Erosion Part V (Veronica/Logan) PG [WIP]

[rejeneration]

Title: Erosion
Author: rejeneration, but you can call me Jen.
Pairing/Character: Logan/Veronica, Tom, Trina, Xavier, smidge o’ the Wallace Fennel
Word Count: Part V: 3880
Rating: NC-17 overall, this part PG
Summary: Love, actually.
Spoilers/Warnings: Season 2; This is FF.
A/N: A million years ago I started writing a story. Since then I have gone on to dabble

Comments

[polarthestral]

“Ah, The Best Of.” Logan smirks, leaning back to fold his hands behind his head. “Got a pen?”

HA! So Logan I almost cried. I miss that cocky bastard.

Oh, and Tom? I love how you characterized him because it's true that he's an asshole and, yet, I still really dislike Veronica's behaviour thus far in this story so I can still sympathise with his wrath a little. It's all true to character, painfully so, but it's also painfully selfish. I think if I was Tom I'd snap a little too. Imagining my wife (if I was a guy, heh) telling me she was having my baby but she'd be raising it without me with another guy and expecting me to just say 'swell, have a nice life'? All at once? Wow, he's being really polite despite what an ass he may seem like through Logan and Veronica's eyes. Much as I don't want her separated from her child, much as I love Logan for standing by her despite what she did . . . I think I need a reason to believe Tom doesn't deserve to have a role in his child's life beyond the fact he lashed out here. Surely they didn't expect him to bow out gracefully? I love that you kept it complex and didn't have Tom just vanish, because reality is messy and what they've done is very messy too.

I couldn't believe Veronica's gall in the other chapters of this story, but then that's the whole point isn't it? Veronica never knows what she wants because she never asks herself the question until it's too late. She avoids. She avoids what is emotionally uncomfortable and she pushes questions aside and deflects whenever possible. She only knows how much she wants something once it has become unattainable because then she's backed into a corner and forced, through sheer reaction, to face how much she cares about the loss of it. That's how she seems to gauge love. It certainly was like that on VM, especially in the third season when she treated Logan like roadkill when she had him and then suddenly had pining eyes when she didn't. Whatever, V.

There's a tragic vulnerability about her covered in a brittle shell and as much as I understand that, I sometimes just don't care to make excuses. Like in this story when she gets pregnant and then it's all a mistake and she wants Logan back and he's the one, but only when it's too late theoretically. Because this baby is something that will tie her to Tom forever despite her willingness to turn her back on him (and make her baby do the same). I love the emotional complexity of that, and Logan's loyalty to her but at the same time I love that I can call both Logan and Veronica selfish bastards and still find a reason to love them that way. Heh.

I think you really captured Veronica and I do sympathise more in this story because of your ability to make me understand whereas on the show she just seemed like an icicle at the end. That tells me you're a very good writer, but it doesn't really take the rust off what made me grow to dislike V. Just makes me understand I can't really change that certain self centred part about her, nor does Logan want to (and what Logan wants, I want for him). That's why I clung to LV for so long and I think you capture it really well with this epic story. I've turned my back on so much LV fic but I really can't turn my back on this one because it is so honest about these faults in both characters and I much prefer that then a story that leaves me in disbelief. Thanks so much for updating it!

(Oh and I love the maturation of the Trina/Logan relationship, awesome!)

[rejeneration]

You know, you're about the best person on the planet to get feedback from, hon! -grin- Always concise and well thought out, packed with the emotional element from reading. I adore you. -grin- And!! You've been writing lately. If I could get thirty five seconds free to have the pleasure to read, man almighty!

Oh, and Tom? I love how you characterized him because it's true that he's an asshole and, yet, I still really dislike Veronica's behaviour thus far in this story so I can still sympathise with his wrath a little.

I didn't realize it at the time, how unsympathetic a character in Veronica I was writing. I have my issues with Veronica, it's true. Inadvertently, I guess I loaded them up on her. Because other than making some very bad decisions, I didn't want Veronica to be unsympathetic. One of the very important conversations coming up between Logan and Veronica very shortly here is going to be about Tom. Something you've picked up on and I'm extremely glad for it.

I had to try and paint Tom through Logan's eyes. Logan can completely understand where Tom's coming from, even if he is a pretentious asshole. Logan's not out to be friends with the guy, but he's also not out to fuck him over either. None of this was Logan's idea... well, none of the things set in motion before he even got involved. And while he has no intention of letting Tom fuck their lives over, he also doesn't have any intention of making it dark and ugly for Tom. BUT... I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here. -grin-

Suffice it to say, I'm really having fun with Logan's maturation. With a breadth of character we may have started to see at the end of S2, and where he could go.

I couldn't believe Veronica's gall in the other chapters of this story, but then that's the whole point isn't it? Veronica never knows what she wants because she never asks herself the question until it's too late.

It is _really_ the point. I am slightly worried that Veronica won't come across as... likeable, as changed, as Logan has/will. Because Veronica will grow as well, and the fact that she didn't run to Logan the _instant_ Tom confronted her, _scared_ her, ... the fact that she wasn't on the phone, begging him to ditch his family to "save" her.... I wanted that to show the same kind of growth I'm trying to represent with Logan. Maybe it didn't come across. Now, granted, that's not going to make her affable, but it's something. It's not nothing. -grin-

Because this baby is something that will tie her to Tom forever despite her willingness to turn her back on him (and make her baby do the same).

And this is true... but only to a point. What I'm trying to do here is show how hard it is to make the right choice, the _good_ choice. I can do that through Veronica because, in my estimation, she so often makes the wrong choice (for herself, not usually for other people, though Logan is hotly debatable), but we shouldn't be afraid of making an uncomfortable change if it's what was _need_. Veronica gets herself into a normal relationship. A grown-up relationship, with Tom. Something so much different from Logan and '09 lifestyle she was and wasn't apart of. BUT... it's a mistake. A mistake she either has to live with, condemn herself to, or a mistake she has to rectify. She's brave enough to go for the change... even if she _seems_ like a coward for going back to what is her constant-steady (ie: Logan).

[polarthestral]

I didn't realize it at the time, how unsympathetic a character in Veronica I was writing. I have my issues with Veronica, it's true. Inadvertently, I guess I loaded them up on her. Because other than making some very bad decisions, I didn't want Veronica to be unsympathetic.

That could be true, but I think it's more because I have issues with Veronica so whenever I read about her bad behaviour now, I don't really rose-colour-excuse her any more. Death of the author and all that jazz, it's all about the reading now. Heh.

I think it was wise of you to unload any issues you have with Veronica onto her characterisation in this story. It would be impossible to work through those issues if you didn't explore them. Any positive LV outcome will be absolutely well earned and far more fulfilling for me, as a reader, if those issues are explored too. After all, I share them.

I didn't want Veronica to be unsympathetic. One of the very important conversations coming up between Logan and Veronica very shortly here is going to be about Tom. Something you've picked up on and I'm extremely glad for it.

Is this about my comment that we don't know enough about Tom for me to hate him because of this reaction alone? I'm glad there will be backstory that sheds light on why Veronica would decide to go for full custody because that, to me, just adds insult to injury after she tells him she's leaving him for another guy. Unless there's just cause. I didn't want to say he'd done nothing wrong, this is the Neptune realm after all. :)

[polarthestral]

I think the fact Veronica came back at all is a sign of growth and I'm not dismissing she's doing it. I am just not as forgiving about her mistakes because I have such a stored bias against her and, canon has shown, she tends to take two steps forward, five steps back. I don't trust growth from Veronica and I realize you're a better author than RT but I can't help the instinct to not give her much credit for the step she takes. Yet.

I always wait until she is tested because that's when she tends to fall back into the cycle. "Oh Logan, I do trust you" Wait for it.... "I can't believe you [insert random accusation], I'll never trust you!" So I do think I'll warm up to her as the story progresses, the past is unveiled and she starts making up for those mistakes. As it is, the mistakes are still large and looming and "irredeemable" to me. Until they are explained, explored etc. I'd hate it if Logan just forgave her and trusted her straight away after she walked out and sent him not a word for years aftewards. It's bad enough he did pretty much take her back Show Me The Monkey style (which I hated, actually, given Logan was meant to have grown a spine and wanted progress the episode prior to that one). After finding out what she did, the boy needs to play a little hard to get, right? I was so glad he was disgusted and angry with her when he found out she'd been keeping the pregnancy from him because too right he should be angry, despite her wanting to make it right. He was woobified to the point he was the Lord of All Doormats in season three, letting her wipe her feet all over him. I have this pressing desire to read him screaming and fighting their love and only then - after she's earned some of that love she took for granted - will I probably get over my bristling and enjoy them together thoroughly ;) I have ISSUES, heh.

But seriously, I always thought he needed to put up some resistance and not forgive her so easily which is why I liked the friction in the recent chapters between Veronica and Logan. Maybe that's mean of me, that I want to punish her a bit, but it usually makes me like her more when she's punished for her sins because then Karma is appeased :). I HATED it when she started to get away with everything she did and yet dragged everyone else over the coals for any minor sin. I can guarantee you that if everything is earned - forgiveness, growth etc - I will barrack for Veronica in this story too, despite my anitpathy for her character on the show by the end. It was the fact she didn't earn anything, flouted gifts given to her and got away with everything that made her poison to me more than anything else. I don't expect that from your writing at all which is why I can stick to it with no problems.

[rejeneration]

That tells me you're a very good writer, but it doesn't really take the rust off what made me grow to dislike V.

And I can understand that. _I_ have a difficult time, myself, with V. I actually never thought I'd be able to write her again. I'm such a literal person. If it's canon, it's fanon for me (well, most times... -grin-). But what the writers did to her mid S2, and the apocalypse that was S3, I just... man, I thought there was no way. I keep trying to hold S1 Veronica in my head. I keep trying to dig back to her, because I did _like_ Veronica at one time. And I'd like to bring her back to the soft, young, gentle girl. The one in the voiceover in the pilot that says, "You know, I'm never going to get married. I'm so fucking jaded by seeing everything I've seen." I want to investigate _why_ she's that way, how she can grow beyond that with love and delving into Logan's heart, trying to be _something_ to him. There’s a redeemable character there for me, or at least I want there to be… and I want you all to come away feeling that in the end. -smiling- So many goals!

Thank you so much for being here, Belinda. Honestly!