Five Drabbles: Bereft and Rescued – after Babbling about Participating in the Fandom and Rewriting

[paulamcg]

Having just posted my wish list for Rare Pair Shorts, I trust I’ll continue to participate in the fandom in these fun ways, perhaps more when I’m on holiday for the whole of July. I’ve enjoyed sharing and even some community feels – writing, having my fic read, reading and commenting – and I’ve still got fics at two anonymous fests to be revealed in early June. But at the moment I think I prefer doing some more extensive revision to properly getting started with new fest fics.

After all, I’d like to include in my Remus’s story at least one of those early one-shot fics which I’d already decided not to post at all on AO3. Even the title of that fic – A Gift – is different from the unique-and-meaningful-phrase-straight-from-the-story-text style I’ve preferred ever since 2005. I’m afraid the tone is awfully melodramatic, and the style is heavy, weighed-down by telling-not-showing flashbacks and by scarcity of dialogue. Who cares, I could ask.

I’ve got no idea if the people out there (40 or 80 in three months, perhaps) who click on my fics about Remus’s drifting years (the so-called Lost Years 1982 – 1993) would care and prefer something closer to how I write my new fics. I care. If some events are part of my Remus’s life, I want to share them with readers and do my best (even when the fic is far from any popular trends and doesn’t participate in the fandom in the sense of sharing common characterisations, scenarios and tropes).

I hope that, for once, I’ll manage to do a thorough rewrite, as I can keep the old version (even up on Live Journal), too. Perhaps, in case I succeed, this will prepare me for the huge work of rewriting the early chapters of the novel.

I changed my mind about A Gift today when I enjoyed revising and improving the next five drabbles in the series Sketches for a Portrait. (I hardly edited the previous three, which I posted yesterday.) The third one (together with the last sentence of the second one) of these somehow summarises A Gift.

Title: Bereft and Rescued
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Remus/Sirius, Remus/original male characters
Characters: Remus, (in a memory) baby Harry and Lily, two original male characters, an original female character
Word Count: 5 x 100
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Remus won’t help me make any money.
Notes: These are the five 100-word drabbles – set in the so-called Lost Years – which I polished with help from my incredible Ishonn and published in December 2006 so as to continue the series of Remus’s drafts for an autobiography. I've now made a few further improvements in the texts, and added a title and a summary for this group of five.
Summary: After the fateful Halloween Remus continues to survive despite not always trying his best not to disappear completely.

Read here on AO3
or right here.



5


He’s alone. Better not look at himself. He’s also trying to forget what one of them looked like.

To focus on these books with no pictures. Only lines of lies to memorise: violence and greed as the sub-human nature.

No colour in this room, and no one who could afford to worry about that. No heating, no food. Huddled on the thin grey mattress, wrapped in the filthy blanket, there’s just someone who’s shivering and clutching his stomach in pain.

And still, it’s him, and he can’t help remembering. Being consoled by every single meal once offered by the traitor.



6


One image almost manages to keep him awake, dreaming of a hot meal, a bowl around which to cup his numb hands, a warm place to lay down what is left of his body. Instead, obviously, he’ll remain under a sheet of frost, if he can’t drag himself up any longer, to wander the streets until he disappears…

The baby switches his lips into a blissful smile, still clinging to the nipple. The mother, finally realising someone else is present, reaches out. The fire of her hair burns.

A touch on his hand causes pain, condemns him back to life.



7


He‘s rescued by a bold artist – another werewolf, not afraid of their closeness.

Those strong strokes don’t hesitate, but he wants to step out before any portrait is fully fleshed. Before he must admit he’s a model, too. Having accepted a paint brush in his left hand, he fears that more than his body could start healing.

In his paintings there’s perhaps a haven amid the storm, but no breath of life.

He must receive the gift, and present something in return: force out at least words for a story to explain why he can’t help pulling his hand away.



8


Her wrinkled hand lifts a cup full of warm milk to his lips. Now the hands are joined beside her cheek, and the sharp gaze of her beady eyes leaves him for a moment: she closes her lids to make sure he can understand the sign.

While her potions start nourishing his new skin, in his dream he is able…

I am able to hold a paint brush again. I don’t need parchment, paper or canvas. The figures are leaping across the walls. Dolphins. The Prince of Lilies. The monster turns a human face towards me and builds the palace.



9


Wandering back, I focus on some changed nuances in the landscape. The human figures are distracting decoration.

Only plain pencil lines in the cheapest notebook. I still don’t pilfer anything unnecessary – or anything to sustain this body, although I admit the gift mustn’t be rejected.

But an angel’s smile is persistent enough. He takes me along and up. He shares his tricks of surviving: how to fill his stomach for free and sate his nostalgia with songs about the home lost before he was born.

No matter how bereft and disillusioned, I’m bound to see Samir as a beautiful man.



Notes: Each drabble can be read also separately and interpreted in any way a reader chooses.
Those who read other fic by me might like to know that I’ve meant to set drabble 5 in London, where Remus continues to study on a meagre scholarship – now History of Magic. I Don’t Dream shows him in the same situation.
Drabbles 6 and 7 are set in Paris, where Remus was an art student in 1983 - 1984, then lost his scholarship and was homeless until accepting help from a fellow artist. There’s a story I wrote about that relationship in 2004 and have now considered rewriting.
Drabble 8 is set on Crete, and the mentions of wall paintings refer to the frescoes at the Knossos Palace. In Anywhere and Back Again, Remus remembers the old witch who tended to him after a full moon in 1986.
Drabble 9 somehow summarises Come Up With Me, set in Thessaloniki in 1987.

Comments

[a_belladonna]

Oh. Oh. They are all so beautiful in their melancholy, I can't really begin to just point one thing out. Except that I really want to reach through the screen and comfort poor Lupin.
Wonderful, wonderful drabbles. :) That goes for the other three you posted the other day as well! But I'm afraid I'd just write the same kind of comment on that post, so this is a comment on both drabble-posts. I loved those three as well. :)

even when the fic is far from any popular trends and doesn’t participate in the fandom in the sense of sharing common characterisations, scenarios and tropes

I know what you mean - I felt the same when I was more active in HP and I feel the same in Tintin. There are some interpretations of especially Tintin/Haddock I just don't agree with (TL;DR: I tend to interpret that pairing as more bordering on something messed up and dysfunctional than most others, I think).

[paulamcg]

Oh, thank you! My poor Remus is fortunate to have been found by someone like you to whom all the melancholy appeals. I’m thrilled the drabbles in this series work so well for you.

I’m behind in replying to comments and commenting on your Tintin post, partly because I was back to work all last week, tired in the evenings and busy cleaning the flat. And partly because I got absorbed in rewriting that fic which I’ve been unwilling to share.

I started with technical changes and then realised that when I replace the past tense (which I’d used in the parts with an OCs first-person voice – with the present tense, I must change the contents of the narrative radically. After taking the (hypothetical) reader to the OCs mind in a whole new scene, I’ve now done some blissfully slow work on a completely new opening in Remus’s present-tense voice, trying to show him detached from himself by making it hardly even third-person, first with no pronouns at all. I feel it’s all experimental, and maybe I’ll never share it – and at the same time I’m communicating with my other work, including references to what I’ve learnt about Remus in my other fics after I originally wrote this story. Now here, of course, I haven’t resisted communicating with someone in the fandom, too :)!

It’s so good to know you can understand what I mean. In some (perhaps most) cases it isn’t even that I wouldn’t agree with others’ interpretations. It’s that I chose mine before discussing these characters with anyone or reading fic by others. I’m happy to read different characterisations and scenarios but I think they seldom affect what I write. The extreme example are Alice and Frank, about whom I’ve never read any fic.

I’ve found very interesting and appealing what I’ve read about your Tintin and Haddock’s relationship. Perhaps one thing the two of us share is that when reading and writing fiction we don’t primarily seek the pleasure of perfectly satisfying virtual interaction (even though you write rather satisfying smut, I suppose)?

[a_belladonna]

I've always had a soft spot for Lupin, and especially in the angstier stories.

I’m behind in replying to comments and commenting on your Tintin post

No stress! Of course it's not possible commenting as quickly in between work and all the other RL obligations one has.
I can understand the problems you faced! Changing one little thing can mean having to revise a lot, because it completely changes everything. I'm currently working on a fic where my beta pointed out that the idea of Haddock having several tattoos was appealing, and I liked the idea - but that meant additional hours researching sailors' tattoos, as well as having to rework something earlier in the story.

It’s that I chose mine before discussing these characters with anyone or reading fic by others

Exactly! I didn't face it as much in HP, but I'm facing it in Tintin because the universe has been part of me for 30 years, from way before I knew there was an online fandom. I don't have a problem with others' interpretation, but I do get a little tired when someone presents some prevalent fan theory/reading as the "only" one.
Tintin never had an age in my mind, but I can see now, as an adult, how Hergé has portrayed him as a teenager - so no, sorry, I can't see him as someone in his mid-20's.

we don’t primarily seek the pleasure of perfectly satisfying virtual interaction

That sounds rather likely, yes. :) I can see, at least, that when I try my hand at Tintin/Haddock it's because I want to explore the more "broken" aspects of Tintin's character. There's a marked difference between the way I write Tintin/Tchang and Tintin/Haddock - in the former he gets to be a more "normal" teenager going through more "normal" teenage feelings. (Yes, I can't escape the smut, haha.)

[paulamcg]

that meant additional hours researching Yes, not tattoos in my case, but features of the setting (Paris in October – November 1985, or ‘84, as I’m considering whether I should change my lost-years timeline a bit), because I need to include a lot more sense perceptions than I did in the more telling-not-showing past-tense style.

Tintin never had an age in my mind, but I can see now, as an adult, how Hergé has portrayed him as a teenager Have you told me whether you also wrote stories about Tintin for years before finding the online fandom? For you it’s perhaps clear that while having only Hergé’s canon as part of you, you could have Tintin without an age, and when starting to write about him (or starting to write stories which weren’t just action adventures but more about his personal life), you needed to make your interpretation of the portrayal by Hergé and develop yours on the basis of that – while you can accept that other fans have different interpretations.

I’d like to read also some Tintin/Tchang by you, even though it might be more satisfying and entertaining in the popular way – but I think I’ll enjoy it more if there’s some angst and some melancholy, too!

[a_belladonna]

because I need to include a lot more sense perceptions than I did in the more telling-not-showing past-tense style.

Ah! Of course! I can see how that would need a lot of re-work. I hope it's progressing nicely. :)

Have you told me whether you also wrote stories about Tintin for years before finding the online fandom?

I didn't write stories until about a year ago. Until then, he only existed within the official comics, for me. I've talked to my boss and my father about it - none of them have ever really thought about Tintin's age either.
I guess it's what happens when you grow up with the character. He's obviously older than you, the child reader, but when you're 10, you don't need an age. He's just "older". It's really rather impressive, what Hergé did there. By making the character ageless he truly made him immortal, because he'll always have the age you want him to, and it's always the right age. (Until you run into Americans who can't understand how a 14-19 year old can travel on his own and drink alcohol. It seems it's mostly the Americans who need him to be older than a teen).

I’d like to read also some Tintin/Tchang by you

You almost already did. :) That little multi-chapter fic I posted earlier this spring was Tintin/Tchang. Although it's three chapters it's really not very long - I mostly made it into three chapters because it's spread out geographically. And it has mild angst and melancholy. ;)

[paulamcg]

Oh, I think I can remember hearing back then that you posted such a fic. We must have started making friends and I’d tried and read a bit by you in Danish, but I didn’t think I’d read anything outside HP on AO3. Perhaps I should now read Tintin in Tibet first?

And yes, we Europeans find it natural that teenagers travel alone and drink! But seriously, what Hergé did should be a good basis for variety in fanworks. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of fans (in HP) have even lists of what they won’t read, and they can include anything from first-person narration to a short Sirius, why not a character with a different year of birth from what they deem the only correct interpretation.

And thank you, I feel the rewriting is going well. It’s exciting, as I don’t know if the style I’ve chosen will work in the next scenes. Perhaps there’ll be changes in what events I show, but I like the challenge of not exactly contradicting the early story. I also like the idea that my OC was a slightly unreliable narrator in his past-tense voice.

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about my writing when I’m afraid it’s bound to remain mainly for myself to read. If I posted the openings of the old and the new “A Gift”, I wonder if anyone would deem the latter any better. I think I’ve branched out this past spring and written different kinds of fics with different characters (not just the Marauders), and I think I write better than before, but it hardly matters for the readership whether I do or not. Somehow my Remus always sneaks in – and he was born in 1958, not in 1960, which we saw only in DH as James and Lily’s year of birth! :)

[a_belladonna]

Perhaps I should now read Tintin in Tibet first?

It is a very beautiful story, and we get to see a rather different Tintin in it. He's vulnerable and emotional in a way he isn't in any of the other stories, but I don't know if it's necessary to read it before my fic. I asked a friend of mine to proof-read it, and he's not a fan, yet the story made sense to him.
Also because in order to understand why he's so emotional about Tchang, you should probably read The Blue Lotus before you read Tintin in Tibet. :)

And yes, we Europeans find it natural that teenagers travel alone and drink! But seriously, what Hergé did should be a good basis for variety in fanworks.

Haha, yes. In some ways it seems we're expected to be mature a bit earlier. And when you think about the time the comics are set in, you were (almost) an adult at 14. You were definitely old enough to leave school and start working.

And yes, the universe has a lot of open ends, that is nice. :) And does give a lot of variety.

I also like the idea that my OC was a slightly unreliable narrator in his past-tense voice.

That is something we don't see too often! But yes, unreliable narrators should happen more often, after all our memories aren't 100% certain.

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about my writing when I’m afraid it’s bound to remain mainly for myself to read

You're welcome! I also have some fics that I don't have any plans of publishing, I use them either to work through some ideas or to be better at getting the characters' voices down.

I think I write better than before

It's so nice when you can sense your progress like that. :) That makes you want to continue, right?
About their year of birth, I do remember seeing some theories placing Snape, Lily and the Marauders somewhere around '59/'60 even before DH. But when I re-read PoA this spring, one quote struck me in particular: On page 375 Lupin says,
"It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. (...) But then Dumbledore became Headmaster, and he was sympathetic."
That, to me at least, makes it possible that he is indeed older than the others. Perhaps not by much, but a few years wouldn't seem weird.

[paulamcg]

unreliable narrators should happen more often Yes, I can’t remember seeing them in fanfic, but I haven’t really read much (as I’m a slow reader and too much devoted to writing). I’ve admired at least the way Ian McEwan uses them. For me it’s interesting to now reveal this OC as mine to have been unreliable, but only someone who read both the old and the new fic would know – and I’m not sure I want anyone to read the old one any more. Now again, like ever since 2005, I’m simply trying to convey what my viewpoint characters truly experience at the moment, but the memories present in their minds are, of course far from 100% certain or complete.

some fics that I don't have any plans of publishing I don’t think I could write without an intention to publish. (I’m just not sure if I’ll publish the original A Gift – or actually the version slightly edited in 2005 – again, or include in the notes a link to it on Livejournal.) It’s just that I doubt this kind of a fic will gain readers.

Thank you so much for taking interest also in Remus’s year of birth! I tried to check when Dumbledore became Headmaster, and in the HP Lexicon it says he was Headmaster for over thirty years, but I can’t find the original source or the exact year. If the Lexicon is correct, it was at the latest 1967. In any case, I’ve interpreted what Lupin says in PoA in such a way that for (some of) the years between the bite and his turning eleven it seemed he wouldn’t be admitted to school. I decided (in 2003) that my Remus was born in 1958 and bitten at the age of five. My interpretation of what I’ve written about his childhood (without saying this explicitly) is that Remus and his family got to know Dumbledore’s decision (which, as we later find out, was not based on sympathy) only – but not later than – in summer 1969, and he entered Hogwarts together with the other Marauders, and they all left school in summer 1976.

That’s two years earlier than I believe almost everyone in the HP fandom must regard as the only possibility in their non-completely-AU lives. But my fanfic is based only on the first five HP novels. I remember even before DH seeing people claim that it was canon the Marauders were all born between September 1959 and end of summer 1960. I just don’t care about facts given by the author outside her works. When returning to fanfic last year, before starting to write the Marauders-era stories with exact references to real-world times and events, I considered and discussed with a twenty-year-old son whether I should change my timeline, but we agreed that it’s better for the story-telling to give them those couple of extra years. And as I’ve said in this post, who cares! I no longer fear that I lose a remarkable number of readers because of this “fault” in my fanfic, and I mention it in the notes, usually after the story text, if it makes a difference.

And finally to my preliminary (or rather most personal) comments on A Fraternal Bond of Sorts. Having decided to read your fic first, I’m eager to meet the characters in The Blue Lotus and in Tintin in Tibet, and sure I’ll now care more about them in those stories, too, thanks to you.

I was startled that – after discussing various topics with you on so many DW threads that you’ve become the person with whom I’ve had by far the most extensive and regular interaction in the fandom since my return, even though I first thought we barely share a fandom – I now find out you’ve written something that could be my very favourite read… I’m not good at asking for fic at exchanges or in wishlists, because (now that I manage to read sex scenes, too) I can read anything (unless it’s very long or written very badly), and I don’t really wish someone wrote for me the fic I want to write myself (like how Remus moved in to live with Sirius. Well, I have enjoyed – and even given prompts for – such stories, but now I rather wish for stories about other minor characters in the first five HP books). But reading this fic of yours, I feel as if it’s been written for me, according to all the likes I’ve never managed to include in wishlists.

I love the way you show Tintin through Haddock’s eyes. You now know my preferences well enough to understand why it gives me all the feels when Haddock makes his detailed observations of Tintin’s physical state in Chapter 1. And I love how some dimensions of the emotional state are revealed gradually and remain more implied – and the most intimate touches are not shown (not even the kiss shared too closely) thanks to the outside perspective. And you know I find it both fascinating and touching in a story that it’s set in a context where it can’t be taken for granted that the intimate relationship will be accepted, even by the two involved in it themselves. Besides, how you go on and deal with that conflict in the final scene exceeds my expectations. Finally, throughout the story you develop the thread of Haddock’s own feelings towards Tintin. His loving care, his reaction to being considered the father, his thoughts and words about being familiar with homosexuality. Oh, I think Haddock is becoming my favourite character. (And as a child I saw him just as an old drunkard sailor! I’ve never liked beards, but coincidentally the OC in A Gift had one also originally :)) And it’s all written excellently. I hope I’ll manage to focus more on that aspect on AO3.

Oh, one technical nitpick. When posting to AO3, you must have a problem with getting the blank lines where they should be. I’m sure you know that each character’s lines in a dialogue (with the tag or other related sentences) had better be a paragraph separated from others by blank lines – like all paragraphs. Then again, I’ve just realised that in printed books it’s not like that.

[a_belladonna]

Yes, I can’t remember seeing them in fanfic, but I haven’t really read much

Me neither - perhaps it's because many of us are, after all, amateurs when it comes to writing? Or perhaps we just want things to play out "perfectly"?

I don’t think I could write without an intention to publish

Most of what I write I also want to publish, but some things are more like excercises for me. :)

It does make a lot of sense, what you've envisioned for Lupin's backstory. Also, some of the things Rowling has afterwards said about characters or concepts have been decidedly weird. Such as that time she wrote on Twitter that until Muggleborn witches and wizards brought the WC to Hogwarts, witches and wizards would essentially just pee right where they stood and then magic away their excrements. Like, WTF?! Ew.

I'm so, so happy you enjoyed my little story! I'm sorry I'm not replying until now, but this last week was so weird because of the antibiotics (talk about the cure being as bad as the illness!).
I feel very honoured that you feel it's been tailored to your taste in fic, because it must mean I do something right. :)
I consciously went for an understated approach in regards to not only their interaction but also to how Haddock perceives things - and yes, it was meant to gradually build up until Chapter 3. It's also why it is in separate chapters, even though it's not a very long fic - I wanted it to show "slices" of how their relationship grew.

I find it both fascinating and touching in a story that it’s set in a context where it can’t be taken for granted that the intimate relationship will be accepted, even by the two involved in it themselves.

Me too - and Tintin offers ample opportunity to explore that - even though, as Haddock remarks, homosexuality was indeed perfectly legal in Belgium at the time (had been so since 1795!). But of course, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's accepted.
And I'm so happy you liked the culmination of the story, it was slightly emotional for me to write, actually.

Oh, I think Haddock is becoming my favourite character

Haddock is probably a character where one has to have a litle more life experience to fully get, I guess. When I was little I was slightly scared of him, for instance. I can much better relate to him now, even though Tintin is my favourite character.
But this interaction, that I showed here, is also how I best see Haddock-Tintin. I respect when others want to see them as a romantic couple (I'm actually writing a longer Tintin/Haddock-fic as we speak), but I prefer their platonic relationship much more.

When posting to AO3, you must have a problem with getting the blank lines where they should be.

Yes, I'm not too fond of breaking the text up in too many paragraphs, to me it disrupts the rhythm I want to convey through the text. In a way it's nice AO3 adds the < p > tags themselves, on the other hand I wish they didn't.