Fandom Underdog Day Part the Second

[tiamatschild]

Title: Mirror Image
Word Count: 250
Fandom: Sandman / 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Characters: Despair, Nemo, Aronnax
Summary: Nemo is all too well acquainted with the Lady Despair

Comments

[rainbowjehan]

*hides* Oh.

It's perfect. It's Him, perfectly Him, and it's so cold, and angry--except the parts with Aronnax, which are painfully not, painfully sweet and open and pearly-grey in between the dark parts--and despair (despairing isn't the write word, not with the 'ing', because that changes the sound of the word, and it's absolutely despair, alone). It hurts awfully.

But it's perfect.

[tiamatschild]

*cuddles you* Oh, thank you, honey. I'm so glad it works. And, gah, A. He's that person who opens you up when all you want is to Stay Shut.

I'm awfully tempted to let Despair join the fun over at DF. She spends too much time with no one but her mirrors.

[rainbowjehan]

He is! That's precisely what he does. It's very awful sometimes, and sometimes wonderful.

Ooo. I shan't dissuade you.

[tiamatschild]

*nodnod* And either way, Nemo's not quite sure what to do with it.

Ack! I have six already, I don't need to be Despair's lifeline too...!

...I'm going to do it at some point, aren't I?

[rainbowjehan]

*laughs a little* That's certainly true.

Have got eight. No sympathy at all.

Prolly.

[tiamatschild]

EVUL! *G*

Ah, well. I do have introduce one of them first. And gee, is Harbert far, far more naive and childlike than most of the people younger than him, or is it me?

[rainbowjehan]

And proud to be, sir.

Do you? Oh, do! Verne rather made him that way, too, though. He is a beautiful beloved child.

[tiamatschild]

I know, I know. She's... considering. :) Oh, I know! It just seems so terribly obvious when you put him next to Ron and Hermione. Somehow it's easy to forget when it's just him and his family on the Island.

[rainbowjehan]

Oh, no! What's been going on with Ron and Hermione?

[tiamatschild]

Oh, nothing! Other than fights about them napping together and how the adults need quit raising eyebrows about it. But... they're just so much more grown up.

[rainbowjehan]

Oh, oh, I see. But they are. And Harbert's older than they are, isn't he? In a way, it wasn't very kind of Verne, and at the same time, it makes him so much more special.

[tiamatschild]

He is. By two years. And I think it must have something to do with him being on that island for three years without other children - it's really other children that force us to grow up in those ways. We think we're fooling the adults, fooling each other, but we're not. And Harbert was probably isolated even before the Island. With everyone looking after him, and thinking of him as their brave boy, well... He's never going to be normal.

I do think in some ways he's far more adult than Ron or Hermione. He knows things about forgiveness and survival and love and hope they don't know yet. And sometimes it's hard to tell whether his behavior is naive or wise.

[rainbowjehan]

Of course, you're entirely right. I think Harbert was a lot like I wrote him in Orbus, egotistical as that is, with not speaking much to other children; and of course he is everyone's brave boy, just as you've said, and it lets him be purer than he might have been, I think.

That's quite true, too. I think--I think he is probably more wise than naive. It isn't that he doesn't know things--it's that he knows all different things.

[tiamatschild]

Not egotistical at all. Really, that story reads an awful lot like sense to me. Harbert is a geek's geek, and geeky children don't get a lot of contact with other kids. And part of it is that he just doesn't get why some things are bad. He's everybody's brave boy when he chatters about science, and when he's snuggly and affectionate, and when he just Doesn't Get what's going on, and when he worries, or makes mistakes... So, you know, he doesn't have a lot of the issues that most eighteen year olds have - he hasn't been rejected in a very long time, and he's never tried to navigate that whole adolescent 'cool' thing. He isn't trying to present an image because he doesn't have to. He's unconditionally loved by his entire society - social roles and masks are hard for him. The best he can manage is a very sincere politeness. I think that's part of why he feels so young - that and he's a geek. There's often something childlike about geeks.

Yes. *nods* All different things.

[rainbowjehan]

Thank you. ^^;; But you're entirely right. I think that's part of the reason I'm so glad you're playing him--you know him, you know all about him, and he's safe with you because you play him right. I'm always quietly dismayed if someone takes a character whom he or she doesn't know, because then the character isn't safe, and it's worrying. You understand Harbert perfectly, though, and you think about him, too, and reason him, and it makes me understand him better. It's very wonderful.

Geeks are childlike. ^_^