due South : prompt # 325 "awkward" : Fanfic : What Each One Wants

[ride_4ever]

Title : What Each One Wants
Fandom : due South
Pairing : Metcalf/Kowalski ; implied Fraser/Kowalski
Characters : Ray Kowalski, Victoria Metcalf, Diefenbaker
Rating : Mature Audiences
Word Count : 200

Author Notes : This double-drabble ficlet is in the poetic form of a tanka : five-line stanzas where the first and third lines are each five syllables and

Comments

[bghost]

You are... brilliant! Dief to the rescue!

And... a lot of people probably don't even know what a tanka is, let alone how difficult it is. You get the poetic metre of it, but don't labour the point by (for example) forcing rhyme on it. (A rookie mistake!) It reads like a story, and it reads like Victoria... and it reads like a short story, while still having that beat. Really, really well done.

And what is it about us having the same phrases in our fanfic??? Seriously, I'm beginning to get scared!

[ride_4ever]

*does happy dance of tanka-difficulty being appreciated*

My brain nearly 'sploded when my first draft was 199 words and my second draft was 201 words for this challenge that had to be EXACTLY 100 or EXACTLY a multiple of 100! I'm thrilled at your expression of knowing what was involved and of telling me that I accomplished my goal of making it a "short story with a beat" and without the "rookie over-rhyming".

And that psychic thing you and I keep doing in our fanfics? Two-thirds of "Eastwick," srsly!

[bghost]

I know... now I'm going to have to watch the thing, just so I can figure out which of those three very lucky women I am!

[ride_4ever]

Well, there's no doubt that for me it's the brunette, spectacled, childless journalist with the telekinetic and hypnotic abilities : Joanna Frankel.

You would be either the blonde Roxanne "Roxie" Torcoletti or the redhead Katherine "Kat" Gardener. Roxie is a sculptress and the mother of one daughter, and she has abilities of telepathy and clairvoyance. Kat is a hospital nurse and the mother of five children, and she has the ability of manipulating the elements and the ability of healings.

[bghost]

From a technical point of view I particularly like,
"she wanted
complete control, she wanted
Fraser both body and soul."

Not just because of the shared phrase, though it's still freaky... but actually because of the fact that the rhyme is so carefully just off kilter. It's there, but it's not in your face... when you read it out loud there's an off beat pulse, like a triple crochet in a four square march, or a grace note in an Irish jig. Most people try to put rhymes on the straight beat, and while it can work out it doesn't always. It's nice to see such a subtle touch... I mean nice in its original sense of "precise, accurate"... and it's pleasing for that reason.

[ride_4ever]

So gratifying to have it completely understood! I wanted it to "dance off kilter" to evoke just that kind of feeling about Victoria. And I <3 your sense of the "original meanings" of words (you and I -- and Fraser --have that kind of consciousness about language); frequently when I use a word in its original sense, I find myself qualifying it to the listener by saying "and I mean that in its original sense".

[bghost]

Ha! That makes me laugh. I was just writing a fic, where Fraser thinks that he's becoming pathetic, and he means it in "both the literal and vernacular senses, and finds that he likes neither."

I have been accused of speaking like an eighteenth century novel. I think that's taking it a bit far... but I accept the compliment.

[ride_4ever]

I've received similar comments (and oddly, I've also been told that I sound like I'm "from the East" -- meaning Eastern United States -- although I'm a born and bred Midwesterner, Chicago).

[kuonji14]

Oh. Wow. Am completely and utterly boggled by this. Technically brilliant and with a super-interesting plot, even! Love it!

[ride_4ever]

*izz delighted to have boggled you*

And TYK for expressing appreciation of what I was trying to do with technique and story-telling!

[asharo_slash]

Aww.....it was brilliant!! I really love it!
I always loved Dief and Ray together, they're so lovely!! <3

[ride_4ever]

So glad you read and you loved! *goes to send you a PM with another pic of Dief and Ray together*

[asharo_slash]

Aww, My fav Dief and Ray scene is the one that is on your profile pic and when they're re-watch the baseball game at end of Dr. Longball! They're so sweet together!!! *-*