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rthstewart) wrote2012-01-22 05:53 pm
Birds, cats, and self referential characters
Also, festivids has gone live and omg what a delightful time suck, including an awesome video of Maru the cat (yes, Maru has his own fandom now). Though if the octopus that stole the camera can have his own Yuletide fic, why not, right?
Work on Big Bang proceeds ever so slowly though I finally broke 20,000. I'm swimming in background material and leave a trail of World War 2 texts in my wake. I've been in a funk and have considered and rejected overly dramatic expressions.
Two things, so help me F-list, you are my only hope. First, I need original poetry, such as what, theoretically, Wing Commander Tebbitt might write to Susan. I've commissioned the Susan/Tebbitt shippers LARM and Metonomia, but if you are interested in contributing, I could use it.
As inspiration, this poem was written by SOE codemaster Leo Marks for spy Violette Szabo who was killed at the Ravensbrück concentration camp:
The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have,
Yet death will be but a pause,
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
Second, what do you when writing a point of view character and how he or she refers to himself or herself? I've stumbled over this before with certain characters. I don't have a problem with any of the canon characters and most of my OCs. However, with both Tebbitt and with Col. Walker Smythe, I have difficulty with them thinking of themselves by their first names. For example, from Walker-Smythe's pov:
He summoned Major al-Masri from Bletchley Park and the man arrived so promptly, George concluded the impatience to meet was mutual. He’d sent Tebbitt off to Thame Park for a refresher in wireless training and that would keep him occupied for a week – two if the latest agents there for training were attractive, which they invariably were. He did have to wonder if striking looks and trim figure where on the intake sheets Selwyn Jepson used when interviewing female candidates for insertion into France.
Instead of "he," could/should it be George? Or Walker-Smythe? Same thing with Tebbitt:
Tebbitt knew the origins of Jean-Louise. The Shoemaker, the master forger at the British Embassy in Washington, had gifted her with two beautiful sets of shoes – fake identities. She had lived one of them, assuming the identity of Mrs. Susan Caspian, for the last year. The other she would trot out and take for a spin occasionally and so he’d come to know Mrs. Jane Louise Ellis pretty well. Mrs. Ellis was from Leeds, younger than Mrs. Caspian, and her dress – usually red –cut low. She was a flirt and looked smashing on a man’s arm. Jane Louise Ellis had become Jean-Louise Lambert.
Where the surname Lambert had come from, he didn’t know, but as Colonel Walker-Smythe was fond of saying, the Queen of Pentacles that was Mrs. Susan Caspian knew how to keep her own counsel.
If not "he," should it be "Tebbitt" or "Reg?" This has really stumped me.
Last there has been an update in the vanity project, Girl Falls Into rth-verse Narnia story that greaves is undertaking and she had Jalur make a wonderful, wry appearance here.
no subject
One of the things I love about Walker-Smythe is that he is an expert at his expertise. He is always withholding, alway cautious to present the right appearance or character; he is excellent at breaking things down, understanding the elements, and manipulating to them to make sure everything goes the way he wants. What I *especially* love is the way this is evident in your text. Even though we the audience know that the Colonel is clever, detail-oriented and never misses a trick, it's not until we get inside his POV that we know how extensively analytical he is -- almost to the point of obsessive! -- and how deep his thoughts, theories, and resources are. The best part is that none of the other characters are aware of the full extent of this. Everybody knows not to *under*estimate him, but nobody can really begin to estimate him either. The Colonel's front is just that. Even Susan would say that you can't really know a spy, especially an old and clever one like Walker-Smythe. His POV is great because it's the first pure glimpse of his character we see: without the wall, without the careful presentation, and what we learn is that the Colonel is an intensely complex man with an astounding analytical nature. The person we see is bigger and deeper than every other character guesses, even those with great respect for him. Since everybody calls him Walker-Smythe or just the Colonel, it makes perfect sense that in his own headspace, he's George. Only George calls himself George, since the only person who can really know a spy is himself.
As for Tebbitt -- he's young, a man's man, and a soldier. Everyone calls him Tebbitt and certainly during this war he is thinking of himself as Tebbitt. His mother calls him Reginald. People like Gladys might call him Reginald. Girls would call him Reg if they didn't meet him while he was wearing his uniform. His sisters call him Reg. His friends call him Tebbitt, and his boyhood friends miiiiiiiiiiiight call him Reggie but please don't ever write that! For Tebbitt there's considerably less depth, less separation of self, and I feel like it's just his personality to be kind of easy to see through, easy to understand. But don't get me wrong! I still adore Tebbitt and find him beautiful, compelling, and plenty complex, but in a far more usual way compared to the mystery of say, Susan or the Colonel.
On the scale of complexity, I usually start with Tebbitt at the bottom, then Susan, then the Colonel and then Asim, though I sometimes think I should switch the top two because Asim's reasoning can be at times be simplified by spiritual concepts. Meanwhile the Colonel is the type to keep splitting subatomic particles into smaller sub-subatomic particles. Where Edmund fits on this list I am unsure... I think I want to put him between Tebbitt and Susan. The feel I get from your Edmund in particular is that he applies extremely complicated reasoning to address every detail, but ultimately reaches a black and white conclusion.
idek what I used all these paragraphs for. Tebbitt is Tebbitt and Walker-Smythe is George!
no subject
Thank you my friend.