Fic Update: "While You Were Sleeping"
Dec. 17th, 2012 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelI don't flog my 'fics here much anymore, in part because I'm embarrassed about ratio of newer Jugdral-type things to older FE8/Archanea/mash-up things that remain unfinished. But this one I did want to share.
While You Were Sleeping is based on what I call the "Sleeping Beauty Azel" scenario from Kaga's note collection, in which Azel spends the time-skip and Celice's war in a state of suspended animation in the secret basement of Barhara Palace (no, really). After the war, he gets discovered and revived and comes face-to-face with the now-grown kidlets and, well, everyone else.
I've brought this up before because Kaga's entire headcanon is so lolleriffic and honestly not any better than fanfic might be if FE weren't so oddly conservative a fandom. Improbable coincidences, hand-waving over difficult details, pretty people perfectly preserved in states of prettiness so they can have their happily-ever-afters in the bodies of twentysomethings, and a metric fuckton of Holsety ex machina, Julia ex machina, and more. It's interesting material, but thank goodness this stuff was all left in the rubbish bin, because picking through the scraps is far better than being spoonfed things like Lachesis, Angel of the Prison Camp.
[I have a particular hatred of works of fiction that try to put a saccharine happy face on concentration camps, especially if they involve Roberto Benigni, Robin Williams, or fabulists, and the Lachesis thing hits way too close to that mark. Two survivors of Nazi work (not death) camps are very dear to me and these women did not survive by being angels, they survived by being as tough and fierce and cunning and occasionally downright vicious as they could be.]
Anyway, I made a couple of attempts to deal with this material in a satirical sense, giving Sleeping Beauty Azel and his wife Tiltysicle the treatment I felt they deserved. On a more serious note, I attempted 'fic in which Delmud (who always gets overlooked in the Lachesis drama) does find his mother... just not as the mother-angel of the prison camp. These attempts were a string of misfires.
If I could read Japanese without the aid of Bablefish, I mean Google Translate, I'd find quite a few Lachesis-rescue stories. However, whether by coincidence or through Kaga's actual influence, J-fandom manages to hit on some of the very uncomfortable points of Kaga's own headcanon. It kind of goes like this:
1) Lachesis got statue-fied. (Assumed)
2) Time stops for statue-people (Implied canon going off what Evayle says in FE5)
3) That means Lachy is like, 24 or or 28 or something like that when she's un-petrified, depending on what timeline you follow (oh god not this timeline thing again)
4) THAT means unfrozen!Lachesis is young, hot, and fertile! (Well, yeah...)
5) And the absolute best thing to fix up a messy relationship is an adorable new baby! (OK, stop right there, fanficcer)
Yeah. Strangely, I have yet to see a piece in which unfrozen twentysomething!Lachy drapes herself over Aless because hey look Eltoshan clone available right here. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that "While You Were Sleeping," Take One, went around in circles 'cause I didn't know where exactly to go with it after Lachy gets unfrozen. So I went back to the Azel scenario, which offered an examination of some of the same issues that I found interesting (it's kind of like time-travel in a way) without the parts that bother me. And, since none of the dream scenario pieces are canon anyway, I feel free to chop out the bits I simply don't like, such as the Tiltysicle angle that gives Tiltyu and Azel their Silesian happy ending in Kaga's headcanon.
Anyway I am having a great deal of fun with this one, even when it's hitting on some darker stuff that is quite relevant to RL at this moment.
While You Were Sleeping is based on what I call the "Sleeping Beauty Azel" scenario from Kaga's note collection, in which Azel spends the time-skip and Celice's war in a state of suspended animation in the secret basement of Barhara Palace (no, really). After the war, he gets discovered and revived and comes face-to-face with the now-grown kidlets and, well, everyone else.
I've brought this up before because Kaga's entire headcanon is so lolleriffic and honestly not any better than fanfic might be if FE weren't so oddly conservative a fandom. Improbable coincidences, hand-waving over difficult details, pretty people perfectly preserved in states of prettiness so they can have their happily-ever-afters in the bodies of twentysomethings, and a metric fuckton of Holsety ex machina, Julia ex machina, and more. It's interesting material, but thank goodness this stuff was all left in the rubbish bin, because picking through the scraps is far better than being spoonfed things like Lachesis, Angel of the Prison Camp.
[I have a particular hatred of works of fiction that try to put a saccharine happy face on concentration camps, especially if they involve Roberto Benigni, Robin Williams, or fabulists, and the Lachesis thing hits way too close to that mark. Two survivors of Nazi work (not death) camps are very dear to me and these women did not survive by being angels, they survived by being as tough and fierce and cunning and occasionally downright vicious as they could be.]
Anyway, I made a couple of attempts to deal with this material in a satirical sense, giving Sleeping Beauty Azel and his wife Tiltysicle the treatment I felt they deserved. On a more serious note, I attempted 'fic in which Delmud (who always gets overlooked in the Lachesis drama) does find his mother... just not as the mother-angel of the prison camp. These attempts were a string of misfires.
If I could read Japanese without the aid of Bablefish, I mean Google Translate, I'd find quite a few Lachesis-rescue stories. However, whether by coincidence or through Kaga's actual influence, J-fandom manages to hit on some of the very uncomfortable points of Kaga's own headcanon. It kind of goes like this:
1) Lachesis got statue-fied. (Assumed)
2) Time stops for statue-people (Implied canon going off what Evayle says in FE5)
3) That means Lachy is like, 24 or or 28 or something like that when she's un-petrified, depending on what timeline you follow (oh god not this timeline thing again)
4) THAT means unfrozen!Lachesis is young, hot, and fertile! (Well, yeah...)
5) And the absolute best thing to fix up a messy relationship is an adorable new baby! (OK, stop right there, fanficcer)
Yeah. Strangely, I have yet to see a piece in which unfrozen twentysomething!Lachy drapes herself over Aless because hey look Eltoshan clone available right here. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that "While You Were Sleeping," Take One, went around in circles 'cause I didn't know where exactly to go with it after Lachy gets unfrozen. So I went back to the Azel scenario, which offered an examination of some of the same issues that I found interesting (it's kind of like time-travel in a way) without the parts that bother me. And, since none of the dream scenario pieces are canon anyway, I feel free to chop out the bits I simply don't like, such as the Tiltysicle angle that gives Tiltyu and Azel their Silesian happy ending in Kaga's headcanon.
Anyway I am having a great deal of fun with this one, even when it's hitting on some darker stuff that is quite relevant to RL at this moment.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 03:21 am (UTC)Common J-plot
Date: 2012-12-21 04:22 pm (UTC)1) Lachesis got statue-fied. (Assumed)
2) Time stops for statue-people (Implied canon going off what Evayle says in FE5)
3) That means Lachy is like, 24 or or 28 or something like that when she's un-petrified, depending on what timeline you follow (oh god not this timeline thing again)
4) THAT means unfrozen!Lachesis is young, hot, and fertile! (Well, yeah...)
5) And the absolute best thing to fix up a messy relationship is an adorable new baby! (OK, stop right there, fanficcer)
Jejeje, Years that i haven't read about those thing, those thing were pretty common with old FE fans(since FESS or FEU forum era), and somehow the most common couples were Fin and Azel somehow...(those Japanese always know anything).
Again for that was pretty cute never creppy until you start to think about it.
Re: Common J-plot
Date: 2012-12-21 10:14 pm (UTC)It doesn't HAVE to be creepy. It's all in the execution. If someone makes a big deal about how young Lachesis is and how she's still only 24 and so beautiful, and then they go and pair with Finn (who's on the wrong side of forty by that point), and then they have a kid who is the same age or younger than Leaf&Nanna's eldest... it's not necessarily wrong, but it can sure be handled poorly.
On the other hand, maybe Sleeping Beauty Azel and Un-Petrified Lachesis should run off together. They'd be about the same age.