A few quick updates

[auronlu]

I just updated the Links page of the Auronlu Shrine to include the best shrines out there for each character, including one that's got soundclips of Lulu's original Japanes voice actor. Hm. I'm so used to that sultry purr, it's hard to decide which I prefer.

Resurrection III is causing me problems.

I'm going into a dark place. The problem is, when I write erotica, I feel everything the characters feel. I put myself completely into their heads (or at least into one of them; I'm sure you can tell whom). I'm doing this as catharsis and stress release and enjoyment. As soon as I start getting into disturbing, painful, and unpleasant trauma, I have to take it into my own soul, and it pops up in dreams and leaves fingerprints on me for days afterwards. That makes writing N/C very troubling for me. Moreover, I don't really like it when fanfic writers put their favorite characters through hell and break them. Broken, they are no longer the characters one loved.

My muse is headed down a dark path, and yet it's very hard to write this plot without doing serious damage to Lulu. I want her strong. But how strong is she?

I guess I pushed Auron to the limit in the last one, so there's a precedent. I hadn't really expected to be putting them through hell, I'd meant for these to be a joyous celebration of life and pelasure in the teeth of death!

Comments

Re: Hope this helps...

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense, trust me! I have been intimate with a survivor, so I have an inkling what it's like and know what you mean about the impact, and overcoming it. I have had to stop, sometimes, change what I was doing, because my hands were reminding my partner of someone else's. It's like having to stop and exorcise a ghost. It can be done. I have so much love and awe for the survivors I have known, who have slain demons and lived to reclaim their own lives for themselves.

The trouble is, I had not intended to write a story about a survivor. I was trying to write a story that is strangely not about angst, but is about getting the most out of life, being strong, being joyful, putting away old sorrows and losses that one can't fix. I was writing a series of happy little lemons where the characters are treasuring every scrap of time they have together, for the very reason that they know that in a matter of a few weeks or eve days, he won't be around anymore. To hell with impending doom lurking around the corner-- they're grasping life by the throat and drinking it to the last drop.

It is a very different story if I have Lulu broken shortly before his time is up. It shifts the attention from him to her. It shortcircuits the playful and joyful element which has dominated the story so far. I can't exactly have her shrug it off and go, "oh, well, where were we?" after this chapter is finished.

Both of them are profoundly levelheaded characters who seem able to cope with things in a calm manner when the rest of the party tend to angst: that's what sets them apart and makes them appealling to me (out of envy, mostly). Do I want to tamper with that?

So I'm having to stop and think whether I really want to explore a tougher plot arc than I had intended.

This is in no way to belittle or underrate the therapeutic value of writing such stories, and I certainly write them, I certainly use them to explore some of my own pain. But a) I was writing this set of stories as an escape from RL breakdown, and it's not very healing for me to make myself vicariously live through another trauma on top of one I'm already dealing with right now, and b) I don't think I can tell the story I was going to tell, if I do this instead.

*thinks some more*

You're right about the recovery period though, and that does help. I may be able to get Lulu back on her feet well enough to have her finish the journey with her usual levelheaded resilience. I just don't want to belittle the experiences of real survivors by having her shrug it off quickly and easily.

And on the third hand, until now, I'd been able to keep the story completely canon, in the "who knows what they were doing behind the scenes?" style of filling-in-the-gaps. This isn't something one can easily hide in the gaps. It is also harder for me to stick to canon.

I'll figure it out, I'm just... stuck for now.


But thank you very much for the offering, the wisdom, the words. Sharing a piece of oneself like that with a stranger is... brave? I appreciate your help, and respect those who have faced down dragons and won.