[ SECRET POST #3122 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3122 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[My Name is Earl]


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03.


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04.


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05.
[Veep]


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06.
[Welcome to Night Vale]


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07.
[Wes Anderson]


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08.
[Felicia Day]


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09.
[Oscar Jarjayes/Rose of Versailles]


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10.
[Holly Madison, Girls Next Door]


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11.
(Game of Thrones)








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 025 secrets from Secret Submission Post #446.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. http://i.imgur.com/0AhCbuW.png
[Welcome to Night Vale]

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

WTNV fandom is still regularly putting out fics where Carlos is a normal guy from 'our world', who does recognizable science, is aware of real world politics and has realistic feelings about it, etc, etc

I have mixed feelings.

Feeling 1: I LIKE fic where a 'normal' person - one with the same perspective as us, the listeners - has the kind of reactions we would have to Cecil, to Night Vale, to all the in-universe weirdness. Always used to like the ones where Carlos filled that role.

Feeling 2: Can't read these anymore without massive cognitive dissonance. Brain keeps going 'but Carlos is not that person! The idea's been jossed for months now. He's from a place as bizarre and unpredictable relative to our world as Night Vale itself is. This is completely AU. Writer, you know that, right?'

b!s: I have an unpublished WIP that centers on real-world-person Carlos, and I've not been able to work on it for a while. Even telling myself 'it's ok, you're allowed to mark it Completely AU.' How do I snap out of this, f!s?

[(Anonymous)]

You can fix this by reading the really good fanfic where Carlos is actually Carlos Ramirez from the Dresden Files

[erinptah]

I will second this rec and include a link:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/2207475/chapters/4837680

[sabotabby]

I hear you, anon. At this point it's "AU where Carlos is from our world." I had already started one when "University of What It Is" aired and just kept going with it, but now it would seem weird to just ignore that.

It doesn't bother me nearly as much as Dapper!Cecil in all the fanart, though. Drives me up the wall in a completely irrational way.

[(Anonymous)]

Dapper Cecil is so weirdly pervasive, despite all actual canon description to the opposite. My boyfriend when to a convention in some clothes he likes, which just happens to be a gray vest and purple shirt with a bowtie. NONSTOP people thought he was Cecil. After a while he just went with it. Jimminy christmas, people, do you actually listen to the podcast???

[(Anonymous)]

Well, you've just described in your secret how many people seem to prefer that version of him, so I'd say you have a market for your fanfic.

But I understand how dispiriting it is to suddenly find out that your fanfic is much more AU than you meant it to be. It can be hard to go on when every word reminds you that you got it wrong, even if you couldn't reasonably have been expected to know.

[(Anonymous)]

You could try replacing Carlos' name with something else and pretending he's just an OC, then swapping back at the end? Maybe that would help you to get over the block.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, frankly speaking, I must say that I find "regular human from our world" Carlos more interesting both as a reader and as a writer, at least for now. Part of it is definately due to the fact that I find canon!Carlos (and his world, especially his world) to be rather vaguely defined and random, so it's hard for me to to grasp what he and that verse are all about for sure, which in turn makes it both hard to write about in fic and results in more botched up fics (mien and others, not all, but, statistically speaking). Nightvale in itself is such a weird bag of not-always-coherent stuff that writing about its culture clashing with another "weird" culture is a challange.

/but, truth to be told, there's been something off for me about WtNV since the end of Strex stroyline. I found mysels skipping episodes, so that might also factor into my preference for the earlier fanon./

[(Anonymous)]

I was legit disappointed that Carlos was also from a weird place. I really liked the idea of him being the normal guy in a crazy place, gradually getting weirder and weirder by sheer exposure. I still like it, but it'll never be quite the same and that feels weird.