Fic commentary: When Gangster Bosses Ruled the City
Here is my first shot at trying to write commentary for a fic. It is for When Gangster Bosses Ruled the City (gen Tintin fic), and it was requested by curuchamion . I hope this is interesting and not just pointless navel-gazing? If this works out, this will probably be one of those vaguely irregular features like the deanons that I do instead of bothering to come up with new content. Woo! Commentary in bold.
So! This is an author’s commentary. In fact, there is more commentary than fic here, hm. Anyway. This one was written on Christmas Eve, sometime between 11 and 1 in the morning. See, what happened was I didn’t get to come home from school until the 23rd of December. And then instead of being a reasonable person and hanging out with my family, I was like ‘agh, I’m sick of interacting with people and finals stress and exhaustion and agh, you know what, I’m going to write ten Yuletide Madness fics.’ And then I did. This one was written after the one about The Kingmaker and Thomas Nashe, and before the one about Journey to the West.
The prompt was basically ‘noir Tintin AU please,’ which is an awesome idea that needed to happen. I grabbed Tintin in America [ *] from a shelf and used it as a base. Because, come on, canonical gangsters. It was obvious. The title and I think) the first line of the story are both narrative lines from the original story.
The streets of Chicago aren't kind to a young European such as myself. The mobsters of Chicago are also unkind, especially to reporters who're chasing after them for a story.
It wasn't helping that I was trying to get rid of organized crime, not just cover it. I'd already taken down a couple of the bosses, but you can't just stroll in to a new town and expect to clean it up in a few days.
It'd take me a week, at least. Everybody liked this line, and I’m not sure why. I guess it’s the assurance of it? To me it just reads as typical noir arrogance.
I turned my collar up against the rain and stepped out from the awning I'd been sheltering under. My dog followed me, looking like a cross between a drowned rat and a drowned Scotsman. Something about the whiskers, and the fact that he was sopping wet. See, this is my favorite line. He glared at me, but I ignored it - we had a ways to go to our hotel, and I couldn't trust the cabbies. Weird mix of American colloquial and vague Europeaness there. Just like this entire fic, I guess.
A black car pulled up alongside me, idling along to keep pace. The window of the back seat rolled down with a squeak and I tensed, looking for the muzzle of a gun. Standard noir imagery here, but the car and the gun poking out is something that happens to Tintin A LOT, so. I think it’s interesting how well the two ideas mesh.
"My dear chap!" said a man with a bristling moustache.
The window of the driver's side rolled down.
"To be precise: Chap, my dear!" said a man with a nearly identical bristling moustache. I love writing Thomson and Thompson, so much, oh man. By the way, who's excited for the movie? Besides me, obviously. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the detectives? YES.
"Thomson and Thompson," I groaned. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"I'm Thompson, he's Thomson," said the first man. "Hurry, get in the car and we'll explain."
I didn't want to get in. For all I knew, they were still after me for that framed-up heroin bust. This is a reference to Cigars of the Pharaoh, which technically hasn’t happened yet - it’s the next adventure after Tintin in America. But being framed and drug busts are such noir things that I had to bring them in. But they'd probably keep chasing me if I didn't take their ride, and it beat walking in the rain. I opened the door and stepped in, waiting to shut the door until Snowy had hopped inside.
"I don't want any trouble," I said. I thought it was best to get that out of the way, first.
"Oh, don't you?" Thomson laughed. "You have an odd way of showing it."
"Indeed," said Thompson. "Our superiors sent us here just because of all the trouble you've been making in Chicago."
"We weren't supposed to tell him that," snapped Thomson. I had so much trouble keeping these two straight (it didn’t help that I was tired and this was the fifth story I had written that day). I think I changed the names and dialogue around about four times before I had it right.
"Oh, sorry."
"Look," I said. It was better to stop them before they fell into one of their long, confusing back-and-forths. "Why don't you just tell me everything?"
"That will take some time," said Thomson, looking over his shoulder.
Thompson leant across and smiled over the handle of his umbrella.
"Why don't we stop and talk about it over a drink?"
That was a terrible idea. I was a marked man, and there wasn't a bar in the South Side that wasn't connected to the mob.
The dog looked up at me and growled. He wanted a drink, the damned alcoholic. Aaaand this is a reference to The Black Island (and a couple other stories) where Snowy gets really drunk on Scotch whisky. It’s pretty great.
"All right," I said. "But it better be important."
I couldn't die tonight. I had a column to finish. SO MUCH NOIR. I love trying to write to a tone, and I think I pulled it off okay here. It’s much more subtle than my last shot at noir, this silly Frobisher fic, though I don’t remember consciously trying for something different. Anyway, my noir tone comes completely from radio and print, which I guess is a bit weird - I haven’t seen more than one or two noir movies.
[ *]I would talk more about Tintin in America as a problematic source, but I think I would just say the same things that most people would say about Herge and racism and how you get a lot of stuff wrong even when you’re better than most of your contemporaries. But I think it is important to note that I was using the English edition of the book, which has some special issues of its own. I don’t think I would have written this if it hadn’t been so easy to stick to the much less problematic first part of the original source.
To sum up, I was exhausted and then noir. I guess? It's just one of those things that happens.
So! This is an author’s commentary. In fact, there is more commentary than fic here, hm. Anyway. This one was written on Christmas Eve, sometime between 11 and 1 in the morning. See, what happened was I didn’t get to come home from school until the 23rd of December. And then instead of being a reasonable person and hanging out with my family, I was like ‘agh, I’m sick of interacting with people and finals stress and exhaustion and agh, you know what, I’m going to write ten Yuletide Madness fics.’ And then I did. This one was written after the one about The Kingmaker and Thomas Nashe, and before the one about Journey to the West.
The prompt was basically ‘noir Tintin AU please,’ which is an awesome idea that needed to happen. I grabbed Tintin in America [ *] from a shelf and used it as a base. Because, come on, canonical gangsters. It was obvious. The title and I think) the first line of the story are both narrative lines from the original story.
The streets of Chicago aren't kind to a young European such as myself. The mobsters of Chicago are also unkind, especially to reporters who're chasing after them for a story.
It wasn't helping that I was trying to get rid of organized crime, not just cover it. I'd already taken down a couple of the bosses, but you can't just stroll in to a new town and expect to clean it up in a few days.
It'd take me a week, at least. Everybody liked this line, and I’m not sure why. I guess it’s the assurance of it? To me it just reads as typical noir arrogance.
I turned my collar up against the rain and stepped out from the awning I'd been sheltering under. My dog followed me, looking like a cross between a drowned rat and a drowned Scotsman. Something about the whiskers, and the fact that he was sopping wet. See, this is my favorite line. He glared at me, but I ignored it - we had a ways to go to our hotel, and I couldn't trust the cabbies. Weird mix of American colloquial and vague Europeaness there. Just like this entire fic, I guess.
A black car pulled up alongside me, idling along to keep pace. The window of the back seat rolled down with a squeak and I tensed, looking for the muzzle of a gun. Standard noir imagery here, but the car and the gun poking out is something that happens to Tintin A LOT, so. I think it’s interesting how well the two ideas mesh.
"My dear chap!" said a man with a bristling moustache.
The window of the driver's side rolled down.
"To be precise: Chap, my dear!" said a man with a nearly identical bristling moustache. I love writing Thomson and Thompson, so much, oh man. By the way, who's excited for the movie? Besides me, obviously. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the detectives? YES.
"Thomson and Thompson," I groaned. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"I'm Thompson, he's Thomson," said the first man. "Hurry, get in the car and we'll explain."
I didn't want to get in. For all I knew, they were still after me for that framed-up heroin bust. This is a reference to Cigars of the Pharaoh, which technically hasn’t happened yet - it’s the next adventure after Tintin in America. But being framed and drug busts are such noir things that I had to bring them in. But they'd probably keep chasing me if I didn't take their ride, and it beat walking in the rain. I opened the door and stepped in, waiting to shut the door until Snowy had hopped inside.
"I don't want any trouble," I said. I thought it was best to get that out of the way, first.
"Oh, don't you?" Thomson laughed. "You have an odd way of showing it."
"Indeed," said Thompson. "Our superiors sent us here just because of all the trouble you've been making in Chicago."
"We weren't supposed to tell him that," snapped Thomson. I had so much trouble keeping these two straight (it didn’t help that I was tired and this was the fifth story I had written that day). I think I changed the names and dialogue around about four times before I had it right.
"Oh, sorry."
"Look," I said. It was better to stop them before they fell into one of their long, confusing back-and-forths. "Why don't you just tell me everything?"
"That will take some time," said Thomson, looking over his shoulder.
Thompson leant across and smiled over the handle of his umbrella.
"Why don't we stop and talk about it over a drink?"
That was a terrible idea. I was a marked man, and there wasn't a bar in the South Side that wasn't connected to the mob.
The dog looked up at me and growled. He wanted a drink, the damned alcoholic. Aaaand this is a reference to The Black Island (and a couple other stories) where Snowy gets really drunk on Scotch whisky. It’s pretty great.
"All right," I said. "But it better be important."
I couldn't die tonight. I had a column to finish. SO MUCH NOIR. I love trying to write to a tone, and I think I pulled it off okay here. It’s much more subtle than my last shot at noir, this silly Frobisher fic, though I don’t remember consciously trying for something different. Anyway, my noir tone comes completely from radio and print, which I guess is a bit weird - I haven’t seen more than one or two noir movies.
[ *]I would talk more about Tintin in America as a problematic source, but I think I would just say the same things that most people would say about Herge and racism and how you get a lot of stuff wrong even when you’re better than most of your contemporaries. But I think it is important to note that I was using the English edition of the book, which has some special issues of its own. I don’t think I would have written this if it hadn’t been so easy to stick to the much less problematic first part of the original source.
To sum up, I was exhausted and then noir. I guess? It's just one of those things that happens.