[drabbles] for gileonnen

[angevin2]

This is in fact not, as the word count reveals, a drabble at all. Also, I think it is the purplest piece of prose I have ever written.

Title: Scarlet Indignation
Fandom: Shakespeare Richard II
Character(s)/Pairing(s): King Richard, solus
Rating: PG
Word Count: 458
Warnings: self-injury, theorizing about kingship, anachronistic heraldry, excessive

Comments

[gileonnen]

Well--I'm happy to have it. The thought processes here are fascinating to watch, the doubts and the magic of it all tied to a fundamental uncertainty over the ability to exert control--and of course you'd pick up on that, this is your play, but that's really what struck me about the myth and mysticism of Shakespeare's rendition. Everyone wants to control the mythical imaginary of the people, to be the ones to determine what the signs signify and to be the ones to water the earth with blood; they want that magic, that myth, that certainty because this is a time when all that is certain is being tipped upon its head and the mystical legitimacy of the king must be transferred or taken somehow before it vanishes utterly. That fear, that need for confirmation (even the pinch of the thorn that proves one isn't dreaming, the well of blood that proves one has body and blood) is an important element of the play, and I really love what you've done with it here

[angevin2]

I am so glad you like it -- I just absolutely adore the fics you've written for me. Which also, as you mention, set off the theme for this one in my head (and of course roses in medieval symbolism are so overdetermined -- nobility and transience and Christ-imagery, and they all fit here, as well as the foreshadowing of the Wars of the Roses, though I didn't want to lean on that, because I figured that anyone who'd read histories!fic would get it).

the well of blood that proves one has body and blood

I'm very interested in the physicality of the royal body as the play handles it -- I've always been really interested in Richard's line "no hand of blood and bone / Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre / Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp," because, okay, Richard, what are your hands made of exactly? And of course blood is also overdetermined and this is one of the major themes of the histories. (One of the lines I cut out had Richard placing his bleeding finger to his lips and wondering if the metaphorical value of his blood

[gileonnen]

Yeah--that was probably why I had to be pretty bloody vague. Because you're right, roses are overdetermined ... so actually the best way for me to use them is just to refuse to determine them at all and let 'em be roses for a bit. (Which people can then read into as they like.)

Oooh, I had forgotten that line--and I tried to articulate what it was that fascinated me, but you know, I was just reiterating what you said here. So, yay Lea's awesome analysis of her own metaphor and what to do with its overdetermined qualities!

XD Clearly theirs is a True and Destined Love! (I should totally write you that. Because, as we have previously mentioned, Sex and Epic.)

[angevin2]

I think, too, that the original medieval-flavored setting makes it easier to pull out the specifics of the symbolism -- it's at the forefront in that time period in a way it probably wouldn't be for a 20th-century individual. Or something like that.

Also: Shakespeare's Richard is clearly really bothered by the whole King's Two Bodies thing, because the body natural is inconvenient in a way, or it doesn't fit, or whatever. I mean, look at how his most famous speech ends:

I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends -- subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?

So when I write him he tends to be both frustrated and fascinated by corporeality.

Clearly theirs is a True and Destined Love! (I should totally write you that. Because, as we have previously mentioned, Sex and Epic.)

OMG YES. BECAUSE THAT = SO DAMN HOT.

(Also the POV thing works -- I was just telling lareinenoire -- because they are both doomed, and Hotspur is short-sighted and Richard overanalytical, and those are fairly opposite qualities but both

[gileonnen]

See, all of this is why you are a better academic and a more thoughtful writer than I am. <33

[angevin2]

Oh, I doubt that! I don't theorize fic nearly as much when it's not about my central dissertation text, for one thing!

Also, you may have noticed that I just friended you with my Not-That-Sekrit Writing Journal. :)

[gileonnen]

Aww, you're just saying that. You could totally theorize the heck out of Canterbury Tales.

I may have, yeah. ^_~

[angevin2]

I'm not sure that the Canterbury Tales fic was as theoretical as it was referential!

devisewit consists almost entirely of unfinished Richardfic and things I have posted elsewhere, so if you are interested in my stuff-in-progress, it is the place to be. There's also a newish fic (focused on Henry) that I haven't posted anywhere else. Oh, and all the Elizabethan poets middle-school AU stuff is there too.

[gileonnen]

But it could be. Theory in fic is more a state of mind than a state of text.

I'll check it out! (Maybe I should have somewhere to put all the unfinished nonsense that's hanging around on the hard drive. Hmm.)

[angevin2]

It could be, but actually I decided fairly early on to make it total crackfic so as to minimize the amount of research I had to do during insane-amounts-of-grading time!

Anyway, as the author, I am technically dead or nonexistent, so. ;)