copy-sheep meme
May. 30th, 2008 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Stolen from everywhere (but mostly from
gekizetsu:
Ask me a question about one of my stories. It can be absolutely anything in ANY fic and I will tell you the honest-to-God answer. Don’t hold back. Ask about my plans for future parts of my current series if you want to. (but keep in mind, I may not have anything firm/definite in the works) Anything. Whatever you ask, I will try my best to answer.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Ask me a question about one of my stories. It can be absolutely anything in ANY fic and I will tell you the honest-to-God answer. Don’t hold back. Ask about my plans for future parts of my current series if you want to. (but keep in mind, I may not have anything firm/definite in the works) Anything. Whatever you ask, I will try my best to answer.
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Date: 2008-05-30 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 12:39 pm (UTC)ETA: in that they may have allies rather than opponents.
As for anyone else playing, it, like all my 'verses is entirely open. If you've got an idea, go for it.
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Date: 2008-05-30 01:06 pm (UTC)Or - play in it? And if so - did you have anything you wanted to do but will probably never get to that I can consider to be built in to it (you know, universe notes that you consider to be part of the universe but never got around to actually putting into place?)
Heh. I love this meme!
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Date: 2008-05-30 01:59 pm (UTC)All that said, it's open to anyone to play in, no permissions required, (there's a whole*thing* about it here (http://maygra.livejournal.com/248427.html)). If you really want all that stuff I'll put it up this weekend.
For the short term, in Shadow Riders, the culmination of their changed state of affairs is the follow up to what happened in the last section I posted; and Vin is caught and convicted of murder, hung, and the seven move on afterward. Pretty much the last line of the story at that point is JD asking where they are going to go, and they all look to Chris, who looks to Vin, who knows where the daevas have moved onto, and they head west.
there's points where they actually do split up, sometime around the turn of the century and obviously they all make it to europe at some point during the second world war. They run into more of the Rom there, who recognize what they are and who at one point, offer to be responsible for Vin, and honestly, for all involved it would have been better, but Chris and Buck won't leave him and Ezra is unwilling to give up the only family he has, despite trying to be pragmatic about it.
There's a point where Nathan leaves them for nearly a decade sometime in the 60's I think, to get his medical degree and JD is the one who keeps in touch with him, through letters. There's JD's (referenced in another story) bastard child/were that has to be dealt with.
There's an end to it all eventually, a final showdown, which in my head, Josiah is the only one to survive, who then writes it all down, and passes it into the hands of the some future version of the Rom for keeping. He slips into wolf form and heads off into a future landscape but we never find out if he continues on or finds a way to be released finally.
And still, it's open to play in, so feel free.
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Date: 2008-05-30 02:08 pm (UTC)OF COURSE I want the notes, even though (and to be perfectly honest) the story of how they got there (the rest of the founding story) and the story of how they die was not what I had in mind. I want to do more with the triad of C/B/V and how they end up - well, you know, *in bed* and emotionally 'together'.
And of course my angst-o-meter went right off the scale with the 'leaving Vin with the Rom' thing - that would be an awesome story because I assume he would offer to go with them to set the others 'free' of him.
I really want that story - and the story of the first time they carved the silver into his body and how hard that was for all of them.
YES YES YES - I'd love any and all notes you might want to post, if you have time. And *thanks*!
Have you, um, thought of doing a SPN/Shadow Riders cross? (yeah, I realize I exhausted my one question, but . . . )
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Date: 2008-05-31 02:35 am (UTC)I'm still digging...there's a couple of bits that I'll try to pull together and post.
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Date: 2008-05-31 03:08 pm (UTC)Maygra, that's - intense. Seriously. Thank you and you need to post it - it doesn't need the conjoining scenes to make sense, it flows really well, if a little skippy.
So - the first time they have sex with Vin - is it during this story, or, as I thought had been referenced elsewhere, after wards and sort of by accident?
That is wonderful, and the hanging scene - Meghan fit your style wonderfully!
THANK YOU.
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Date: 2008-05-31 03:34 pm (UTC)No, they don't have sex in this story it's a ways down the road, several years, well past the turn of the century. IT' snot so much by accident as Vin starts spending a lot of time with JD and JD spends a lot of time in wolf form -- and they realize it's way of Vin's separating himself form humanity...and that while they all think they are looking for an answer, a way to free Vin, for Vin it's like being in a prison of a different sort -- JD's the one who points out that if the treat Vin like he's less than human, there won't be anything left of Vin to save.
So Chris starts talking to him again, like he's a person, and touching him and then during a feeding it just happens.
Here's another unfinished piece...(ware the rape) but it's early in the series, and there's some, insights I guess, into Vin's frame of mind.
http://assignations.org/maygra/shadow/nobetterangels.html
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Date: 2008-05-31 04:15 pm (UTC)Again - THANK YOU. So - on the feeding where it just happens, does Chris initiate, as he's already related sex and feeding, and Vin responds, or does Vin start it, Chris worry that it's demon-driven, then realizing that he doesn't care? Do you want to reserve the first sex between them (which I think you probably should!)?
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Date: 2008-05-31 04:32 pm (UTC)I think what happens is that Chris reestablishes first their friendship, then some casual touching, which he carries over eventually to the feed. Less Feed and go, but more soothing Vin while he does it, and Vin kind of whimpers just at the contact, or Chris gets a sense of how much Vin's holding back and then goes out of his way to make sure Vin gets what pleasure he can from it. Then he tells Buck...and Buck, bless him, once he gets it is all about making it less about necessity and more both necessity and affection, because Buck's just easy like that.
Ultimately the best any of them can hope for is that when Vin dies, he actually does die and isn't doomed to half life as a wandering, unclaimed soul. There's unwritten stories where they meet a few of those, and none of them want that for Vin, but the only way to give him clean death is find a way to rid him of the daevas, and there are only limited ways that can happen.
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Date: 2008-05-31 05:19 pm (UTC)And the first time - is it Chris and Vin or is Buck there as well? How connected are Chris and Buck? and are they lovers before the first time with Vin or does it all come together as a triad?
Vin's not saying anything - is that sort of guilt/penance-based as well, the idea that he doesn't deserve pleasure because of what he is now, what he's forced them to be? (You know, St. Vin in demon form . . . )
I know I know = I'm really taking advantage of your meme - THANKS for playing with me!
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Date: 2008-05-31 11:07 pm (UTC)In my backstory, Chris and Buck were not lovers, close, but not physical. (Had I written this out of ATF, I might have had a different take.) The first time I think it is just Vin and Chris, it isn't planned, it just happens, and is a ;little surprising and awkward. But they are careful because they are never sure -- any of them -- how much of what desire springs up between them is "real" and how much is influenced by the daevas, because when Vin is full possessed, he's impossible to resist for most people. The who playing of the curse on Chris is the others is that that seductive influence can't be used on the dead and it doesn't affect beasts -- which is why the gypsies structured their clans the way they did. And Vin has little or no control over it when it hits any more than eh did with Mary Catherine. Akmanna is a demi-god, wondrous as I think Vin is, and willful *g*, he really isn't a match for him and that's at least part of why this is so difficult fo him to bear, even centuries later.
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Date: 2008-05-30 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 01:18 pm (UTC)Also, where do you ultimately see it going?
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Date: 2008-05-30 08:34 pm (UTC)I want to preface this by saying that one of the reasons Salvation and writing/riffing off Barb is so much fun is that both of us, I think, are really clear that the sometimes dangerous levels of devotion and adoration between Dean and Sam work both ways. I think it's obvious in both the actual series and in the Salvation 'verse, that Dean would absolutely sacrifice himself, body and soul for Sam, for his family. It's what makes Dean Dean, right, wrong or indifferent. I think what's less obvious for some watchers/readers/fans is that Sam has the same level of devotion and kind of scary obsession, but Sam is more willing, (and I think this past season shows it more than anything) to not sacrifice himself bodily as much as his sense of self. All the things that make Sam uniquely Sam have been eroding away, episode by episode, as if his conviction that were their positions reversed Dean would already have found a way to save him – so ergo, in order to save Dean, Sam has to become less himself and more like Dean and to some extent, John.
And honestly, when I look at Sam like that, it makes me want to burst into tears – and it makes it even more obvious that at least part of the reason Sam broke from his family to begin with is because of just that that any sense of himself, of his own agency and free will was getting lost – and I think we see that in season three, shortened though it was.
That said, Salvation is about the boys together, before that tendency to sacrifice everything for each other ultimately destroys them both, and while the underlying drive behind that has been cemented and enhanced, Salvation also provides them a wider target for all that focused devotion. Barb made a point of it in Disinterment, wherein Dean really, really has a difficult time coming to terms with Sam having used Charlie to find him, even though Charlie wasn't hurt. Likewise, if Dean ever put Sam in front of or instead of Sarah or his girls, I'm not sure Sam could forgive him, if the choice was there to be made.
(continued)
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Date: 2008-05-31 01:52 am (UTC)I really like this thought! Also, I think you've nailed it on the head. I never really thought about it before, but man oh man, does that sound right.
Well, thought out and said!
long answer pt 2
Date: 2008-05-30 08:35 pm (UTC)In Salvation, they actually manage to find that balance between absolute devotion and self-destructive sacrifice. They'd still, literally, shred themselves body and soul for each other, but it's not just them any longer – there's a whole group of equally wonderful people who would be devastated if anything happened to either of them, and at least for Sarah (and Dani as time goes on) the absolute knowledge that one of them would no longer be whole without the other, therefore if the extent of their devotion extends to keeping each other whole – then neither of them is allowed to do anything foolish enough as sacrifice themselves – which is why Sarah is angry at Dean and Sam is at the end of Disinterment. Not angry enough not to forgive, but angry enough to realize that if you pull one support out of this Winchester constructed House of Love, the whole thing might crash.
(Not that I don't think Sarah would or could pick up the pieces and go on, or Dani – both women are far more capable of doing that than either of the boys, but if something happened to Sam, I'm not sure Dean would ever recover and if something happened to Dean, I think Sam would keep going through the motions, but it would be half-life at best.)
At any rate, what draws me in and keeps me coming back is that same dynamic. Despite both of us loving both boys, Barb's heart (and other parts of her *g*) seriously belong to Dean, whereas, Sam just gets to me on so many levels, so a lot of the things I see in this universe are in regards to Sam, and how he keeps changing and redefining himself for the benefit of those he loves. He wouldn't consider it a sacrifice any more than Dean does when he does it, but Sam makes promises and then does his damnedest to keep them – to give Dean a life he never saw for himself, to be worthy of Sarah's love and affection, changing and facing his fears in order to be the best dad, best man he can possibly be for his daughters. Sam, unlike Dean, is so very, very aware that he's loved and that the people who love him put a high value on his love, his presence, his happiness – and so he constantly works to be worthy of it, to the point there are times when he really does start to crack and break under the strain. (And some of it is self-inflicted – my impression of Sam is that he really is kind of competitive in areas that matter him (As opposed to a general competitiveness). So he sets high standards for himself.
So, what draws me back is that I want Sam to be happy, at the end of his life I want him satisfied with what he's accomplished, and that includes doing everything he possibly can to make sure Dean is happy.
And yes, because in this universe, everyone adores Sam *g* I totally own my bias on that one.
Re: long answer pt 2
Date: 2008-05-31 01:54 am (UTC)I must say that I really enjoy your stories about Sam and his girls. I love that insight. Heck, I want Sam as my dad! *g*
Lng answer part three
Date: 2008-05-30 10:08 pm (UTC)One of the things kinda/sorta/almost is a story Barb and I are ostensibly working on together called "Displacement", which takes place not too many years in the future (Allie is 18) in which Something Happens -- the causality of which may or may not have to do with hell gates opening or the rise in Supernatural events. Sam is affected rather profoundly, and all the strains and wear on both he and Dean from events past (from Open Doors onward) have consequences. On a metaphysical level, Sam starts coming undone -- not the way Dean does with his soul on the outside, but more a case of Sam unable to maintain the balance between body and soul. It has as much to do with this fundamental shift in the actual way of the world, in how this world and the worlds that spawn shades and visions and supernatural critters tries to right itself (And has less to do with demons, although they are opportunists at best).
Through all this we've seen what the cost to Dena has been, the fact that he does slip outside himself and Sam keeps managing to pull him back together. In this case, when Sam slips, Dean doesn't really have the ability or means to stitch Sam back up as Sam does for him, so he has to find another way. But as with all things these two will do for each other, it has a price. You see some of it in "Shift" an "Time's a Comin'"; Sam and Dean don't cause the change in the world but they are sensitive to it before hand and act accordingly. "Displacement" actually binds them together even further, and the third arc, "Disambiguation" is about how that plays out, both for them and their families and the rest of the world. It's not the apocalypse, but the world does change, restructures itself, and to some extent you find out why, in the grand scale the psychics, the gifted, like Dena and Sam and thier girls, regardless of if their gifts are passive or active, exist at all.
Re: Lng answer part three
Date: 2008-05-31 01:55 am (UTC)Salvation is...well, sort of my Salvation. When life is beating the crap out of me, I get a glass of tea, settle my cats around me and read the universe start to finish. It always puts me in a much better frame of mind. So thank you for your contribution to that!
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Date: 2008-05-30 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 06:22 pm (UTC)Ten minutes. Really.
Or could I pay to you plot my stories? *g*
(That's not really a question but it's an admiration for the incredible plot in Egeo Fides (etc.) and is the kind of thing I point to when people sniff disdainfully at me and ask why I "bother" with fanficion. "Because there's no one publishing today who writes like *this*," I answer, and I'd share some links with them at that point but they're sort of backing away with their eyes wide and it's all good.)
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Date: 2008-05-30 10:30 pm (UTC)And how tickled am I that you like Egeo Fides so much. It's my favorite of that trilogy, for all that it's the shortest, just because I think Chris finally actually gets Vin on a level he didn't before. He loved him, but it kind of always bothered him as to why and how, when he was so very much in love wiht his wife.
Ultimately, I think when Chris fell in love and married Sarah, he expected it to be forever, and didn't know what to do when that wasn't the outcome. Vin on the other hand, doesn't expect anything to be forever, so he takes what he can get and ultimately has no regrets.
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Date: 2008-05-30 09:53 pm (UTC)Where do you see the girls down the road, in terms of abilities, use of abilities and ties to the family? Does anyone "go away" to college, or do they all hunker down near home? Who takes the biggest leap (physical distance) and who never feels inclined to wander away? [Okay, that's a bunch of questions, but they're all tied together...]
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Date: 2008-05-30 10:16 pm (UTC)In what we've discussed, no one actually get the opportunity to "Go away". Allie is the closest, and she was already making gestures like she was ready when I wrote "Shift", had already begun a life that was slightly separate from her family and possibly started college. When the events pre and post "Shift" happen, she's very much aware of what is coming -- as is Mary.
They do, further down the line, fall in love, have babies (Sam and Dean's grandchildren) so that the groundwork for whole future generations are laid out. Neither Dean nor Sam have any claim to immortality (in this plane anyway) but at the end of their lives, they're both pretty clear that it's less an end than just a different journey and both Dean and Sam are okay with that.
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Date: 2008-05-30 10:03 pm (UTC)Second Sight verse. Again, do you have a planned ending. The last installment has Sam dealing with Dean being injured but not fatally, what happens when Sam sees Dean's death or John's. Will he eventually see his own? Yes, I am morbid.
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Date: 2008-05-30 10:24 pm (UTC)On Second Sight, scarily enough, the very last story is mostly written, but I'm not willing to finish it or post it until I feel like I'm done with the series (which is a really arbitrary kind of marker. There are YEARS that could be told with a different story each time.)
I actually wrote the story where Sam sees John's death and he and Dean drive to be with him the weekend John dies.
He never sees his own death, but he does see Dean's -- sees the one he can't save Dean from and it's not one he tries to, because it's not horrible except in the loss he feels, and ultimately he releases Dean from his promise that Sam will go first or they'll go together. But he doesn't last long afterward, and by the time his own death comes, he's more than ready for it. IT sounds more depressing than it is, because at the end of Sam's life, he feels like he's beat the curse laid on him because he doesn't die in despair, and he's only alone in a physical sense. He also gets his sight back at the very end, the curse having run it's course.
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Date: 2008-05-31 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 04:27 am (UTC)Also, do you have a plan for more in the False Comforts verse? I miss it. :)
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Date: 2008-05-31 11:13 am (UTC)And Dean gets that, it takes him a little longer to get the full impact of that choice and the consequences -- a kind of curse of their own -- on Sam. But when he does, When Dean goes into this, he understands what he's doing and he does it whole-heartedly, but he still has to do some adjusting both because Sam's his brother, because Sam's a guy and because he can't just turn off his libido or the emotional and physical connection he has or wants with women and Sam gets that probably better than Dean does at first.
Sam knows his brother pretty well, and knows that once Dean comitts to him (even before they have sex) Sam knows it's for life. It's not that he never has doubts and there's a part of him that desperately wants Dean to have life different than this, because he wants his brother to be happy and he thinks Dean would be an awesome father.
When Dean was with his various lady-friends early on it wasn't an issue because Sam never met them or only rarely. Not meeting them was better, because he didn't have to worry about adding them to the list of people whose deaths he was likely to see, but when Dean started seeing Caroline, things changed and Sam tried to isolate himself emotionally, while still being happy for Dean. The problem was he liked Caroline and he wasn't entirely sure that being indiffer3ent to her would make a difference. And that whole relationship and the fallout, finally gave Dean a better idea, a clearer picture of just how far this curse would go. If he wanted that life he'd have to separate from Sam entirely -- keep any wife or kids he had away from Sam entirely and that simply wasn't an option to him.
So Sam doesn't really have a problem with Dean seeing other people, it's not that e wouldn't worry about it, or maybe have a pang of jealousy, but there's a deep level of gratitude for what Dean's chosen to do, consciously and fully aware, that is stronger than any sense of possession he might have about Dean's affections or his physical presence. As the years go on, he realizes that there's only so much he can do to limit his contact --even casual contact with people. Dean is always going to be a target for the curse, as is his father. For someone who valued his own ability to make choices, to make his own way, for Sam, wanting Dean to have that same freedom of choice, even within a limited scope is incredibly important to him and just another small way that he has of subverting this thing, of beating the original curse, so he compartmentalizes, and the older he gets the more he realizes that he's alway going to be the first choice for Dean, has always been the first and best recipient of Dean's love. It was true before the curse and Sam learns to trust that and Dean.
I think I explained to someone once before that in Second Sight, Dean and Sam love each other completely and devotedly, but they aren't in love with each other, which is a minor distinction, but an important one. It's what John finally comes to terms with when he realizes that his sons have crossed the line from love and devotion to physical expressions of the same.
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Date: 2008-05-31 06:13 pm (UTC)he has always been the first and best recipient of Dean's love - This just warms my heart. And has always been crystal clear in this verse from the very beginning, slash or no.
FC part 2
Date: 2008-05-31 11:13 am (UTC)As for False comforts, I honestly hope to get back to it someday, because I have a more than half-written story that follows up on the last one. But FC is, as fun as it is, a complicated 'verse to write in, with lots of layers and requires a mindset of otherness that I haven't been able to recapture in the past year or so. Mostly it's the bridge story that needs to be competed, when it goes from Dean and Sam against the shapeshifters to Dean and Sam against the mother of them. Her agenda isn't human, not motivated by things that motivate humans -- which is something I love writing but requires a clarity of thought that's been severely lacking in me lately. So, yes, I have plans, whether I have the will or the mental acumen to do it as I think the series deserves, is another matter entirely.
Re: FC part 2
Date: 2008-05-31 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 01:47 am (UTC)Just asking, you may ignore at will . . .
THANKS FOR ALL THE SHADOW RIDERS STUFF!!!!
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Date: 2008-06-01 04:16 am (UTC)I'll have to check on Icaraus...I think I pretty much posted what I had. I can tell you that same Alliance program that produced the seraphim produced the Reavers -- and earlier version of the same kind of technology and biomechanical technology. (Keep in mind this was all written before Serenity was released.)
The Icarus series was always more episodic than Shadow Riders -- in that it really was meant to be, after the initial story, all about the seven having the same kind of adventures as the Firefly crew did, albeit with a more permanent home base. (And wings. Must not forget the wings!) So other than how it all came to be, there was no larger over-arcing story. If it's not clear from what is posted of Icarus Ascending, that's where it all started -- I think I had a vague idea that it was the Reavers that came back and attacked the facility, and in that attack, is how Chris, Vin and Buck escaped. They picked up the other four once they were clear. They are hunted, wanted men, all three of them, because they are seraphim.
The seraphim themselves number probably less than fifty all told, and a lot of them either still work for the alliance or went mad or got sick from the synthetic blood. There's a danger of madness that was never fully realized in what I posted, but mostly it happens when too much of the synth-blood enters the system. It can be reversible, but it leaves the survivors highly sensitive to it. But that's rue of even non-seraphim that are treated with it in lieu of real blood. In my theory, the Reavers are pretty much addicted to the stuff and that's what makes them crazy, but they also have a variety of different biomechanical and sometimes merely mutated attibutes. The whole, first they'll rape us, then feed on us, then take our flesh, that Zoe gives in the early part of the series is true enough. With so little actual blood in their systems the Reavers crave it (eating it doesn't actually do them much good, but they'll take transfusions) and they'll take the flesh a and sometimes limbs or other body parts from their victims to replace their own.
I had a half idea of the 7 running into the Reavers, with a myriad of nasty things happening because the leader of the group they run into wants wings of his own...so you can imagine where that could go...*g*
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Date: 2008-06-01 02:47 pm (UTC)yeah, I hate that you're monogamous as well. Can't you come up with a SPN-M7 crossover in this universe? Maybe Sam and Dean are hunting down the Reavers and come across the Icarus???? Please please??
Even though and with great reluctance, I have to say that I'd personally prefer a crossover in the Shadow Riders universe. That's just so close I can almost taste it, like Vin's bl- um, never mind.
Thanks for the info - and I think even with Serenity that the concept works, as the virus was created by the Alliance. (Prescient much?) I love the idea that they come up against the REavers - and that the Reavers want the wing fluid and wings - too cool!
Again - many many thanks.
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Date: 2008-06-01 07:39 pm (UTC)