Commentary - An Alphabet Of Fred
Feb. 5th, 2010 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird_ljSo, here’s a shiny insta!commentary for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lavastar, who’s rather into these things…
It’s for An Alphabet Of Fred, which I just wrote the other day. As always, the original fic still looks like it did, and my notes are the bits in blockquotes.
An Alphabet Of Fred
A is for Aftermath.
Thy world has crumbled to dust before Thee – the shattered substance of nothing mocking Thy triumphant return – all that is left corrupted befouled by the laughing pestilence of humanity.
Thou art everything. And hast nothing.
B is for Building, made of steel and glass.
And people, people everywhere, rushing past Thee, although nothing they chase can compare to Thy majestic self. They plot schemes, and fight their fights, that used to seem so important before – but no, that is wrong, Thou hast never been to this building before Thine awakening.
C is for Confusion, which is unexpected and horrible.
She– Thou– She has always known who and what is. Thy knowing was everything and enough to shape the world.
But now there are things Thou– She knows and yet shouldn’t. Names that spring too easily to a tongue that has said them too many times before. Thoughts unfamiliar, and a mind used to thinking them. She is not entirely Her. This is incorrect.
D is for Dixie Chicks, Demons, the Deeper Well, Doritos, Diapers, the Darkness Of New Time Diminished, Despair, Dimensions, Dallas, and Duality.
There are four thousand, three hundred, seventy-one words beginning with D in the dictionary. She counted – when She was twelve, and home with chickenpox – but words are nothing but the shallow reflection of substance, these days. Once, they were Her tools, Her shapings, and She strode the world with them. Words were living – filled with power – so She wrote them all over Her bedroom walls, fighting to reclaim the mind She’d lost, had stolen – but that was after Pylea, and no, She was in the Deeper Well, covering the walls with ink-fused power, asleep.
E is for Everything, which is simply Her.
She is all She has ever been, all that Is, entire, Her, the most of all, King, all that ever shall be.
But Everything was lost, stripped away. And now She is Her, alone.
F is for Ferromagnetism, defining iron’s magnetic properties – useful for advanced quantum mechanical theory, examining seabed magnetite, and making compasses – because they can tell Her where home is, even if She fell through a portal, but do compasses work inside fairytales? She’s not sure.
She has always known where She is. These foolish mortals are too blind.
G is for Grammar.
Capital letters are for the start of sentences, and for proper nouns, not for pronouns. Any grade school teacher could tell Her that.
She really does look ridiculous when She does that, by the way.
H is for Humanity, so insignificant.
She looks in the mirror and sees her face – the wrong, right, wrong face – so small, so pretty, ugly, pretty, pinkish, far too blue.
Humans are weak and despicable, laughable. They use words such as “pinkish” and think nothing of their disgusting inexactness. She is sick of them, everywhere, them, ignoring her, mocking her, thinking themselves worth anything.
She should destroy them for their insolence, but they’re not being insolent, and that would be real silly of her, and why does she think like this?
I is for Irritation, and she throws Spike across the room, and kicks his face, hearing the bone crunch satisfyingly under her heel.
She cannot stay in this foul world a single moment longer. She cannot stand this horrible closed-in place filled with so much anger. She can’t. She misses the Hyperion and – she has never been there.
J is for Jam Tarts, the kind her mother makes.
A smell from the lunchroom wafts past, and suddenly she is craving food she has never eaten – but used to eat, every Thursday, one fresh from the oven after school – she retreats into the memory of them, exploring what was, savouring every taste.
K is for Knights of the Round Table, and then the French Revolution, Henry the Eighth, the Roman Circus, the Civil War, Little Red Riding Hood, Martin Luther King, the Renaissance.
So many names, dates and places, all within this mind, almost as if she lived it – such a tiny, insignificant set of happenings – but important, repeating history is for those who don’t learn from it – over such a large, small, large number of years – these humans, ridiculous, who invent what they do not remember and call it better.
And she knows it is important, fascinating, she was going to major in it, even though she knows it really isn’t.
L is for Lilah, whom she has never met, and resented every time she saw her, those last few days.
Wesley grieved for her death – always grief, this man feels it overwhelmingly – and she will forever be competing with the last woman he loved, it’s frustrating.
He has lost? And? She has lost, too, indescribably more than he ever could – her world, her lab, her self, her everything. Why can he not live for what is, rather than looking back?
M is for Meetings, far too many of them.
They seem convinced that this talking, all written down, scheduled, recorded, will solve every problem that presents itself.
She does not agree.
She circumnavigates the building, exploring corridors – remembering sewers – until they emerge and she can resume her intercourse with those who interest her.
N is for Nuclear Fusion, which is a form of power.
If you could take two atoms, each individual and tiny, and combine them – fusing the two into one, indivisible – the energy released would be enormous, dynamic.
The Practical Science department has not achieved fully-controlled fusion, so far.
O is for Old Ones, as once they were.
They ruled the dimension – all dimensions, entire – and she wonders what that would have been like, before remembering that she was there, wondering is foolish fantasy, she knows, she heard Wesley talking about it once, but it was millennia ago and not so relevant, just an old story, telling what she saw, she was, she is, this is everything, but physics is much more interesting, she is everything, what has happened to her, why is she not her, what is this?
P is for Pylea.
She stands there feeling so lost – this is not her world, she never imagined – in chains, unwilling. The people are, were, are wrong, strange-looking, the stars, suns, stars are in the wrong place, and suddenly she is not what she was and she does not know the rules.
She takes a whiteboard marker and writes ancient symbols over the elevator walls – Angel looks at her strangely and says nothing.
Q is for Qwa’ha Xahn – that is to say, Wesley.
He guides her, mourns her, loves hates watches her, consoles her, and frustrates her more than anyone.
She has nearly killed him – died gasping in his arms – and does not regret it. She can kill if she wishes, why would it matter to her?
And yet it does matter, he matters, she misses him, he is nothing.
R is for Roger Burkle, and his wife, Trish.
Her parents come and she hugs them, smiles, these puny mortals, whose grief she could not bear, their daughter is gone, here, gone, here, gone – she cannot say it. She cannot – but she can do anything, not that, not to them.
She hugs them, smiles, and is herself… or something.
S is for Sex, and she is curious.
She dresses up for Wesley but he rebuffs her, so she retreats alone – together – alone to a bedroom, not hers.
And there they-she-they play, hands fondling breasts, back arcing, fingers tracing patterns in ever-swifter circles, skin singing, mussed hair…
It’s different from what she remembers – but then, this is her first time.
T is for Time, and the running out of.
She has seen many things end before, and can recognise this one before it arrives.
Angel misses Cordelia, Lorne misses Caritas – she sang there, once – and Wesley misses her.
She misses everything, before she slept, died, went to the Well. She wants the world as it was, when she ruled, when things were as they should be, when she still lived in Texas, before portals and detectives, before the humans came.
But time still flows past her in a rush, and she stands and watches as another end begins.
U is for Unique (her), Union (her), and Us.
It is interesting how the best-laid plans, by the wisest and most powerful of beings, still cannot plan for everything.
This self is not what she was expecting.
V is for Video Game, which is annoyingly intriguing.
The object is to jump on crates, and find things inside them. She is not certain why one should wish to do this – and yet she continues playing.
W is for Weakness, that she should not have, did not want, and does not understand.
He humiliated her – her! bloodied and beaten! – and he must be destroyed for it. This vulnerability is intolerable – weakness leads to defeat, cow-slaves, collars, craziness, destruction – and she will be strong once again, defeat all who oppose her, and be who she is.
Who she is may still be somewhat unsettled – but she’ll deal with that later.
X is for Xylophone – at least it always was in every alphabet book she’s read.
Reading – there’s something that could be done today. She always enjoyed reading.
And yet, what is it? Dead words on a page, describing thoughts that will not be remembered and facts that would remain true whether they are read or not.
In fact, the only real purpose to it is the pursuit of what brings pleasure – and in that case, it is just as sensible to spend the day sitting on a bed and being bandaged by a Qwa’ha Xahn.
Y is for Yearning.
Yearning is for Wesley – to not be lying here.
“Z is for Zechariah”.
There is a novel called that, she remembers. Adam was the first man, and Zechariah the last. The last one standing, after everyone else had fallen.
Funny – she’d thought that was what she had wanted.
Hope you enjoyed reading this!
lavastar, who’s rather into these things…It’s for An Alphabet Of Fred, which I just wrote the other day. As always, the original fic still looks like it did, and my notes are the bits in blockquotes.
An Alphabet Of Fred
I’ve been meaning to write this for a couple of years now. It’s yet another attempt to express what I was saying in this meta about Fred and Illyria.
I didn’t really have much of it figured out, except that it was going to go through the alphabet one letter at a time, and be something about Illyria accessing Fred’s memories. Or something.
…and then it just got stuck in a drawer, and waited around for two years until I decided to try writing it.
A is for Aftermath.
Thy world has crumbled to dust before Thee – the shattered substance of nothing mocking Thy triumphant return – all that is left corrupted befouled by the laughing pestilence of humanity.
Thou art everything. And hast nothing.
This starts at the end of Shells, with Illyria finding out that her world is gone. (I rather love that moment.)
I wanted to make Illyria very alien, and have her see herself in a very distinct way. Hence the “thou”s.
B is for Building, made of steel and glass.
And people, people everywhere, rushing past Thee, although nothing they chase can compare to Thy majestic self. They plot schemes, and fight their fights, that used to seem so important before – but no, that is wrong, Thou hast never been to this building before Thine awakening.
Illyria’s observation of Wolfram&Hart employees.
This is the first indication that Illyria’s mind is doing anything weird – because she wasn’t ever there, but is still thinking about what she used to think… It’s also the first time Illyria corrects herself.
C is for Confusion, which is unexpected and horrible.
She– Thou– She has always known who and what is. Thy knowing was everything and enough to shape the world.
But now there are things Thou– She knows and yet shouldn’t. Names that spring too easily to a tongue that has said them too many times before. Thoughts unfamiliar, and a mind used to thinking them. She is not entirely Her. This is incorrect.
Kind of the point of the fic. Because Illyria’s mind has sort of been combined with Fred’s (see: my meta), and it’s affecting her. She’s really not used to not being in total control.
I changed from “Thou” to “Her” to signal that Illyria is starting to think in slightly more human ways. Still in capitals, though…
D is for Dixie Chicks, Demons, the Deeper Well, Doritos, Diapers, the Darkness Of New Time Diminished, Despair, Dimensions, Dallas, and Duality.
There are four thousand, three hundred, seventy-one words beginning with D in the dictionary. She counted – when She was twelve, and home with chickenpox – but words are nothing but the shallow reflection of substance, these days. Once, they were Her tools, Her shapings, and She strode the world with them. Words were living – filled with power – so She wrote them all over Her bedroom walls, fighting to reclaim the mind She’d lost, had stolen – but that was after Pylea, and no, She was in the Deeper Well, covering the walls with ink-fused power, asleep.
Yay! Fred!
I wanted a whole list of different words mainly because Fred’s memories are “battling” with Illyria’s – and both of them associate letters with completely different things. (Mind you, “dimensions” and “duality” are both from both of them, simultaneously.)
I can really see Fred counting words in the dictionary, out of boredom. (And yes, Lily, I did for this fic. Or rather, I counted all the words on one page, counted the number of pages, did some quick calculations, and then chose a number close to that.)
Nightmares used to be living in Illyria’s world – so I figured words could be too.
I tried to keep a lot of these phrases pretty ambiguous. Such as this bit: “fighting to reclaim the mind she’d lost, had stolen” – technically, this could mean “the mind she had lost, that she had had stolen” (both referring to Fred), or “the mind she (Fred) had lost, that she (Illyria) had stolen”.
E is for Everything, which is simply Her.
She is all She has ever been, all that Is, entire, Her, the most of all, King, all that ever shall be.
But Everything was lost, stripped away. And now She is Her, alone.
A summary of how Illyria tends to view the world.
(Also – slightly ironic. She’s grieving because she’s “alone”, but she’s not, entirely.)
F is for Ferromagnetism, defining iron’s magnetic properties – useful for advanced quantum mechanical theory, examining seabed magnetite, and making compasses – because they can tell Her where home is, even if She fell through a portal, but do compasses work inside fairytales? She’s not sure.
She has always known where She is. These foolish mortals are too blind.
“Seabed magnetite” is mentioned on Wikipedia. I have no idea what it actually is.
And “fairytales” is a reference to what Fred said about Pylea – that it was a “storybook”. I wanted some crazy Pylea!Fred in the beginning of this. After all, this is all pretty disorienting.
Note that Illyria says “too blind”, rather than “so blind”. It’s a complaint more than an observation.
G is for Grammar.
Capital letters are for the start of sentences, and for proper nouns, not for pronouns. Any grade school teacher could tell Her that.
She really does look ridiculous when She does that, by the way.
This is (metaphorically) Fred talking to Illyria. Or (non-metaphorically) Illyria starting to react to herself in a Fred-like way.
And the end of the strange capitalisation! Woo!
H is for Humanity, so insignificant.
She looks in the mirror and sees her face – the wrong, right, wrong face – so small, so pretty, ugly, pretty, pinkish, far too blue.
Humans are weak and despicable, laughable. They use words such as “pinkish” and think nothing of their disgusting inexactness. She is sick of them, everywhere, them, ignoring her, mocking her, thinking themselves worth anything.
She should destroy them for their insolence, but they’re not being insolent, and that would be real silly of her, and why does she think like this?
Yay for craziness! (I love writing sentences that start contradicting themselves.)
For reference, “small, pretty, ugly, pretty, pinkish, far too blue” are the reactions of Illyria, Fred, Illyria, Fred, Illyria, and Fred. Which means that, in the next paragraph, Illyria is criticising herself for saying “pinkish”.
And the final sentence goes: Illyria, Fred, Fred, Illyria.
(This probably sounds like I’m picturing it as two completely separate minds sharing one body. Which it really isn’t at all. But I sort of had to think of it that way in order to write the fic. Even though all of this is happening to one person, it’s almost written as a conversation.)
I is for Irritation, and she throws Spike across the room, and kicks his face, hearing the bone crunch satisfyingly under her heel.
She cannot stay in this foul world a single moment longer. She cannot stand this horrible closed-in place filled with so much anger. She can’t. She misses the Hyperion and – she has never been there.
Illyria is not so happy. And thoroughly confused.
J is for Jam Tarts, the kind her mother makes.
A smell from the lunchroom wafts past, and suddenly she is craving food she has never eaten – but used to eat, every Thursday, one fresh from the oven after school – she retreats into the memory of them, exploring what was, savouring every taste.
This is the first time that Illyria voluntarily “goes into” one of Fred’s memories, rather than just having them inflicted on her.
K is for Knights of the Round Table, and then the French Revolution, Henry the Eighth, the Roman Circus, the Civil War, Little Red Riding Hood, Martin Luther King, the Renaissance.
So many names, dates and places, all within this mind, almost as if she lived it – such a tiny, insignificant set of happenings – but important, repeating history is for those who don’t learn from it – over such a large, small, large number of years – these humans, ridiculous, who invent what they do not remember and call it better.
And she knows it is important, fascinating, she was going to major in it, even though she knows it really isn’t.
More going into Fred’s memories.
Illyria sees them as “tiny, insignificant”, and over a “small” number of years – whereas Fred points out that it’s “important”, and actually took quite a while.
The comment about inventing bits is mainly because of the Knights of the Round Table.
(And Fred was indeed planning to major in it, as she said in Supersymmetry.)
L is for Lilah, whom she has never met, and resented every time she saw her, those last few days.
Wesley grieved for her death – always grief, this man feels it overwhelmingly – and she will forever be competing with the last woman he loved, it’s frustrating.
He has lost? And? She has lost, too, indescribably more than he ever could – her world, her lab, her self, her everything. Why can he not live for what is, rather than looking back?
(Yep. I’m a Wes/Illyria shipper.)
“competing with the last woman he loved” comes from the fact that Fred was competing with Lilah, and now Illyria is competing with Fred, and they’re both the same person anyway… It’s kind of confusing.
Most of that final paragraph is very much Illyria, but “her lab, her self” is from Fred. She’s mostly stopped thinking of these interruptions as being unusual, by this point.
M is for Meetings, far too many of them.
They seem convinced that this talking, all written down, scheduled, recorded, will solve every problem that presents itself.
She does not agree.
She circumnavigates the building, exploring corridors – remembering sewers – until they emerge and she can resume her intercourse with those who interest her.
(I didn’t pay huge amounts of attention to the timeline, but we’re nearing the end. Angel is now starting to be all Black Thorny.)
N is for Nuclear Fusion, which is a form of power.
If you could take two atoms, each individual and tiny, and combine them – fusing the two into one, indivisible – the energy released would be enormous, dynamic.
The Practical Science department has not achieved fully-controlled fusion, so far.
You really should read my meta.
This is here because it’s what has happened to her/them.
O is for Old Ones, as once they were.
They ruled the dimension – all dimensions, entire – and she wonders what that would have been like, before remembering that she was there, wondering is foolish fantasy, she knows, she heard Wesley talking about it once, but it was millennia ago and not so relevant, just an old story, telling what she saw, she was, she is, this is everything, but physics is much more interesting, she is everything, what has happened to her, why is she not her, what is this?
It took me a while to figure out what “O” was going to be. Funny, really – it’s a pretty obvious one.
Illyria is still extremely confused. And rather frustrated.
P is for Pylea.
She stands there feeling so lost – this is not her world, she never imagined – in chains, unwilling. The people are, were, are wrong, strange-looking, the stars, suns, stars are in the wrong place, and suddenly she is not what she was and she does not know the rules.
She takes a whiteboard marker and writes ancient symbols over the elevator walls – Angel looks at her strangely and says nothing.
This is a description of both of them. For Fred, it’s a memory (hence the “was”) of Pylea (“suns”). For Illyria, it’s the current situation (“is”) on Earth (“stars”).
I liked the idea of Illyria doing the same writing on walls that Fred always does when she’s feeling overwhelmed – but in ancient symbols instead of English.
Q is for Qwa’ha Xahn – that is to say, Wesley.
He guides her, mourns her, loves hates watches her, consoles her, and frustrates her more than anyone.
She has nearly killed him – died gasping in his arms – and does not regret it. She can kill if she wishes, why would it matter to her?
And yet it does matter, he matters, she misses him, he is nothing.
(I knew what I was going to do for this letter before I started writing the fic.)
And like I said, I’m kind of a Wes/Illyria fan.
R is for Roger Burkle, and his wife, Trish.
Her parents come and she hugs them, smiles, these puny mortals, whose grief she could not bear, their daughter is gone, here, gone, here, gone – she cannot say it. She cannot – but she can do anything, not that, not to them.
She hugs them, smiles, and is herself… or something.
This is during The Girl In Question, as is the next letter.
Parents or not, they’re the people whose pain matters the most to Illyria. She can’t hurt them. (And seriously – go read the meta.)
S is for Sex, and she is curious.
She dresses up for Wesley but he rebuffs her, so she retreats alone – together – alone to a bedroom, not hers.
And there they-she-they play, hands fondling breasts, back arcing, fingers tracing patterns in ever-swifter circles, skin singing, mussed hair…
It’s different from what she remembers – but then, this is her first time.
I loved that last sentence. It’s so nice and contradicty.
Note that “dressing up” for Wesley involves Illyria looking like Fred.
I’d love to write a full sex scene of Fred/Illyria, but I have the feeling it would be quite complicated. At any rate, I couldn’t do anything more intensive here, mainly because even though it’s “them”, it’s all “she” – I never use their names.
T is for Time, and the running out of.
She has seen many things end before, and can recognise this one before it arrives.
Angel misses Cordelia, Lorne misses Caritas – she sang there, once – and Wesley misses her.
She misses everything, before she slept, died, went to the Well. She wants the world as it was, when she ruled, when things were as they should be, when she still lived in Texas, before portals and detectives, before the humans came.
But time still flows past her in a rush, and she stands and watches as another end begins.
We’re now up to Power Play, and Fred and Illyria are both feeling kind of wistful.
She’s actually in a unique position – she’s seen this sort of stuff before, and Fred has enough knowledge of the Fang Gang to assess what’s going on with each of them.
U is for Unique (her), Union (her), and Us.
It is interesting how the best-laid plans, by the wisest and most powerful of beings, still cannot plan for everything.
This self is not what she was expecting.
Illyria has now mostly accepted who she is (whoever that is). Which makes this letter a lot more thoughtful, and not nearly so frustrated as she was earlier.
V is for Video Game, which is annoyingly intriguing.
The object is to jump on crates, and find things inside them. She is not certain why one should wish to do this – and yet she continues playing.
Crash Bandicoot, naturally.
Actually I have it on good authority (if Wikipedia can be described that way) that the object of the game is for the guy bandicoot to rescue his girlfriend bandicoot and have some hot hot lovin’ (off-screen). But I doubt Illyria has worked that out yet.
The final sentence, while about Crash Bandicoot, is also sort of metaphorical and about the fact that Illyria keeps on living, staying with the Fang Gang, and doing what she does – even though she doesn’t quite understand why she does.
W is for Weakness, that she should not have, did not want, and does not understand.
He humiliated her – her! bloodied and beaten! – and he must be destroyed for it. This vulnerability is intolerable – weakness leads to defeat, cow-slaves, collars, craziness, destruction – and she will be strong once again, defeat all who oppose her, and be who she is.
Who she is may still be somewhat unsettled – but she’ll deal with that later.
(Hamilton broke her nose, remember?)
“defeat, cow-slaves, collars, craziness, destruction” <--- in this bit, all the “d” words are from Illyria, and all the “c” words are from Fred. Fred’s a survivalist – she learnt in Pylea to do whatever it took.
X is for Xylophone – at least it always was in every alphabet book she’s read.
Reading – there’s something that could be done today. She always enjoyed reading.
And yet, what is it? Dead words on a page, describing thoughts that will not be remembered and facts that would remain true whether they are read or not.
In fact, the only real purpose to it is the pursuit of what brings pleasure – and in that case, it is just as sensible to spend the day sitting on a bed and being bandaged by a Qwa’ha Xahn.
(I knew what I’d do for this letter beforehand. After all, without xylophones, it always ends up being “eXtreme” or “eXtra”, or something lame like that.)
These are Illyria’s thoughts on the Final Day. She’s not entirely sure why Wesley is spending his day with her – but she’s not entirely sure why she is, either.
Y is for Yearning.
Yearning is for Wesley – to not be lying here.
*sniffles*
“Z is for Zechariah”.
There is a novel called that, she remembers. Adam was the first man, and Zechariah the last. The last one standing, after everyone else had fallen.
Funny – she’d thought that was what she had wanted.
Yep, it’s a real book. I had to read it in high school.
Illyria came back because she wanted to be the last Old One left, and triumph over everything left. She… doesn’t quite want that anymore. Which is unfortunate – because I just killed off every other member of the Fang Gang. :)
Hope you enjoyed reading this!
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 11:57 pm (UTC)I keep trying to figure out how to write a fic that compares Illyria's experience on Earth to Fred's experience in Pylea--with the difference being, Illyria is already home. My one actual attempt was critically panned, largely because I started making too many quotes and allusions.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 08:08 pm (UTC)Illyria really is so fascinating to write about.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 01:16 am (UTC)Hee! Cause you knew I'd ask. :D
And, hey, it's not weird to like commentaries...I think...
Lovely commentary - quite explainy.
9/20!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 08:09 pm (UTC)For a moment there I thought you were giving me marks out of 20...
Commentaries are fun! (Glad you liked this one!)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 06:26 pm (UTC)(They made us read it, watch Threads and write poems about nuclear holocaust. We were 15. It was *ghastly*).
Thanks for this - it's interesting to discover the spots I missed in how you wove it together when reading it for the first time.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 08:10 pm (UTC)