Fic Update: "Broken Things"
Jun. 1st, 2013 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelSo, back in the heady days of 2009, I started writing something called "Steadfast Companion." It rose out of Abel's character ending in FE11: "He was to be married; but in the end his fellow knights were his most steadfast companions."
Given what I knew of Abel, and because FE12 hadn't been announced yet, I thought FE11 might be some weird standalone reboot in which Abel backed out of marrying Est or something, and the story in question (let's call it SC#1) was about that. It was just a little ambiguous one-shot about Abel, Cain, and Est. Anyway, it never got finished or published because I got caught up in more ambitious ideas.
By the time I took another stab at the idea, some time had elapsed and I'd gotten pissy about the general state of yaoi in the FE fandom, which basically seemed like the same shitty cliches as everywhere else-- basically, a 20th/21st century take on Teh State of Teh Gay pasted onto FE's various fantasy worlds, which bored me... or worse, somebody's bad idea of medieval Catholicism pasted onto Elibe/Magvel/Whatever. Or just out-and-out PWP escapism, which has its place but wasn't very interesting to me either.
It's kind of a soapbox thing for me. The whole idea of gay and lesbian identities is kind of, you know, recent. Different eras and different cultures had varying takes on acts and lifestyles and whether something was outright sanctioned, went under the radar, or prohibited and actively punished. There's all kinds of stuff to mine, even in the context of a society that's officially into heterosexual marriages and babies. You've got predominantly male AND predominantly female military units. You have military academies and other institutional settings. You have master/apprentice relationships. You have mages into some really fringe-y things. It just seemed like, if someone wanted to write yaoi or yuri, there was Stuff that could be Written that wasn't... what I was seeing. Aside from one very early Eliwood/Hector piece that I genuinely liked, I didn't like much of anything.
[Not interested in laguz mating practices and such, sorry. It's squick-level to me, so if creative minds were at work, I missed it.]
Anyway, SC#2 took shape around then. It wasn't about Abel getting cold feet wrt Est, but was a lot more about Cain and the way Est disrupted his, er, friendship with Abel. Which wasn't exactly platonic if you catch my drift. So it was a two-guys-and-a-girl triangle in which nobody was exactly in the wrong, and there wasn't massive angst about cheating and betrayal or anything of the sort, and everything resolved in a socially-sanctioned way that should have made everyone happy, but... didn't. It was a story I wanted to write, but at the same time was kind of a... statement? If that makes any sense. It was kind of more than just another fun 'fic to me.
As much as SC#2 meant, something derailed me. Mostly, it was the way FE12 treated Cain and Abel as the early, partial fan-translations came out. Their asymmetric support was neat, but... they didn't talk! This fabled friendship, the basis for the Christmas Cavs in almost every subsequent release... and they never. Talked. Once.
:(
Kinda hard for me to hang something intentionally... edgy... on this immortal friendship we never get to see. Back "Steadfast Companion" went onto the slushpile.
Then I dove headfirst into Jugdral and realized sometime last year that my old outline for SC#2 was kind of a thematic mirror for some stuff I was toying with. The plot wasn't the same by any means, but I could DO the same things I'd wanted SC#2 to accomplish. The writing didn't come any easier than the Archanea variants did, but I've slowly been thrashing this thing into shape.
So here is Chapter One of "Broken Things," which has, in a sense, taken four years to write. I hope it ultimately does what it's supposed to do.
Note: This is rated M, not gonna be SFW by Chapter Two, plz read warning labels k'thx.
Given what I knew of Abel, and because FE12 hadn't been announced yet, I thought FE11 might be some weird standalone reboot in which Abel backed out of marrying Est or something, and the story in question (let's call it SC#1) was about that. It was just a little ambiguous one-shot about Abel, Cain, and Est. Anyway, it never got finished or published because I got caught up in more ambitious ideas.
By the time I took another stab at the idea, some time had elapsed and I'd gotten pissy about the general state of yaoi in the FE fandom, which basically seemed like the same shitty cliches as everywhere else-- basically, a 20th/21st century take on Teh State of Teh Gay pasted onto FE's various fantasy worlds, which bored me... or worse, somebody's bad idea of medieval Catholicism pasted onto Elibe/Magvel/Whatever. Or just out-and-out PWP escapism, which has its place but wasn't very interesting to me either.
It's kind of a soapbox thing for me. The whole idea of gay and lesbian identities is kind of, you know, recent. Different eras and different cultures had varying takes on acts and lifestyles and whether something was outright sanctioned, went under the radar, or prohibited and actively punished. There's all kinds of stuff to mine, even in the context of a society that's officially into heterosexual marriages and babies. You've got predominantly male AND predominantly female military units. You have military academies and other institutional settings. You have master/apprentice relationships. You have mages into some really fringe-y things. It just seemed like, if someone wanted to write yaoi or yuri, there was Stuff that could be Written that wasn't... what I was seeing. Aside from one very early Eliwood/Hector piece that I genuinely liked, I didn't like much of anything.
[Not interested in laguz mating practices and such, sorry. It's squick-level to me, so if creative minds were at work, I missed it.]
Anyway, SC#2 took shape around then. It wasn't about Abel getting cold feet wrt Est, but was a lot more about Cain and the way Est disrupted his, er, friendship with Abel. Which wasn't exactly platonic if you catch my drift. So it was a two-guys-and-a-girl triangle in which nobody was exactly in the wrong, and there wasn't massive angst about cheating and betrayal or anything of the sort, and everything resolved in a socially-sanctioned way that should have made everyone happy, but... didn't. It was a story I wanted to write, but at the same time was kind of a... statement? If that makes any sense. It was kind of more than just another fun 'fic to me.
As much as SC#2 meant, something derailed me. Mostly, it was the way FE12 treated Cain and Abel as the early, partial fan-translations came out. Their asymmetric support was neat, but... they didn't talk! This fabled friendship, the basis for the Christmas Cavs in almost every subsequent release... and they never. Talked. Once.
:(
Kinda hard for me to hang something intentionally... edgy... on this immortal friendship we never get to see. Back "Steadfast Companion" went onto the slushpile.
Then I dove headfirst into Jugdral and realized sometime last year that my old outline for SC#2 was kind of a thematic mirror for some stuff I was toying with. The plot wasn't the same by any means, but I could DO the same things I'd wanted SC#2 to accomplish. The writing didn't come any easier than the Archanea variants did, but I've slowly been thrashing this thing into shape.
So here is Chapter One of "Broken Things," which has, in a sense, taken four years to write. I hope it ultimately does what it's supposed to do.
Note: This is rated M, not gonna be SFW by Chapter Two, plz read warning labels k'thx.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-02 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-03 03:38 pm (UTC)That's not always a good thing, though. A person can be so wrapped up in a project that they can't see its flaws, or even if it's any good. :/
no subject
Date: 2013-06-03 11:23 am (UTC)Remind me of Finn and Glade, if things goes in the wrong directionno subject
Date: 2013-06-03 03:40 pm (UTC)Ah. I don't recall ever seeing the actual FE1 endings. Interesting tense change between 1 and 11.
Yeah, there are definitely signs in FE5 that the team was trying to play with some stuff they'd introduced in the Marth games. Like, you know, Asvel, aka Merric 2.0.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-04 03:42 pm (UTC)For example, Maria
This is the FE11 Ending
"After studying in Khadein for a spell, Maria returned to Medon to serve her people as a cleric"
And heres the FE1 Ending
"Maria followed Marth around out of love <3"
Something like.... that