schmevil

I found some old fic that I forgot to archive at martianhouse, and some things that I never got around to posting at all. Here now, for your reading pleasure:

These two are from my 'OMG guys, you know what's funny? Death Eaters!' phase.

Happy F***ing Christmas
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: The Death Eaters take issue with holiday cheer, and have a jolly good time of it.
Character(s): Bellatrix/Rudolpho Lestrange, the Bones'
Word Count: 968
Warnings: torture
Notes: Companion to Flammiferum Acanthus (The Flaming Christmas Tree). (Written pre OotP).

Fire
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: The Ministry is hell!
Character(s): Snape, Wilkes, Rosier
Word Count: 883
Notes: Companion to Flammiferum Acanthus (The Flaming Christmas Tree). (Written pre OotP).

From back when there were two Blaise mysteries: is Blaise a boy or a girl, and who the hell is that Blaise guy?

The Great Blaise Mystery
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: See title.
Character(s): Blaise
Word Count: 146

Bootstrap
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Summary: Bootstrap gets bootstrapped, right over the side of the Black Pearl.
Character(s): Bill Turner
Word Count: 469
Notes: Pre Dead Man's Chest

Oral Fixation
Fandom: Smallville
Summary: Lex has one.
Character(s): Lex, Clark
Word Count: 100

Chimera
Title: Chimera
Fandom: Smallville
Summary: Lex is a meteor mutant. His body adapts. (Also, there's aliens).
Character(s):
Word Count: 1727
Notes: Companion piece to Humming

Humming
Fandom: Smallville
Summary: When they’ve tried and tried, and all failed, then they will need him. (Lex waits for rescue).
Character(s): Lex
Word Count: 1084
Notes: Companion piece to Chimera.

So I decided to post some of my old unfinished fic, including baby's first fanfic.

Yeah. It's pretty bad. Like most people, when I wrote my first fic I didn't think I needed a beta reader, or to obey the laws of grammar, spelling, good taste or physics. I was also basically writing fanfic of fanfic - commenting on stuff that other people were putting out at the time and not nearly so much on the source text. The story in question actually has some tenuous links to Harry Potter but reading it now, it's obviously so much more about Snape and Slytherin-centric fic circa Goblet of Fire.

Snape is sexed up and there's a creepy teacher-student relationship developing, though in this case, Snape is the student. My intention was to make the relationship (never to be consumated) part cute, part creepy. There's a lot of sex going on in this story, but not much of it happens on screen. It seemed to be the thing back then to have Slytherin be a den of iniquity - is this still popular in fic? I don't read much fic anymore, much less HP fic.

The Slytherin kids are reeeally concerned with their reputations. They're massively pretentious, though they don't really know what they're talking about - randomly name-dropping artists and writers and getting it wrong. The writer also got it wrong a lot of the time. ;-)

Anyway, for your reading displeasure: Arithmancy and Flowers.

And from a year or so later, two other never finished fics.

Title: Kidnapped
Fandom: Smallville
Characters: Jonathan, Martha, Nell, Lex
Summary: When young Alexander Luthor is kidnapped, it's up to FBI agent Jonathan Kent to find him before it's too late.

Title: Holes - Discourse
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: The consequences of changing sides.
Characters: Draco, Bellatrix

... and thus we present 3wordficreviews. Come play in our new sandbox. Come on, you know you want to.


Happy birthday cedarlibrarian. Pamper yourself, dammit. Because your status partner says so.


Randomly, did you know there's a Cthullu plushie puppet? And a Summer Fun Cthullu plushie? And a Halloween Cthullu plushie?


Re Smallville - Velocity: I've watched the scene millions of times and there is NO reason for the car to crash and explode in that way. None. It's utterly and completely insane. Much like... the show in general. Also, the Oasis - Wonderwall cover in the credits? Horrible. *stabs* It's all about the Cat Power version.


Thank you drive through.

1. I haven't been able to sign into my yahoo account in days, so if anyone's sent me a message and I haven't responded, I do apologize, but you can reach me at mhc_black at myway.com.

2. My HD ate Arithmancy and Flowers. icarusancalion was able to provide me a copy up to the "Fools and Gryffindors" interlude but there are several chapters after that. Does anyone know of a full copy floating around? I do have parts of the later chapters and interludes on hand, but not the full text.

3. Anyone interested in co-writing a Smallville fic with me? I'd like to try co-writing, as an exercise, if nothing else, and I have a number of ideas that I'm getting nowhere with on my own. *wheedles*

4. What do you think of story notes? If I were to write about my own stories - why I chose to explore certain themes, employed particular devices, characterized thusly - would you be interested? Would you in turn write about your stories in the same way?

Lana has always had special knowledge of Lex. She has seen him - knows him - in a way that none of the other teenagers can. Their first onscreen interactions are shadowed by that earlier encounter, the sexual nature of which informs their relationship. Lana sees Lex as a sexual being, before anything else. Likewise, Lex learns of Lana as an object of male desire, before anything else. When they finally exchange words, they're already sexually aware of each other. I don't think it's a coincidence that Kreuk's performance is often more sexually charged when she is working with Rosenbaum, even when the script doesn't explicitly call for it. The nature of their relationship, at it's most basic does. Their relationship is sexually charge in a way that none of the others on the show really is - awareness without desire; awareness with affinity.

Someone said a while back that the conflation of symbolic Lex and Lana moments acts to queer or feminize Lex, but I would argue that as much as it queers Lex, it does the same for Lana. It does nothing more than draw the two characters together, sexually, morally, iconically and psychologically. Every time the writers contrast the characters, they validate a comparison - they underline the similarities, simply through the effort it takes to point out their differences. Alternately, look at how easily the space between Chloe and Lana is demarcated by the dialogue, script, performances and the mythologies informing the two - there's an obvious and natural gap between them, evident in everything from the way they talk and dress, to the way they act and think. Lana and Chloe occupy very different spaces. Lana and Lex occupy similar spaces.

Both had sheltered childhoods marked by tragedy and scandal. Both are extremely passionate but have been educated to control - supress - that passion. Strong emotion is generally a source or sign of danger for both of them. Romantic attachments tend not to work out very well, and friendships are complicated by envy, deception and a certain lack of understanding. Both are driven by fear and a profound need to impose control, and are limited by their social positions. Both have a profound need to know. More than Chloe's quest for the truth, Lex and Lana need simply know and see everything and everyone around them, to feel safe. Both want to be saved, but doubt they can be. Both are beginning to see Clark's limitations as a hero, and learning that ultimately they only have themselves to rely on. Both are resisting this knowledge.

Circa Zero, Lana is hesitent about trusting Lex. "How much do we know about him?" But she overcomes this easily enough - it never becomes a major factor in their relationship. She forgives 'betrayals' easily and their relationship always seems to return quickly to its starting point: Lex challenging Lana, Lana fighting back. When the Talon is in trouble and Lex suggests playing dirty, Lana does it. She just does it. It's only after that she expresses doubt to Clark. She's not sure she's done the right thing, and she won't do it again. But she does. If Lex suggests Lana take a morally questionable route to her goals, she'll take it. By the third season, she's initiating the transgression.

Both Lex and Lana turn to Clark for moral guidance and their transgressions are positioned as being against Clark, just as they are against Clark's morality. In Perry, Lana turns to Lex for help, because Clark is 'with him'. With Perry White, who forces her to remember the death of her parents, just as she was finally starting to put it behind her, with Clark as the new center of her life. Lana has a very particular picture of who she wants to be and Perry is in her way. She doesn't treat Perry as a human, he's an obstacle to bypassed, an insect to swat. Similarly, Lex, who desperately wants to convince himself that his father is worth caring for and that Lex himself is not a potential patricide, simply pushes Perry out of town.

Perry threatens Lex and Lana's construction of their identities. Clark's connection to Perry makes Clark too, a threat. Perry represents the truth abused. Lex and Lana abuse the truth further, without thought. They will be what they believe themselves to be, what they want to be and what they believe they want themselves to be, no matter the moral cost. Clark's connection to Perry is a betrayal that had potentially explosive consequences - only his get out of jail free card, in the form of his obligation to Perry, mitigated the betrayal for Lex and Lana. There was, however, still a sense that despite the obligation, Clark should have told Perry to shove off, or possibly help the two of them get rid of him. Clark should aid in their self-deception and self-construction. Clark is good when he does this, and when he protects them. When Clark challenges them, Clark is a son of a bitch.

Lex and Lana both want to have the kind of morals that Clark espouses, but they're more inclined to see the world in terms of threats to be eliminated. They constantly seek protection, try to ingratiate themselves to everyone around them, make themselves indispensible and are always ready to do whatever it takes to keep their worlds safe. Whatever is dear to them must be protected at all costs.

Like Clark's connection to Perry, his connection to Chloe is potentially a threat to them both. Not only because she takes Clark away from them both, in terms of time, but because she takes Clark away from them in terms of morality. She reminds Clark how important the literal, rather than emotional truth is. Clark and Chloe, and Lex and Lana, are on two sides of a moral dialog that underwrites the series.

Hmm. More ramble later.

Swear to god there’s some interesting stuff in there, but if you don’t want to go through it all, scroll past the cut.

( Jenn and MHC on muses, SV fandom, Themes, ourselves and leprechauns )

This got me thinking. Eventually I came up with the below:

MHC’s Fic Philosophy

Carry nothing from one fic to the next, except for lessons about yourself.

Approach canon, and your characters freshly, every time you attempt to interpret them.

Be able to accept change in canon and your reactions to canon.

Always write what is logical, fascinating, challenging and fun. This does not preclude the unlikely. Alternate universes are beautiful things.

Never write something you don’t feel. If your emotions aren’t engaged, neither will your readers’ be.

You will internalize some things from other fic – style, characterization, ideas – treat these notions harshly, but if they bear up to scrutiny, let them be as your own.

Write for yourself, write for others, write for your dead dog, but write only because you want to.

Be prepared to do what the story requires and not necessarily what you’d like. But if you really want it and you can do it well, do whatever the hell you like.

A cliché is only cliché if handled poorly. Otherwise it's an interesting way to twist expectations or make a common point.

Never be afraid of yourself, but doubt yourself occasionally. Never rest on your laurels.

Accept criticism, no matter the content or source, but ignore the flamers and trolls. They are beneath you.

Always respond to feedback. Even the idiots might one day have something to tell you about your stories.

You know, I'm really tired of the suggestion that Lex will turn eeevil because of lack of love, or because people punked him off. Neither of these excuse a blood shower. Also, they simplify the character to an alarming degree, making him little more than a stupid, hormonal boy (woobie! woobie! woobie!). emelerin and I had a long conversation about this. Clark may be able to save him from MMs and occasionally his Luthorness, but he's ineffective against the greater danger.

Title: Oral Fixation
Fandom: Smallville


( *lick* )

I have removed a little over 30 journals from my flist in the last week and I'm still looking to cut more. I'm sure I'll read those journals again at some point, but right now I'm swamped and don't want to feel obliged to keep up with quite so many people. Needless to say, it's becoming much more manageable. Last night seperis and I were talking about filters and she suggested I set some up to read my flist more easily. I've tried filters more than a few times and I've never been able to make them work to my satisfaction. I find myself reading communities at their sites and never looking at the smaller filters. Eventually I always end up back on the default, unfiltered flist.

I'm really pleased with how badficsupport and potterversechat have turned out, but I don't think I've been putting enough work into promoting the_lioness, or that other community. If you know what I'm talking about, you're a member. If you don't then it doesn't matter. Look to see challenges and membership drives in each of the latter. tstar78 and I have long be searching for ways to increase the traffic at the_lioness and we've been playing with the idea of drabble challenges, since they're less of an intellectual investment than full length fics. I really do enjoy talking about Lillian Luthor, so increased traffic would make me very happy. BTW, check out the chat transcript that adolfa kindly posted in potterversechat for me. This week's topic was Minerva. Members remember that Minerva is now an open topic for the community.

This weekend I will be writing (and hopefully betaing) intensively, so if there's something you need, ask me today. I have 2 fics due and of course, 1 overdue, as well as that long promised birthday fic for celli. I'm toying with the idea of a silly Plionel drabble for thamaris. *g* How can anyone resist silly Petefic? If they can, I don't want to know about it. I think PoTC is going to be rewatched at some point...