a fool's musings

Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write...

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2002-06-11 - 12:39 a.m. The Comfortador My contribution to the wonderful world of Grave post-eps: The Comfortador He carried her down from the cliff. She was too drained to walk, and he just wanted to keep her close. She was light, almost hollow -- too delicate to have held the power to end the world. Buffy and Anya took Giles to the hospital, leaving Willow in his care. He might fail at everything else in his life, but the one thing he'd always passed with flying colors was Willow 101. She curled up on the couch and he wrapped himself around her. They had done this a thousand times, and, luck and the Hellmouth willing, would be able to do it a thousand times more. If he had anything to say about it. And apparently, he did. For once, he'd had the answer when no one else could even figure out the question. He held Willow, just breathing her in, as she slept the sleep of the dead. But not the really dead. Just the metaphorically dead, he reminded himself, and felt his breathing hitch. He hadn't cried for Tara, hadn't let himself. He'd needed to be strong for Dawn and Buffy, to take care of yet another apocalypse. But now he couldn't stop. He remembered losing Buffy, and how the only thing that had sustained them for so long was the idea that they were going to bring her back. There was no coming back for Tara. His shoulders shook, and he soaked Willow's hair -- glimmering red-gold in the late-morning sunlight -- with his tears. She woke with a sob. Dawn had been sitting within touching distance, and now she began to cry, as well. Xander held out the arm that wasn't currently under Willow's body, and Dawn crawled onto the couch with them. They were one large, sobbing mess, grieving for Tara and all the light that was gone from their lives with her death. Xander knew that he needed to be strong, and that this -- this was the basis of his strength. He could -- and would -- give them all the comfort they needed, a shoulder to cry on, a body to batter when the grief turned to rage. It was something he was good at. He'd spent his whole life looking for one thing to be good at, and he was suddenly grateful that this was it. He could give comfort to his friends in their time of need; simply by loving them as he always had, he could help them. It might not always be enough to protect them, but this time, it was. And he could live with that. ~fin disclaimer: If they were mine, Xander would save the world more than once a season. Feel free to comment or send email if you've got suggestions or comments. ~victoria link [current mood: creative] [current music: Prayer of St. Francis, in my head] [random quote: Oh Master grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console] ~*~ 2002-06-10 - 5:45 p.m. The Dance of I Finished the Fic! Woohoo! Numfar, do the Dance of I Finished the Fic! the end of Object is off to the betas, and I can look at something else, now, instead of pondering various foofy endings that don't repeat everything I've ever written. Of course, I've totally repeated everything I've ever written. *snerk* Hey, sometimes you just gotta dance with who brung ya. Goin' home now. Later, taters. ~victoria [current mood: jubilant] [current music: Tiny Dancer - Elton John] [random quote: Hold me closer tiny dancer. Count the headlights on the highway. Lay me down in sheets of linen...] ~*~ 2002-06-10 - 1:45 p.m. storytelling v. fantasy Storytelling v. fantasies... The subject has come up numerous times in various places, most recently in email with my beta squad, about smut - and specifically in this case, sex in fanfiction - seeming like nothing more than the author's fantasies written down. I tend to disagree with this, if only because I try to distance my own fantasies from the sex I write in fiction. Because to me, it doesn't matter if *I*, Victoria P., think something is hot, if Rogue or Clark or Xander wouldn't think so. Because my aim in writing is to capture the characters' wishes and needs and desires, not to cloak my own fantasies in a fictional character's. I mean, yes, my stated aim is to Get Rogue Off, but only if it's actually Rogue, not just some random collection of traits and femaleness I've slapped the name Rogue onto, or some thinly veiled version of myself. Outside of the most plotless of PWPs, sex in fiction - all fiction - should further character development. And I think that the best PWPs still do that. I mean, I don't want to read Any Two Guys/Girls fic (though I did in fact write one, but in my head, I saw Logan and Rogue, and Scott and Jean in the unnamed couple. Could be either. Could be both. But that's got no sex in it and is an entirely different type of story - The Art of Breathing, if you're interested. One of my fictional responses to 9/11.). I want to read Clark and Lex or Xander and Willow having sex. Or coming together in a profound way that reveals something about them individually or as a couple, or both. I will say this: I can't remember the last time I found a sex scene in a "mainstream literary" novel sexy. Whereas I find the sex in a great deal of fanfic, even heavily plotted stories that use sex in the way I talked about above, incredibly sexy. Now whether this is simply because I'm already primed to like the pairing I'm reading or I'm already expecting sex and therefore am turned on when I get to it, or what, I don't know. The thing is this - my fantasies are constructed to get *me*, and if I'm lucky, my partner off. I'm fairly vanilla in practice, and not really all that kinkier in fantasy life (or at least, I don't think I am, but then, my idea of not-vanilla and someone else's may be different). If I'm writing fiction, my goal is to write a scene that makes sense for the characters, i.e., I'm writing to get the characters off, and possibly the readers too. I wish I could recall the quote, but it's in er, Hard Candy, I think, where Burke is sleeping with the dominatrix, and she chides him on being vanilla, and he tries to explain that sometimes, you have to strip away all the masks and just be yourself with someone, and honestly, if you can make *that* sexy in writing, I'm your slave. Because it's easy to titillate with leather and feathers and make-up and bondage and threesomes and double-penetrations and various other things that make it into fanfic without anyone batting an eye. And yeah, some of those are my kinks. But writing two people sharing themselves, particularly two people who don't open up, ever, to anyone? And yet are willing to make themselves vulnerable because of love? That pushes my buttons, and well, it's generally a lot harder to pull off in writing, and I already think writing sex is hard enough. No pun intended. If I'm writing erotica, then yes definitely my goal is to arouse the readers, but in other types of stories, that's incidental. A well-written sex scene may not even have to be that explicit, but if the writer conveys the emotional impact well, it doesn't need to be. Whereas if I'm reading someone else's fantasy, unless it happens to coincide with my own, it generally doesn't work. It's just people rubbing naughty bits together, and is best left in one's toy drawer until the need for it arises, no pun intended. Does this mean that my own fantasies don't inform my writing? No. I'd be lying if I said that were true. But if something I fantasize about doesn't fit the character, it doesn't go in the story. Now, that also doesn't mean a character won't try to fulfill another character's fantasy, even when it's not one s/he entertains him/herself. Case in point from my own writing: At the end of Complications, Logan makes love to Rogue in the garden. Admittedly, earlier on, he wonders what it'd be like to just nail her in the roses, but he doesn't have the fantasy of moonlight and rose petals so much as the idea of "Rogue-sex-outside-now." But he goes through the trouble of setting the fantasy scene because he knows *Rogue* wants it. On the bad side, again from my own work, Their Little Game is all about Logan going along with Rogue's fantasy of needing to be rescued from violent situations with other men in order to get off, and it leads to a bad place, as many such conflations of sex and violence do, when the parties aren't playing and one of the people involved has no clue that it's a game at all. But see how it's all about the characters? There's being over-the-top and knowing you're going there and that's fine, as long as you know it. But just throwing Lex into drag because you think MR looks hot that way, without any explanation in the story, isn't going to work, unless you've already got a thing for MR in drag. Which, personally, I don't. (See below? I like manly man men, not androgynes or pale boys who look like they shouldn't be having sex yet or boys who look like women. But that's just me.) If you can make me believe that Lex would crossdress - and that Clark would not be freaked totally by it and would, in fact, get off on it, then I'll go along for the ride, and possibly find it hot, or at least not laughable. I'm not saying anything I haven't said before here and here, and that others haven't said better, starting with Benaresq, on through Rex Luscus, Kassrachel and then, this morning, Sarah T.. Probably I should have put the links at the beginning, but I'm hungry and I want to go to lunch now. ~victoria link [current mood: hungry] [current music: Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Stevie Ray Vaughan] [random quote: \"Come on, angel, come on, come on, darling, let's exchange the experience.\" - \"Running Up that Hill\" - Kate Bush] ~*~ 2002-06-10 - 11:00 a.m. manly men Why I love Sarah T.: This entry entitled Sarah Snaps, Part II (I'll be discussing Part I sometime today, I think. I'm still mulling storytelling v. fantasy and writing down my thoughts while I'm supposed to be doing filing): I do not, I seriously just do not understand people who: (1) Think in terms of slash versus het. (2) Think there is some kind of point to pairings wars (yes, I think there are some pairings that are seriously misguided, but would I treat someone differently because she wrote one of those pairings? Ummmm....no.). (3) Think that "dark" fic is somehow inherently superior to "fluff." (4) Think that stories that range further from canon are more daring, worthy, cool, and inventive than stories that are more conservative about it. She basically covers my thoughts on the subject. ~*~ Long entry on Beta readers and therapists and writing over in the LJ ~*~ For lighter fare, try Te's List of Manly Man Man Men. I agree with most of her choices. I'd say add Hugh Jackman, because well - Hugh Jackman. *g* And possibly Liam Neeson. I'd lose Harvey Keitel and replace him with James Gandolfini, and I believe Chris Meloni ought to have a place on that list. Manly Man Man Men are, as we used to say, men who'd run over you like a Mack Truck and you'd enjoy every damned minute of it. Mark Messier. Wolverine. Sam Spade. Whew... Did it just get hot in here? *g* ~victoria link [current mood: hot] [current music: I'm No Angel - Gregg Allman] [random quote: Baby let me show you my tattoo...] ~*~ 2002-06-09 - 10:58 p.m. vic's a big SW geek *meep* Just wrote a whole long entry and lost it. I hate that. I don't understand why it can't be cached, so when you get a "cannot find server" message when you try to upload it, you can hit back and it's all there. Waaah... First off, The Lies We Tell Ourselves is now up on my site. It's the angsty little CLex futurefic I wrote for Jenn's birthday. Only 6 months late. *g* The other stuff was me being a big geeky fangrrrl. Basically, I wrote that I watched X-men tonight - it was on one of the HBOs, and it's been a while since I watched the whole thing. Normally, I watch the "good parts" version [i.e., the Logan/Rogue scenes.]. One thing I noticed is that the continuity people need to pay better attention. The television on Stan the Man's hot dog stand the day Sen. Kelly emerges from the ocean reports that the UN summit is "tomorrow night." The next scene is of M!Bobby telling Rogue she'd better go, and then we're into evening by the time Wolvie realizes she's gone - it's dark out when he takes Scott's bike for a spin. If people are at the beach in such large numbers in New York, that means it has to be no earlier than May or sometime in early September, because school is still in session at Xavier's [unless they have class all year round?]. As for the leaves at the end - that's sunlight filtering through, not leaves turning yellow. So I'm guessing the movie is set sometime in early June. Anyhow, a full day needs to pass, to make it "tomorrow night" - a full day in which the X-Men chase their tails because they can't find her or Magneto etc. Yet in the movie, the whole thing is presented as happening in one night. ::shakes head:: Yes, I am that big a geek. Today at Anthony's party, we were discussing AotC, and got into the whole ages/timeline thing, which I've been discussing with Pete et al. This is what we [Pete and I] came up with: Okay, here's how it goes: Anakin is listed as 20 in the AotC novelization, which makes him 10 in TPM. Padme is 15 in TPM and 25 in AotC. Obi-Wan is 21 in TPM and 31 in AotC. ACcording to the novelizations and the allegedly official timeline. This is why I thought that the trigger for Anakin's turn to the dark side would be Padme's rejection of him for Obi-Wan. I don't know why I thought there'd be a love triangle. Maybe because Ewan McGregor is a stone fox and the kid was 9 in the first movie, and while I have no problem with older/younger or mentor/student relationships, even I get squicked at the idea of a 9yo and a 15yo, so I couldn't really conceive of the older Anakin at the time of TPM. Luke was 20 in the original Star Wars [I refuse to call it A New Hope, though I may use the ANH abbreviation for ease], and 23 in Empire. Only a few months have passed between Empire and RotJ. We don't know how long Padme and Anakin are married before they have the babies, just that Anakin has already turned to the Sith. Owen is probably only two-three years older than Anakin in AotC, wouldn't you say? And he looks like he's in his late 40s early/50s in ANH, don't you think? So if we put him at 53, say, that'd make DV 50 (and Obi-Wan 61, but much older looking) in ANH, which means there'd be another ten years between AotC and the next movie, time to age Anakin up. But I dunno. Anakin and Obi-Wan looked only a couple years apart in age after they're dead in RotJ. And Pete pointed out that Alec Guinness was 63 when ANH was made, and he looked older in the movie. Then there's the overall timeline. If it's no more than 40 years from the Emperor revealing himself and taking power, turning the Republic into the dictatorship we all know and love - how come no one in the first three films apparently had any idea of what happened? It all went down within the lifetimes of any number of the minor or major characters, so shouldn't we expect them to have known SOMETHING about what happened? They didn't even seem to understand what the Clone Wars were. Yet, the Senate wasn't dissolved until ANH [remember, Tarkin tells Vader he's just dissolved the Senate]. Leia was also a Senator. The fact that Lucas wanted all this to happen in Obi-Wan's lifetime... If *I* had written it, and knew going in that I was going to go back and tell the beginning story... I'd have made both Anakin and Obi-Wan the same age, and had them both been Qui-Gon's students. I'd have gone more with a Cain and Abel set up than a student/teacher one. I'd also have made Padme younger and had the rivalry be over her. Perhaps she always chose Anakin, but then had to go to Obi-Wan for help when Anakin turned bad and accused her of cheating. of course, I like the big romance angle, but whatever. I'd also have had it be that the Senate had already fallen into disarray and that Palpatine had already declared himself Emperor and the wars were coming to an end - that Anakin and Obi-Wan were the Jedi's last hopes, and well... it didn't go so well. But that's just me. The other thing we don't get - the placement of the babies. Apparently DV didn't know there were twins. What I think is dumb is placing Luke with his father's stepfather/family, and not changing his name. Sheesh. I'm Vader, that's the *first* place I'm going to look. Obi-Wan's not as bright as I like to think he is, is he? Sometimes I think Leia's the only one with any brains in that whole family, after meeting her parents. And we keep hoping it'll turn out that Qui-Gon was Han Solo's father. *snerk* I think that'd be fun, don't you? *g* Yes, I really am this big a geek. ~victoria link [current mood: geeky] [current music: the hum of my laptop] [random quote: Try? There is no try. Do or do not.] ~*~ 2002-06-09 - 2:56 p.m. alien dreams Had one of my apocalyptic dreams last night. Apparently, the earth had been taken over by aliens, and a lot of the land had been destroyed [no, I've never seen WaterWorld, thanks], because many of the streets of New York were canals instead of streets. Humans were basically slaves and entertainment to the aliens, but there were collaborators and resistance fighters, as always. I hooked up with this guy Joel [who looked just like Joel Fleischman from Northern Exposure], this woman Gail, and these other women, and we had this plan to triumph over the aliens. It was very complex, and seemed to involve this mystical amulet getting struck by lightning on the right date. So we worked to discover the right place, which turned out to be the roof of a building somewhere on 16th Street, and we each had a part to play in the scenario. There was this old guy assassin who killed people using these CD-like disks. He was kind of like Odd Job - he threw them and they spun - Gail got her ear sliced off, but we hid in this super-plexiglass booth that the disks couldn't cut through, and then one of the other women went out to the assassin guy, and it turns out she used to work for him, and we all thought she was betraying us, but she distracted him and one of our girls was able to shoot him in the head just before he realized what was going on and killed the woman who'd distracted him. Joel meanwhile was on the roof, waiting for lightning to strike. I woke up before I found out what happened, but it was an action-packed, suspenseful little story, lemme tell you. *g* Still contemplating the ending of Object. I suddenly have this urge to switch POVs, because I think you might need to know what Rogue is thinking, but it would be an abrupt switch, and I don't know that I want to do that. Hmm... Oh well, I'm going to post the Clex ficlet now, I guess, since we're leaving in a few minutes to go prepare for Anthony's surprise party. It's the Shaolin Kempo school of karate, and his diploma is signed by the Grandmaster of the art - a tenth degree black belt. Amazing stuff. ~victoria [current mood: good] [current music: Mets-Indians on television] [random quote: ] ~*~ 2002-06-08 - 9:38 p.m. black belt nirvana Woohoo! Anthony got his black belt. I'm such a proud aunt/godmother. The cake my sister got him has a yin/yang symbol on it - very cool. And I learned that the type of karate he's learning is Shaolin Kenpo [Kempo? sp?]. Like the Shaolin monks! *g* Too cool for words. Wax on. Wax off. *g* And Tricia's first birthday party was today. Lovely day for it, though it got chilly when the clouds rolled over the sun. Victor is sick, but that didn't stop him from playing baseball when the boys all got together to go to the field down the block from their house. I really wanted to see Helen's reaction to the adorable clothes I bought Tricia, but we left before they opened the presents. I got a couple of the cutest little flag bathing suits. A bikini and a one piece. I love little girl clothes. Oh, and Alyssa is digging on the Lemony Snicket books, which is cool. I've recommened Joan Aiken to her - I think she'll like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea as much as I did. ~*~ Dreams... Had a couple of interesting ones, including one where Vaughn from Alias was for some reason hanging around with the fam. He wasn't Vaughn, though, he had a different name. and I had a thing for him, but he spent all his time flirting with my [happily married, even in the dream] sister. It was Christmas time and we went to a casino on a boat for a Christmas party, and there he told me that he really liked me, even if he seemed to be paying all this attention to my sister. And I was all happy, but then when we went back inside, he was fawning all over her again. But then he gave me a bracelet, which he used as a clasp for my beautiful black velvet cape. He looked damn fine in a tux. Speaking of tuxes, I also dreamt about a new Buffy episode where Xander spent a lot of time in a tux. I had a Buffy dream last week which freaked me the hell out, where I was *in* the episode and it was about these doctors cloning shapeshifting demons and trying to take over the world, and only Xander and I could identify them, and they were trying to kill us. Sometimes I think I watch too much television. *g* ~*~ For Hugh Jackman news, check out the links in Khaki's diary. She links to some reviews of the benefit performance of "Carousel" Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, in which Hugh sang Billy Bigelow. It got raves, just so's you know. Here's another from today's Daily News. I've never been a huge fan of "Carousel" - it's darker than I like my musicals, personally - but I'm with Howard Kissel. I really hope they recorded this, 'cause I'd be willing to pony up some cash to hear it. Khaki's also got links to news of other projects the talented Mr. Jackman is involved in, including the fact that X2 is allegedly starting shooting next week. Cool beans. *g* ~*~ Some lovely searches that pull up this diary: santa claus chair throne plans Rogue boobies Spock cock [which scares the hell out of me, I must admit, having no personal interest whatsoever in Mr. Spock's johnson] April O'Neil's bikini [?] Malfoy penis - yet another bit of genitalia which holds no interest for me. Good god, people, the boy looks like he's *9* in the movie. No nookie for any boys at least until they need to *shave*. I really fear the internet sometimes. ~*~ Still have no interest in answering my email. I suppose I'll do a shitload of it tomorrow. I deleted something I shouldn't have, that I needed to respond to, and now I'm annoyed with myself for that mistake. I hate when I do that. Grrr... ~*~ I'm very sleepy. I hoped to finish Object of His Affections, but I'm too tired to write coherently. So maybe tomorrow... It's another day. ~victoria [current mood: sleepy] [current music: Mets-Indians on television] [random quote: Family, your wishes mean *nothing* to me! ~Al Bundy] ~*~ previous - next DiaryLand Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within. The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. 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