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the mood actually applies
You know how like, you have an assignment, and it's not a terrible assignment, and you just gotta sit your ass down at the toilet of academia and churn that shit out. (Procrastinating: it is like constipation?) But you don't. 'Cos your work ethic is not being helped by the fact that spring break has started, and instead of spending the past two days working seriously on this thing, you spend it, uh, not working on it. Also, your computer dies on you.
Seriously, I have the worst luck with computers. I got a Durabook this time around, which is supposed to be kitted out for soldiers going into combat. It's supposed to be water-proof, drop-proof, sandstorm-proof or whatever, and I swear I've been treating this baby nicer than I've treated all my past girlfriends (computer girlfriends), and it's STILL insisting we go out on more dates and that I don't listen enough. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME.
Okay, more from the rambling meme, and then it's the toilet of academia for me, I swear.
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mumblemutter:
Peter/Susan
Oh man, it's all this fic's fault really. That fic is awesome for two reasons: introduction to Peter/Susan and introduction to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
1sentence. 1sentence is so great, because the next time I want to explore a ship but don't have the wherewithal to write a proper fic about them, I'll just grab their prompt table. I thought I was gonna be all about the boys when I first came to Narnia fandom. Caspian/Peter/Edmund, 'cos seriously, watch PC and I dare you to tell me which of them you'd rather fight hypothermia in an ice cave with, I DARE YOU. Impossible choice. (All of the above!) Narnia is the fandom that reminded me there's more to fic than slash, and also to write about girls being awesome (OH PROBLEM OF SUSAN). Thanks, Narnia fandom. Thanks, Susan and Jadis.
With Peter being oldest brother and High King, he probably has an “I must protect and lead everyone” complex, and Susan is the one who reacts best to that, because she likes structure. They’re both burdened by responsibility, by being older siblings, by being High fucking King, by being the most beautiful queen ever, by making it their duty to keep everyone in line (which means something different to each of them post-PC). I don’t OTP ‘cos I want a ship to be a happy ship, necessarily. I don’t care as long as it’s something I can sink my teeth into, whether it’s shippy or just friendshippy or even antagonistshippy. It’s not about saying, “She is my girlfriend,” but more about saying, “She is always in my head, for better or worse.” I mean, not that I think Peter and Susan obsess over each other. I think they were both each other's shoulders to lean on, but post-Narnia they have the grace and level-headedness to grow apart, which kills me in that good way.
Fromanimus_wyrmis:
Susan/Jadis
Weird. I’ve recced Susan/Jadis, but I’ve never written it. It’s a pretty interesting concept. You got the “Jadis recruits Susan and together they fight the patriarchal hegemony” angle going on. Kind of like fanon Nimueh/Morgana? And Jadis likes Susan’s diligence and her anger and her ability to bend and not break. Also, the Witch always had a weakness for pretty things, and Susan’s skin is smooth and warm, her lips soft, and her laughter like bells (but there is a certain distance and a spark of intelligence in the eyes that reminds her of Edmund), and so anyway, she advertises her cause to Susan as one of liberation or something, and doesn’t tell Susan everything, ‘cos Jadis is tricky like that.
Um THANKS, WYRM, ‘cos now I just wanna write a long plotty fic about Jadis luring Susan away (will Susan be kept using magic, or will that not be necessary??) and Peter is freaking out, but also feeling betrayed and discombobulated. Plus, as High King he has a million other things to worry about, so Edmund says to him, “Chill, I got it.” If there’s anyone who knows how to take down the Witch, it’s Edmund. (Or so he likes everyone to think, but we all know what happened in Calormen.) MEANWHILE, there is sink-your-teeth-into-it Susan/Jadis subtext, with all sorts of sexy magic and mindfuckery. And then, at some point, there would be Susan/Jadis/Edmund. At some point, Jadis would laugh and say, “Your sister needs no rescuing, Edmund.” At some point, Susan would give him a look - maybe amused, maybe pitying, maybe resigned - and say, “I don’t need to be rescued, Edmund.”
Wow, this sounds like the Calormen fic with Edmund and Susan’s roles reversed.
From a bunch of people, which I'm going to consolidate under:
crack
It’s really like a game, or a challenge. Some people play basketball, I think about the various repercussions of Bradley James being beamed up to Camelot. There’s a quote that says (I forget the exact wording): the best genre fiction shifts just one small element of our world, then follows up thoroughly on the consequences. Which is a pretty good description of how I approach crack. So basically I approach crack the way one approaches an AU? I would solve “What if Camelot were attacked by zombies?” and “What if Merlin were the prince and Arthur the manservant?” using similar methods. The voice in my head becomes Tim Gunn telling me to make it work. And how do you resist Tim Gunn? You don’t, that’s what.
To get srs bsns about crack (oh lordy), I think the best crack takes a lot of things srsly. It takes them as given, so it focuses on ‘what next?’ instead of ‘how’ and ‘why’. It kind of reminds me of the attitude of the long-suffering, intelligent servant who looks upon his master’s excesses with an air of, “Okay, that may be so, but who’s going to clean the chicken shit off the piano?” I think if I had also focused on how and why Bradley ended up in Camelot, it would’ve been a poorer story, y’know? It’s kind of like putting on make-up: you go for dramatic eyes, or you go for dramatic lips, but you can’t go for both lest you wanna end up looking fugs.
commentfic
Commentfic is my favorite game! All ya’ll should play it with me at some point, I’m serious. ALL YA’LL. I love these collaborative games: acting improv, musical jams, or conversations getting carried away on a sea of hypotheticals. Like, “What if Uther got turned into a cow? Oh my gosh, then XYZ would happen, which means that ABC would happen too, and can you imagine what that would do to PQR?!” And suddenly, before you know it, you have enough hypotheticals to have a srs (sometimes) story. Round-robins, one-word story, the oracle, etc: these are the games that I love because I do not love the games that are about winning and losing. ‘Cos I hate losing! And god, it’s just so satisfying to dash off commentfic in the heat of the moment – ‘cos it’s all about the heat of the moment! - and you don’t have to worry about things like backstory, phrasing, or describing the setting (unless you want to). You just go straight to the heart of it and bang it on the knee, no bullshit. Commentfic often starts as description of a story that I want, but then: you know how Neil Gaiman wrote that the best way to describe a story is to tell it? Yeah, then that happens.
Seriously, I have the worst luck with computers. I got a Durabook this time around, which is supposed to be kitted out for soldiers going into combat. It's supposed to be water-proof, drop-proof, sandstorm-proof or whatever, and I swear I've been treating this baby nicer than I've treated all my past girlfriends (computer girlfriends), and it's STILL insisting we go out on more dates and that I don't listen enough. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME.
Okay, more from the rambling meme, and then it's the toilet of academia for me, I swear.
From
mumblemutter: Peter/Susan
Oh man, it's all this fic's fault really. That fic is awesome for two reasons: introduction to Peter/Susan and introduction to
1sentence. 1sentence is so great, because the next time I want to explore a ship but don't have the wherewithal to write a proper fic about them, I'll just grab their prompt table. I thought I was gonna be all about the boys when I first came to Narnia fandom. Caspian/Peter/Edmund, 'cos seriously, watch PC and I dare you to tell me which of them you'd rather fight hypothermia in an ice cave with, I DARE YOU. Impossible choice. (All of the above!) Narnia is the fandom that reminded me there's more to fic than slash, and also to write about girls being awesome (OH PROBLEM OF SUSAN). Thanks, Narnia fandom. Thanks, Susan and Jadis. With Peter being oldest brother and High King, he probably has an “I must protect and lead everyone” complex, and Susan is the one who reacts best to that, because she likes structure. They’re both burdened by responsibility, by being older siblings, by being High fucking King, by being the most beautiful queen ever, by making it their duty to keep everyone in line (which means something different to each of them post-PC). I don’t OTP ‘cos I want a ship to be a happy ship, necessarily. I don’t care as long as it’s something I can sink my teeth into, whether it’s shippy or just friendshippy or even antagonistshippy. It’s not about saying, “She is my girlfriend,” but more about saying, “She is always in my head, for better or worse.” I mean, not that I think Peter and Susan obsess over each other. I think they were both each other's shoulders to lean on, but post-Narnia they have the grace and level-headedness to grow apart, which kills me in that good way.
From
animus_wyrmis: Susan/Jadis
Weird. I’ve recced Susan/Jadis, but I’ve never written it. It’s a pretty interesting concept. You got the “Jadis recruits Susan and together they fight the patriarchal hegemony” angle going on. Kind of like fanon Nimueh/Morgana? And Jadis likes Susan’s diligence and her anger and her ability to bend and not break. Also, the Witch always had a weakness for pretty things, and Susan’s skin is smooth and warm, her lips soft, and her laughter like bells (but there is a certain distance and a spark of intelligence in the eyes that reminds her of Edmund), and so anyway, she advertises her cause to Susan as one of liberation or something, and doesn’t tell Susan everything, ‘cos Jadis is tricky like that.
Um THANKS, WYRM, ‘cos now I just wanna write a long plotty fic about Jadis luring Susan away (will Susan be kept using magic, or will that not be necessary??) and Peter is freaking out, but also feeling betrayed and discombobulated. Plus, as High King he has a million other things to worry about, so Edmund says to him, “Chill, I got it.” If there’s anyone who knows how to take down the Witch, it’s Edmund. (Or so he likes everyone to think, but we all know what happened in Calormen.) MEANWHILE, there is sink-your-teeth-into-it Susan/Jadis subtext, with all sorts of sexy magic and mindfuckery. And then, at some point, there would be Susan/Jadis/Edmund. At some point, Jadis would laugh and say, “Your sister needs no rescuing, Edmund.” At some point, Susan would give him a look - maybe amused, maybe pitying, maybe resigned - and say, “I don’t need to be rescued, Edmund.”
Wow, this sounds like the Calormen fic with Edmund and Susan’s roles reversed.
From a bunch of people, which I'm going to consolidate under:
crack
It’s really like a game, or a challenge. Some people play basketball, I think about the various repercussions of Bradley James being beamed up to Camelot. There’s a quote that says (I forget the exact wording): the best genre fiction shifts just one small element of our world, then follows up thoroughly on the consequences. Which is a pretty good description of how I approach crack. So basically I approach crack the way one approaches an AU? I would solve “What if Camelot were attacked by zombies?” and “What if Merlin were the prince and Arthur the manservant?” using similar methods. The voice in my head becomes Tim Gunn telling me to make it work. And how do you resist Tim Gunn? You don’t, that’s what.
To get srs bsns about crack (oh lordy), I think the best crack takes a lot of things srsly. It takes them as given, so it focuses on ‘what next?’ instead of ‘how’ and ‘why’. It kind of reminds me of the attitude of the long-suffering, intelligent servant who looks upon his master’s excesses with an air of, “Okay, that may be so, but who’s going to clean the chicken shit off the piano?” I think if I had also focused on how and why Bradley ended up in Camelot, it would’ve been a poorer story, y’know? It’s kind of like putting on make-up: you go for dramatic eyes, or you go for dramatic lips, but you can’t go for both lest you wanna end up looking fugs.
commentfic
Commentfic is my favorite game! All ya’ll should play it with me at some point, I’m serious. ALL YA’LL. I love these collaborative games: acting improv, musical jams, or conversations getting carried away on a sea of hypotheticals. Like, “What if Uther got turned into a cow? Oh my gosh, then XYZ would happen, which means that ABC would happen too, and can you imagine what that would do to PQR?!” And suddenly, before you know it, you have enough hypotheticals to have a srs (sometimes) story. Round-robins, one-word story, the oracle, etc: these are the games that I love because I do not love the games that are about winning and losing. ‘Cos I hate losing! And god, it’s just so satisfying to dash off commentfic in the heat of the moment – ‘cos it’s all about the heat of the moment! - and you don’t have to worry about things like backstory, phrasing, or describing the setting (unless you want to). You just go straight to the heart of it and bang it on the knee, no bullshit. Commentfic often starts as description of a story that I want, but then: you know how Neil Gaiman wrote that the best way to describe a story is to tell it? Yeah, then that happens.