Fiction strikes again
While still in the middle of writing my last 'challenge' story (Most Improbable Crossover: Blake's 7 meets Phantom of the Opera), I was struck by another challenge that happened to match up with a little question that had been rolling around in my head for a few weeks: what if Christine and Raoul really had taken up his suggestion, that first night of "Love Never Dies", packed up immediately, and walked out of the hotel to go home without the money?
I'm assuming the reason no-one has ever pursued this particular prompt is that, as a plot lever, it doesn't really solve anything: the couple are still unhappy, they're still up to their necks in debt, and the Phantom is still looming in the offing. But the challenge was Sink your Favourite Ship: Alright lovelies, this is for all the shippers and romantics out there. I'm calling this challenger "Operation Beautiful Ocean Depths"! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a fic that believably sinks your favourite ship! No cheating with tragedies either... or jumping ships either. Both your characters must walk away happy, whole, and very single.
Given the recent tenor of my writing there doesn't seem to be much doubt about what my favourite 'ship' is at the moment... so what if "I've got a mind to pack and go -- never you mind the debts we owe! Who would have thought we'd sunk this low?" turned out to be the prompt for a civilised break-up..? After all, the characters are arguably bad for one other at this point, and it's a reasonable outcome for one or the other to come to the conclusion that they'd be better off apart simply in order to make each other happy. This particular scenario would actually work quite neatly with the challenge... and given the stipulation "no jumping ships", I can quite legitimately leave the Phantom out of the equation altogether :-p
And given the plot of "Love Never Dies", it's actually an alternative possibility for a 'happy ending': I can 'ship' my couple in an non-romantic way, as it were, and incidentally evade a whole lot of heartbreak all round. (And -- just to amuse me -- it's yet another way of writing a 'Love Never Dies' story with no Phantom in it, making my third so far!)
Just to make it even more of a challenge, I'm thinking of doing this in the first person -- which I don't think I've ever actually done -- from Christine's point of view...