Another Meme

[caitri]

Cos I'm bored and feeling kinda gross. Most of the day has been a continuous sort of thing of making tea...making more tea...a nap, tylenol, tea. Sigh. I hope I can beat this thing cos I do NOT have time to be sick right now. *grumps*

In the MEAN time, if you have no interest in televised sporting events, entertain me?

Stolen from thistlerose:

Pick a paragraph (or any passage between... let's say 200 and 600 words) from anything I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Comments

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon! *hugs warmly* I don't feel well either. I'd email you tea if I could.

Meanwhile, I want to know more about "Sing The Wrath" in its entirety.
http://caitri.livejournal.com/364072.html

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks, hon. *squish*

So let's see. I wrote this as a sequel to the other ficlet I wrote for you, Stars in Your Eyes, Laurels in Your Hair (363575.html). I was playing around with style a bit in both ficlets, because I sort of got it in my head that I liked the idea of something that COULD be Kirk/McCoy, but at the same time was very classical in both outlook and aesthetic. Sometimes I feel like I write the same thing over and over again, and telling something that was really completely different appealed to me immensely, and the other fic had ended so unexpectedly that I just wanted to carry it a little bit farther.

Someone in the comments noted that they really liked the "Greek chorus" aspect of it. I wish that had been on purpose. Mostly I was just thinking of telling their story but not through them, because I also liked the sort of open-ended aspect of it.

In my head, "Jim" totally goes to the Underworld, tricks the Ferryman, and rescues "Bones." But because you can't really mess with the gods, they have to lay low elsewhere, so the crew never sees them again, or if they do it's when they are all old or something.

I also really liked this half-thought idea of each main crewmember being a sort of representative of the pantheon, like Spock for Athena, Uhura for Demeter, Scotty for Hephaestus, etc. But I never really got to play with that.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I should comment sensibly to your lovely generous explanation, but I just kind of want to wrap myself up in it. Eee. EEE.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

*squishes*

You, m'dear, are adorable.

[tocourtdisaster.livejournal.com]

I wanna know what you were thinking when you wrote the end of "Something to Hold Onto."

“The Captain was caught in a trans-time singularity,” M’Benga says. “It lasted a week for him—“

“—and fifteen years for me,” Leonard finished for him quickly. “Yeah, I got that. You’re from the future. Dammit, man, I don’t care. Is he going to be okay?”

If M’Benga is taken aback by his intensity, he doesn’t show it. “We’re in the twenty-third century now, Doctor McCoy,” he says. “We altered the memories of Nurse Chapel and the agents. We would’ve altered yours too—“

“No,” Leonard says hoarsely, “you wouldn’t dare!”

“—except that there wasn’t time, after the surgery, and we had to leave. We’re in the twenty-third century,” he repeated, “and we can’t send you back.”

Leonard stares at him. “So?”

“So?” M’Benga echoes. “Most people, upon learning that they’ve been displaced a few centuries and won’t be able to return, don’t just say ‘So.’”

“Yeah, well, I’m not most people,” Leonard says. “I don’t have anything back there to miss. But Jim—“ He breaks off. He’s not going to tell this stranger that he’s been—been in love with this man, this figment, for over a decade, when he hasn’t even told Jim himself. “I need to see him.”

M’Benga nods. He walks over to a device on one wall. “M’Benga to bridge. Captain, he’s awake. He wants to see you.”

Jim is there moments later. He has a gold shirt on, and he looks bright and glowing with health. Better than Leonard has ever seen him, really.

It’s been fifteen years for him, and Jim has changed so little. He must’ve been thirty when they first met. Leonard is thirty-seven now, so he’s actually older than the Captain. This realization entertains him now.

“Hey, Bones,” Jim says, smiling—and the smile widens as Leonard’s lips twitch upwards back at him.

“Hey, Jim,” Leonard says.

“I’ll just let you two—whatever,” M’Benga says. He’s smiling too, shaking his head as he leaves.

“Doctor M’Benga. Nice man,” Jim says.

“Yeah,” Leonard agrees.

And suddenly they are together, arms around one another, teeth clacking with the intensity of their kisses. It’s all unspoken, but the words are present as an undercurrent: I’m here, I know, I love you, I need you, stay. Stay.

When they break apart some time later, Jim speaks. His voice is husky with shyness, with affection, with—other things. “It’ll be difficult, but—I want you with me, Bones.”

“I know,” Leonard says. He grimaces to himself. “I’m gonna have to go back to medical school here, aren’t I?”

Jim laughs, an open, free sound. “Maybe,” he says, “but you’ll be back at work again in no time.” He looks hesitant. “You really don’t mind?”

“Jim.” He pauses, then continues on stolidly. “You said I was the one thing you had to hold onto. I never told you before, but you should know—it works two ways. Always did.”

Jim nods slowly. “Good to know, Bones,” he says. “Good to know.”

[caitri.livejournal.com]

So I was thinking of how can I get these two guys from these two worlds together with a minimum of angst. Cos, seriously, there's this whole fic where in the whole linear timeline they aren't together all that much, but when they are--it's just whoa.

So for it to be a happy ending (cos I NEED those, I swear), they need to be in the same place. And I think that honestly, Trek!Jim is always going to be happiest in space, and I think Bones would always be willing to follow him there.

And of course with this particular scenario it needs some acknowledgement it's not gonan be easy immediately. Bones is going to have to adapt to the twenty-third century, and he's going to need to elarn a lot of things to continue to be a doctor. But he'll do them, cos he's awesome.

I've always had in the back of my mind doing a sort of redux of this story from Jim's POV. Where he spends several days moving in and out of time, always around Bones. And the bits you'd see are when he's NOT with Bones, when he's fighting aliens and agents and stuff, and then he returns to the ER, or he hides some place to get warm and dry, and it'll be a classroom and there's Bones busily taking notes and stuff, or he's stolen a wallet and is able to go grab a meal and he overhears Bones and Jocelyn on a date, and he's trying desperately to hide... I also think before he shows up at Bones's place after the divorce tht Jim ran into Jocelyn on the MARTA train and they chatted a bit.

Mostly I haven't written this cos I haven't been able to figure it out emotionally, e.g. you'd really see so much more of what draws Jim to Bones but less of what draws Bones to Jim...I think. Babbling Cait is babbling.

[canis-takahari.livejournal.com]

From "Subject and Degree":

“Love’s Usury,” Kirk says when he’s done. Pauses. “It’s my favorite.” He looks at Leonard then, those blue eyes intensely bright. “There’s no such thing as ‘just poetry,’ man. No such thing as ‘just words’ or ‘just books.’ Look, if there’s something going on that you need to talk about, you let me know, okay?”

Leonard feels himself nodding. “I will,” he says.

He won’t.

He makes A’s on the rest of his papers for Kirk’s class. He’s the last one out of the room during finals. The professor grins at him as he takes the blue exam book and packs it away in his bag. “I’m proud of you, Leonard,” he says. “I hope you won’t be a stranger.”

“Yeah, well.” Leonard thinks the words are innocent enough but finds himself wishing they weren’t. “We’ll see.”

He goes home and puts The Major Works on his bookshelf, right between his Sandman graphic novels and his Biochemistry textbooks. He’d meant to sell the thing, but it’s a paperback, so it’s not worth the effort of lugging it back to the bookstore anyway.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Right. So this is me at my "Jim Kirk is my Mary Sue" best.

First off, I wrote this whole story for blue_jack who wanted a pwp with the whole teacher-student thing. And I tried, I really did, but 1) I just can't do PWPs to save my life and 2) as an actual academic, writing something like that freaked me out a bit. So they have all this tension--and I really wanted to show that--but they don't actually consummate until they are safe.

The other thing is that scene in the Special Collections. *G* We have a significant Donne collection where I work, so using them for teaching is something I know well. I did an OCLC search and ended up setting the piece at Emory because they have a copy of the 1633 Poems as well, though the description of the cover comes from our copy. I did enjoy checking the page number for "Love's Usury" so I could have it right--I adore the idea of professor!Jim as being the kind of scholar who just knows the text THAT well.

Anyhow, the whole emotional subetxt of the piece are these two guys who end up creating this connection between them, really unexpectedly. To start with its just this complete attraction thing, and later on it builds to more--Leonard thinks he has everything under control and he so totally doesn't, and Jim KNOWS that, and wants to help--but of course, he's limited by his position and everything in how much he can help and what he can do. And it's sort of building up to that moment later when Leonard goes to Jim's place, because he has no one else to go to and its just killing him inside.

Now Leonard's bookshelf. He's such a practical guy, so of course he has all his science books from his major classes, but he also has his pleasure reading material. Sandman of course is the best because it's a story ABOUT stories, and in a way so is the fic (the little idea underneath that Jim is the one writing this story, later, using Leonard's pov) and that goes back to the whole ideas of there's no such thing as "just words" or "just books"--they mean different things to different people. And that Leonard would keep this particular textbook because of Jim--yeah, I'm a squishball romantic, what can I say? ;)

[canis-takahari.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥ ♥

I loooooove this. I adored the little detail of Bones owning Sandman the first time I read the fic, and YES, yes, it's just so perfect because it's all about telling stories. Basically, SQUEE.

Leonard thinks he has everything under control and he so totally doesn't, and Jim KNOWS that, and wants to help--but of course, he's limited by his position and everything in how much he can help and what he can do.

MY HEAAAART. *_*

[caitri.livejournal.com]

*L* *squishes you*

I don't know if ever came across in the story, but I just always had this image of Leonard being the quiet guy who sits in the very back row. He says maybe one thing in each class, maybe just a short sentence or thought, but that little bit is always just something that is dead on, and that's how Jim knows that Leonard is starting to care--and also how after that first paper he knows he's phoning it in; how he can do so much more. And the fact that Leonard clearly WAS phoning it in was also another hint to Jim that something is going on, which is why he takes him to the special collections.

(and no he totally does NOT pull that trick with every student--just the ones that really matter to him. And no one has ever mattered more than Leonard! ;))