hmpf

I just checked out the alternative reality/universe discussion thread at

lifein1973, and was reminded of what is still my favourite plot bunny that I'm not quite ready to tackle myself, in this fandom:

http://domeofstars.com/forum/index.php?topic=479.0

(Could possibly be combined with this: http://domeofstars.com/forum/index.php?topic=449.0)

I posted this in the AU/AR thread as well, but what with LJ moving so fast, I think probably nobody or very few people will read that comment, as the discussion has been going on for several days. So I'm posting it here. Hey, it can't hurt.

Any takers?

Current Mood: hopeful

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mikes-grrl.livejournal.com

I supposed as a DID person, I would be the mostly likely contender, but eh...too close to home.

Great idea, though. Really really great idea...

From:

hmpf.livejournal.com

Yeah, I can understand that that would hit too close to home, in that case. Whoah.

(Sorry, kind of speechless here. There are situations or revelations for which there just doesn't *exist* an appropriate response...)

I do realise that the bunny is possibly in Very Poor Taste. Then again, most angst bunnies are based on something that is somebody else's very real trauma... this one is just a bit more uncommon, and therefore feels like more of a taboo. (I have an essay brewing about that - about whether, and how, to write fic about truly sensitive topics - because obviously it's something I'm also confronted with in writing The Man Who Fell to Earth...)

From:

mikes-grrl.livejournal.com

Oh, not to worry -- I thought my condition was rather common knowledge. I'm certainly not ashamed of it. Stunned, sometimes, but that is part of life, no? heh. It's only recently been diagnosed.

I don't think the idea is in poor taste at all. In fact it is a beautiful idea, because I can easily see the situation -- and as for the 'spanner in the works' you mentioned, I don't think so. There is always a me who is very aware of other 'mes' running around in the background, so to speak, no matter what THEY think their current reality is. Which sounds strange, because it is all ME and I know this -- my issues are not extreme, and my dissociative tendencies are, honestly, pretty mild. But if they WERE extreme or if something psychologically devastating were to happen, then I could very easily end up in "1973" with "me" wondering where the outside world went.

I would love to see someone like Argyle tackle it, honestly. That would be absolutely gut wrenching, in a beautiful way. Hmmm, that sounds bad...lol!

From:

hmpf.livejournal.com

I was kidnapped by the thesis - to which I will have to return again in a moment, so I think this is probably the beginning of me dropping mostly out of the wider world of LJing for a while :-(

>I thought my condition was rather common knowledge.

Not to me. I have been a very intermittent LJer for most of the last year and a half, and even in my phases of high activity that activity was mostly limited to lifein1973 or similar hotbeds of fannish activity. So I mostly only see the explicitly fannish side of most people. I will do some in-depth reading and catching up with personal LJs once the thesis and exams thing is over, but can't really see any way to do so before then. For several years now, my flist has been too long for me to really cope with it on a regular basis... I don't, at the moment, have the couple of hours or so per day it would take to keep up with everyone, so rather than choosing favourites I've dropped out of everything. Antisocial, yes, but also sanity preserving in times of extreme stress. I do make the occasional 'surprise visits' to some people's journals - but it's not a regular thing. (I hope I'll eventually find a way to keep up with people on a regular basis, I really do. But, obviously, not at a time when my life in general feels a bit like it's falling apart at the seams.)

>There is always a me who is very aware of other 'mes' running around in the background, so to speak, no matter what THEY think their current reality is.

This is fascinating... It reminds me a bit of (requisite Finder reference in one, two... *g*) the fifth volume of Finder, which is about a virtual reality artist with dissociative tendencies. (Well, or at least I guess that's what he has.) Carla Speed McNeil, the author, says in her notes that she thinks that everyone has some tendencies like that, but I can't really say I've ever experienced anything even remotely like it. (Though I'm sure my psyche is deeply weird in other ways.)

>I would love to see someone like Argyle tackle it

Does she do long, plotty stuff, too? What I've read of her so far was more of the 'short & packs quite an emotional punch (in a subdued way)' variety... But I think I'd like to read this fic not just as a short-ish 'idea fic' that just sort of introduces the idea that that might be what's going on with Sam and 1973, but rather as a longer, more involved journey of self-discovery (selves-discovery?)

(This is actually true in general for the more outlandish ideas that have been circulating in the fandom, and specifically in fic. So much of the fic just sort of throws an idea out there, like a gimmick, or the punchline of a sketch, and I keep thinking, 'yes, wonderful idea, but wouldn't that make a great *story*? Instead of just a short sketch-like thing?' Now, I'll admit my own fic is rarely long and plotty, either... because yeah, I'm aware that that's bloody hard to do... but I still wish there were more longer stuff. *g* - Wish I could *do* long and plotty, too. Well, I'm trying. Maybe I'll learn, eventually.)

>gut wrenching, in a beautiful way. Hmmm, that sounds bad...

Nope, that just sounds exactly like what good angst is supposed to do. I.e. what I look for in fic, most of the time... ;-)

From:

mikes-grrl.livejournal.com

No worries! I see you are enmeshed and mired in thesis stuff, so hardly any need to apologize.

The condition was just diagnosed recently, but I've been pretty open about it so that's why I just ASSUMED everyone knew. As for your flist thing, I totally empathize -- I filter pretty heavily, to be honest, since as a popular writer I tend to get friended and end up friending a lot of people. I don't mind, like some do (as my personal journal is elsewhere) but I DO filter! :) Ha!

I always assumed everyone lived multiple realities in their head. Gosh, doesn't it just MAKE SENSE? (yes, I am laughing at myself here.) In my case they my or may not be 'fragments' of personality...I'm not very invested in the jargon or the pity wars of the disorder.

One of the interesting ideas behind the story concept, to me, is Sam fighting himself:Gene -- when I fight myself, I go into a fugue state, where I'm only marginally aware of my surroundings. (I've never driven into a tree, so all good!) I can only imagine that kind of state INSIDE A COMA. It could almost explain the violence of their interactions, each side going further and further without the usual sensory distractions that might otherwise snap them out of it. Kind of like a self-perpetuating machine: the usual tricks don't work, so the selves keep getting more desperate.

It is also interesting in ref. to "little Sammy" as, usually in the extreme multiples, the 'core' personality is a child. The child who is never there, really, in the show, but who is always present. Hmmm...

Well enough bunny-kicking for one day!

Argyle, yes, does shorter work. Still, I think she whould could capture the depth of a multiple's perceptions well.

One reason I end up writing longer works is I tend to go the same route; one reason my slave!AU will be longer rather than shorter. I'm very interested in the dynamics of stockholm syndrome, slavery, and rebellion. I shall make no one happy with this story; Drayce is displeased with any AU, Loz will think it trite, and the Torture Twins won't get the sobby, crying Sam they are hoping for. *sigh*

Sorry for the tangent. I'm rather lost in plotting.

Never mind, moving on.............

From:

hmpf.livejournal.com

>I always assumed everyone lived multiple realities in their head.

Well, I do have multiple realities in my head; always have had - all the stories I'm writing, plus several I'm not writing but fantasising about, are pretty much non-stop present in my mind. I think I spend about 80% of my waking time at least partly immersed in some form of internal storytelling/fantasising.

But it's a very conscious act - like playing with a model train set or with puppets; none of it has a life of its own, and there are no characters who 'are me' in any sense of the word. They're just characters in stories; puppets I move about. I'm always aware I'm playing.

(I think this is actually one of the things that makes writing so difficult for me. Meta I've read from other writers makes it seem very likely that most writers have much more 'autonmous' inner worlds and characters, and that in some strange way, they often just sort of transcribe what 'happens' in their head. With me, nothing (or very little - I do have my moments of creative transcendence, but they're rare) simply 'happens'. Everything has to be *done*, consciously, deliberately, by me - and sometimes I just don't know what to 'do', because a situation or a character is really very strange to me. It takes a lot of work to get into the right mindset.)

> I go into a fugue state, where I'm only marginally aware of my surroundings

I think I'm a bit like that when I'm fully immersed in one of my internal stories (I call them 'mindfic.') But it's not something that happens to me so much as something that I choose to let happen to me - in fact, something I strive for, when I'm in the mood for it. I don't always manage to achieve it.

So, again, a very conscious act, like willing yourself into a trance.

Your bunny elaborations here sound very good, btw. ;-) (Did you check out the later pages of the thread I linked to? There were some details from the show that fit the scenario eerily well there... at least I think it was on the later pages.)

>It is also interesting in ref. to "little Sammy" as, usually in the extreme multiples, the 'core' personality is a child. The child who is never there, really, in the show, but who is always present. Hmmm...

Remember, there's also Test Card Girl... (Hmm.... mindfuck time: the core personality is TCG, and Sam was her very first multiple!)

>she whould could capture the depth of a multiple's perceptions well.

No doubt about that. But sometimes I want something more than 'just' depth, if that makes sense? I guess this is a remnant of the more immature reader I used to be, the reader who would only read novels, and didn't 'get' poetry and short stories, because she wanted/needed all that expansive space to get properly, deeply invested in a story. Ironically, I myself am not a writer who can write the kind of stuff that that type of reader would enjoy... I think that, should I ever manage to write something original, it will probably be short stories, by far the most unsatisfying genre for me as a reader. (I do 'get' poetry, nowadays, but wouldn't want to write it. I know that both of my LoM stories published so far look like poetry, but they're not. Honestly. They're just me playing a bit with form-follows-content stuff.)

>and the Torture Twins won't get the sobby, crying Sam they are hoping for. *sigh*

From the conversation in the chatroom recently I got the impression they mainly just want lots of kinky sex involving Sam!abuse... ;-) Anyway, if it's any consolation, I think your projected themes sound very promising, and while I rate less than a zero on the slave!kink scale (in fact, I have a slight squick there), this does sound like something I may want to check out eventually.

Why do you think Loz will think it trite, btw?

From:

hmpf.livejournal.com

How to Love a Madman is probably... borderline poetry. Not much about the content there that *really* necessitates the form. It just came out that way.