verbosity and ficlet-bittage (due south).
Somehow I've been under the impression that I've been frequently posting entries that are absolutely dazzling in their simple brilliance and wit. I've just realized that most of these entries were posted as private - which is a good thing, really, because I am the only person who actually fully understands my sense of humor.
Yet, I'm left with this very awkward kind of LJ silence. I wouldn't feel so awkward about it had I realized before now that I could not reasonably expect people to be replying to all those private posts. (And I'm not making them unprivate. Let my genius remain a tantalizing mystery.)
I'm also left with a sense of really wanting to write fic. And oddly enough, I have been writing fic - just not posting anything. I've paid the roll-toll and stolen some really great ideas for a dS fic, but every single dS fic I start writing ends up wanting to be an epic. Is it just something about the show? Is it because Fraser is a tough cookie to crumble? I dunno. But it means that it takes forever to actually have anything to show for my thinking and plotting.
But anyway - here's a little something I had laying around. It belongs to a larger fic that no longer has a place for it. And it's really more of a writing experiment than any sort of pretense at amusement or characterization, which means omg it sucks ass. I've added a couple of lines at the end to say why I think so. Sort of a commentary thing, what have you.
Benton Fraser is not a man used to mirrors. When he thinks to, he uses them for a cursory inspection of his appearance - just enough to be sure his hair is smoothed back just-so, his uniform free of lint. Mirrors are useful, but Fraser is always caught off guard by the shape of his jaw, the flash of his own dark hair at the edge of his vision.
Fraser does not want to be forced to consider his own face; he fears he may reach unpleasant conclusions. Not about his attractiveness, or lack thereof - but about his eyes, and the feelings that lay just beyond them.
If he looked closer, he doesn’t know what he’d see. Bad enough to see what he knows are there, like the lines he is developing around his eyes with every fresh year. Fraser remembers his grandmother and the way she’d mutter half-amusedly to herself with each new wrinkle.
The thought of age feels alien to Fraser. Somehow, he has never imagined himself as an old man. He felt sure that he would fall victim to a criminal, a wild animal, or the elements by the age of sixty.
But even now, Fraser feels old. He feels... dry. Like a streambed showing the crackled and winding track of water that no longer flows.
Benton Fraser is not a man used to thinking of the future.
*
“Hey, Fraser,” Ray says, “My hair look funny to you?”
Ray will often stroll at Fraser’s side, long legs carrying him in a smooth gait across the concrete. Ray will dodge and weave and glance at his reflection in darkened, dusty shop windows. Fraser watches Ray when he does this - the sight is both amusing and highly endearing.
Sometimes Ray’s hands will hover about his head, tugging gently at his scalp, rearranging his hair and trying to find the right combination of tufts. When satisfied, he’ll jerk away from the window like a stray dog caught sniffing the trash, his head leading the way and the rest of him following after in one smooth motion. The way Ray moves is, really, somewhat incredible -
Ray is looking at him expectantly, his expression doubled by the reflection in the glass next to him.
Fraser blinks. “Is there something new about your hair, Ray?”
Ray makes a face at him. “Ha, ha, very funny. Mountie humor. You saying it always looks funny?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” says Fraser, hiding his smile.
“You’re implicating it,” says Ray. He casts another look in the distorted gray reflection, then shakes his head, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. “We gonna check out this Barkland character?”
Fraser found his gaze lingering on the line of Ray’s back, and he blinked his focus back to Ray’s face. “Err - yes. We should.”
“Yeah,” says Ray. “His business seems pretty shady. Let’s go and rattle a few cages.”
“I doubt that Mr. Barkland would appreciate us disturbing the merchandise in his store,” says Fraser.
“If the birds can’t stand the heat, they should stay out of the, uhh,” Ray pauses.
“The pet store, Ray?”
Ray snorts. “Okay, so they’re innocent bystanders. We’ll just rattle Barkland’s cage.”
“A much more amenable plan,” says Fraser.
Ray grins at him, and Fraser can feel himself reflecting it back.
...
The end! I was totally going somewhere with it at the time. I think whenever I write Fraser he ends up tons more depressed than the actual character. I have to get a handle on this latent desire to see Fraser angst. This bit of ficlet is much more fun to me when it kicks into the banter - even though, really, I suck at making banter funny. Still, I should play around more with that and less with little psychological kinks. Or at least find a way to balance them better. One thing I really like about this? How I compared RayK to a puppy. The head-before-the-rest kind of movement. Maybe that description only makes sense in my head, or maybe my own dog is a weirdo -- yet I smile whenever I think of it.
And speaking of false starts and WIPs, I'm planning a post of unfinished vid bits to somehow make up for the fact that I've not yet started on my insane vidding project. (I suck.) So in that bunch, be on the lookout for such ripe tidbits as the last fifteen seconds of a three-minute-long QAF vid, 30 seconds of Fraser/Victoria, a good minute or so of a Pleasantville vid, and much more! They're ugly and ungainly and full of empty spots, but sometimes they have their moments of cuteness. It's like, if a vid is a child, and my life is that of a character on Carnivale, then these are the aborted fetuses I keep in jars in the mysterious disappearing boxcar out back. Stay tuned.
As you can tell, I'm feeling verbose. I'm stuck in essay-mode. Wah. I should get back to that essay-writing now, actually. Right now. Yes. Going!
...I just had to stop myself from selecting "private" before hitting the post entry button. Sigh.
Yet, I'm left with this very awkward kind of LJ silence. I wouldn't feel so awkward about it had I realized before now that I could not reasonably expect people to be replying to all those private posts. (And I'm not making them unprivate. Let my genius remain a tantalizing mystery.)
I'm also left with a sense of really wanting to write fic. And oddly enough, I have been writing fic - just not posting anything. I've paid the roll-toll and stolen some really great ideas for a dS fic, but every single dS fic I start writing ends up wanting to be an epic. Is it just something about the show? Is it because Fraser is a tough cookie to crumble? I dunno. But it means that it takes forever to actually have anything to show for my thinking and plotting.
But anyway - here's a little something I had laying around. It belongs to a larger fic that no longer has a place for it. And it's really more of a writing experiment than any sort of pretense at amusement or characterization, which means omg it sucks ass. I've added a couple of lines at the end to say why I think so. Sort of a commentary thing, what have you.
Benton Fraser is not a man used to mirrors. When he thinks to, he uses them for a cursory inspection of his appearance - just enough to be sure his hair is smoothed back just-so, his uniform free of lint. Mirrors are useful, but Fraser is always caught off guard by the shape of his jaw, the flash of his own dark hair at the edge of his vision.
Fraser does not want to be forced to consider his own face; he fears he may reach unpleasant conclusions. Not about his attractiveness, or lack thereof - but about his eyes, and the feelings that lay just beyond them.
If he looked closer, he doesn’t know what he’d see. Bad enough to see what he knows are there, like the lines he is developing around his eyes with every fresh year. Fraser remembers his grandmother and the way she’d mutter half-amusedly to herself with each new wrinkle.
The thought of age feels alien to Fraser. Somehow, he has never imagined himself as an old man. He felt sure that he would fall victim to a criminal, a wild animal, or the elements by the age of sixty.
But even now, Fraser feels old. He feels... dry. Like a streambed showing the crackled and winding track of water that no longer flows.
Benton Fraser is not a man used to thinking of the future.
*
“Hey, Fraser,” Ray says, “My hair look funny to you?”
Ray will often stroll at Fraser’s side, long legs carrying him in a smooth gait across the concrete. Ray will dodge and weave and glance at his reflection in darkened, dusty shop windows. Fraser watches Ray when he does this - the sight is both amusing and highly endearing.
Sometimes Ray’s hands will hover about his head, tugging gently at his scalp, rearranging his hair and trying to find the right combination of tufts. When satisfied, he’ll jerk away from the window like a stray dog caught sniffing the trash, his head leading the way and the rest of him following after in one smooth motion. The way Ray moves is, really, somewhat incredible -
Ray is looking at him expectantly, his expression doubled by the reflection in the glass next to him.
Fraser blinks. “Is there something new about your hair, Ray?”
Ray makes a face at him. “Ha, ha, very funny. Mountie humor. You saying it always looks funny?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” says Fraser, hiding his smile.
“You’re implicating it,” says Ray. He casts another look in the distorted gray reflection, then shakes his head, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. “We gonna check out this Barkland character?”
Fraser found his gaze lingering on the line of Ray’s back, and he blinked his focus back to Ray’s face. “Err - yes. We should.”
“Yeah,” says Ray. “His business seems pretty shady. Let’s go and rattle a few cages.”
“I doubt that Mr. Barkland would appreciate us disturbing the merchandise in his store,” says Fraser.
“If the birds can’t stand the heat, they should stay out of the, uhh,” Ray pauses.
“The pet store, Ray?”
Ray snorts. “Okay, so they’re innocent bystanders. We’ll just rattle Barkland’s cage.”
“A much more amenable plan,” says Fraser.
Ray grins at him, and Fraser can feel himself reflecting it back.
...
The end! I was totally going somewhere with it at the time. I think whenever I write Fraser he ends up tons more depressed than the actual character. I have to get a handle on this latent desire to see Fraser angst. This bit of ficlet is much more fun to me when it kicks into the banter - even though, really, I suck at making banter funny. Still, I should play around more with that and less with little psychological kinks. Or at least find a way to balance them better. One thing I really like about this? How I compared RayK to a puppy. The head-before-the-rest kind of movement. Maybe that description only makes sense in my head, or maybe my own dog is a weirdo -- yet I smile whenever I think of it.
And speaking of false starts and WIPs, I'm planning a post of unfinished vid bits to somehow make up for the fact that I've not yet started on my insane vidding project. (I suck.) So in that bunch, be on the lookout for such ripe tidbits as the last fifteen seconds of a three-minute-long QAF vid, 30 seconds of Fraser/Victoria, a good minute or so of a Pleasantville vid, and much more! They're ugly and ungainly and full of empty spots, but sometimes they have their moments of cuteness. It's like, if a vid is a child, and my life is that of a character on Carnivale, then these are the aborted fetuses I keep in jars in the mysterious disappearing boxcar out back. Stay tuned.
As you can tell, I'm feeling verbose. I'm stuck in essay-mode. Wah. I should get back to that essay-writing now, actually. Right now. Yes. Going!
...I just had to stop myself from selecting "private" before hitting the post entry button. Sigh.