FIC: k/d epic amnesty chapters

[lobelia321]

Title: (untitled karl/dom epic)
Pairing: Karl/Dominic
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: None
Finished: 20 May 2003
Posted: 7 February 2004
Warnings: Long. Angsty sex. Psycho problems. Dodgy formatting (sorry).

Author's Notes: As some of you know, a very long Karl/Dom epic haunted me for about nine months from 2002-03. I never posted it: too much angst, too much Mary Sue, too much psycho cathexis. I will never revise it in its current form. I started to but ended up writing a new fic. But let me be free of it! Let me use this wip amnesty week to inflict selected chapters on the hapless public.

Many heartfelt thanks to eyebrowofdoom and to lazlet who read it and commented so seriously. For this amnesty, I took none of their advice and revised nothing; they are not culpable for anything herein.

These are the chapters I am least embarrassed by. The fic is very bitsy so cutting chapters out actually improves reading (I think). Some of them I found very sexy to write at the time.

Anyway, here it is:

FIC at my site as it proved too long to fit into one LJ post

Feel free to post comments and/or abuse below. :-)

Comments

[novanumbernine.livejournal.com]

well - i kind of agree with the "too much angst" thing, but i'm still disappointed that this didn't work out, from what i've now read of it.

n.x :)

Re:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

It's a long story. I don't think I knew you when I used to angst about this but I decided not to post after my two very kind and wonderful beta readers pointed out some major flaws in the fic. And then I thought about it and realised that the flaws were due to me not paying attention to the fic but using the fic to channel my psycho problems (of which I had many at that time... not that I don't have psychoprobs now but one thing I learned from k/d epic was to keep them out of my fic -- not that that is 100 percent possible but I won't ramble on too much or I'll lose my thread).

Anyway, I discovered, to my surprise, that I had been Karl!Sueing all along but writing as if I were Dom!Sueing. I think not being aware of your Sue is a bad thing for the writing. It skews the fic and twists it up. And much of it was about me and not about the story.

For the good of my mental health, I abandoned the fic. I thought I might revisit at some later, more mellowed stage. I did revisit but as soon as I started revising I had invented an entire new backstory that ran counter to what happens in the "fic" as it stands, and I realised that the story has died for me. I still like some of the chapters and sections. I can still remember the atmosphere and even the places I wrote them in. But it was my angst, and not the story's angst -- and that is bad for a fic.

So: this thing was more therapy than fiction. Except for the restaurant chapter (Mitsuko) which was written at the very end and from an outsider's perspective. Both betas liked that bit best, and re-reading it now, I have to concur. It was the distance that did it: I had jumped over my own Sue shadow.

Re:

[novanumbernine.livejournal.com]

aha - i can quite see the dangers of Not Knowing Your Sue.

i really did like the erotic street thang, too.

n.x :)

Re:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Erotic street thang?

I think we need to think more about our Sues. They have been shamefully vilified and made to go underground. ;-(

*stares*

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

I
cannot
believe
I
am
seeing
this
!!!!!

*prints out to read in the wee hours*

Re: *stares*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I was thinking of you, actually. My cathexis (hah! use the word whenever I can) has waned with time so I'm not so worried about people reading this mess of unleavened words. Well, I could go on... but it might bore.

;-)

Re: *stares*

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

No, no, do go on! I've almost finished it- my printer ran out of paper with ten pages to go- ARGH! OMG Karl has issues, is all I can say for now. :) Proper fb later.

[lazulus]

Well. I am glad you posted these. It is interesting to see which chapters you chose.

The restaurant chapter was pretty much a given, and I still think it's a lovely piece of writing. Interestingly, I was amazed at how much of it I remembered. It really did nestle its way into my brain. Delightful.

Chapter 15 had the same effect as the first time I read it, profound sadness for both Karl and Dom, trapped in this damaged relationship with no means to find an escape route that would lead to anything other than hurt for both of them. It once again brought tears to my eyes.

That last chapter... I found/find it both compulsive and repulsive. Not a criticism, you understand, just a comment on how well it works as a description of their disfunction.

In many ways it is sad that it never got revised but, as you say, it served its purpose and I am very pleased you have gone on to start a new piece.

Re:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Originally, I started with the chapter of the street, because I thought readers would need to understand the beginnings and the setting -- but then I started re-reading that and cringed with the contrived awfulness of it, so raced back to geocities and took it off. I included the restaurant scene for the sole reason that you said you liked it. It was written last and fast and after about ten re-writings of that wretched difficult tricky chapter -- and when I re-read it last night I was surprised and delighted to find that it worked. What a clever trick that was to put it all into a third person's head (if I say so myself)-- it enabled me to fudge all those conversational hurdles that were causing me such headaches.

I didn't re-read the others last night. I just scrolled through, picking the ones that I remembered as being most self-contained, and the ones that were the key ones and most erotic ones for me. So all the sex that I posted is the sex I found rivetting about these two. (In my psycho way at that time.) And neither you nor Belinda were head-over-heels about the kitchen sex but, to me, that is the sexiest thing I have written -- it was hot to write and it did several things narratively that I needed to do, and it did them very neatly, and the ploy of interweaving real!Miranda with Dom!Miranda came to me and was great to write. But then I lost that momentum somewhere. It was one of the earliest scenes I wrote, and it never managed to hang with the others. I needed to emphasise the triangle much more -- starting off from the restaurant one, actually, and rewriting everything.

I might post the telephone conversation Miranda/Dom later as well. I do like that - not the actual words said but the things like the insect plopping into the coffee.

Ah well. I'll do DP instead.

Thanks so much again for reading it all and commenting.

[ia-ne.livejournal.com]

OH NOO!!1111!!! I don't have time to read this! For like, the next eleven months. *pulls hair*

I have time know, but I'm at a friend's house. Maybe on friday.

Re:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No, no, don't pull your hair!

I won't take it off again, I promise. (Although I did delete one chapter from my site last night but no more, I swear!)

So take your time. *g*

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

I really don't know if I should read this. I remember so much about the writing & angsting & abandoning of it that, I think, to read it would be to diminish, in some way, what you went through while writing & what I went through while hearing about the writing of it.

I'll have to give it some more thought.

Re:

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Listen, you can compromise. Read only the first of the posted chapters. That was written last and is least angsty. It has an origchar who's seeing it all from the outside so you get the dynamics but not the angst. And don't read the rest.

Re:

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

I think I might be able to do that. I'll let you know what I think.

*mwah*

[weotolkien.livejournal.com]

Wow!!! First,this 'epic' was amazing,an absolutely amazing read! And I should've known I wouldn't be able to stop once I started :) As an author,you accomplished what I love to happen in a story.You made me 'live in your landscape'.Not just the physical,but the emotional,as well.Your descriptions,the characters interactions-I was there,seeing and feeling everything.Thank you so much for that experience.

How long can this be :)

Ch.12: I was surprised by,and muchly enjoyed, the p.o.v. of the receptionist.Her observations were perfect. I'll never think of chopsticks in the same way again-now that was one hot scene! I always fear for the guys when there is a woman involved,or trying to be-I just don't trust 'em ;) So Miranda caused me not a little tension there.

Ch.15: I've never read a rimming scene quite like this! It was so much more,in fact I'd say this whole ch.was so much more. While reading this ch. I could just feel my heart being torn out,but w/out being sure exactly why.And this sentence hit me hard:
'A shooting star plunges through the sky on a suicidal mission and dies mid-flight.'

Ch.16: 'Binocular vision pulls Karl apart into two separate fragments, each big, each blurry, each just out of reach of the grasp of reality.'
You made perfect use of binoculars!

Ch.18:
'And then the words flow. For minutes, they flow into the car. They dart along the dashboard. They dangle from the rearview mirror. Verbs and nouns encrust the steering wheel and make Karl's fingers prickle. Adjectives of pleasure hop onto the horn but they are too light to make it sound. Prepositions buzz up and down the gear stick and pronouns, oh pronouns, creep and crawl into Karl's collar, down his nape and spine. They skirt his coccyx, negotiate his hip and nestle in his pubic hair. All the pronouns are 'he, he, him', and they massage Karl's dick with their slim little aspirates, with their terrifying masculinity.'
'Dominic stands breathing. He leans his head back and looks at the tree from below. It's a gum, with lance-shaped leaves. The underside of the leaves is silvery and furred. The upper side is smooth as sage. They have two sides, like so much in life. One side is open to the sun; it leads a sleepy, chlorophyllic life. The other side keeps moisture in its secret underbelly. When they clap together, a thousand colours rustle in symphonic rapport.'
What to say but amazing!
TBC

[weotolkien.livejournal.com]

*part 2

Ch.19:
'His skin feels unsure of its beginnings and its ends.'
So much to wonder about!

Ch.20: Was so excited to find more after this ch.cause as your latest I thought it was the last.
'A wave crashes onto a rock outside. A thousand boats splinter into wreckage. The moon plummets by several fingerwidths and hangs, spinning, above the horizon.'
'But it's not nothing. It's everything.'
Yeah!

Ch.21: Pebble therapy! Had me a bit mesmerized :)

Ch.23: The distance kiss!!!
'The air shivers in the cup of space between their faces.'
"We cheated a bit just now, I think."
"Why?" says Karl, razor poised under his chin. "That wasn't sex. Was it?"
"No," says Dominic. "But it felt like it."
Sure did!!!

Ch.24: Fun and sweet! And then...This really got to me,quite real to life:
'He continues to rub Karl's freckle. He kisses Karl's ear. Karl lies still and hopes that Dominic will ask further, that Dominic will probe. He hopes it. He fears it.'
'Karl doesn't want to be an egg. He doesn't like to be reminded that he might break.'
'He doesn't like to remember that he may be already broken.'
'What Karl doesn't know, what Karl can't know is that there will be no later. There is only now. And if he doesn't snatch his chance now, here, today, tonight, he may not have another one.'
Too true! And then the tears...

Ch.31: Intense! Awesomely intense? Intensely awesome? Anyway, you know you're invested in the characters when you're so afraid for them that you almost can't continue reading,yet you can't bear to leave them even for a moment. I so did not know what to expect while reading this ch.
'Everything falls into place and nothing will ever be the same.'
And I thought those were real tears before. Wow!

I actually had to sleep on this before commenting,get myself back together. But I feel like I could just go on and on,like I haven't done just that. And a thank you for this,for all that you put into this, just seems so inadequate.
So... consider this a 'beyond thank-you' :)
Vi