~To make a Fairytale or not to make a Fairytale that is the question~
Hello~ I’ve been thinking about Brooklet Avenue: Legacy again and have some thoughts I want to share with you guys, this post is going to be kind of brainstormy and I encourage you guys to share any input you might have (if you have any) :)
But first-
(This is going to be said twice because I took it straight from the other post I’m working on that’s taking way too long, so bare with me)
I remembered back when I asked you two what you were most interested in, regarding the story of Brooklet Avenue, and if I remember correctly… *flips through paper and adjusts glasses* Missy asked for character dynamics and didn’t care who but hinted at a preference for romance, and Eebie wanted to know about the origin of The Infection, which would now officially be called The Purge Of Decay.
Well, Missy I am working on your long overdue character dynamic lore dumps, as for Eebie, I have a question for you: I have already told you that I was holding off on sharing lore for The Purge Of Decay because the concept was too unsteady and constantly changing for me to feel comfortable sharing it, however these note posts now brings me some leeway. I have three options for you- 1) I can continue to hold off until I have a more solid concept that I’m more sure of, 2) I can show you my general thoughts and the direction I plan on going with The Purge Of Decay as a concept, or 3) I can share the bare bones, non history version of The Infection’s origin that you might already know or at least have an inkling about.
Now that I’ve freed that from WIP jail, let’s talk about the real topic of this note post shall we?
I’ve officially named Penny, Steven, and Jo-Jo’s POV of Legacy, which is:
“The Collective of Faerie Journalists”
(Yes I know I’m waiting to read Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries and yes I am easily inspired when it comes to media I enjoy but this was not one of those moments I swear)
I decided to call it this because It follows Jolie Cardinal, (who would be either in her 20s or 30s, I haven’t figured out the timeline yet) as she continues to research the Infection alongside Josephine Cardinal after having to remake her entire journal due to loosing it in the city back in B.A. STEP III, and Steven VonLillian, as he researches the Fae alongside Penny Brown, both in hopes to educate future generations and promote a world kinder to the Fae. (I feel like I should mention the four of them travel together)
Now while I love this idea, I also find myself leaning more and more away from Brooklet Avenue’s overall genre, that of a post-apocalyptic world, and leaning more towards a fantasy approach. Now there’s a reason why I mentioned that Legacy may end up more “fantasy” than Nature’s Revival, but something I find to be a reoccurring problem is how I tend to detach from the overall world building whenever I get too excited about a specific POV idea. Let me explain: You have Rori Crowell, Paisly Brown, Percy Brown, and SpiderLily, those two duos follows a POV that is very centered around the more apocalyptic side of B.A, they get to constantly deal with the Infection while trying to get Paisly back home to The River Town, hence that’s how I see that POV, the only “fantasy” elements being SpiderLily, meaning it’s not that different from STEP III. Then we have Evie Goldborne and Bonibell Jules, they are unapologetically based off of a specific duo I like (if you know.. let’s be real you already know) particularly based off of an AU that will probably never see the light of day (hence why I yoinked certain plot points from it), it’s like a mix of what I can best describe as southern gothic (simply the general visual aesthetic) primarily because Evie comes from a mining community and has a theme of gold, and slightly vampiric because Bonibell literally has fangs and is represented by a bat and wears primarily blacks reds and pinks, you also see a lot on the city and the Gardeners from this POV, while also being very focused on the Creature’s and how they’re treated, it’s difficult for me to describe simply with words but their POV is very different aesthetically than Paisly’s POV. Then we go to Sylas Crowell and Emil Finch and the rest of their group, an extremely city-focused POV that sheds a lot of light on the inner workings of the Gardeners and generally focused on traveling around in the first train test run, it also has a different aesthetic but to me, like Paisly’s POV, feels the most similar to Nature’s Revival. And then we have The Collective of Faerie Journalists… this is where the genre gets thrown way off track because despite being in the same world with the same worldbuilding I can’t stop thinking about a more fantastical world that I can best describe as “fairytale” in comparison to Brooklet Avenue’s usual worldbuilding, I really want to introduce the Fae Realm and I keep wanting to introduce characters who are surrounded by that typical nonsensical storybook magic, you know the type where you randomly meet some lady in the woods who has a magic house, things like that. I also keep veering towards slight medieval fantasy despite the fact that I know I wouldn’t like writing a medieval story, I just can’t help myself I like knights and fairies and Princess and stuff… ToT
My brain craves magical buildings and faerie portals and nonsensical storybook characters within a medieval-esc fantasy world, but at the same time it also craves a vampiric dark academia hunter city and a cozy cottagecore town within a post-Apocalyptic world… surely two can coexist, right?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out, can the two coexist or am I just trying to hard to make it work…
The main problem is that there’s a lot of stuff with B.A.’s worldbuilding that doesn’t allow for me to do that type of stuff, one of the main problems I have with the idea of the world of B.A. suddenly having so much “fairytale” medieval-fantasy elements is the fact that not too long ago it was a generally normal place with the occasional “Critter” or “Creature” within a forest and then went through an apocalypse. Legacy is basically the concept of a new world being shaped after the humans have started to learn to live inside of the apocalypse and is attempting to rebuild society, but the fact that not much time has passed still bothers me, like to give an idea Percy Brown is 24(?) and was born either inbetween STEPs II and III or inbetween STEPs III and IV, meaning it’s only been barely a decade or so since Nature’s Revival (give or take, perhaps two decades), and yeah, a lot can happen in a decade, but I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit strange for things to suddenly show up out of nowhere… Which means I have two ideas: 1) make an AU, not the greatest idea to me because then I’ll start confusing AU with Original and I don’t like the idea of balancing both, but it’s an option, and 2) Make it so that the Fae Realm starts “leaking” into the human world, the Fae can start engaging more outside of their realm, interact more with humans, and I have this specific idea of how it would look to do it that way because the concept of how Creatures access the Fae realm is a really cool concept in my head. The main thing that would work against this idea is the fact that the Fae Monarch didn’t like humans due to how they were treating their kind, but frankly that had more to do with the Creatures living outside of the Fae Realm and frankly the Fae Monarch was more scared of The Infector than Humans, and that issue is taken care of thanks to Sadie, Willow, and Elder Rose so like who knows maybe the Fae can have a bit of a comeback.
Idk I’m interested to see your guys thoughts because I feel like getting some input that’s not my own thoughts could be helpful :)
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you think suddenly introducing the Fae Realm more in Legacy would work despite the worldbuilding I already built up?
-Stitch π±
Kicking my feet and giggling at the thought of getting a dynamics post π. I think the two aesthetics you like can co-exist in a story, you just have to search for the common denominators in all of them. In regards to the two possible ideas: I do think the Fae Realm starting to “leak” into the human world might be the best course of action if you tend to mix AU’s up with the original story. But if you think it would interfere with your original vision for B.A. then it might be better to turn it into an AU then. Or possibly you could turn it into a story inside of B.A.? So like an alternate version of their world written into a story that exists inside the world of B.A., if that makes sense lol. I think if you want the post apocalyptic aspect of the story to feel threatening and to still be the main aspect of the world, than the “leaking” of the Fae Realm would have to happen after the initial apocalypse aspect of the story starts.
ReplyDeleteThe “Leaking” of the Fae realm would start with Legacy, I know that much, I’ve considered it being alright if Legacy has more fae elements since it’s separate from Nature’s Revival and if I ever want to have my post-apocalypse centered story I can just revisit Nature’s Revival, similarly to going back to Springtime Survival/STEP I whenever I want the more cozy/not as plot driven elements within Nature’s Revival. Searching for the common denominators of the aesthetics could definitely help too. Thanks for the input! Also I’m hoping to get the dynamics post out relatively soon, it unfortunately won’t have as much romance as I’d like but I had to cut out so many dynamics after I realized how long it was taking me to just do three :’)
DeleteI’m okay if you hold off until you have a better idea of things, no need to rush it π
ReplyDeleteOkay ^^
DeleteHonestly if you want to add more fairytale-esc storylines and influences I don’t really see why it and the apocalyptic side of things can’t co-exist, especially when you have so many different POVs. It’s more difficult for me to really give my thoughts on things when I know so little of what occurs in the story and therefore why certain things wouldn’t work. But for some reason the way in which B.A. was an apocalypse already felt more fairytale to me, when compared to the typical zombie apocalypse or dystopia anyway, so dragging more fairytale into it only adds to the story’s nature. From what it seems like, you take apocalypse, and see the main takeaway of it to be
ReplyDelete“zombie apocalypse” survival in some way, and if not, than it’s no longer the same genre. Which isn’t the case (and if this isn’t what you meant then sorry, I misinterpreted). From the different stories I’ve read, and different lore I’ve learned, an apocalypse story tends to bring another genre in with it, depending on the kind of apocalypse chosen. REVERSE 1999 is going through an apocalypse, the Storm, it can be classified as such because it is extinction level threats that affects the entire world. But it’s got ten billion different genres mixed in because of the apocalypse’s nature. ORV is an apocalypse story, the entirety of Earth started going through an apocalypse as soon as the Dokkabi showed up, but once again it brings in a different genre with it. The Magnus Archives went through an apocalypse as well, but it was more horror focused. R.E. Is probably the most zombie apocalypse you’re going to get, but even it is full of… other stuff. It just keeps zombies involved in all its different viruses. What I’m trying to get at is, if your only worry is that your story would no longer be post-apocalyptic, then you don’t have to worry becuase it still is. BUT, if your worry is that it’s no longer a zombie apocalypse. Then that’s a different thing. I’m going to split this into several comments because this is getting big.
B.A. Legacy would be different from the first, obviously, and I would classify it as Post-Post-Apocalypse. But frankly, in order to keep the story in its prime apocalypse nature, there would either have to be another event, or it just wouldn’t be able to advance. I don’t think it’s losing its way from the original story, it’s just advancing as it would venturing into the future (assuming wanting fae more involved is a thing). I think if you want the story to keep its pure apocalypse nature, you would have to end it. But if you do want it to continue and you want to do it in a way that brings the fae in as the world rebuilds from the apocalypse, it’s not a bad thing to do and it doesn’t ruin the vibes. I’d say it would be different but expected, because Legacy would never feel the same as STEP III just as I’m sure STEP III doesn’t feel the same as STEP I. And that’s just the effect of stories having big time skips.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of things seeming to come out of nowhere. Honestly, I think that depends on how much suddenly happens, how much is foreshadowed, what the readers are meant to know, and what they are going to learn. Things do just come out of no where, but it depends on the pov. Sorry but I’m going to use R.E. Again because it’s fresh on my mind π . To Chris, the first zombie outbreak did come out of nowhere, but with the addition that he was a soldier sent on a secluded mission, so he was ready for combat either way, even when that combat turned out to be something unordinary. On the other hand, you had Wesker (another soldier), who knew enough about the organization that caused the outbreak to know what was bubbling below the surface, so the outbreak didn’t come out of nowhere for him. However, if you see things from Leon’s (and the rest of the world’s) perspective, the outbreak did come out of nowhere. If R.E. 2 was the first game played and a person’s first introduction to R.E., than they are introduced to the sudden events of Raccoon City (the first citywide outbreak) just as Leon (who was on his first day on the job in the Police Force) is, with a sudden unexplained bang. The point I’m trying to make is, sometimes it’s fine if things come out of nowhere, if the characters you are following in the story weren’t going to know. That just means the readers will learn things as the characters do. Plus, if the infection and the creatures had connections to the Fae world to begin with, I think that works even better, because that would just mean that the entire apocalypse was simply a taste of the abnormal occurrences that would begin to happen. In another way, foreshadowing works wonders if you don’t want things to come out of nowhere, and I know you love hiding little things in your stories. I would like to bring up the Magnus Archives as another example. Until the Apocalypse happened, to the average Joe, life went on as normal. The happenstances of the Fears only seemed so prominent because we followed Jon, who was directly connected to them as the Archivist. The hundreds of taps recorded and listened to involving the strange and bizarre was in comparison to millions upon millions of people, so life still went on as normal for most everyone. You can have fae stuff happen to some characters, especially if they get involved with them, and the average person could still be non the wiser, especially if they’re all still bent on surviving after the apocalypse. You could also have different places, buildings, random things that seem out of place in the world thanks to the fae world, and the rest of the world could still be none the wiser. Anyway it’s been so long I’m kind of losing the plot here, but hopefully at least a little bit of what I’ve said is of any help. Despite the fact that I am oblivious to like 80% of this story.
DeleteAnother thing I was going to bring up until my brain started to turn into mush is that if you were to want to, the fae world could be treated like the Fears in Magnus Archives, in the way that things happen slowly and strangely in the background, and it isn’t until something big happens that you finally start getting information on it. Have a character in the background of the steps that doesn’t match but that the audience is forced to assume is in connection with the Creatures because they know nothing else. Or a strange occurrence that’s never quite explained. Or just weird things in general. They’d feel like plot holes at first but once Legacy comes along it would just be foreshadowing. Oooor if nothing else can work because I’m missing key information or don’t understand your vision for the story. Disregard everything I’ve said and make Legacy an AU π
DeleteThanks for the info! It’s definitely helpful and everything you said made sense despite not knowing a lot of the story so don’t worry haha. I’m definitely leaning more towards working things out rather than making an AU, because as you mentioned a few times it was basically leaning in that direction to begin with (more connection to the fae, I mean). The fact that the phrase “zombi apocalypse” is so often used when it comes to apocalyptic stories I feel like I forgot what an apocalypse actually is, so the examples of different apocalyptic stories really set my idea of an apocalypse straight I think. I’m going to think things over after all this and come back with a new note post (further explaining some things), it’s easier than rambling in the replies lol
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