Far West of Outremer

There's something kind of awesome about a character who is... okay, backing up, he's in something which involves sticking characters from all different fandoms together, and they are all pretty well aware of the meta-whatever, and so on. And he's basically "the guy who tends to get not just stuck in harm's way, but harm's way kinda jumps out at him from dark alleys."*

Annnnnyway, there is something kind of awesome in that character throwing himself cheerfully into harms way and basically saying, "Yeah, I'm the guy who is always going to get stabbed/bitten/stabbed again/thrown off a building/oh, more stabbings?" because that is my role, and you know what? I AM GOING TO OWN THAT AND THROW MYSELF INTO IT WITH CONVICTION!"




*Seriously; there is a reason that a subset of the fandom for that particular work is the "OHNO, JAMES!" club.

There is something very cool about a brilliant fanfic which does amazing things with an already-excellent story and transforms it in really interesting ways that add to the world-building and make the whole thing much more complex and interesting-- and often more realistic in ways that are disturbing, since they deal with the fallout of war and problems of relationships across cultures in a way that the original source material didn't, and probably couldn't at some level.

On the other hand, it's really disconcerting to see characters I know and am very fond of from the original behaving in ways that make me want to whack them repeatedly about the head with a brick for being incredibly idiotic in ways that, while they make sense in terms of the cultural stuff the author has set up in the text, are amazingly, breath-takingly short-sighted and stupid, and showing an almost complete inability to learn anything about anything no matter what actually happens.

*sigh*

Seriously, I do not at this point know HOW one character in particular is going to get past their issues, because they are being written as so incapable of thinking outside of their own cultural prejudices and personal trauma-- and I can't tell if that's being extremely realistic about how difficult it would be to get past those two things, or if it's something the author is doing to ramp up conflicts and problems. Or both. Could be both. Thing is, it just reads as this same character jumping to the same conclusions every single time, no matter HOW many times it's proven to be wrong, or misreading the situation, or whatever. I swear; it is worse than those Old Skool Harlequin romance novels where the idiot protagonist hero basically assumed that anything and everything that happened anywhere automatically meant that the (virginal, natch) heroine was obviously a Complete Harlot.

So, due to Tor.com being all Bowie all the time this week, I was wandering around "Labyrinth" fanfiction (the better to avoid work with... what?), and I came across a story where Jareth is secretly really actually for real... Satan.


Um....


Wait. What?

I realize that this was supposed to be dark-and-angsty, and twisted obsession, and evil plots, and puppy-kicking, but.... I... just... No. It worked pretty well until I had to accept the idea that "Goblin King = Glittery Tight-pantsed Prince of Darkness," and then, it really, really, reeaaaalllly... didn't.

(in spite of a moment of possibly-intentional-PotC-inspired hilarity when Sarah complained that Jareth had promised her he was NOT in fact secretly Satan... "You cheated!" "...Satan!")

I think that my favorite quote so far from Tor.com's Bowie Week has got to be this one:

"When Gaiman reimagined Lucifer while writing Sandman, he was extremely adamant that the ruler of Hell resemble David Bowie as closely as possible. According to artist Kelley Jones, Gaiman insisted, “You must draw David Bowie. Find David Bowie, or I’ll send you David Bowie. Because if it isn’t David Bowie, you’re going to have to redo it until it is David Bowie.” The artists complied, and the resulting character ranks as the greatest depiction of His Infernal Majesty since Milton (and/or Peter Cooke in Bedazzled), at least for my money."

(there's also a bit later in that same column on an unfinished project between Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano called "Return of the Thin White Duke," which sounds extremely epic... and who can forget the infamous Sock Puppet Labyrinth, also with Neil Gaiman... really, the whole Gaiman/Bowie thing is the sort of thing that is just going to be amazing no matter what direction(s) it goes in, and it all makes me wonder what kind of crazy/amazing "Labyrinth"/"Mirrormask" fanfic* has been or could be created, and whether the universe as we know it would survive...)


*I'm not really sure if that Halloween storyline from "Roommates" counts or not, although there is no denying the awesome, especially in the reveal page. And yes, I realize that I'm putting a link to the early, early first hints of "Roommates"... but, really, the Halloween storyline is not the best place to start. Not to mention that you miss a lot of awesome by jumping in that late!

Well, after not only hearing about this, but also getting to read some of the fabulous contributions made by others, I have decided to bite the bullet and apply to the 100_situations drabble community.

Using the terms listed in one of the tables provided by the community, members come up with drabbles of two hundred or more words, focused on a particular character or pairing. It sounds like a lot of fun (and just what I need, something else to do, eek...)

Wish me luck, guys!

J.D.

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