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June 7th, 2005
09:27 am

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Miscellaneous fanfic stuff
So, I think I'm about halfway through my new series, although it's hard to tell. This one has so much plot it makes my head spin :-/. I don't have a working title, but I've been thinking of it as "After Charles" since it opens with his obituaries from four different publications. I spent over a week reading a gazillion obits to choose the publications and to get the tone right in each one. It was giving me a skewed view of the news. I was feeling like everybody's dying! I was in danger of turning into one of those cranky people who goes around saying "Why don't they print any good news?" Oh well, it's done. At least that part is and a few more stories. I still have to write the Memorial Service, though. In this series, the X-Men have - at Cyclops's insistence - a private funeral for Charles, but they will succumb to pressure and have a public Memorial Service later. I've been to one New York Celebrity Funeral and will draw on that experience.

I took a break from writing the series last night and did a first draft of my xmmficathon assignment. You get to choose from three, but I'd already written stories that met two of the assignments, so it was an obvious choice. It's a post-X2 Pyro story, which was interesting for me to do, since it's very different from anything I've written before. I've never written Pyro and my post-X2 stuff has all been my version of the Phoenix story. So, it was a chance to focus on a character new to me, and also a chance to write Magneto. I've always wanted to do something with him, and particularly focussing on his Holocaust experience. This one ended up referencing post-Holocaust, his time in a dp camp in Cyprus. Anyone want to beta - particularly anyone with a good feel for Pyro, Magneto and/or Mystique - please let me know.

I've been doing more beta-ing lately. I always enjoy that. There's something very exciting about seeing a story take shape. And the detail-oriented anal-retentive part of me likes to catch the little mistakes.

I'm thinking a lot about power in relationships lately, and how that issue is explored in fanfic. I'm particularly interested in stories where on the surface power dynamics are obvious and simple, but in reality they are much more subtle and complex. A post in musesfool's journal reminded me of the Ptolemy quip that said that Alexander was never defeated, except by Hephaistion's thighs. I think it was intended as an epigram and it is kind of funny. OTOH, there's something so compelling about it, too. You can be the most powerful man who ever lived and you're still subject to the power of desire, the power of love. Recommendations on fanfic dealing with such themes would be gratefully appreciated. I'm flexible on fandom.

Current Mood: contemplativecontemplative
Current Music: "Who Needs Sleep?" by the Barenaked Ladies

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From:talktooloose
Date:June 7th, 2005 03:53 pm (UTC)
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Wow! A Pyro story! He's my favourite character and the only long-arc character I'd be into writing if I had time to write. I actually have a long arc in mind that takes him from 14 to 25.

Are you going to continue the After the Fall storyline? I hope so!
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From:mofic
Date:June 7th, 2005 04:40 pm (UTC)
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Wow! A Pyro story!

Wanna beta? It's very short, circa 2000 words.

He's my favourite character and the only long-arc character I'd be into writing if I had time to write. I actually have a long arc in mind that takes him from 14 to 25.

That sounds interesting. How old is he in the movies, would you say?


Are you going to continue the After the Fall storyline? I hope so!

Yeah, I need one more series to finish that one. I don't actually know what will happen but I have this idea that I can do it in 8-10 stories, anyway :-). It's in the stack, after revisions on the ficathon thing and finishing the series that is currently eating my brain.
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From:talktooloose
Date:June 7th, 2005 04:48 pm (UTC)
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um, errghhhh, ehhhh, 2000-words-only, yeah, I'd like to beta it. When will it be ready? I don't think kuriadalmatia is ready with her next installment of Fundamental Difference of Experience (her Bobby/John epic that I'm a committed beta on).

I would make X2 John 17.

My John is gay. Is yours?
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From:mofic
Date:June 7th, 2005 04:59 pm (UTC)
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It's ready for beta now. Can I send it to your Sekrit Identity email? I think that's the only one I have.

My John isn't gay, but I put in a little slashy bit, anyway. I'm incorrigible.
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From:talktooloose
Date:June 7th, 2005 05:07 pm (UTC)
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Yes, if you have the address for the man behind the ruby shades, go for it. If you can't locate it, talktooloose @ livejournal dot com works just as well.

Cool! I look forward.
[User Picture]
From:mofic
Date:June 7th, 2005 04:43 pm (UTC)
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P.S. Glad to hear the arhythmia is over, at least for now.
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From:talktooloose
Date:June 7th, 2005 04:48 pm (UTC)
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merci.
(Deleted comment)
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From:mofic
Date:June 7th, 2005 05:40 pm (UTC)
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Thanks for the correction - I just did a quick web search on it and got Ptolemy.

The issue of power -- apparent versus actual -- in relationships is really very interesting, as they're usually far more complicated than they seem.

Yes, that's what's so interesting to me. The set hierarchy doesn't really cover it, yk? And the assumptions are less interesting to me than the actual dynamics, although I concur that it's important to know what the assumptions are in whatever culture you're writing about.

I find that power dynamics are such an interesting thing to explore in fiction - is power what it seems to be on the surface? What gives power to each person in the relationship? How does it change over time? And, actually, what is most interesting to me is not the power that each one has over the other but the power to shape where the relationship is going. And that one is always shared in some fashion. Although I write Logan/Scott with some dom/sub elements, power dynamics aren't what they seem on the surface.

But what people really do in the privacy of their bedrooms (or on kitchen counters (g)) may or may not mesh with expectations, either cultural or for an individual's personality.

Well, that's the thing about sex. So much of it happens when nobody's looking :-). Much of it is not documented and much of the documentation that is there must be presumed to be censored. Have you read Lillian Faderman on "Romantic Friendship"? She's quite convinced that women in Boston Marriages didn't have sex with each other because they didn't say so in their diaries, letters, etc. I think they did - or at least a lot of them did - and there was a combination of:

* self-censorship
* not thinking of what they did as sexual (i.e. defining sexual activity as what is done between a man and a woman, not what gives women orgasms)
* just not having words for what they were doing

I read a lot of that "hold you all night long" and "kiss you everywhere" stuff as sexual. But maybe that's just me :-).

(Deleted comment)
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From:mofic
Date:June 7th, 2005 06:14 pm (UTC)
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Are you trying to make me crazy :-)? First you tell me it's pseudo-Diogenes. Now in your second comment it's pseudo-Demosthenes. I can safely say you want me to believe it's a pseudo-somebody-ancient...

As to the Boston Marriages, I think often the language used around husbands was quite different from the language used with women friends, so I don't know that we can go by that. I think a case can be made both ways, really. I certainly wouldn't argue that they all had sex (by current standards and usages of the term - of course at the time they would think "have sex" means "is male or female" and be totally bewildered that we use it the way we do) but I think there's a strong undercurrent of sexuality in much of the correspondence and diaries. I'd be surprised if none of them were expressing it in ways we'd now call sexual.

Anyway, no one will know until I get the kinks worked out of that time travel machine. And I'm so busy with kids, work and fanfic that I don't know when that will happen.

Faderman's book is called _Surpassing the Love of Men_. I think it's very good, even if I don't agree with all her conclusions.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:June 14th, 2005 02:52 pm (UTC)

non-fanfic on the powerful in relationships

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Read Hadrian's Memoirs by M. Yourcenar if you haven't already!
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