Mumbling at myself Pt. 2

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So, I've got some last little dangly threads of resolution and foreshadowing I'm trying to pull together. The boys are going to D.C. over Easter weekend, courtesy of Burt. They spend a Friday afternoon & evening with Burt, and then he has to head back to Lima, so K & B are there on their own until Monday.

I've got Burt's acceptance of Blaine into the family as a thing, also Kurt being able to see Burt as an independent entity bigger than being his father (almost like an empty-nest thing, given how Kurt has cared for his Dad, but anyway... he feels their imminent separation briefly, but doesn't dwell on it because his Dad is doing so well in D.C. and Kurt is really proud of him).

Being in a city suits Kurt; he's excited and thinking about the future again. Blaine sees the degree to which being in a city suits Kurt, and is silently sad about it because he sees how Kurt will slip away from him in New York; they have fun anyway. Blaine tries to hold onto Kurt with sex but that isn't what sex is about for Kurt so even as they're connecting with physical intimacy, they're starting to pull apart; Blaine wants to choose Kurt over the world, but Kurt won't make that (false) choice. This conflict is not addressed, though, it stays under the surface.

There's a contrast between Kurt celebrating his Dad's flourishing in Congress and Blaine's fear of Kurt's flourishing in NYC, but it's kind of subtexty too, so, IDK.

This was meant to be light fluffy sexy fun times, but I think it's going to end up a little melancholy. :S

Comments

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Hey! Zero need for apologies. It sounds like you've had an awesome busy time with your family, and I've been ramping up to travel back to the US to visit with my mom over the holidays, so I've been a bit patchy with online comms myself.

So! Your comments, which I appreciate so much, especially the frank ones. :)

I think I may be guilty of too much artistic hubris here. I was aware of some of the structural issues (and some of it was on purpose because I thought it was clever to subvert some things...), but I thought I could pull it off. Which is maybe a bit overly ambitious given this is my first outing with something novel length. I should learn to write a basic long form plot before I start breaking the rules. :S

...whatever possessed you to end the story before DWS?

The short answer is that I had the basic outline of the story sketched out at the start of the hiatus between "On My Way" and "Big Brother" and decided to stick with those bounds for the story.

The longer answer is that the plot, as I conceived it, was primarily about Kurt moving through a largely unarticulated fear of loss with the catalyst of Karofsky's suicide attempt and Quinn's accident being the things to give him that last little push into surrendering to the things he cannot change and accepting the things he desires in the here and now. So it was (for me) primarily about Kurt getting over a kind of self-denial of the things he wants most because he fears losing them, really. Of course, it's complicated by a lot of stuff, like the internalized homophobia, how he protects himself within his relationships with other people, and his avoidance of issues he doesn't want to deal with.

Blaine's plot I meant to keep as largely foreshadowing for a sequel. I couldn't really find an end for the Blaine plot within this structure (beyond Blaine finding the courage to tell his Dad "no") because it carries on, I want a little more canon info to work with, and also because, as you observed, Kurt's not really seeing it. He thinks he sees Blaine, but he doesn't, because Blaine is holding back, and he will continue to for some time. I was thinking that it's partly the increased physical intimacy with Kurt that will help spur Blaine's withdrawal as he goes through a not entirely dissimilar fear of loss because now he has so much more to lose when Kurt leaves, so he eventually decides to try to walk himself back from that to protect his own heart. First he's going to try to cling, and when that doesn't work, he's going to start withdrawing. And then with S4, I guess he just starts breaking things to hurry it along.

I did consider revising the outline to incorporate DWS in a way similar to what you suggested, but then I thought about it more and kind of wanted to subvert that kind of structure, partly because it seemed too obvious in some ways (I don't mean that pejoratively, I just have this thing about some fandom conventions around sex, and I didn't want to write something that could be misconstrued as something like a healing cock trope, which it wouldn't actually be, since it would be a false sense of resolution, but I have reservations). I wanted Kurt to be feeling 100% happy in the moment when he bottomed for the first time, rather than in some sort of crisis. I really wanted it to be anticlimactic in a sense, because by the time he gets there, he's already done the internal work and it's not a big scary deal. The climax of the story was more around the Wedding Valentine's Day night in the hotel room, and everything else was a slow denouement as Kurt knitted in the last dangling bits of anxiety into himself and got that final little push from the external universe to cast off his fears.

I'm okay with it not feeling properly like an ending, because it's not really, given the continuing canon; but I am sorry for leaving things in an unsatisfying way (and for trying to be too smart for my present level of ability). I don't mean that to sound woefully self-deprecating, because I think you're right to call me out, and I appreciate it. I didn't get a lot of feedback on the last part relative to others, and suspected I'd done something wrong with the story, but I wasn't sure what (I was more concerned that I'd done something accidentally offensive with the sex). But, not successfully delivering the ending the story demands is a pretty big fault. So I'm grateful for your critique, because I didn't honestly see the structural issues as problems in the way you've described them. I was too absorbed in what I thought I was doing, not what I was actually doing. So yeah, hubris.

Back to other stuff!

Blaine seems oddly young and nervous, compared to Kurt.

I was rereading those last parts yesterday and having a similar sense and being really happy that this ties in so well with S4. Achievement! Sorta.

I love how subtle it is; I can just see it as a reader, but it's also easy to see how Kurt misses it

Subtle is one of the best things to hear (particularly right after "flawlessly in character"). Really really really. I'm inordinately happy to hear this.

...he's able to do this and have it be about himself and Blaine and their love and nothing else. He's free.

I guess I addressed this above, but I am, again, really glad that it did come off this way. I tried to put a little nod back to the conversation about Finn in the kitchen conversation, but, yeah, Kurt's well over that at this point. :)

...he will never smell lilacs again without landing right back in this memory of Blaine.

Sometimes Blaine knows exactly what he's doing. :) I really liked that you mentioned that bit, the recollection and demolishing of the fantasy. It was one of the more self-indulgent sections for me, dragging in some imagery and stuff that I wasn't sure would resonate outside my own head-space (I was overly preoccupied with Keat's "Ode to Psyche" and Don Henley's "End of the Innocence" at this point in the writing).

I'm sorry I giggled.

Don't be. :) I giggled too after I remembered that bit from Buffy. I had to use Google, but then I was all, "Oh yeah!" *headdesk/laughter*

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for that image of Kurt

You are most welcome. The pleasure is mine. That boy is unbelievably beautiful. He's going to break something fundamental to the structure of the universe at this rate. Every new batch of photos floors me.

Wanna bet we get shirtless Kurt by the end of this season?

I think that is a good bet! I've got the impression that Chris is happy to go shirtless. (Didn't he even ask to in the bed scene in TFT?)

Thanks again for writing this gorgeous story.

Thank you for taking all the time and care and thoughtfulness to leave me such fantastic comments. Constructive commentary, especially the more critical sort, is so precious, and I appreciate it so freaking much, I honestly don't have the right words, and I'll end up waxing hopelessly sentimental if I try. You have helped me grow as an artist through this process, and I am so, so grateful. I still have a lot to learn and develop, but writing this story (in all its overwrought imperfection) has been such a great experience, and I appreciate your readership, your sharing your thoughts, and your willingness to listen to me blather and to respond, and all that stuff. You're awesome. <3

[stultiloquentia]

So! Your comments, which I appreciate so much, especially the frank ones.

Oh, good, because I mean them in the best possible way. You're an amazing writer, and I'm so noisy because I'm trying to learn from you.

I should learn to write a basic long
form plot before I start breaking the rules. :S

No, no, this was way more fun! :D It's such a cool thing to think about -- why formulas work, but what problematic shit they reinforce at the same time, and how you can get around them while still creating the emotional payoff/catharsis that makes you love a story.

And, you know, this story had multiple incredible payoff moments. That Psyche scene. It's just a good question: what do you pay off where?

I did consider revising the outline to incorporate DWS in a way similar
to what you suggested, but then I thought about it more

Aaaagh, you know what? We're both right. Or both muddled. Or something. Because I agree with everything you said up there about anticlimaxes and the boys' separate arcs and healing cocks -- not to mention the whole cultural brainwashy fat-lady-sings attitude toward penetrative sex in the first place! You did subvert an obnoxious cliché in avoiding a big fight/make-up sex finale, and I'm nodding madly along with your not wanting Kurt's first time bottoming coloured by crisis. You've created a delicious dilemma, from a writer's standpoint: two characters working on two different growth arcs, plus both together working on a third. And their happy endings (well, at least happy resolved cadences before the next movement starts) aren't in sync. It's the opposite of a formulaic romance, in which everybody's stories come to fruition at once. It's a dilemma unique to fandom, being constrained by an evolving canon -- you can't just make Blaine's angst vanish; that wouldn't be right -- but, otoh, such an interesting way to learn the mechanics of original fic.

I'm not sure how I'd resolve it myself, while preserving your set of thematic entanglements (Kurt's fear of being penetrated entangled with his fear of loss, etc.). The pleasures of being the critic, not the writer.

It's also worth noting that, in isolation, any scene is going to be more interesting when it's got some tension in it. One of my all time favourite pieces of meta is resonant's "How to Write a Sex Scene", in which she explains that the one thing she never does (in a long piece) is have her lovers sit down, talk it out, declare their eternal love...and then have sex. Boooorrring. You always want to leave something unresolved, something -- besides an orgasm -- for them to want. Like any good advice, this is not always true, but often. But it does let me appreciate the final sex scene in ITWOS by itself. Maybe the thing to do is make his turmoil more apparent to the reader, and have Kurt misinterpret it as something else. *ponder*

I was overly preoccupied with Keat's "Ode to Psyche" and Don
Henley's "End of the Innocence" at this point in the writing.

!!! Oh, god, what a set. Both simultaneously love songs and songs of mourning, Götterdämmerung. I love it.

I've got the impression that Chris is happy
to go shirtless. (Didn't he even ask to in the bed scene in TFT?)

Hee. I don't usually follow celebrities with much interest, but Colfer as a celebrity is amazing. I've been so enthralled and entertained by his active, gleeful management of his transformation from virginal little pudding cup to...not. (Yeah, I have a vague recollection of him saying he was 'prepared' to go shirtless, for art, bless the commitment.)

<3 Safe trip.

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I want to leave you a lengthier, thinkier reply, but it may need to wait until I'm on the other side of my plane trip, but thank you again.

I'm taking this sentiment on board for my epilogue writing: "Maybe the thing to do is make his turmoil more apparent to the reader, and have Kurt misinterpret it as something else." It's a tricky thing to balance, but you give me confidence that I can do it. :)