows he is.)

As for me, I moved out of my parents' house and into my own newly purchased 'bachelor lodgings' (so to speak) about a month after I posted the last chapter, and I'm writing more than I have in years! Baby steps! Adult steps!

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk/therapy session. Probably no one should ask me anything else for a while lmao, who knows what will happen!

Read The Bustle in a House on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47126467

Or if you don't feel like being sad, read Doing The Voices instead: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47976274

#.braindump #i have written you...an opera...

[kyannnite]

the draft that started me down a rabbit hole…. phantom of the fanzine….

aka: a friend making a comment about how notes/prima donna could be some very dysfunctional zine activities created a brainworm in my mind that will never leave

#i have so much for this written btw. yall are unprepared #now it’s just about. putting pen to paper and attempting to draw it all out #phantom of the opera #phantom of the fanzine #POTO au #the phantom of the opera #my art tag #btw if you would like to hear more about the lore. please ask ill tell you all of it

[valorums]

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#⠇ interaction calls ⠇ ━━━ i have written you an opera!

[saviourkingslut]

not to be about opera again but to be about opera again. as an art form it has the reputation of being super stuffy and something for snobs who don't know how to have fun only but honestly this was one of, perhaps even THE main theatrical entertainment for centuries. i wish people knew how hard these things can go and how engaging they can be. like characters kill and die and fight wars and (almost) commit human sacrifice left and right. characters fall in love they mourn they're ecstatic they cry they're furious it's an extremely dramatic and emotional art form! and i understand that opera does not appear approachable bc of the general conventions of the art form but i promise old works can be fun and engaging if you go watch them with some preparation beforehand (reading the libretto helps) - not to mention not all operas are old bc there are so many modern operas which engage with topical events! also the music slaps.

#le triomphe de trajan (1807) out here calling for a man's execution with this banger: #point de grace pour ce perfide; que tout sons sang coule sur un autel #(no grace for this treacherous man; let all his blood flow on an altar) #this is also annoying to me when people write historical fic and the characters treat the opera as this elitist thing #that they don't know anything about. #you know when they go to the opera reluctantly and then they have no idea what's going on on stage or who the composer is. #which is. very unlikely for anyone with the money to attend an opera in certain opera houses in the 19th c. tbqh #like im more of an expert on paris and vienna idk what it was like in london #but if you were decently (upper) middle class or nobility (esp in paris) you went regularly. this was like a whole social space too #i recently read a fanfic and one of the characters was like 'oh it's in italian. i don't know that' and the other character went like #'it's by a man called donizetti what did you expect' #(this was situated in 19th century london) #like first of all. donizetti was NOT a librettist he was a composer he did not write the text #and second of all. he worked on french operas ?? so did rossini. and spontini. #opera was an incredibly international art form. also bc productions would be performed in different countries all the time #(sometimes changed and/or translated but not necessarily) #and again like i said. this was one of THE main forms of entertainment. people were familiar with its conventions! it was well-liked! #ofc bc of the seating prices it was not very accessible to lower classes most of the time #but lbr most characters that get written into an opera scene in fiction are at the very least decently bourgeois lol #i wish people knew how to properly historicise forms of entertainment whose reputation has changed in the modern era #from what it was a century or more ago #very adjacent to people 'cancelling' old lit bc of 'bad takes' like idk how to tell you this but people thought different back then #completely different world view from what we have today. that does not make lit from that era irredeemable it is just from a diff. time #acknowledging that and reading the text critically but also still enjoying it are things that go tgt here #ok rant over (it is never over) #curry rambles

[romansmartini]

good things about love never dies:

• the phantom and christine real (fanservice)

• the phantom being a mopey whiny baby (his beautiful and true essence)

• the phantom having a weird son he can project on (makes him sadder and wetter)

• meg jealousy arc (i like that trope)

• honestly …. most of the songs (i’m easy to please)

• fuckfest: the musical (i was a horny teenager when i heard this the first time) (they went ALL NITE LONG)

• devil take the hindmost specifically (homosexuality)

• this part of devil take the hindmost specifically (funny):

• coney island setting (NEW YORK FREAKIN CITY BABY)

bad things about love never dies:

• vaudeville (booooooo)

• meg having to sell her body to fund the entirety of phantasma ? (come on now)

• the fact that the phantom couldn’t do anything apparently without the girys (alw is This your multifaceted genius. come on now)

• meg being convinced the only way to achieve peace in her life is by killing a ten year old boy (come on now)

• meg isn’t a lesbian (COME ON NOW)

• raoul being an abusive alcoholic (come on now)

neutral yet nevertheless important thing about love never dies:

• “i got divorced and i’m really sad about it” dude media

#love never dies #phantom of the opera #in summary: MEG GIRY GET BEHIND ME #i don’t say i have guilty pleasures because i’m breaking the chains of purity culture but if i have one guilty pleasure it’s this #because it’s objectively So Bad and So Poorly Written. and yet ….. #so many compelling elements to me personally. i can’t stay away #one thing about me is i hate trauma for traumas sake. and this has such a high concentration of it. god it’s so bad #i think this sums up my thoughts. hope to never post about this again but you never know

[malusienki]

today marks 1 year since i watched teatro real 2018 lucia for the first time forever. this was a decision that would fundamentally change me forever

#if you see an uptick in luciaposting that’s why #ash gone silly #i have read many papers and written two essays (the first one was terrible) about this fucking opera #she has been at the forefront of my mind for months on end #i am writing stuff. #i have a pinterest board dedicated to it #do not know what it is about it

[penrose-quinn]

I had this theory about Shinichiro and Izana for awhile. I undoubtedly believe Shin tried to find Izana because of Emma because who'd talk about Izana if not her? Not to mention, he was doing his best to make her feel at home with them when she's still trying to adjust being part of a different family. The thing is I don't think he searched for Izana immediately right after Emma kept telling him about her brother. While exceptionally kind, Shin was still a kid at that time with a ton of responsibilities and whose mother was bedridden in the hospital. Besides none of the adults looked for Izana so why should he? I think the final push for him to find Izana was when his mother died. Grief just does things to us that make us do the most absurd things. Like finding your sister's brother that you had never met before. In a way, it does line up with Shin's character if you consider his backstory. How he found Izana isn't mentioned and probably left out for everyone's interpretation because I don't think it's a matter of how but why. It felt very impulsive of Shin to search for Izana's whereabouts and then show up randomly to his institution one day to tell him he's his big brother—like did he even think about how Izana might take that? He's so young and Izana was too. Shin had good intentions of getting to know him better and he might've been attempting for Izana and Emma to meet. Sadly, everything just didn't turn out well like how it should have :')

#tokyo revengers #izana kurokawa #shinichiro sano #pen rambles #there's a legit (well legal) reason why shin can't adopt izana into the family #and why izana being dismayed of not being blood-related to shin or anyone is a lot more deeper if you consider the cultural context of it #i don't have an answer why shin never got to let izana meet emma again (bc it's a plothole lol) #but given how tenjiku arc is written like a soap opera (a really good heart-rending chaotic soap opera btw) #i think them not meeting is a way to heighten the drama (esp for izana's character arc) #just wanted to write this bc of how central grief and love is to shin's character arc #and me kinda wishing we had a pov of him meeting izana #i love his backstory to bits but this part was missing :')

[thirddoctor]

it wasn't groundbreaking or anything but the B5 animated movie was cute and fun

#it was nice to spend time with the characters again #also it reminded me how much we need more space operas #and specifically more space operas full of cool aliens #a lot of the 'serious' sci-fi these days is terrified of including aliens because they think it'll be too silly #(notice how even stuff like Andor and Picard have shied away from it because they're trying to be more prestige) #meanwhile Babylon 5 proved you can have the most tragic complex compelling character ever written AND he can have stupid space hair #I just love sci-fi worldbuilding and alien cultures and all that fun stuff and no one did it better than B5 #Ranger talks about Babylon 5

[carcarrot]

well everyone now that sparkstember is over i can now devote my energy to being insane in other still sparks-related ways

#planning my next projects #on the one hand glad to not have to get a whole video done in the span of like 2 hours every day #on the other hand it was a fun creative challenge that gave me a sense of purpose. it was fun #but i need to keep myself busy as we descend into winter and ✨seasonal depression✨ #if i dont get it done today over the next couple days im going to make something silly for goofball's upcoming birthday #and then once that's done i dont know. i want to get back to work on my screenplay and try to FINISH IT!! but idk how long that'll take #i also have to finally finish watching that film course i bought oops. maybe ill start it over #and then????????? #i have a vague Idea of a possible short film i could make. that would also be like a kind of prequel to my Main Film Idea #and its something i could actually reasonably do as a short film and its not like insanely big budget like every other idea i have is #and I'm debating abt emailing my old film teacher and being like heyyyyy maybe you could help me make this short film???? #but id want to have this idea way more planned out and written before then. but OUGH WRITING ANOTHER SCREENPLAY??? #WHEN I HAVEN'T EVEN FINISHED MY FIRST ONE??? sigh. #the road to making my Big Great Movie is long and arduous. will we get there. who knows #oh also debating abt writing a letter to those silly guys. but i don't knowwwww #OH lmao i keep forgetting to mention i finally got my passport (it actually came earlier than expected) #so like. goodbye everyone im heading to the sydney opera house on halloween (JOKE i am not that insane. but i wish i could)

[cerealmonster15]

back to the trials and tribulations of I Dont Know How To Write Chenyas Voice

#GIRL HELP. everything i write for him is like 'ok ok placeholder this is what youll say but ill edit it to make it more chenyalike later' #LATER ME ISN'T GONNA KNOW WHAT TO SAY #chenya you cant even get banished from this fic i made you besties with one of the main characters.............. #BUT i think the pov is USUALLY(????) gonna be cater. so maybe ill be saved. idk we'll see #im juggling so many characters in my brain i literally dont know what im gonna do #like i was thinking about it in the shower #bc i wanna have that subplot drama of jamil/azul and danarte when he shows up but like #HOW am i supposed to naturally do that #i did think a lot about one part tho. when i said i was stuck in a bathroom loop sjlkdfjd #i doodled out some of it. cater and jamil WILL talk in the bathroom at a social/party/whatever #i got a buncha ideas for that scene and itll be a good way to like #introduce the jamil/azul plotline #im thinking theyll be kinda in the background at first but then come more to the forefront in certain scenes/when danarte gets more involve #idk it's a crazy tangled dumb soap opera in my head #trying to actually write it is like. probably an impossible task #but i sure am trying #and FOR WHAT i do not think people will want to read it LOL #but. /i/ can read it kldsjflkjds #that being said. i also have some of my kalim/silver + jamil/azul fic written from nanowrimo #that one. theoretically i could clean up some of what i have and post as a first chapter #but ims cared LOL idk if im ready #what if i wanna change stuff. what if i wanna move scenes around. how much should i do. what if what if what if-

[supercantaloupe]

also the difference in orchestration vs the original vs later (movie) add ins is really interesting to me. we're subbing in something good in place of an ordinary couple in act ii and it has FOUR instrument changes between EH and oboe within the one number (a whopping 89 measures). only Once in the entire rest of the score (all original to the stage show. we didn't get the rights to i have confidence lol) is there an instrument change mid-number (it's during the dance in sixteen going on seventeen)

#sasha speaks #oboeposting #i wonder when something good was orchestrated. and by whom. it'd be interesting to see if it's the same as the original stage show's book #plus comparing to later written shows by other composers it seems like the closer you crept to the 21st century the more mid-number #instrument changes you're likely to get. when i did les mis they were all over the place #(granted les mis has some lengthy musical numbers/sequences but still) #maybe it's something to do with later shows trying to squeeze as much color/timbre change as possible out of as few instrumentalists #it's no secret that pits have trended smaller and smaller over the decades. even professional broadway and tour companies doing SoM #these days don't do the full orchestrations anymore. basically only opera houses and universities do bc they actually have full orchestras #at their disposal rather than pro musical theater companies who are hiring musicians on contract #anyway. interesting to me #(also i looooove playing EH in this there are some great EH lines in it)

[nessie665]

I wonder who many times I have typed the word ''Christine'' in my lifetime, at least 10 I think

#i used her name 68 time in the last chapter of my fanfic #mind you I have written over 100k words of phantom fanfiction #phantom of the opera #christine daae #late night thoughts #i should be in bed

[musical-chick-13]

“Ugh, but opera’s so bORiNg, it’s not about anything”

I am, at this point, BEGGING you. To watch/listen to a modern opera. Something made this century, or the end of the last one. It is no longer a request, it is a demand.

#'all of them are so sexist!!1' MAYBE SEE ONE THAT WAS WRITTEN IN A TIME WHERE WE HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF SEXISM #SUNKEN GARDEN IS ABOUT FUCKING PARALLEL PORTAL DIMENSIONS #DOG DAYS IS ABOUT STARVATION IN A DYSTOPIAN WORLD AND MALADPTIVE COPING MECHANISMS #DARK SISTERS IS ABOUT THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF BEING RAISED IN A RELIGIOUS CULT #FUCKING HELL THERE'S EVEN A LITTLE WOMEN OPERA THAT'S REALLY GOOD!!! #IF YOU WANT MORE CHARACTER-STUDY-BASED THEN LOOK AT JAKE HEGGIE!!!!! #PHILIP GLASS HAS SOME STUFF THAT IS FUCKING /WEIRD/ #YOU MAY NOT LIKE IT BUT YOU'LL SURE AS HELL BE PAYING ATTENTION!!! #unhinged lady screams about music #tw: cult mention #(in tags) #also a lot of intermezzo operas/comedic operas WERE about poking fun at the upper class and letting the servant characters Do Things #and take an active role in helping humiliate their employers in a way that was socially acceptable #the reason you think 'this all sounds the same' is because YOU HAVE ONLY LOOKED AT A NARROW CATEGORY OF OPERA #the reason you think 'these arias don't serve the story' IS BECAUSE YOU ARE ONLY LOOKING AT OPERAS THAT WERE WRITTEN DURING A PERIOD WHERE #THE MAIN DRAW WAS 'ENTERTAINING NIGHT OUT' AND WAS ABOUT SHOWING OFF THE SINGERS WITH CROWD-PLEASER #THEY WOULD LITERALLY TRANSPLANT DIFFERENT ARIAS INTO DIFFERENT OPERAS FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOING 'LOOK AT HOW COOL OUR SINGER IS' #LATER OPERA!!! DOES NOT!!!!!!!! DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #and for the love of god do NOT use one composer or librettist as a representative of ALL OPERA WORKS EVER #YES THIS /IS/ IN RESPONSE TO THAT R/T/D INTERVIEW HE GAVE I AM SO TIRED #DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I HEAR THIS SHIT #DO NOT /TEST/ ME

[valorums]

LIKE THIS POST to receive a THREAD STARTER inspired by one to three HAND-SELECTED TAROT CARD(S).

Starters may vary in length.

MULTIMUSES, you are invited to specify your muse. If you do not specify a muse, I will select one randomly.

IF YOU WISH TO PLOT first, either contact me if we already communicate regularly, or like THIS POST here so that I know it’s okay for me to reach out.

#I usually HATE doing starter calls but if it’s tarot inspired then I won’t complain #and I need to get some fresh threads going so 🧍🏻‍♀️ #⠇ interaction calls ⠇ ━━━ i have written you an opera!

[orcgoth]

I don't know what ttrpg enthusiast needs to hear this but you will not encourage people to try out new systems by yelling about how bad dnd is to people who so far only play and enjoy dnd

#like if you hate dnd i get it i am not telling you to enjoy the office of tabletop #but if you want people to try other systems #telling them that dnd is trashgarbage and everything else is different #is not going to encourage people who enjoy dnd to branch out #if i want to sell someone on trying starfinder im not going to list all yhe ways its different thus superior to dnd #im just going to tell them its a d20 system written for a space opera setting #if i want someone to try out mage im not going to try and convince them how bell curve rolling is superior #im just going to tell them what mage does thats cool #you are underselling the games you like when you only talk about them in relation to how bad you think dnd is #please god i have been playing tabletop with half strangers and working at a games shop since i was 15 #you are making playing other systems feel obnoxious and pretentious #orc.txt

[redvanillabee]

Tonight we are thinking about what Brecht said about Chinese opera and Verfremdungseffekt.

Because like, sure, Chinese opera is highly codified in a way that western theatre really isn’t (e.g. ‘good guys’ have their faces painted red, villains have their faces painted white; makeup is extremely unrealistic; kings and generals and scholars and princesses and servants all have extremely codified and recognisable costume styles; specific hand and hair movements denote joy or anger or sorrow; most lines are sang; etc.). But if you ask people who grew up watching Chinese opera (not me, but my grandma and to a lesser extent my mum’s generation), they will happily rag on fuckboys in a given play much in the same way we would talk about how Claudio in Much Ado need to be bitch slapped.

And if you think about it, operas as well as modern musical theatre are also highly musical. But that didn’t stop the audience from projecting and identifying with the story. Ballets even; they are entire plays told through the medium of dance and people still feel for the characters.

(I will give him that the use of lighting and projection really destroys immersion in teh show though. The Cantonese opera recording I recently saw, it has a projection backdrop and it is so unnecessarily high tech for a period piece—as a lot of Cantonese operas are—that it was extremely jarring.)

So I don’t know. I think it might be worth exploring that while there are some truths to Brecht’s observation, it really only holds true in a theatrical tradition that does not have anything he describes? Otherwise—whether it is Chinese opera, or Broadway musicals, or western operas—things like music and codified dances are not really things that can alienate the audience.

#personal #this is brought to you by the two cantonese opera recordings i recently saw with my mum #they are stories i know since i was a kid but because they are written in like old formal chinese #(like what shakespeare is like to modern english speakers) #i didn't fully get the impact of the show until now #and i just have a lot of feelings