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a fool's musings |
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Warning: Adult Content "pathological and unbalanced" Items of Interest
webrings Comments by Haloscan.com all links, if I haven't screwed up somehow, should open in a new browser window |
02.28.03 - 3:23 p.m. An "Adult Content" warning over there, to the left. Now if anyone complains, they can lick my left nut. Metaphorically speaking, of course, because I'm female and don't have a left nut. Or a right one. ... Was that offensive enough? To break in the new warning, I give you Round 1 of the Elf-sex. Picking up where we left off the last time... It is said that there is no skill the Elves cannot master if it is shown them once, and Éowyn believed it after the masterful way Legolas walked her into the bedroom, never releasing her from the loose embrace of his arms, tethering her to him with the lightest of kisses dropped along the sensitive flesh of her neck. She clung to him, weak with desire, as he laid her on the bed. His hands, meanwhile, had begun roving over her body, the callused tips of his fingers catching on her smooth skin, sending frissons of heat through her, centering low in her belly. With hands and then lips, he traced a path of fire over the curve of her breast, finally sucking the taut nipple into his mouth. She arched her back, anchored her hands in his hair; it felt like silk against her fingers. He raised his head and smiled; she whimpered at the loss of his warmth. He lavished attention on her other breast, then oh-so-slowly began to kiss his way down her body, stopping to swirl his tongue in her bellybutton, and nip lightly at the curve of her hip. Lips like a warm breeze caressed her thighs, and she laughed aloud when he pressed his mouth to the back of her left knee. The tension built inside her as he briefly sucked each of her toes into his mouth. She thought the sweet torture would go on forever as he began working his way back up her right leg, easing her thighs apart. Then, he placed a kiss on her mound. She gasped and quivered, never having even thought of kisses in such a place, and he murmured words she didn't understand, his voice both soothing and arousing in some strange combination. His fingers stroked at the glistening folds of her sex, and then his mouth found the small nub that was the center of her pleasure. He licked and sucked at her, sending bursts of fire through her body. He worked at a leisurely pace, ignoring her pleas for release. She whimpered, making mewling sounds low in her throat to encourage him. Éowyn stretched her arms above her head, clutched at the headboard as her body tensed, drawn tight as a bowstring, and trembling with desperate need for release. Legolas brought her almost to the breaking point before easing off, leaving her panting and begging for more. Finally, when she was writhing on the sheets, her body humming with anticipation, he sent her into bliss with the skillful swirl of his tongue. Her hips bucked up against him and a low, guttural cry tore from her throat as wave after wave of ecstasy swelled and crashed through her.
Just when she thought it was over, slow shudders of pleasure moving through her, he brought her to another peak, and this time the bliss vibrated through her, slower and deeper. He rested his fair head on her belly as she came down. She pushed the heavy, sweaty hair off her brow and managed to breathe his name, imbuing it with surprised satisfaction. "Legolas." *** Whew. Was it good for you? ~victoria [current mood: amused] [current music: Losing My Religion - REM] [random quote: that's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight, losing my religion] ~*~ 02.28.03 - 11:49 a.m. Today's Friday Five is about books (my answers are up in the LJ), which reminds me, I wanted to talk a little about three Regency romances I just read recently – Libby’s London Merchant and Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour by Carla Kelly (in a two-in-one book deal) and These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer (actually a Georgian, not a Regency, but whatever). Normally, I adore Carla Kelly’s books. Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, Miss Whittier Makes a List and Marian’s Christmas Wish are all on my Favorite Regency Romances list, (as well as Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career, Miss Billings Treads the Boards and With This Ring. I could go on, but I’ll stop.) I really didn’t like the bait-and-switch of Libby’s London Merchant. I mean, you start out with the Duke, everything points to the Duke as the romantic interest, and then bam! Libby chooses the doctor. It felt off. I mean, I have no objection to the fact that the heroes and heroines (and note, heroin is the drug, heroine is a female protag. I wish people would stop confusing the two words. /peeve) of most of Kelly’s books are not noble (though I personally prefer aristocracy in my romance novels, as that adds even *more* distance and fairy-tale feeling to the stories, which is one reason I read them). I like the more ordinary people she writes about, as she is very, very good at making her characters three-dimensional, lovable and flawed. But for some reason, even though the I believed the realism of the Duke offering Libby carte blanche rather than marriage once he discovered her lesser birth, and I believed that she would be offended etc. and that the whole thing would never work out, thus paving the way for her to realize her feelings for the doctor, I *still* had trouble with the setup. Maybe I like my romance formula too much, and was thrown off by the sudden switch of romantic interest midstream. I guess part of the problem is I’m used to these Regency heroes doing their learning and growing all in one fell swoop and Nez did not. I see he’s the hero of her latest book (in which I presume he finally gets the girl, and, I hope, hasn’t taken up drinking again), so I get that she had a different story she wanted to tell with his character, but... I was unsatisfied. I liked Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour a lot better, but I still had ... doubts about Byford’s story. I mean, he lets 8 years go by believing he’s a murderer? And while I applaud the mostly sensitive handling of the idea that he’s impotent, it just seemed... odd to me how quickly that was resolved. Maybe I missed something. Maybe it was just because he was drunk? And believed himself a murderer? On the other hand, These Old Shades was FABulous. I mean, I already knew that Léon was Léonie, and well, Devil’s Cub, the sequel, is also on my Top Ten Regency list, so I was already somewhat acquainted with the secondary cast of Rupert and Fanny etc. But These Old Shades just fires on all cylinders. Avon is an amazing hero. He’s not a good guy. He’s ruthless, cold, cruel and dissolute, with a disturbing penchant for being omniscient. He’s not one of these romance novel heroes who are all brooding on the surface and are secretly running a home for wayward boys or unwed mothers or whatever. But that’s what makes him so fantastic. Because you can see how much Léonie comes to mean to him. First she’s just his means to vengeance, but she amuses him, and he finds himself under her spell. And Léonie is not a typical romance novel heroine, and I mean that in the best possible way. She’s bloodthirsty, selfish, headstrong and funny – just a whole bunch of fun to read about. So, yeah, while I sill like Devil's Cub better (probably for the same reason I prefer The Moor's Last Sigh to Midnight's Children - same story, I just read the later one first), These Old Shades definitely goes on my favorites list. In other news, I think I'm finally going to just get over my squeamishness about being explicit in LotR fic. I mean, while I'm fairly certain Eowyn wouldn't refer to her clitoris (a word which dates back to the 17th c., I believe), there's absolutely nothing wrong with the good Old English-derived "cock." Tolkien would approve, I think. Though really, I still have problems with Elves and sex. Elf/dwarf sex still eludes me as anything more than a vague concept, but I am coming along on the elf/human side of things. I guess I just find it easier dealing with two Men (even if one of them's a woman. Damn JRRT for being such an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy). Because I can easily believe Boromir and Eomer and even Aragorn have filthy mouths when the need... arises. But Legolas? I can't see him being crude. I. Just. Can't. Especially not with a lady. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Eowyn were a dirty bird herself. ::snicker:: Faramir's a lucky man. But, for the sake of my own sanity and the avoidance of bad euphemisms, I will screw my courage to the sticking place and write the sex scenes as if one of the participants weren't a little more ...dainty than I'm used to. And now my Legolas!Muse is all huffy at having his masculinity derided so. Especially after what DD did to him in the latest Han/Logan chapter. I'm going to have to write that bath fic very soon, I think, and possibly also give him another shot at a threesome. Sigh. ~victoria ~*~ 02.27.03 - 11:17 a.m. I was just trying to post this and my keyboard got disconnected and I thought something Very Bad had happened to my new PC, but no. Just the keyboard cord being unplugged. This song has been in my head for days now. I don't know why. Maybe it was betaing hossgal's fic called Mother of Horses (which is excellent in its shivery bad wrongness and icy despair, and you should all go read it right now - it's a One Ring Challenge response), but for whatever reason, I really want to hear it and god only knows what tape it's on, sitting in a bin under the endtable... Goodbye Horses (for those of you wondering why you might know this and can't place it, Silence of the Lambs, the scene where Jame Gumb is dancing around.) In other news, I got recced. Whee! Te recced Useful, my post-Supersymmetry Wesleyfic (which I'd forgotten I'd written. It's actually really good. Who knew?) and Nestra recced She Follows. I'm sure it's crass and bad manners to squee over being recced, but it happens to me so infrequently that I feel the need to brag. Pete also got recced, for Call Waiting: Oz. And come on, you gotta love it. Nobody does the wacky quick cross like Pete, and Oz truly fits into any universe. Mmm... Oz. I miss him way more than I ever expected to. Y'all should go check out the Call Waiting archive. Some funny stuff there. *** Apparently, I offended someone with the incest essay (scroll down). Which is interesting, because while I figured some people would be offended, I didn't expect it to be some random drop-in person. I also never thought of putting an adult content warning on this diary, though I suppose I probably should. Because there is adult content. Quite a bit of it, come to think of it. I guess because I so rarely expect non-fandom people to read this, and even most of the searches I get are for things that are, well, adult (and some of 'em squick even me. Leave off with the Simpsons incest already! Please!) that it just never occurred to me that someone would stumble across this thing and be offended by the fruity Elf sex or the bad language or whatever. I'm so inured to fandom that I forget sometimes how... strange and offputting it can be to people who aren't involved. I'm actually kinda geeked someone found me offensive. It's been a while, you know? So maybe I will put a content warning up top, because my disclaimer is at the bottom. Have I mentioned how much I love my disclaimer? What else? Oh, there's a never-to-be-finished L/R fic up in the LJ (and you can comment over there if the comments here are down again), and I think I *finally* found my Remix fic. Whew. I was starting to worry. And a final, random thought. Doing a whole big letter/agreement thing with Mellon bank. I think you know why I find that so amusing. ~victoria ~*~ 02.26.03 - 11:05 p.m. So I'm stuck on the same middle portion of Nothing Like the Sun that I've been stuck on for weeks, and I'm back to working on the LotR sex comedy, and I'm still ruminating over Blood Remembers, and... It's weird. I've gotten so used to having Meg, Jen, Dot and Pete (and sometimes Melissa) to bounce ideas off of and to help me when I get stuck and to beta, that when they won't, I'm sort of ... unmoored. I've had great experiences with the other people who've helped me on the LotR smut and the incest fic and the HP, which none of them will touch. But I'm just not used to not having someone to talk me through the rough patches. Like I said, I've been lucky enough to get cool people to help me out with the betaing but when you're used to a certain amount of support, to find it missing is... unfun. I'm just all sorts of un words on this subject, eh? What I mean is, even when I'm on AIM or whatever, most of the time, those chats are not about writing. Or, they're not about *my* writing, anyway. And I guess I'm just foundering a little without my gusys to shore me up. If anyone wants to drop me a line to discuss the D/Hr and the problems I'm having, feel free. Anyhow, speaking of the LotR sex comedy, here's the next wee bit, right before the smut starts: *** The appointed hour drew near, and Eowyn relaxed in her bath. She still couldn't believe that they had chosen her for this duty. It wasn't that she didn't find Legolas attractive. She thought that perhaps one had to be dead not to be attracted to him, but the whole thing was so... sordid. And she still wasn't certain that Arwen wasn't playing some elaborate practical joke on her, the result of which would leave her humiliated in front of everyone. Eowyn could deal with Nazgul kings and advice-needing Elves, but she could not stand being humiliated. She had finally calmed her mind and was drifting peacefully in the bath as the water cooled, when she heard a noise. She rose out of the bath like a shot, reaching for the sword she always kept nearby. She whirled and faced... Galadriel and Legolas. "Oh," she said, lowering the sword in confusion and using her other hand to cover herself, or as much of herself as she could. She crossed her sword-arm over her breasts, blushing furiously. Galadriel stared at her with curiosity, while Legolas averted his eyes. "The hour is at hand," Galadriel intoned ominously. "Obviously this is a bad time for Eowyn," Legolas said. "We can come back." "Do not be afraid to meet your destiny, Legolas, son of Thranduil," Galadriel said, causing Legolas to raise an eyebrow. "I fear nothing on this earth or under it, Lady, but we are being rude to the Lady Eowyn, who has never shown aught but kindness to us." While this discussion was going on, Eowyn edged toward the wall on which her dressing gown hung. "And she will be showing you more kindness yet, Legolas," Galadriel said. "I think I must not have been clear when we spoke." Eowyn suppressed a snort. The Lady of Lorien had never been clear when she spoke -- she talked in riddles and vague prophecies that made her look brilliant when she was right and were easily forgotten when she was wrong. "You said a lot about destiny, Lady," Legolas replied, "and I have found mine. You warned me of the Sea and I was heedless, and now I suffer. What more needs saying?" "This is a *new* destiny, Legolas. One which will consume you, and you are not prepared--" Galadriel began, and Eowyn sighed. "Would you mind having this conversation elsewhere?" she interrupted, holding her robe in front of her. "And if you decide to call off this ridiculous farce, I certainly wouldn’t mind." Legolas turned to walk away, acceding to her wishes, but Galadriel laid a hand on his arm. "Legolas, Gimli is not your destiny, though you may yet be reunited after many long years." Legolas stopped and turned back. "What, then? Am I to go over the Sea and long for Middle-earth? It's better that I stay as long as I can, and at least I will then have the memories of love to savor for the rest of my unnumbered years." "You misunderstand," Galadriel replied. "You will soon meet a woman -- the signs are not clear, but I believe she is of Elf-kind. Her name is Márissúë, and you will fall completely in love with her." Legolas looked blank. "What?" "And Eowyn has agreed to... tutor you in the ways of men and women." Eowyn felt herself blush again, but she threw back her shoulders and held her head high. "If it pleases you, of course," she said. "My lord Faramir has given his approval, and so has Gimli Glóin's son." "Gimli," Galadriel said, opening her eyes wide and scaring the hell out of Eowyn. "Ah, I am late. He is to have an audience with me very shortly. I will leave you two to deal together, or not." She floated past Legolas and then turned back at the doorway. "Strange are the ways of Eru Iluvatar, and we should not presume to guess what he has in store for us, Legolas, son of Thranduil." And she swept out, leaving Eowyn alone with the Elf Prince of Mirkwood. "Tutor me?" Legolas asked, brow furrowed. "In what way are you to tutor me, Lady Eowyn? I've been alive longer than your kingdom has stood. I have traveled from one end of Middle-earth to the other, both on land and under it. I--" There was only one way to shut him up, so Eowyn reached out, grabbed his tunic, and pulled him close. She pressed her lips to his. They were warm and soft and tasted of apples. She broke the kiss, and he looked down at her, surprised. "Oh," he said, and then he bent and kissed her. She opened her mouth beneath his and he slid his tongue along hers, sending sparks of heat through her. It was her turn to say, "Oh," when his lips left hers and he began pressing kisses to her jaw. It is said that there is no skill the Elves cannot master if it is shown them once, and Eowyn believed it after the masterful way Legolas walked her into the bedroom, never releasing her from the loose embrace of his arms, tethering her to him with the lightest of kisses dropped along the sensitive flesh of her neck. She clung to him, weak with desire, as he laid her on the bed. *** Yeah, I went with mack daddy!Legolas. He is just large and in charge. Er, maybe that wasn't the best phraseology, but it is on point. And true. ::snicker:: Now, onto the sex! Hee! ~*~ Oh! Pimping! The latest chapter of Han/Logan is here, and also, the Faramir Fix It fic is now called Quality, and can be found here And the comments are still down, so feel free to leave a note in the LJ ~victoria ~*~ 02.26.03 - 11:59 a.m. So Jenny-O asked, why is incest the new orange? I have some rambly thoughts on the subject, as someone who has written incest fic on occasion. First off, while for some it may be a way to be ‘cutting edge’, this is me we’re talking about. Mainstream, middle-of-the-road hack. Not looking to be outré, or cool, or whatever. I don’t write angst. I don’t even have much in the way of kink in any of my fic, except for the occasional threesome and a jones for back-alley, against-the-wall sex. So for me, it’s not about kink or pushing the envelope. As with most fic I write, it’s about seeing a relationship ping. In the case of incest, it’s pinging in a Bad, Wrong way. And I don’t mean to be cute or sexy about it. I’m not your moral arbiter. I can only tell you what *I* think is right or wrong and why I think certain topics should be handled in certain ways. And in this case, it’s not about morality, per se, but about what a writer owes her story. I’m not going to discuss why or whether incest in the real world should be as frowned upon and horrifying as it is. I think it’s a Big Wrong Thing in the real world, and because most of the fiction I write is set in worlds that resemble ours or have similar morality, I think it ought to be dealt with in that framework, fictionally. For me, incest fic is like rape fic. It has to be handled in a way that never, ever glosses over or forgets why it’s a taboo. Let’s face it, some people seem to get off on just breaking taboos in their fiction. I’m not one of them. Generally, I find that type of writing boring. “Ooh, let’s shock everybody!” doesn’t often provide good storytelling. Much like my feeling about non-con (semiotic boondoggle that it is), incest fic ought to have a point, and it ought to be more than “Oooh, pretty.” Because in that case, man, go write RPF and leave the characters out of it. I don’t think incest in and of itself is erotic and I don’t particularly care to see it painted as solely erotic. Unless you’re writing about the ancient Egyptians, or some other culture where incest is not a taboo, you ought to deal with the fact that it IS a taboo, and one of the strongest ones we’ve got. One of the problems I had with writing Blood Remembers was dealing with the huge aversion to incest shared by the peoples of Middle-earth. In The Silmarillion, we’re presented with a very clear indication of how Elves and Men view the subject, and it’s possibly even more of a taboo for them than it is for us in 21st c. America (which is where I am and where the largest portion of people who read this diary are, so yeah, hi to everyone else, but I’m being US-centric), leading to wasting away from guilt and shame. (As a totally unrelated side note, in response to Twinkledru’s eloquent call for more LotR smut, I also have trouble sexualizing some of the LotR characters, simply because of the way Tolkien set his universe up. I’m working slowly to overcome that, however. *g*) The Rohirrim are not descended from the Elves, and they are breeders of horses, which gave me some leeway – I discussed with DD the attitude of horse-breeders toward sibling incest, and she mentioned that the Arabs, when breeding horses way back in time, preferred that there not be too many branches on the family tree, and that’s one reason Arabians have such a distinctive (and prized) look. Transferring that frame of reference to the Rohirrim was fairly easy, and so I had Éowyn’s rationalization prior to her epiphany of wrongness. And that’s the one thing, to me, that seems necessary in any good (i.e., well-written) incest story – the realization of the wrong that’s being committed, and how it will eventually damage/ruin the relationship (not to mention all sorts of other bad consequences should it be discovered). In Nor Ever Chaste, Simon knows what he’s doing is wrong. He’s trapped by circumstances, by love, by guilt and the need to assuage River’s fears and pain. Now, I think you can look at Firefly and clearly see the subtext that leads me and many others to believe that such a thing could actually have happened – that Simon and River are involved in some degree of sexual relations (and I wish I had that link with the cut lines from the script, where River talks about marrying Simon and carrying his baby). River is obviously unbalanced, and possibly not capable of any kind of informed consent, let alone the reasoning/understanding that sleeping with Simon, loving Simon more than fraternally is a big no-no. Anyone who watched that berry-feeding scene and *didn’t* see the subtext as sexual is just-- let's just say I don’t want to know about your relationship with your siblings. For Éomer/Éowyn, it was more a feeling I’d always had from reading the books (I Blame VC Andrews) and also based on two of movie!Éomer’s looks at Éowyn – first when they’re at Theodred’s bedside and then when he follows Wormtongue’s gaze over to her. It looks to me like he’s 1. deferring to her (which, as the elder brother in a very male-dominated culture, seems odd. Hell, I have an older brother and he rarely, if ever, defers to me, and only slightly more frequently does he defer to our elder sister), and 2. like he’s guilty or trying to make something up to her. Now, both of those can be explained by guilt that he didn’t notice Wormtongue’s unwanted attentions to her, and that he failed to bring Théodred home alive (and movie!Théodred in no way looks 20 years older than movie!Éomer, though in the books he is). However, (I Blame VC Andrews) those looks spoke of the possibility of something darker to me. Why is Éowyn so alone? Is it because she and Éomer fell from grace together? That was the starting point of the fic. Now, the reason I mentioned it might be a failure is that I did get feedback that took the story as simple erotica, and it was never intended to be that. Yes, it had to be sensual and arousing, because I wanted the reader to be complicit in the transgression, to feel the same horror/guilt/shame that Éowyn feels when she realizes what it is they’ve done. But it wasn’t meant as a romance. Neither was Nor Ever Chaste. I can only judge my success by the responses I receive, and let’s just say that there were one or two I found disturbing, and another that seemed to feel that the sense of horror and wrong wasn’t strong enough, because we never saw Éomer’s POV. And I’ve contemplated writing Éomer’s POV, but I don’t know what it would add. I’m not sure. I’ve left Consanguinity out of the discussion mostly because it’s a comedy, it was written to explain my aversion to the Logan/Jean ship, and to drive a nail into the coffin of that same ship (in my mind) by having Logan be Jean’s grandfather. It’s one of those “We didn’t know! Five more minutes and this would have been a Greek tragedy!” stories. Two of the three stories I’ve written on the topic have been sibling-based. While I do see subtextual evidence for a Lionel/Lex history of sexual abuse, I don’t think you can posit that it would be in any way a positive or happy relationship. They hate/resent each other too much, almost as much if not more than, they love each other, for that to work, as well as the power issues, the horror of abuse and the cultural taboos inherent in such a thing. I think, in the end, that’s what I’m getting at. I don’t write, and I don’t want to read, incest stories that are simply erotica, written to get you or someone else off. To *me*, you’re doing the story, the characters and the reader a huge disservice by being so dishonest about the way such a relationship would work. You want to mine the Forbidden Love/Lust angle, find two characters who aren’t related, or who are so distantly related that even the people with the biggest moral trouble with incest would approve ::coughArwen/Aragorncough::. I find incest fic squicky because I find incest in real life squicky, and if your story doesn’t address that fact, then I’m probably not going to think it’s a good story. Just like I think It’s about the thrust of the story – what are you trying to say? If it’s just “Ooh, Lex and Lucas are hot and wouldn’t they be hot together?” you’ve lost me. Because yes, they probably would be. And yes, they didn’t grow up together (see ConCord – it doesn’t matter if you’re actually related. Some squicks transcend their literal definitions. She saw herself as his mother-figure, changed his diapers, bathed him etc. Sleeping with him is a huge, scary, possibly wrong thing and the Cordy we all know and love wouldn’t have done it, at least, not with the specious reasoning she offered. I won’t get into incest in vampire families, because they’re all twisted and wrong in their relationships anyway. It was obviously a big neon sign saying “Evil!”) but Lex wants a little brother. He wants one badly. So while I could see him using sex to manipulate Lucas (and vice versa), that would be about *power*, and wouldn’t be healthy, happy or simply romantic. There would obviously be agendas and ishiness, and there should be. One doesn’t break such strict and heavily enculturated taboos with nary a thought to the consequences. Because there would be many and none of them would be good, and denying that for the sake of two hot bodies strikes me as bad writing. And morality aside, because as I said upfront, I’m not your moral compass (though when I rule the world, I will be and we’ll all be going to hell and the Islanders will be mocked mercilessly), but I can and will discuss what I think is good or bad writing, ad nauseum, ad infinitum, and what it comes down to, for me, is that writing incest in such an irresponsible manner is bad writing. It doesn’t serve the story or the reader to bring up such big, weighty topics and then ignore the ramifications simply for a nice roll in the hay. [/soapbox] In other news, I posted the Faramir fic. I feel a little better. Comments are down yet again (why do I even bother?), so please comment in the LJ. I'd love to know how other people feel about this. ~victoria ~*~
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