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WIP meme!
(Dreamwidth only: Random icon is random and also a reminder from the universe that I need to get started on my Lupercalia story. Speaking of WIPs.)
WIP Meme! Because, let's face it, I am constitutionally incapable of letting this one go by without participating.
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misspamela: Post a random sentence (or three whole paragraphs) from every WIP you're currently working on, even if it's very short. Then invite people to ask questions about your WIP. With any luck, you'll get talking about writing, and the motivation to take that WIP one step closer to completion will appear as if by magic!
Naturally I am going for the "three whole paragraphs" option. Feel free to ask questions! Even if they are more of a comment than a question.
"Her name is Jenny," he said, without looking at Robbie and sounding rather like he was reporting what he'd learned from a witness. "We talked on my birthday, but that's been months now. I haven't seen her in person since Christmas. I don't know if she--"
Finally Hathaway's endurance seemed to snap; he opened the door and got out without another word, leaving Robbie to trail after him, trying furiously to work out what they were hurrying into. Birthday and Christmas sounded like dutiful familial obligation--Jenny could be a sister or a cousin. Hathaway would have been more formal in speaking or referring to anyone of an older generation. But if the relationship were purely dutiful, why had so little rattled Hathaway so badly?
As he pushed through the front door of the café in Hathaway's wake, Robbie was working out the familiar awful scenarios: Jenny was a runaway, plus or minus unsuitable boyfriend. She was probably on drugs, might even have fallen into prostitution, and her unexpected appearance on Hathaway's doorstep might be the last chance anyone had to help her before--
Arkady shut the drawer and sat down beside him on the edge of the bed, frowning a little. "I've never really seen the point. I mean, sex is already fun. It's sex. I don't know what you'd need toys for."
Aral was startled into a laugh and said, "I don't know whether to be flattered or concerned at your lack of forethought."
Arkady gave him an assessing up-and-down look and said confidently, "There are meds for that, and even if they're contraindicated for whatever reason there are fingers and mouths and your voice and everything else. I'd rather have you, not some piece of plastic."
Nate looked exactly like Brad always pictured him: exhausted in the full life-in-a-combat-zone sense of the word, used up and without hope of resupply. He was red-eyed and underweight.
He'd let his hair grow out, though, and he was wearing a Dartmouth t-shirt. His appearance screamed civilian, but despite his departure from the grooming standard he looked basically neat and clean.
He didn't look at all surprised to see Brad. Puzzled, like he didn't know what Brad wanted--which was fair, because Brad didn't either--but not surprised to see him standing there.
WIP Meme! Because, let's face it, I am constitutionally incapable of letting this one go by without participating.
From
misspamela: Post a random sentence (or three whole paragraphs) from every WIP you're currently working on, even if it's very short. Then invite people to ask questions about your WIP. With any luck, you'll get talking about writing, and the motivation to take that WIP one step closer to completion will appear as if by magic!Naturally I am going for the "three whole paragraphs" option. Feel free to ask questions! Even if they are more of a comment than a question.
"Her name is Jenny," he said, without looking at Robbie and sounding rather like he was reporting what he'd learned from a witness. "We talked on my birthday, but that's been months now. I haven't seen her in person since Christmas. I don't know if she--"
Finally Hathaway's endurance seemed to snap; he opened the door and got out without another word, leaving Robbie to trail after him, trying furiously to work out what they were hurrying into. Birthday and Christmas sounded like dutiful familial obligation--Jenny could be a sister or a cousin. Hathaway would have been more formal in speaking or referring to anyone of an older generation. But if the relationship were purely dutiful, why had so little rattled Hathaway so badly?
As he pushed through the front door of the café in Hathaway's wake, Robbie was working out the familiar awful scenarios: Jenny was a runaway, plus or minus unsuitable boyfriend. She was probably on drugs, might even have fallen into prostitution, and her unexpected appearance on Hathaway's doorstep might be the last chance anyone had to help her before--
Arkady shut the drawer and sat down beside him on the edge of the bed, frowning a little. "I've never really seen the point. I mean, sex is already fun. It's sex. I don't know what you'd need toys for."
Aral was startled into a laugh and said, "I don't know whether to be flattered or concerned at your lack of forethought."
Arkady gave him an assessing up-and-down look and said confidently, "There are meds for that, and even if they're contraindicated for whatever reason there are fingers and mouths and your voice and everything else. I'd rather have you, not some piece of plastic."
Nate looked exactly like Brad always pictured him: exhausted in the full life-in-a-combat-zone sense of the word, used up and without hope of resupply. He was red-eyed and underweight.
He'd let his hair grow out, though, and he was wearing a Dartmouth t-shirt. His appearance screamed civilian, but despite his departure from the grooming standard he looked basically neat and clean.
He didn't look at all surprised to see Brad. Puzzled, like he didn't know what Brad wanted--which was fair, because Brad didn't either--but not surprised to see him standing there.
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Also, I think I might need to steal this meme :-)
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I'll stop before I think of anything else :) Feel free to ignore any and all of those!
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And, hooray for meme-stealing! I love seeing what everyone is up to. :)
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1) No.
2) Distance is indeed a factor.
3) That would be telling. *g*
4) Not so much that as he realizes Hathaway has spent years flat out lying to him about the most important thing in his life.
5) Before--the story goes AU from the end of S3, because that's about where I was in the process of watching when the idea came together. In fact I still haven't seen the episode where Lewis's grandchild is born. *g*
6) New relationship!
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Man. So do I. Somebody should write that.
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*winces* Ouch, what's wrong with Nate?
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Does Arkady understand Aral's idea of "fun sometimes" to also involve all of Aral's self-destructive tendencies? It rarely shows up in the Miles-centric canon, and I'm sure it's well tamped down by the warm fuzzy blanket of new relationship energy, but I've been standing here looking at my watch, waiting for Aral to freak out. Though possibly running an empire for a couple decades really breaks a person of their masochism.
I'd also be interested in knowing--for Arkady's sake and mine--whether there is any good sex to be had in this story before all the propositions become theoretical.
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The thing about propositions being theoretical, incidentally, is strictly a logistical one: they have about fifteen minutes before they each need to be somewhere else. *g* I wouldn't presume to know what does or does not qualify as "good" sex in your view. Arkady's enjoying himself about as much as the law allows on a workday.
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Of course I would like to hear the long answer! That's what us fans show up for. But I don't want to obligate you, or do anything to impede your natural progress on any of these three stories.
(breathes a sigh of relief for Aral and Arkady, and their future together...)
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Anyway, yes--the main thing to know is that I'm an optimist and a happy-ending junkie. And, again, these are my views of the characters and inform the ways I write them, but if it's not what you read in any given story on any given day, that's entirely up to you.
For Arkady: I think he is kind of Betan about sex, yes, but I don't see it being disturbing. It's not that he's clinical, or that he's particularly oblivious to subtexts of power and control, exactly--it's just that he's genuinely never needed to consider those subtexts with his sexual partners, except inasmuch as they contribute pleasingly to bedroom games. Arkady is attracted to older men in positions of authority, but he's never been in a position where a man he was going to have sex with would or could ever use that authority to hurt or exploit him. Because nearly all of Arkady's sexual experience has been within Tonton's group, he doesn't have the standard Barrayaran baseline of fear/guilt/shame tied up in his experience of sex. He has always rightly trusted his sexual partners, and always had people--adults in positions of authority, even--to tell him there's nothing wrong with what he wants. He's accepting of his partners' kinks because he's been taught to go along and get along with other people in the same situation he's in--and in turn, he assumes his desires will be respected, and has no hesitation in talking candidly and specifically about what he likes and doesn't like. That's what Betan about him: he's not afraid.
(Arguably he's not even paranoid; while he was prepared for the very real eventuality, he only leaps to the conclusion that his life is about to be destroyed over his orientation when ImpSec has actually shown up to take him away to an interrogation. And even then, he's a bit angry and incredulous, focusing on the fact that it's not supposed to be like this. And he's right; it isn't.)
For Aral: he hasn't been actively self-destructive since Cordelia came along to convince him to move on after the Escobar War. She's had over twenty years to work on helping him be at peace with himself, psychologically, sexually, and so on. At sixty-five he's got to be more mentally healthy than he's ever been in his life, and pretty comfortable with the range of his sexual desires--and he's still got Cordelia if he wants more topping than he gets from Arkady.
Also, I don't think Cordelia would have turned him loose on a romantically-inexperienced twenty-five-year-old under his military authority if she saw any possibility of Aral having a bigger freakout over their relationship than the occasional bout of hyperventilation. *g*
...All that said, in the course of working this out today in response to your comments, I did find myself plotting out a rather unpleasant turn of events in Aral and Arkady's relationship; nothing they won't get over, but a rather painful incident for both of them. I'll be sure to thank you by name if/when it gets written. ;)
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You've got a brilliant point: I forgot all about Cordelia. Also, I don't think Cordelia would have turned him loose on a romantically-inexperienced twenty-five-year-old under his military authority... One of the things that I think is really challenging to me at the moment is how to write these groups of characters in long-term relationships (familial or romantic or otherwise) because I tend to think of all of them as separate moving parts. When I can stop and see them overlap with each other, it's all much easier. You have a way with characters' mindsets.
Thanks!
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*shakes tiny fist at story*
And, yeah. It's never a good idea to forget Cordelia. ;)
That is one of the trickier things about writing, to constantly be climbing into the heads of characters other than the one or two main ones you're focusing on, and figure out what this one or that one thinks of it, and what they would do about that, and so on. In this story, it's been constantly necessary to keep track of at least Aral, Cordelia, and Arkady all the time. It's proving tricky right now. *g*