FIC: Nightswimming (Adult Content Warning)

[etherati]

Title: Nightswimming
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Dan/Walter.
Date Written: 2009
Summary: "The photograph reflects, every streetlight a reminder: these things, they go away - replaced by everyday."
Rating/Warnings: Let's go with R. Sex, but no IKEA-style detail. If anyone disagrees on this, let me know, and I'll change it.
Notes: Nostalgia(n):

Comments

[aceles]

Heartbreaking, subtle, and a sex scene written the way they should be written--about the internal landscape, not the science and the fluids. Lovely.

[etherati]

Best kind, in my opinion. I already know what goes where; I want to be given a reason to *care* about it.

I'm glad the subtlety came across. I've always been fascinated by this idea of the future haunting the past as much as the past haunts the future.

[aceles]

You just summed up my feelings in a nutshell.

It did completely color the scene, it really did. It made it bittersweet, where otherwise it would have been an all around happy encounter.

[etherati]

Yeah, it's like... it's good that this happened, it's good that they had this moment, and I tried to emphasize *that*, too, so that it wouldn't drown in the angst - but the good things are eventually just memories that you can't ever get back. Does that make it bad to have had them? Of course not; they're still some of the most wonderful things we have in our lives, but there's an acceptance you have to have that they do go away.

Which is, basically, the entire point of the song that I pulled a lot of the imagery from, so it's not like this was a totally original idea or anything, but I hope I at least did a decent job of sewing it all together.

[aceles]

More than decent--positively sublime. It's beautiful and meaningful and has a message. And I cannot emphasize to you enough how much you really are a cut above many authors I read. You actually care about having a theme. I can see you thinking when I read, and that's brilliant. I love that. Most fic, I don't see that. I see girls with action figures making them kiss, you know?

[etherati]

Thank you, really. That's so important to me, when I'm writing things - to have some kind of a theme or a thread that runs through things, to keep them from feeling like just a jumbled shopping list of consecutive actions, etc. I dono. That's the only way it ever feels 'finished'.

Haha yes. Yes I do know. I have read those fics, god D: Even worse though, are the ones that are so generic that you could interchange totally different names and it would work just as well(or rather, as not well). It seems like there's just no point if it's not THEM. Whoever 'them' is, in whatever case.

[aceles]

Right, exactly. Otherwise you finish and sit back and ask "...why did I even write this?"

I have definitely read those fics, believe me. And I think, also, that it almost could work in certain fandoms? Work in the sense that it would at least be entertaining in an empty way, I mean. But Watchmen? Without characterization?

Not gonna happen.

[etherati]

Thing is people are so FREE with this dynamic because it could play out in so many different ways and still be a valid interpretation, but no matter the interpretation, it's still always going to be a COMPLICATED dynamic. And if you strip out that complication, it's got nothing left of what makes them so compelling

[aceles]

Exactly. It's always going to be twisty and wonderful no matter where you take it.

I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't told me so yourself!

This is definitely not a schmoopy pairing. I know just how that goes. I was always like "Shipping? Pairings? Pfft." And then I got older and realized that certain couples just had dynamics I liked more than when they were paired with other people. It was always in fandoms complex enough that the characters had real personalities for me to make those judgements on.

[etherati]

I think that's it... I used to trot out this Vonnegut quote: "I find it natural to discuss life without ever mentioning love. It does not feel important to me. What does feel important? Bargaining in good faith with destiny

[aceles]

Hi, this is me reappearing in this thread to ask--do you have an aim of any kind? I desperately need someone to ramble about the director's cut of the movie with.

[etherati]

I do, but it's connected to the other half of my 'internet life' that I try to keep separate from this one (mostly because people here would have conniptions over what I do there and people there would have conniptions over, you know, gay watchmen porn. D:). I just made up a new account (etherati was available, which just confirms to me that it's as utterly nonsensical a handle as I thought), hopefully trillian can juggle them both.

[aceles]

I wholeheartedly understand. I'll add you straight away. <3