dragonlady7 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonlady7) wrote2017-02-12 04:01 pm
dragonlady7) wrote2017-02-12 04:01 pm
So I put the Bodhi/Cassian thing I’ve been
via http://ift.tt/2ly7IVl:
So I put the Bodhi/Cassian thing I’ve been desultorily working on through the depths of winter up on AO3, and I still don’t really know what to call it or what I’m doing with it. It’s in the same universe as Found Cat but doesn’t cross over with it yet. It’s– I mean, it’s nothing, but it’s something, it’s unintentional but it’s deliberate, and I’m not sure what it all means yet. I was going to just do some kind of fluffy trope, and Bodhi outright rejected that. He doesn’t do fluff, I guess.
But it’s if nothing else atmospheric, and it’s mostly about Bodhi dealing with the coldness of winter while being very lonely and also very smart.
I put up the first two chapters right away, and I have another two or so written, but I’m about to get to a point where I’ll need to make some hard narrative choices, and I’m recognizing that for me, in fanfic, this is when I maybe need feedback. So I’m going to start with what I have, and see what kind of way it makes people feel.
As ever, titles are my kryptonite, so it’s named pragmatically.
The Sled Dog Guy Mystery
Bodhi Rook sat in his delivery van watching the defrosters and wipers try and fail to make any appreciable dent in the frost on his windscreen. He was trying to update his logbook but his fingers were too cold to properly hold the stylus, and he was approaching a crisis point of existential despair as he realized that the frost was on the inside and so the wipers weren’t going to do a bloody thing, now, were they, and what was the point of continuing to live in this godforsaken wasteland – but there was no real heat behind it, because there was really no heat in anything, and he was a kind of dried-out shriveled-up husk of a human, now, wasn’t he.
Into that spiral of mental non-function came a sudden interruption, that of his unlocked passenger door suddenly opening and closing, and a man got in with a burst of cold air, startling because it was already fucking freezing in this van, and it was only after he’d had this incredulous thought that it suddenly struck Bodhi that surely, he was being carjacked.
“Shit,” Bodhi said, staring at the man, who was wearing a fur-hooded parka and giant gloves and looked something like a sled-dog-musher, only if he had sled dogs why was he carjacking a van– of course he would be carjacking a van, sled dogs were a horrible form of transportation surely, especially in a city?
“Shh,” the man said, “don’t mind me, I’m just hiding from someone.”
“I don’t have any money,” Bodhi said, something reasonable finally winding its way through his brain’s nonsensical chatter about sled dogs. The man looked at him, and Bodhi started to get mad that he was surely going to be shot to death over six dollars and twenty-three cents and a wrapped hummus and cheese sandwich, which were the entire contents of his messenger bag. Oh, and a smart tablet, but it was totally a proprietary one with like zero resale value. And his phone, he had a phone, but it was like, four years old and the camera was all scratched up. “I mean it! We’re not paid in cash for these jobs, I’m a delivery driver and it’s all billed remotely, it’s mostly paperwork, I don’t have anything–”
“I’m not mugging you,” the man said, and he had the nerve to sound offended; he wasn’t even looking at Bodhi, he was peering out the fogged window. “Jesus Christ! I’m just trying to avoid somebody seeing me!”
Bodhi stared at him. “What?”
“I’m not mugging you,” the man said, as if it were an outlandish suggestion. “Christ, just because I’m Mexican– we don’t steal from everybody , you know!”
“Now hold on one fucking minute,” Bodhi said, “you’re dressed like a fucking sled-dog musher , I thought you were a local. I don’t know shit about Mexicans but the locals here are fucking savages . But who the fuck leaps into people’s delivery vans and then doesn’t carjack them? What the fuck kind of backwards hole is this goddamn place anyway?”
The sled-dog musher peered at him uncertainly, maybe a little incredulously, through the enormous fur fringe of his hood. “Oh,” he said, “you’re not from around here either.” He did have an accent, come to think of it, but so did Bodhi, as far as everyone around here was concerned. (Bodhi talked like a normal person, but nobody else here thought so. British English, real English, was his native language and he was getting really fucking sick of explaining that.)
“No fucking shit I’m not from around here,” Bodhi said. “I’m from civilized places where you can park your van at the curb and not get accused of racism by random sled-dog mushers who just let themselves in and judge you for reacting to that like a person who knows they live in Hell now.”
The sled dog musher started laughing; through the ridiculous fur fringe Bodhi could make out that he had a long straight nose and dark eyes and there were crinkles around them like a nice person had.
So I put the Bodhi/Cassian thing I’ve been desultorily working on through the depths of winter up on AO3, and I still don’t really know what to call it or what I’m doing with it. It’s in the same universe as Found Cat but doesn’t cross over with it yet. It’s– I mean, it’s nothing, but it’s something, it’s unintentional but it’s deliberate, and I’m not sure what it all means yet. I was going to just do some kind of fluffy trope, and Bodhi outright rejected that. He doesn’t do fluff, I guess.
But it’s if nothing else atmospheric, and it’s mostly about Bodhi dealing with the coldness of winter while being very lonely and also very smart.
I put up the first two chapters right away, and I have another two or so written, but I’m about to get to a point where I’ll need to make some hard narrative choices, and I’m recognizing that for me, in fanfic, this is when I maybe need feedback. So I’m going to start with what I have, and see what kind of way it makes people feel.
As ever, titles are my kryptonite, so it’s named pragmatically.
The Sled Dog Guy Mystery
Bodhi Rook sat in his delivery van watching the defrosters and wipers try and fail to make any appreciable dent in the frost on his windscreen. He was trying to update his logbook but his fingers were too cold to properly hold the stylus, and he was approaching a crisis point of existential despair as he realized that the frost was on the inside and so the wipers weren’t going to do a bloody thing, now, were they, and what was the point of continuing to live in this godforsaken wasteland – but there was no real heat behind it, because there was really no heat in anything, and he was a kind of dried-out shriveled-up husk of a human, now, wasn’t he.
Into that spiral of mental non-function came a sudden interruption, that of his unlocked passenger door suddenly opening and closing, and a man got in with a burst of cold air, startling because it was already fucking freezing in this van, and it was only after he’d had this incredulous thought that it suddenly struck Bodhi that surely, he was being carjacked.
“Shit,” Bodhi said, staring at the man, who was wearing a fur-hooded parka and giant gloves and looked something like a sled-dog-musher, only if he had sled dogs why was he carjacking a van– of course he would be carjacking a van, sled dogs were a horrible form of transportation surely, especially in a city?
“Shh,” the man said, “don’t mind me, I’m just hiding from someone.”
“I don’t have any money,” Bodhi said, something reasonable finally winding its way through his brain’s nonsensical chatter about sled dogs. The man looked at him, and Bodhi started to get mad that he was surely going to be shot to death over six dollars and twenty-three cents and a wrapped hummus and cheese sandwich, which were the entire contents of his messenger bag. Oh, and a smart tablet, but it was totally a proprietary one with like zero resale value. And his phone, he had a phone, but it was like, four years old and the camera was all scratched up. “I mean it! We’re not paid in cash for these jobs, I’m a delivery driver and it’s all billed remotely, it’s mostly paperwork, I don’t have anything–”
“I’m not mugging you,” the man said, and he had the nerve to sound offended; he wasn’t even looking at Bodhi, he was peering out the fogged window. “Jesus Christ! I’m just trying to avoid somebody seeing me!”
Bodhi stared at him. “What?”
“I’m not mugging you,” the man said, as if it were an outlandish suggestion. “Christ, just because I’m Mexican– we don’t steal from everybody , you know!”
“Now hold on one fucking minute,” Bodhi said, “you’re dressed like a fucking sled-dog musher , I thought you were a local. I don’t know shit about Mexicans but the locals here are fucking savages . But who the fuck leaps into people’s delivery vans and then doesn’t carjack them? What the fuck kind of backwards hole is this goddamn place anyway?”
The sled-dog musher peered at him uncertainly, maybe a little incredulously, through the enormous fur fringe of his hood. “Oh,” he said, “you’re not from around here either.” He did have an accent, come to think of it, but so did Bodhi, as far as everyone around here was concerned. (Bodhi talked like a normal person, but nobody else here thought so. British English, real English, was his native language and he was getting really fucking sick of explaining that.)
“No fucking shit I’m not from around here,” Bodhi said. “I’m from civilized places where you can park your van at the curb and not get accused of racism by random sled-dog mushers who just let themselves in and judge you for reacting to that like a person who knows they live in Hell now.”
The sled dog musher started laughing; through the ridiculous fur fringe Bodhi could make out that he had a long straight nose and dark eyes and there were crinkles around them like a nice person had.