Hmpf does embarrassing insta-fic!

[hmpf]

To celebrate this rare, nay, completely singular occurrence, here's the result, right away - unbeta'd, unpolished, un-whatevered. Usually I don't release fics into the wild before they've been rewritten at least ten times, then put in a drawer for at least a month, then beta'd, then revised a couple of times, then beta'd again, then put back into the drawer for another fortnight... you get the picture. But then, usually I don't write fics in three hours, either. Of course, the fact that this took only three hours probably shows, and I'll be mortally embarrassed tomorrow, but, you know... what the hell. This is the first time in my life I've finished a first draft in less than *weeks* (and weeks is *good*, even); have to mark the occasion somehow.

ETA: This was very much a first draft. A second draft can be found here. Third draft here. Fourth (and best, so far) draft here. This fic is very much a Work in Progress. I don't usually do this in public, but I felt I needed to get *some* version of this fic out there, and so I decided, subsequently, to get *all* of them out there. I suggest you always pick the latest version, but then, people liked the first version, too, so that can't have been too bad... *g*

ETA 2: Final version here: http://hmpf.livejournal.com/166515.html#cutid1"


Fandom is Life On Mars (what else would it be at the moment?), characters are Sam, Ruth, Maya (sort of), and it's gory, melodramatic and generally unpleasant. Spoilers for 2.08, obviously.

Oh yeah, and you probably know that I'm not a native speaker, and since this hasn't been beta'd, there may be weirdness...




****

And then it's all suddenly very simple:

his feet slapping on concrete, the last step, the last ever,
pushing off with all his power,
sky high and wide,
and then there's only the great blue,
and gravity,
and it's all right, it's all right,
no space for anything but joy in this sky,
and it's too late now,
(a relief),
too late for regrets,
too late for a change of mind,
and it's such a relief, a relief
to feel the air rush past,
to see the ground come up,
to know this is it,
it's over it's done he's done what he could he's done his best
and that's all he can do,
and his mum will understand, she understands,
she will -

[Ruth Tyler understands: that she's failed him; that she failed to see the sky waiting at the back of his eyes; understands that she doesn't matter; and she'll go on, of course, she's done it before, once, twice, she can do it again, pick herself up another time and go on, she needs to believe that, and sometimes she does believe that, sometimes – and then she stands by a mound of earth that's still fresh and she knows that this time is different, and she straightens her back, raises her chin, and there's no place to go, no place to go at all.]

- and he's falling,
too late now,
falling,
too late,
and it's so good
to be going, going, gone,
almost gone already,
too late to do anything,
it's over already,
it's over,
(so good),
the sky gone,
only the ground now,
jumping up,
rushing up,
coming to meet him,
fractions of seconds now,
(such a relief),
and there's nothing here for him,
nothing, nobody -

[Maya has had a lunch date, another pointless exercise in rebound, and of course anyone should be better than Sam, Sam was unsalvageable from the first, and yet, and yet - and there's an ambulance in front of the building, a small crowd, a colleague turns, sees her, moves to apprehend her, and she knows, she just knows; she trips, runs, pushes through the cluster and reaches the centre just as someone says 'it's over', sinks to her knees as frantic activity is replaced by a stillness that radiates outwards, takes his hand and feels a hand on her shoulder and says, to no one in particular, 'I'm his girlfriend', surprised.]

- and there's
no way to turn back,
no reason,
this is liberation,
this is -

and the last millisecond takes forever,
a glorious, golden eternity,

but then
the ground's there and
things burst, tear and break
and his blood's free to fill spaces inside him
as his brain quietly gives out

and that's that.

Comments

[scarletumbrella.livejournal.com]

MY GOD. This was amazing.

[Maya has had a lunch date, another pointless exercise in rebound, and of course anyone should be better than Sam, Sam was unsalvageable from the first, and yet, and yet, and there's an ambulance in front of the building, a small crowd, a colleague turns, sees her, moves to apprehend her, and she knows, she just knows; she trips, runs, pushes through the cluster and reaches the centre just as someone says 'it's over', sinks to her knees as frantic activity is replaced by a stillness that radiates outwards, takes his hand and feels a hand on her shoulder and says, to no one in particular, 'I'm his girlfriend', surprised.]

There are just... no words... That is exactly how I picture it. God, I love this - well done! (And PSSH non-native English speaker my foot! You have an excellent, nuanced grasp on the language that many English speakers don't even have lol.)

[neuralclone.livejournal.com]

Now this is the kind of fic I was waiting for, almost from the moment I read about Sam's leap. Well done!

(Which is not to deny I'll be reading a lot of feel-good AU fic as well. %-)

[bistokids.livejournal.com]

Yep. Totally. Especially the bits about Sam's mum. That's the most horrific aspect of this whole sorry mess. And you expressed it so poignantly.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Oh. Wonderful!

(I feel so privileged to *finally* read a hmpf LoM fic as well.)

If that's a three hour insta-fic, I'm seriously looking forward to the ten year simmer-fic...

;)

Oh, favourite line? Probably:

Ruth Tyler understands: that she's failed him; that she failed to see the sky waiting at the back of his eyes.

Absolutely lovely imagery.

[the-funmonkey.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's unbelievably powerful. Ruth and Maya got such a f***king raw deal.

[lm-jillybean.livejournal.com]

Love it - that's how I imagined Maya as well, for some reason I'm convinced she was there when he died.

[stabbim.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize for writing this. *sigh* What a waste.

[pink-bagels.livejournal.com]

Beautiful imagery, especially the scene with Maya. This line just about broke my heart: takes his hand and feels a hand on her shoulder and says, to no one in particular, 'I'm his girlfriend', surprised.

Poor Maya. Stupid Sam >:

[faroutgal.livejournal.com]

Exactly...exactly right. That was the real ending to Life on Mars.

Very bitter.

[ex-emeriin213.livejournal.com]

I'm... speechless. That was fucking awesome. And all this is fantastic, because the stuff now is fic that I've been waiting for since the finale.

[candogirl.livejournal.com]

Nice! This is the first LoM fic I've ever read. I don't think you came off bitter or anything, I particularly liked these bits:

and there's no place to go, no place to go at all.
Really nice contrast between this and what preceded it.

Sam was unsalvageable from the first, and yet, and yet... sinks to her knees as frantic activity is replaced by a stillness that radiates outwards, takes his hand and feels a hand on her shoulder and says, to no one in particular, 'I'm his girlfriend', surprised.
I do wish we'd gotten to see Maya at some point in the episode. I like how this contrasts with the pilot , where Annie takes his hand before he jumps.

and his blood's free to fill spaces inside him
as his brain quietly gives out

and that's that.

*sniff*

[rheanna27.livejournal.com]

This is just wonderful. I especially love this: "...and says, to no one in particular, 'I'm his girlfriend', surprised." It's so simple and so wrenching. Lovely.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

That's beautifully written - there's a real senseation of flying in the words.

(Of course, I could nit-pick and say that Maya is probably dead in this time-line...)

I tend to think she's not dead...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I believe that what we heard from 2006 during LOM was probably all or nearly all true (possibly mildly twisted, occasionally). So, if Maya could talk to Sam in 2.07, she must be alive. I try to explain this by the simple fact that Sam may not be the only competent policeman in Manchester, and there's a thousand ways she could have been found or or even have freed herself, even without his help. While we have no *absolutely* convincing reason to believe any of the 2006 stuff Sam heard, saw and felt, we have no convincing reason *not* to believe it, either.

If we hadn't heard her voice I'd agree that she'd most probably be dead.

Anyway: thanks for the feedback!

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I have a really strange reaction, myself, to this fic, now that I reread it. For some unfathomable reason the ending - specifically, the line 'and that's that' makes me laugh. It's a rather grim, bitter kind of laugh, but it's still a bit disturbed/-ing to laugh at that at all! ;-)

(This show has *really* messed up my emotions, I guess...)

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>That was the real ending to Life on Mars.

Haha! Take that, Matthew Graham!

;-)

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>If that's a three hour insta-fic, I'm seriously looking forward to the ten year simmer-fic...

It's not necessarily better. Just more difficult to write.

>Ruth Tyler understands: that she's failed him; that she failed to see the sky waiting at the back of his eyes.

>Absolutely lovely imagery.

I feel like I may have stolen part of that sentence/phrase somewhere, actually. But then, I often have these strange déjà vu feelings when I read my own writing, and I never know if it's because a phrase has been hanging around my mind for a while, or if it's really because I read it somewhere. It's bloody annoying, and disconcerting. I wish there was anything I could do to make sure I don't steal stuff inadvertently.

Sometimes I find out, after a while, that I was just plagiarising myself. I've already found a couple of instances of that in this ficlet.

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>(And PSSH non-native English speaker my foot! You have an excellent, nuanced grasp on the language that many English speakers don't even have lol.)

I do still make silly errors sometimes, though. Most of the time, when my language goes weird in a fic, that's intentional, but every once in a while it's not, and I need a beta to catch that - a beta who knows me fairly well is best, actually, and thankfully I have such a beta. *g*

Thanks!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Glad that this satisfies on some level. :-)

Oh, and I'll be reading and writing feel-good fic, too. Although even my feel-good fic involves a bit of angst. ;-)

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Glad to see it's appreciated.

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it seems to do its job. :-)

Re: Maya being there.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

We have our own brand of wishful thinking... ;-)

Heh. Even though I just wrote a fic about Sam's death, I still got this weird 'unreality' reaction when I read that ".... when he died" in your comment. Emotions are strange.

What a waste indeed.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

BTW... how about that beta thing I asked you about in the Big Discussion of Death? It's totally okay to say no, you know... I'm not the kind of person who takes that kind of thing personally.

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>Stupid Sam >:

I felt some sense of almost-sadistic satisfaction when I wrote about the moment he hit the ground. A kind of 'you've only yourself to blame for this, my friend'-feeling. *eg* (I was going to make it even more graphic, initially, but then decided that the vagueness worked better and there was a limit to how much I wanted to gross myself out. *g*)

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Isn't it strange how we kind of *need* fic like this? In a way, this is a fix-it fic, although it's really basically completely canonical death fic!

It really helped me to write this; I feel much better now. I can only recommend killing Sam with much gore to anyone who still feels pissed at the ending. Definitely therapeutic. Hehe.

Thanks.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Wrenching's my mission in life. ;-)

Re: What a waste indeed.

[stabbim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll beta it. Sorry that I didn't reply sooner, I've had a pretty stressful week. You still need those Simm goodies that didn't arrive at your place? I'll bring them to TBFC just in case.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Dude - your second fandom apocalypse appears to be affecting you positively in terms of driving you to productivity (and yes, I understand that perhaps you wish the productivity were in different parts of your life, but you take what you're given and in my (limited) experience, productivity breeds productivity. At least...sometimes.) So that's a positive.

This was an extremely interesting read (and by interesting I mean good) - the Ruth and Maya parts were especially effective, interrupting into the poem the way you're waiting for the concrete to interrupt Sam's fall. And the ending is pretty damn perfect.

As a poetry whore, if you'd like, I'd be happy to give you some feedback on the body of the poem (I would dispute the claim I've heard you make on a few occasions that you're not a poet, though I do have some notes on a couple of your choices). But please don't take that as a negative response to the piece - it truly isn't.

I also understand if that's not the purpose of this piece - to be beta'd to death - I did, after all, commit insta-unbeta'd-fic recently. Sometimes the therapy is in sharing, not perfecting. And if I can encourage you to share more often and worry less about the details, I'd like to. Because as much as the world needs three-year "Normal"s (and that would not have been the piece it was if you HADN'T given it three years), it also needs things like this.

Heh. I love you.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

For seeing there are flaws and telling me so. And for doing so in the comments and not in an e-mail, because that means you know that you don't have to beat around the bush with me. Seriously, I love you. :-)

I think I'd like to give myself a chance to identify flaws myself first, though, which means I need to sleep over this piece for a few days or weeks to get some distance from it. Just because I'm curious about what some distance will do to my feelings about this curiously quick ficlet. After that, and after I've made my changes (*if* I find flaws I can identify clearly, that is) I'm going to send it off to you and we can go through the usual routine with it.

I think for the time being I don't mind it being accessible to the public in a slightly less than perfect form. As you say, sometimes the therapy's in the sharing. *g*

>Because as much as the world needs three-year "Normal"s (and that would not have been the piece it was if you HADN'T given it three years)

I know. Speaking of which... the Maya fic you weren't so impressed with has been mutating,, and I think it's going to get a great deal more interesting yet. It's already better and more interesting than it was. It may take a while, though. (Heh. 'May'? Who am I kidding? It *will* take a while.) You weren't so wrong in your comparison with "Normal", after all - all kinds of things are creeping into it now, like they did into "Normal".

Totally shameless self-pimpage

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I just remembered you like Farscape (or am I misremembering that?) Well, if you're curious about my slower fic, you could have a look at what I did over a space of three years with a Farscape fic - though I can't promise the slow LOM fics will be as good:

http://www.allabouthmpf.com/normal.htm

I don't usually pimp my own stuff this shamelessly, but I'm inordinately proud of "Normal", and I've been talking about my slowfic so much in this fandom that I feel like a fraud now that my first fic here is such an unusually fast one. *g* So, the above's to prove how slow I can be. ;-)

The bulk of that was written in 'just' two years, btw, but it took another year to find its final form.

A note: You absolutely do not have to read the story if you don't want to, and you don't have to comment on it, either. I'm completely serious. Also, if you do want to read it and comment on it, *anything* goes - negative, positive, indifferent. I'm dreaming of a fanfic culture that *really* values honest feedback, and that starts with me. But, as I said, no comment's fine, too. I've received enough feedback on that fic to last me a lifetime, so it's not like I urgently *need* another opinion on it. *g*

Re: Maya being there.

[lm-jillybean.livejournal.com]

But he did die- so say the writers. We're just jumping_off with him XDXD

Re: Maya being there.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I know, I know! It's just that, apparently, a part of me *still* can't believe it.

A common reaction to grief, really.

Let's see if I can make myself believe it:

Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.
Sam's dead.

Hmm.

The funny thing is I really *wanted* him to die at the end of the series. Just not like this.

Re: Totally shameless self-pimpage

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

I read this before I went to work this morning, but a busy day has stopped me commenting until now.

Absolutely fabulous piece. Seriously. The pace is amazing, you can feel the ebb and flow of Crichton's thoughts and feelings as you read.

Very thought provoking as well. It rarely seems to be addressed in TV. TV shows are the modern fairy stories in a way - everything stops at happily ever after. The prodigal son returns home to a hero's welcome, the displaced work out where they want to be, get the girl and drive off into the sunset. There's no "and what then?" We bring terror and awe when we return home from a place no-one else has been, how does that interact on the "happily ever after" (and you answered that one perfectly). In a similar vein, when the afterlife is eternal, exactly how is one supposed to exist? Either we have something to struggle against or we give up. If you can't die, what happens then?

I won't be there, unfortunately.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

(Can't believe it: for the first time in what, six, seven years, a TBFC without me!?)

But it would be nice to get more Simm-stuff... I do have series one of The Lakes by now, though.

As for that beta thing... could you possibly answer the occasional medical question, too? As my writing pace is slower than a snail's I don't expect you'll be inundated with questions anytime soon. Beta reading for the fic in question likely won't be necessary before sometime next year, and that's an optimistic estimate, but I will definitely have questions before that.

Re: Totally shameless self-pimpage

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>Absolutely fabulous piece. Seriously. The pace is amazing, you can feel the ebb and flow of Crichton's thoughts and feelings as you read.

Thanks. :-)

>Very thought provoking as well. It rarely seems to be addressed in TV. TV shows are the modern fairy stories in a way - everything stops at happily ever after. The prodigal son returns home to a hero's welcome, the displaced work out where they want to be, get the girl and drive off into the sunset.

Didn't you mean 'under the rainbow'? ;-) (Naaaaah. We hate rainbows! Down with rainbows!)

>There's no "and what then?" We bring terror and awe when we return home from a place no-one else has been, how does that interact on the "happily ever after" (and you answered that one perfectly).

One reason for which I love Farscape is that it actually addressed this *in canon*. Not quite as thoroughly as I would have liked, but still to a far greater extent than I would have expected to see in *any* tv show. The ending of "Kansas" and nearly all of "Terra Firma" just about broke my heart... in a good way. John's diary, the scenes with his dad, the fact that he can't talk openly to *anyone*, and that the closest he comes to admitting he's become - literally - 'alienated' is doing an E.T. impression in a talk with his sister... Season four had its flaws (most of "Kansas" being one, for example!), but *that* was something they did right.

That's another example of a show taking the fanfic route, btw! Farscape's "Terra Firma" is 100% fanfic (and the ending of "Kansas", with John pulling the gun on Jack, too)... but it's really well done fanfic, and, what's even more important - it's not 'implausible wishful thinking fanfic' but rather, the kind of fanfic that's always been less popular but just as important, namely, the kind that asks questions like 'what does this *really* do to the hero's psyche?' The questions we're dying to know the answers to, but which don't usually get addressed on tv.

>In a similar vein, when the afterlife is eternal, exactly how is one supposed to exist? Either we have something to struggle against or we give up. If you can't die, what happens then?

Well... Nirvana. Heaven. Pure being. The afterlife's called afterlife for a reason. It's *not* life. *Life* is struggle, change. Nirvana, heaven, whatever you call it, is permanence, a completely static form of existence. Which is a happy thought if you assume that it's a state of perfection. But I don't buy that Sam had reached that mental state of perfection. If they meant to imply that, they would have had to show me how he got there, how he resolved all his issues and made his peace.

Re: Maya being there.

[lm-jillybean.livejournal.com]

You wanted him to die - not to drive off into the sunset

Well, I wouldn't even have minded that, not really -

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

what I wanted, what I thought a lot of stuff in series two was pointing towards, was Sam working through a few more of his issues, and then gradually realising that he won't ever wake up (because his state's far too bad or because of complications or whatever). And, having reached a point in his personal development where he's basically at peace with his life and himself, I would have liked him accepting that fact, his impending death; accepting the life he's lived, the mistakes he's made, and dying peacefully - and, you know, I wouldn't have minded if his afterlife had turned out to be an eternally happy version of 1973. But he would have needed some development, some moment of catharsis, to get there. The jump was a pseudo-catharsis, because none of Sam's issues were resolved, really.

Re: Well, I wouldn't even have minded that, not really -

[lm-jillybean.livejournal.com]

Development - all wasted on stupid Morgan fake red herring. Urghhh

Oh, don't get me started on Morgan -

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

because that's another thing that could actually have been done really *interestingly*. If they'd handled that thread differently throughout series two, it could have provided a kind of cohesion, a theme.

Re: Oh, don't get me started on Morgan -

[lm-jillybean.livejournal.com]

Speaking of cohesion - how about that whole 'trust your instincts' thing that was going through s2e1-s2e3 & s2e7?

Re: Heh. I love you.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

For seeing there are flaws and telling me so. And for doing so in the comments and not in an e-mail, because that means you know that you don't have to beat around the bush with me.

I feel kind of bad now because it never occured to be to hide behind a private email! Perhaps I'm naturally insensitive ;) I prefer to think it's because I have a very clear opinion of your quality as a writer, and the fact I consider you to be a good writer means it doesn't occur to me that criticism will either be taken as "this is crap!" or "you're worthless!" I wouldn't want to disrespect your abilities by treating you as less than a writer. Fortunately it would seem I'm correct in my assumption. :)

I think I'd like to give myself a chance to identify flaws myself first, though, which means I need to sleep over this piece for a few days or weeks to get some distance from it.

That sounds like a good plan. Distance can do odd things to writing and is a miracle-cure for finding faults (or for finding imaginary faults you'll just change back next time you get some distance :p)

I'll look forward to seeing it when/if you feel that's the next step.

Speaking of which... the Maya fic you weren't so impressed with has been mutating,, and I think it's going to get a great deal more interesting yet.

Well you were just given one HECK of a content boost by the finale - postive or not. I maintain that this fandom apocalypse has done awesome things to your productivity ;) But then, perhaps your point in another post about desperation and art is true in this instance. Either way, yay!

You weren't so wrong in your comparison with "Normal", after all - all kinds of things are creeping into it now, like they did into "Normal".

*straight face*

I am never wrong.

Re: Heh. I love you.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I am never wrong.

I know. :D