guess I'll die another day
So this is me rambling about writing Someone you might have been.
When I was a little girl, my mum showed me this quasi-spy movie The Tamarind Seed, from the novel by Evelyn Anthony. It starred Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif, and the extreme hotness of Sharif is probably what made the most lasting impression on me but it's the movie that triggered me writing Someone you might have been.
In The Tamarind Seed, for those of you that haven't seen it, this emotionally damaged English woman, Judith, meets Feodor, who's this charming but slightly manipulative and morally 'grey' guy. Feodor's kind of a Russian spy but he's fallen out of favour and he wants out. Cue him going on holiday and meeting Judith, who works for an English politician-type and who was recently having an affair with another guy with a politically sensitive career.
And the movie's all about Judith trying not to get too involved with Feodor, the identity of a high-up double in the British government and dodgy seventies fashion.
Anyway, eventually, through Judith, Feodor meets with this awesome British Intelligence Officer - who is just an awesome character because nobody likes him but he is stupendous at his job - and arranges to defect to the UK in exchange for the identity of the British double. Things go bad and Feodor is murdered in an arson attack which Judith only just escapes… Only not really, because at the end of the movie, Loder - the awesome British Intelligence Officer - goes to where Judith is recovering and gives her a tamarind seed, which was something she had had a significant conversation with Feodor about at the beginning of the movie. So yes, Feodor is alive and the movie ends with Judith being taken to be reunited with him.
This was the most awesome romance that I could imagine. I don't much like Judith as a character, she's self-righteous and a bit ice-queenish, but the romance itself made a huge impression on me.
So yes, when I decided I wanted to write spies, it came from there.
Erm, the bodycount was originally much MUCH higher. Mike was originally going to die but I liked him when I wrote him so I brought Tom in to kill, and then I realised that I kind of liked him too and that if I killed him then Mike would be on his own when Jensen was gone. For a while, there was a chapter where the Coalition clashes with ISA, Tom dies protecting Mike and Jensen, and Mike goes on a rampage. But, fun as it was, it wasn't necessary.
There was also a chapter where Weatherly went after Jensen and accidentally got himself killed but, whereas it served the purpose of confirming that Jensen was EVOL, it gets to the stage where Jensen can only explain so many of his sins away. He's supposed to be deeply flawed and unstable but not inherently bad.
Who else died? Oh yeah, Gabriel Tigerman. He was going to die when he checked through the computer files and discovered that information was still being sifted off, thus confirming the existence of a second double. I dropped that because I know how smart you guys are, and you'd have guessed instantly that Jensen was after the second double and therefore not as evil as he seemed.
Oh, going back to the tamarind seed thing, originally the final part was done from Jared's point of view and Jeff presented him with a cocktail umbrella to confirm that Jensen was indeed still living. But it seemed fitting that Jensen got some POV time, seeing as he'd been all Mona Lisa so far, and it didn't fit in anywhere dialogue-wise.
Talking of the last bit, for a while the last scene was going to be Jeff putting a new team together to combat the Coalition, teaming Chad with Mike - obviously as Mike doesn't actually care about the Coalition, he'd be in it for the potential for chaos he could cause as a double. But I figured then TOM would be on his own and Tom's had a hard enough time as it is.
So, yeah, when I plotted it out before writing, it was only supposed to be twenty chapters. Final word count is about 104k.
As for the question of the second double, I got to thinking halfway through that Schneider was the obvious choice. It's always the friendly, helpful guy who's actually the traitor. Then it occurred to me that whichever of the ISA executives I'd chosen, it'd be cliché. Glover's the coolly intelligent one and O'Toole's a woman (and God knows women can't be trusted). Weatherly would have been less obvious but I'd already gone so far sprinkling clues as to it being Schneider (I'm pretty sure the very first time Schneider's name is mentioned, he's sending agents into Tehran, where they all get massacred *g*) that I couldn't change it. Anyway, Schneider seems like the kind of guy who'd connect with the Chris Kane I had in my head.
So, yeah. That's the cross-dressing pies done. Because I am so very grateful to everyone who has patiently allowed me to randomly start writing a spies AU, and been so supportive and lovely whenever I felt guilty about writing it, I want to say thank you. And this might seem pathetic, y'know, thanks for sitting through that thing, would you like some more of it, but… would you like some more of it? I could definitely promise to write one more thing in this universe and I'm leaving 'what' up to you.
The obvious one, of course, is post-fic J2, but there are also missing scenes in the fic, or different POVs on things in the fic, or prequels like young!Jensen with Mike and Tom, or some Jared/Misha. Or there's the AU where Jensen is actually as bad as he seems. I don't know what you would like to see so… tell me! I hope this doesn't seem a rubbish thank you!
Poll
You can put more details in comments if the box isn't big enough. Once again, my lovelies, THANK YOU!
When I was a little girl, my mum showed me this quasi-spy movie The Tamarind Seed, from the novel by Evelyn Anthony. It starred Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif, and the extreme hotness of Sharif is probably what made the most lasting impression on me but it's the movie that triggered me writing Someone you might have been.
In The Tamarind Seed, for those of you that haven't seen it, this emotionally damaged English woman, Judith, meets Feodor, who's this charming but slightly manipulative and morally 'grey' guy. Feodor's kind of a Russian spy but he's fallen out of favour and he wants out. Cue him going on holiday and meeting Judith, who works for an English politician-type and who was recently having an affair with another guy with a politically sensitive career.
And the movie's all about Judith trying not to get too involved with Feodor, the identity of a high-up double in the British government and dodgy seventies fashion.
Anyway, eventually, through Judith, Feodor meets with this awesome British Intelligence Officer - who is just an awesome character because nobody likes him but he is stupendous at his job - and arranges to defect to the UK in exchange for the identity of the British double. Things go bad and Feodor is murdered in an arson attack which Judith only just escapes… Only not really, because at the end of the movie, Loder - the awesome British Intelligence Officer - goes to where Judith is recovering and gives her a tamarind seed, which was something she had had a significant conversation with Feodor about at the beginning of the movie. So yes, Feodor is alive and the movie ends with Judith being taken to be reunited with him.
This was the most awesome romance that I could imagine. I don't much like Judith as a character, she's self-righteous and a bit ice-queenish, but the romance itself made a huge impression on me.
So yes, when I decided I wanted to write spies, it came from there.
Erm, the bodycount was originally much MUCH higher. Mike was originally going to die but I liked him when I wrote him so I brought Tom in to kill, and then I realised that I kind of liked him too and that if I killed him then Mike would be on his own when Jensen was gone. For a while, there was a chapter where the Coalition clashes with ISA, Tom dies protecting Mike and Jensen, and Mike goes on a rampage. But, fun as it was, it wasn't necessary.
There was also a chapter where Weatherly went after Jensen and accidentally got himself killed but, whereas it served the purpose of confirming that Jensen was EVOL, it gets to the stage where Jensen can only explain so many of his sins away. He's supposed to be deeply flawed and unstable but not inherently bad.
Who else died? Oh yeah, Gabriel Tigerman. He was going to die when he checked through the computer files and discovered that information was still being sifted off, thus confirming the existence of a second double. I dropped that because I know how smart you guys are, and you'd have guessed instantly that Jensen was after the second double and therefore not as evil as he seemed.
Oh, going back to the tamarind seed thing, originally the final part was done from Jared's point of view and Jeff presented him with a cocktail umbrella to confirm that Jensen was indeed still living. But it seemed fitting that Jensen got some POV time, seeing as he'd been all Mona Lisa so far, and it didn't fit in anywhere dialogue-wise.
Talking of the last bit, for a while the last scene was going to be Jeff putting a new team together to combat the Coalition, teaming Chad with Mike - obviously as Mike doesn't actually care about the Coalition, he'd be in it for the potential for chaos he could cause as a double. But I figured then TOM would be on his own and Tom's had a hard enough time as it is.
So, yeah, when I plotted it out before writing, it was only supposed to be twenty chapters. Final word count is about 104k.
As for the question of the second double, I got to thinking halfway through that Schneider was the obvious choice. It's always the friendly, helpful guy who's actually the traitor. Then it occurred to me that whichever of the ISA executives I'd chosen, it'd be cliché. Glover's the coolly intelligent one and O'Toole's a woman (and God knows women can't be trusted). Weatherly would have been less obvious but I'd already gone so far sprinkling clues as to it being Schneider (I'm pretty sure the very first time Schneider's name is mentioned, he's sending agents into Tehran, where they all get massacred *g*) that I couldn't change it. Anyway, Schneider seems like the kind of guy who'd connect with the Chris Kane I had in my head.
So, yeah. That's the cross-dressing pies done. Because I am so very grateful to everyone who has patiently allowed me to randomly start writing a spies AU, and been so supportive and lovely whenever I felt guilty about writing it, I want to say thank you. And this might seem pathetic, y'know, thanks for sitting through that thing, would you like some more of it, but… would you like some more of it? I could definitely promise to write one more thing in this universe and I'm leaving 'what' up to you.
The obvious one, of course, is post-fic J2, but there are also missing scenes in the fic, or different POVs on things in the fic, or prequels like young!Jensen with Mike and Tom, or some Jared/Misha. Or there's the AU where Jensen is actually as bad as he seems. I don't know what you would like to see so… tell me! I hope this doesn't seem a rubbish thank you!
Poll
You can put more details in comments if the box isn't big enough. Once again, my lovelies, THANK YOU!