Comments | pocky_slash: fic - tww - sam/will

pocky_slash

fic - tww - sam/will - to fall just a little bit

Mar 24, 2007 03:07

My Sam/Will stories are usually so optimistic. You'd never know I'm secretly a pessimist.

This was originally supposed to be a drabble. It spiraled out of control. I hate it when that happens. It's unbetaed at the moment because... it's five o'clock in the morning. Glanced over by quackerscooper, and with thanks to leiascully for tweaking the landscape ( Read more... )

sam/will, fic: tww, fic: iowa, tww

Comments 18

leiascully March 24 2007, 14:42:27 UTC

Oh, you got it. Of course you did. But then I think that the longer you live in Iowa, the less flat it seems. It rolls along and rolls you along with it. Excellent. Now I want to watch TWW.

pocky_slash March 24 2007, 20:22:44 UTC

Oh, wonderful! I'm glad this makes sense to someone who's actually lived in Iowa. I don't know how many (if any) of my journal entries you read this summer, but the midwest, while breathtaking at times, is really far out of my comfort zone and I kind of wanted that to come through in Sam so... yes.

I'm glad you liked it!

leiascully March 24 2007, 20:48:42 UTC

It makes sense, all except the bit about it being vastly flat. Sam would come to understand the rolling. It's an excellent fic, really.

I did read your journal. And I understand completely. The Midwest is sometimes out of my comfort zone as well. Dar's song wraps it up, except for the part where there's so much damn sky.

pocky_slash March 24 2007, 20:58:28 UTC

Yeah, I did some minor tweaking, added a couple lines to try and convey the rolling-ness of it. Replaced "flat" with "empty" because it's not that everything is empty--there are a million contrasting colors and textures that compliment that endless sky--but when you spend your whole life around buildings and highways and strip malls it just feels empty.

Thread 5

catwalksalone March 24 2007, 23:29:08 UTC

Lovely. I really like the way you write Sam, because I can completely see that in him. His inability to surpass those early days and his inability to work out what comes next. And Will, quietly finding his way. I felt it all. Beautiful.

pocky_slash March 25 2007, 01:25:54 UTC

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

scrollgirl March 24 2007, 23:46:29 UTC

Okay, first off? OMG Sam/Will fic!! Second, holy crap this is amazing. I love it. It's bleak, but only when you first read it. It starts off so depressing, this brilliant man who had so much potential, washed up at age 47. This is NOT a comfortable beginning. And I love it. I love that, from the outside, Sam looks like he's got it made, but he's NOT happy because he's failed in all the ways that are truly important to him.

When Danny recites the number, Sam scribbles it on the back of the first rolodex card he can reach. It's Mallory O'Brien's and he finds that strangely ironic.
I love how you invoke all these friends who were once so important to Sam right in the first two sections, and show how everybody has drifted apart. The rolodex strikes me as such a business thing, not personal, but it's still a way to connect. It's so interesting and I'm glad you brought it up again at the end.

"The number I had was disconnected. I wanted to yell at you." // "Oh," Will says. The pause stretches out into infinity, or so it seems. "Are you ( ... )

pocky_slash March 25 2007, 01:47:35 UTC

As usual, I'm pleased as punch because I feel like you got all of the underlying things I tried to pour into this XD

This is NOT a comfortable beginning. And I love it.
I can't see Sam being happy in law after Bartlet. I don't think he could stomach it, so I threw in that line about the fourth firm in the third city (two in NY, one in LA, and now one in Chicago).

The rolodex strikes me as such a business thing, not personal
OH YES EXACTLY. I specified "rolodex" and "cellphone" because I wanted to make it clear that Sam's reached the point where these guys aren't even in his cellphone phonebook anymore. He needs to actually look up their numbers to talk to them. In the expanded universe in my head, CJ and Danny send him a Christmas card each year with a picture of their kids, so he usually sends one back (although it doesn't get there until around March), but that's the extent of it.

I love the "beautiful" vs "bleak" because it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it.I wrote this story for two reasons: 1. I wanted to write something ( ... )

out_there March 26 2007, 01:18:49 UTC

Oh, this was beautiful. Utterly beautiful. I love the strong imagery through it, the way the piece is so *grounded* in the landscape.

"...It's failure and loneliness, but it's not the end. I think Iowa happens to people who need to be reminded that failure isn't the end."

I think that's something that Sam certainly needs to hear -- honestly, most of the WW group could do with remembering that lesson, but Sam especially -- and the whole story built to it so smoothly, so easily, that I barely noticed.

pocky_slash March 26 2007, 02:56:38 UTC

I'm glad that the story came across as sort of gradual - definitely what I was going for. And thank you so much for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed it :D

rhia_starsong April 5 2007, 02:40:19 UTC

Ok. So I wanted to cry at first, and I almost wasn't in the mood for sad fic. But then I gathered my courage (and love for these men), and read this piece twice before I felt like I had anything at all useful to say. (I'm still not sure about the usefulness of this, but whatever.)

I think the best part is Sam and Will on the Ferris wheel together, Sam kissing powdered sugar off Will's mouth, or possibly that Will has a cat who will curl up with Sam. These are all the things he's needed for so long, plus someone to believe that he doesn't have to be the stunningly successful one. That hit a very raw chord with me right now; your line about Iowa being a place where it's ok to fail. Just, this is marvellous.

pocky_slash April 6 2007, 04:36:13 UTC

Oh wow, thank you so much for this comment! It seriously made my day when I saw it. (I've been having a pretty shitty week, so any day-making is highly encouraged around these parts XD)

These are all the things he's needed for so long, plus someone to believe that he doesn't have to be the stunningly successful one

That's definitely what I was going for. Sam was really set up to have this incredibly bright future in the first few seasons of the show, and having him end up where he does in S7 just... makes me so sad. And I would imagine it would make him that sad as well.

Again, thank you for taking the time to comment. I'm glad you liked it :D

rhia_starsong April 9 2007, 18:03:55 UTC

Yeah, I tend to ignore anything after season four as canon; Sorkin was clearly setting up something a lot different, and so I disregard the deus ex machina ending.