Many words, but nothing to say
So, there've been two memes circulating lately. I've been ambivalent about participating in either... but I guess I'll throw them out there.
There's the first kisses one, where I ask y'all to suggest two characters whom I write and then I'll tell you about their first kiss. I can see this going disastrously. Or boringly.
Because. Okay, one of my friends is going to think she's clever and bring up the Weasley twins. And I'll have to point out that the first kiss didn't even count, because they'd been playing spin the bottle. And the bottle they were spinning was hardly the only empty one available, so everyone was feeling ... well, a bit drunk frankly. Angie had been the one to suggest the game in the first place, which by all rights should have been shouted down by the cries of "What are we, twelve?" But Lee and Fred had both sprung to her defense, glaring daggers equally at the detractors and each other, which put neither of them in a position to object to her 'improved' rules. George had been too busy laughing at Fred's face - and, okay, also a bit too drunk - to consider that, while he had no philosophical problems with kissing whomever the bottle pointed towards rather than the girls only, he would be playing with his brother. That realization had only wicked its way through his woolly mind when Fred's spin brought the bottle to a rest pointed directly at him. He was still staring at the bottle in a sort of delayed horror, when Fred kneed across the circle with a determined expression and pressed his dry lips firmly to George's, to a soundtrack of whistles and catcalls. By the end of the evening, Fred was snogging with Angie in the corner, Lee was not looking as upset about that development as expected - probably because of the arm he had slung over Alicia's shoulders, and George was thinking about how kisses didn't count if they were dares.
And that will be traumatic! For everyone involved! So I'll have to say, "No, I'm not catering to your odd fantasies any more." And someone else will think, "Oh, due South!" and ask for Fraser/Kowalski. Which happened on the Henry Allen, whatever Fraser said about it when they broke the surface. At the time, Ray had thought that that first breath of fresh air was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he was more than willing to put that thing with Fraser's mouth soundly behind them. But for a long time afterwards, his dreams glowed with an eerie, lake-green light, and he often woke to the phantom memory of floating and the feeling of warm hands pressed against his jaw, saving him from drowning.
But that's an easy one, because someone will always ask for F/K; there's like a rule. But once that's done, someone else will remember my fascination with the Rays. That's more of a tricky one, because the two of them spark off each other constantly. Even that first week after Kowalski had returned from Canada looking like he'd been run over by a snow plow up there, it was there - sparks. But Ray had never, not-once-ever thought those sparks could produce heat before this week. This week, Kowalski was acting like he'd never heard of personal boundaries. He was in Ray's space all the fucking time - and not in his usual shouting and wisecracking, 'in your face' way. No, Kowalski'd spent the past several days constantly at Ray's elbow. Jostling his arm as they walked down the hallway. Leaning across him to snag the stapler off his desk. Breathing in his ear as Ray looked up records on computer.
Ray was pretty sure it was an elaborate plot to drive him insane, so he'd been doing his best to ignore it. But Kowalski's fingers had just brushed his for the fifth time in as many steps, and Ray's resolve snapped. He swung around and shoved Kowalski away. Not that it took: Kowalski just stepped back to a few inches closer than comfortable. Ray scowled. "What is with you?"
"What, you haven't figured it out yet, Vecchio?" God, Ray hated that insufferable, smug smirk on Kowalski's - that was Kowalski's hand. That was Kowalski's hand on the back of Ray's neck, and that was Kowalski's stupid smirk getting even closer, and that was definitely Kowalski kissing him, with his eyes dropped half-closed, watching Ray through his lashes. He kissed dirty, pushy with lips and tongue even in a kiss that had finished before Ray could react. Having ended the kiss, he studied Ray for a moment from a bare inch away. Ray just gaped back.
Kowalski grinned and patted his cheek before turning away down the hall. "Pitter-patter, Vecchio."
And really, that's nothing you won't have read before, and that would be that, probably. I suppose someone might surprise me though. *waves lazily* Feel free.
Also, there's the personal canon meme, which I've seen played a few different ways now. 'Personal canon,' for those who haven't yet come across this one, are the things one believes to be true about a series/character that are not explicitly shown on screen (or page, I suppose). Anyway, as I was saying, I've seen this done more than one way. There's the thirty think-y thoughts on the personal canon of one's own choosing... which seems like a lot of writing right now. Plus, thirty? By the end I worry I'd really be reaching, like "The law of gravity applies in the Pegasus Galaxy the same way it does here, even if other laws of physics seem more mutable." The other option is to post "give me a character and I'll give you three things I believe to be true." If anyone is curious about my personal canon for a specific character, I'll give it a go.
My most generally held beliefs for the writing of fanfic:
1) Any character in any of my fandoms can be read as bi without being OOC. Sexual orientation isn't something that can be pinned down just by looking for the most obvious signifiers. Neither the presence nor the absence of stereotypical gay signifiers says anything absolute to me about a character - the signifier is not the thing itself. Nor is sexual orientation defined solely by past behaviour. A character who has previously dated the opposite sex may become involved in a same sex relationship later or vice versa. It happens in RL, too, after all. And for the purposes of fiction only, self-identification is completely open to question (see also personal canon point two: unreliable narration).
2) Anytime information is told rather than shown, that information is suspect and it can be used or ignored in fanfiction at will without that fanfic being an AU.
Examples from Slings & Arrows, Hard Core Logo, and due South:
*Geoffrey's celibacy between the times he was with Ellen? I mostly believe this one, but he was actually talking to Ellen at the time...
*Joe Dick fucking Billy Tallent? Am I willing to take John's schizophrenic word on this? Especially when he goes on to say that he wasn't even there when it happened?
*The Call of the Wild voice-over endings? Immaculate conceptions. Bowling alley. Turnbull running for an undisclosed office in an undisclosed locale. Not that any of these are impossible in the due South universe, but the sheer number of outrageous endings means that I choose to stand by my original assessment: "The main character lies like a dog."
Any of these can provide good fodder for - or detail within - fic... but I don't necessarily believe that any of them definitely happened.
There's the first kisses one, where I ask y'all to suggest two characters whom I write and then I'll tell you about their first kiss. I can see this going disastrously. Or boringly.
Because. Okay, one of my friends is going to think she's clever and bring up the Weasley twins. And I'll have to point out that the first kiss didn't even count, because they'd been playing spin the bottle. And the bottle they were spinning was hardly the only empty one available, so everyone was feeling ... well, a bit drunk frankly. Angie had been the one to suggest the game in the first place, which by all rights should have been shouted down by the cries of "What are we, twelve?" But Lee and Fred had both sprung to her defense, glaring daggers equally at the detractors and each other, which put neither of them in a position to object to her 'improved' rules. George had been too busy laughing at Fred's face - and, okay, also a bit too drunk - to consider that, while he had no philosophical problems with kissing whomever the bottle pointed towards rather than the girls only, he would be playing with his brother. That realization had only wicked its way through his woolly mind when Fred's spin brought the bottle to a rest pointed directly at him. He was still staring at the bottle in a sort of delayed horror, when Fred kneed across the circle with a determined expression and pressed his dry lips firmly to George's, to a soundtrack of whistles and catcalls. By the end of the evening, Fred was snogging with Angie in the corner, Lee was not looking as upset about that development as expected - probably because of the arm he had slung over Alicia's shoulders, and George was thinking about how kisses didn't count if they were dares.
And that will be traumatic! For everyone involved! So I'll have to say, "No, I'm not catering to your odd fantasies any more." And someone else will think, "Oh, due South!" and ask for Fraser/Kowalski. Which happened on the Henry Allen, whatever Fraser said about it when they broke the surface. At the time, Ray had thought that that first breath of fresh air was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he was more than willing to put that thing with Fraser's mouth soundly behind them. But for a long time afterwards, his dreams glowed with an eerie, lake-green light, and he often woke to the phantom memory of floating and the feeling of warm hands pressed against his jaw, saving him from drowning.
But that's an easy one, because someone will always ask for F/K; there's like a rule. But once that's done, someone else will remember my fascination with the Rays. That's more of a tricky one, because the two of them spark off each other constantly. Even that first week after Kowalski had returned from Canada looking like he'd been run over by a snow plow up there, it was there - sparks. But Ray had never, not-once-ever thought those sparks could produce heat before this week. This week, Kowalski was acting like he'd never heard of personal boundaries. He was in Ray's space all the fucking time - and not in his usual shouting and wisecracking, 'in your face' way. No, Kowalski'd spent the past several days constantly at Ray's elbow. Jostling his arm as they walked down the hallway. Leaning across him to snag the stapler off his desk. Breathing in his ear as Ray looked up records on computer.
Ray was pretty sure it was an elaborate plot to drive him insane, so he'd been doing his best to ignore it. But Kowalski's fingers had just brushed his for the fifth time in as many steps, and Ray's resolve snapped. He swung around and shoved Kowalski away. Not that it took: Kowalski just stepped back to a few inches closer than comfortable. Ray scowled. "What is with you?"
"What, you haven't figured it out yet, Vecchio?" God, Ray hated that insufferable, smug smirk on Kowalski's - that was Kowalski's hand. That was Kowalski's hand on the back of Ray's neck, and that was Kowalski's stupid smirk getting even closer, and that was definitely Kowalski kissing him, with his eyes dropped half-closed, watching Ray through his lashes. He kissed dirty, pushy with lips and tongue even in a kiss that had finished before Ray could react. Having ended the kiss, he studied Ray for a moment from a bare inch away. Ray just gaped back.
Kowalski grinned and patted his cheek before turning away down the hall. "Pitter-patter, Vecchio."
And really, that's nothing you won't have read before, and that would be that, probably. I suppose someone might surprise me though. *waves lazily* Feel free.
Also, there's the personal canon meme, which I've seen played a few different ways now. 'Personal canon,' for those who haven't yet come across this one, are the things one believes to be true about a series/character that are not explicitly shown on screen (or page, I suppose). Anyway, as I was saying, I've seen this done more than one way. There's the thirty think-y thoughts on the personal canon of one's own choosing... which seems like a lot of writing right now. Plus, thirty? By the end I worry I'd really be reaching, like "The law of gravity applies in the Pegasus Galaxy the same way it does here, even if other laws of physics seem more mutable." The other option is to post "give me a character and I'll give you three things I believe to be true." If anyone is curious about my personal canon for a specific character, I'll give it a go.
My most generally held beliefs for the writing of fanfic:
1) Any character in any of my fandoms can be read as bi without being OOC. Sexual orientation isn't something that can be pinned down just by looking for the most obvious signifiers. Neither the presence nor the absence of stereotypical gay signifiers says anything absolute to me about a character - the signifier is not the thing itself. Nor is sexual orientation defined solely by past behaviour. A character who has previously dated the opposite sex may become involved in a same sex relationship later or vice versa. It happens in RL, too, after all. And for the purposes of fiction only, self-identification is completely open to question (see also personal canon point two: unreliable narration).
2) Anytime information is told rather than shown, that information is suspect and it can be used or ignored in fanfiction at will without that fanfic being an AU.
Examples from Slings & Arrows, Hard Core Logo, and due South:
*Geoffrey's celibacy between the times he was with Ellen? I mostly believe this one, but he was actually talking to Ellen at the time...
*Joe Dick fucking Billy Tallent? Am I willing to take John's schizophrenic word on this? Especially when he goes on to say that he wasn't even there when it happened?
*The Call of the Wild voice-over endings? Immaculate conceptions. Bowling alley. Turnbull running for an undisclosed office in an undisclosed locale. Not that any of these are impossible in the due South universe, but the sheer number of outrageous endings means that I choose to stand by my original assessment: "The main character lies like a dog."
Any of these can provide good fodder for - or detail within - fic... but I don't necessarily believe that any of them definitely happened.