Okay, wow! What a lovely, eloquent, insightful comment. I LOVE long comments, so never apologise for leaving one, because they make my day! I'm not as good at reviews as you - I've left you one that is nothing like as good as this one, but I hope it puts across how much I love your fic too.
It's really your favourite XMFC fic? Considering how amazingly talented this fandom is, I'm ridiculously flattered. Thank you so much!
Seriously though, have you been sitting in my brain? Because so much of this is so spot-on to the way I think about writing and how I'm doing it. I'm a big fan of showing instead of telling. Some readers find that more difficult than others, because I like to be subtle and let the prose tell the story without me explicitly telling it- as far as possible I avoid exposition, so I'm really glad that works for you.
I always want the reader to get to know the character by getting to know them the way you would someone you meet in RL, rather than having their backstory spoonfed to you, and for their character development to be shown that way as well- in actions, not prose. I'm really glad you caught on to what I was doing with Rogue, by the way!
When you describe my Erik like that it's so interesting, because in many ways Erik is like a dear friend of mine now, or my child, or me, because I've spent so much time down there in the trenches in his head. So sometimes I find it hard to think about how he looks from the outside of my head. I'm glad it seems to match up!
I touched on style in my review of K&C, and it's interesting to see that you have a similar opinion of my style to the one I have of yours- a real economy of language that allows for the story to show off more than the words chosen. And again, you're very right in that the short sections are intended to put across one very pointed emotion or theme or idea at a time. I think sometimes the things you want to emphasise the most can get lost when you tuck them away in a massive cloud of words. So from time to time I like to take a knife to it and hack away everything that isn't the essence of what I want to put across. It's like- to use a very egotistical-sounding metaphor- taking a beautiful block of stone and cutting away at it until you find a sculpture inside it. It's the essence of what you want to say.
The worldbuilding stuff really ties into what I said above about exposition and showing, so I'll leave that where it is.
One of the things I've found the most interesting about the responses to the fic is how some people really empathise with Erik (I'm so far down his particular rabbit hole that everything he does is the right choice if you ask me, but then he's given me Stockholm Syndrome of my very own, so) and some people really hate what he's doing. For my part, I see a man who has been burned so many times that trusting someone, anyone, entirely is almost beyond him- even Charles cannot be trusted not to leave him, or change his mind, or be doing things for some hidden ulterior motive, not entirely. Erik is a man who has lost everything, time and again, and then the one thing he had left- his revenge- he lost as well, at his own hands, leaving him with nothing. So it's not surprising to me that he would cling to whatever - and whoever - he has with both hands. Charles only knows the surface, really, of Erik's heart, because it's a landscape Erik himself is unfamiliar with.
Honestly, if Charles didn't push back and resist and call bullshit, I don't think Erik would trust him at all. They're working their way towards a deeper understanding of each other, but circumstances keep getting in the way. I think the central question of this fic, the burning central point for me, is this- how does Charles really feel about Erik, if you take away the captivity, the lack of choices, the constant pushing together of the universe shoving them against one another? Would he still feel the same way, and how much of his attraction for Erik is artificial?
My reply turned into kind of an essay too, huh! I spend so long thinking about this fic- obsessing over it, tbh, I'm kind of living inside it at the moment- that it comes out like this if you give me half a chance. You'd better hand over those skittles, I'll need a sugar rush after all this!
Re: God this turned into an essay or something. [2/2]
It's really your favourite XMFC fic? Considering how amazingly talented this fandom is, I'm ridiculously flattered. Thank you so much!
Seriously though, have you been sitting in my brain? Because so much of this is so spot-on to the way I think about writing and how I'm doing it. I'm a big fan of showing instead of telling. Some readers find that more difficult than others, because I like to be subtle and let the prose tell the story without me explicitly telling it- as far as possible I avoid exposition, so I'm really glad that works for you.
I always want the reader to get to know the character by getting to know them the way you would someone you meet in RL, rather than having their backstory spoonfed to you, and for their character development to be shown that way as well- in actions, not prose. I'm really glad you caught on to what I was doing with Rogue, by the way!
When you describe my Erik like that it's so interesting, because in many ways Erik is like a dear friend of mine now, or my child, or me, because I've spent so much time down there in the trenches in his head. So sometimes I find it hard to think about how he looks from the outside of my head. I'm glad it seems to match up!
I touched on style in my review of K&C, and it's interesting to see that you have a similar opinion of my style to the one I have of yours- a real economy of language that allows for the story to show off more than the words chosen. And again, you're very right in that the short sections are intended to put across one very pointed emotion or theme or idea at a time. I think sometimes the things you want to emphasise the most can get lost when you tuck them away in a massive cloud of words. So from time to time I like to take a knife to it and hack away everything that isn't the essence of what I want to put across. It's like- to use a very egotistical-sounding metaphor- taking a beautiful block of stone and cutting away at it until you find a sculpture inside it. It's the essence of what you want to say.
The worldbuilding stuff really ties into what I said above about exposition and showing, so I'll leave that where it is.
One of the things I've found the most interesting about the responses to the fic is how some people really empathise with Erik (I'm so far down his particular rabbit hole that everything he does is the right choice if you ask me, but then he's given me Stockholm Syndrome of my very own, so) and some people really hate what he's doing. For my part, I see a man who has been burned so many times that trusting someone, anyone, entirely is almost beyond him- even Charles cannot be trusted not to leave him, or change his mind, or be doing things for some hidden ulterior motive, not entirely. Erik is a man who has lost everything, time and again, and then the one thing he had left- his revenge- he lost as well, at his own hands, leaving him with nothing. So it's not surprising to me that he would cling to whatever - and whoever - he has with both hands. Charles only knows the surface, really, of Erik's heart, because it's a landscape Erik himself is unfamiliar with.
Honestly, if Charles didn't push back and resist and call bullshit, I don't think Erik would trust him at all. They're working their way towards a deeper understanding of each other, but circumstances keep getting in the way. I think the central question of this fic, the burning central point for me, is this- how does Charles really feel about Erik, if you take away the captivity, the lack of choices, the constant pushing together of the universe shoving them against one another? Would he still feel the same way, and how much of his attraction for Erik is artificial?
My reply turned into kind of an essay too, huh! I spend so long thinking about this fic- obsessing over it, tbh, I'm kind of living inside it at the moment- that it comes out like this if you give me half a chance. You'd better hand over those skittles, I'll need a sugar rush after all this!