I'm more thinking that...I find it interesting that this is one of the places we have seen Renee.  It may be as simple as Renee following Niki there, or well...it also makes sense that Renee would hang out in a shelter.  (How did she know Niki was the person to reach out to though?  Aside from being an agent?  Or does she try to reach out to everyone?)  It just makes me wonder, though, if there is more going on that we don't know about because our pov characters keep forgetting.

hmmm....


So, I know that was (mostly) a joke.  Also, the quote you are thinking of did appear already in Eight Second Rule. Still, we do know that:


So I do wonder....Normally, I'd say probably not.  However, while reading Eight Second Rule, I also noticed this:


(emphasis mine)

I do believe, as the saying goes, there's that thing we don't believe in again.  Now, it could be as simple as that particular shelter meaning something special to the PTB.  Or...it could be something more/else entirely.

Because these were the times tonight that I couldn't help but think if Daphne (and Tricia and Chaz and the rest of the team):

when I was young, i took off running
i had a head full of tangles
a heart full of splinters

and you came round to save me

***

mercy, mercy, both hands
i need less drowning, more land

***

* pours self some Baileys *

* offers up the same to anyone else that wants some *

I think part of the what happened is that they had added incentive to take the risk of trying to bring him in alive.  It's not just that they are the Good Guys and so This is What They Do - it's also that every new beta and gamma potentially leads them to a better understanding of the anomaly - and of helping both Chaz and Hafs.  Which is added reason for Daphne herself to take that chance; she needs* to believe that some gammas can be saved.

edited to add:  otoh, I can't think of any member of the team who isn't going to be haunted by that decision for a very long time

*refuses the write past tense yet.

This is in direct contrast to Stormtroopers, who will come to events for free as long as they get enough advance notice.

I'm not so sure that that is a good thing, considering what I said to prompt it.  But I suppose at least this one won't keep disappearing on me...

   Sorry, MG.  Trust me, I wish I hadn't thought of it.  I really wasn't trying to.

It rather came to me much like this: "No! Why did they do that?!?! What does that get them other than Chaz - and the team - more broken?!?!  I hate it when stories kill characters I like just to make other characters sad - even when I still like the other characters.  I mean, really, what changes now other than everyone being sad?  And Chaz losing yet another person?  What can happen now that couldn't happen by making the team sad another way? Wh-...oh...wait......if she....if he.......oh...fuck."

But, having thought of it...I really couldn't help but share.  I mean, that's what we are doing here, sharing our pain, yes?  :p

To answer your question, though, I think that might depend on if Chaz's abilities are based on messing with peoples minds or if he physically alters the space around him, etc.  Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure we had this conversation before...

*ahem*

Once my brain stopped screaming NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! TAKE IT BACK!!!!! for a long enough period of time that I could think, I did have one really bad thought.  It's not fully formed exactly, because it is a Bad Thought and I do not want to explore it too closely right now, but...I keep flashing back to this bit in Refining Fire:


Now I'm going to go pretend that I did not say that, and that my mind hasn't been (against my will) coming up with reasons why it might be useful, plotwise, for Chaz to be able to mirror Daphne even though she is dead.

Also, what txanne said.  (er, the sentiment, not the specific story :p)

First of all (I hope this comes across right, and I don't mean to pick on miminnehaha, because I'm pretty sure I know what she meant, but), that response made me smile.  A lot.  Because: YES.


Secondly, in the hopes that this will help (and praying that it will not do the opposite) I cannot count the number of times over the last week that I wished I had never said anything at all rather than give you any reason to want to leave.  So, again: YES.

This was actually exactly the reason why I was afraid to post in the first place.  I was very much not thinking “OMG! how dare they do/don’t do such and such! Don’t they know they should be like me?”  In fact, I think the part that had my friends so worried was that I pretty quickly devolved into “Why am I not like everyone else?  Why do I never fit in?  What the fuck is wrong with me?”  I don’t think Jeffy was trying to say that everyone else was doing it wrong and I was doing it right, I think he was trying to tell me that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, and that I wasn’t really as different from everyone else, and that I wasn’t going to make people hate me if I did say something that was different from everyone else.

Again, I’m just hoping this helps and I do not meant in any way to diminish your right to how all this has made you feel I and most definitely do NOT mean to suggest that you should stop talking about it.

*******

oh, and regarding the bit about writers and moats....

It should perhaps be explained that there is a newbie writer in my extended family who has been after my opinion of his writing for a while now (because I am the Reader in the family, and work in a library to boot), and while he is not without talent, let’s just say that I haven’t been entirely certain that engaging with him in that way is healthy for either of us...but that there is also the extra family dynamic of having to explain any refusals to the entire family.  There was a bit of a kerfluffle that happened recently - like, less than a month ago - having to do with all this, and so I am a bit extra cautious about crossing that moat myself at the moment.  Which would be the thing I was talking about earlier that was making my reactions to all this especially confusing.  Because I can't take back having crossed that moat when it comes to SU, even if I wanted to.

I know the PTB are not being cavalier with my feelings, but that other experience is still rather fresh and not completely resolved (and was even less so before my mom and I talked it over tonight) so it’s unfortunately affecting how I’m reacting to all this.

And I really am sorry that I seem to be flailing all over the place and knocking into other people because of it.  *facepalm*

tylik,

I have family there too and have been meaning to make that trip sometime anyway, so I can certainly keep myself entertained otherwise and I would consider it very worth the effort of timing my trip to coincide with yours (if it happens) even if all we got to do was have lunch or something. 

dwg,

thank you, and sorry if I flew off the handle a bit.  Part of the reason I held back on posting some of this in those first few days was because I knew there was a good chance I would do that.  *facepalm*

I think perhaps I need to be a bit clearer in what I meant in the sentence you didn't quote.  I was trying (despite having written treatises ) to not be too tmi but...

My birthday is on Thursday...as the crawler at the bottom will tell you. :p  I'm not going to be having a party or even going out to drinks with friends...because I am an introvert with not great social skills who has not had very many great friendships in the past, and so I have hardly anyone that I could call a friend that even lives within driving distance.

I am, however, going to the premiere party/concert for Matt Nathanson's new album on Tuesday night.  I don't...normally do these kinds of things, because going to social events like these...it freaks me out and it usually ends up being not always that much fun for me, but I'm doing it because I want to go listen to the music and also because I know I need to try.  I'm also going alone, because...see above.  I have friends online that I can talk to ahead of time, but when it comes down to actually doing it...the "people" that I was counting on the get me through it were Daphne and Chaz that I carry in my head.  Partly for courage and partly for practice for talking to real people, if that makes any sense.  (I'm not the only one that does this, right )  Not just because Chaz is one of the people that got me into Matt Nathanson's music, but because their friendship is one of the few in fiction were I've identified so strongly with both of the characters, and so found hope in their friendship that I haven't find elsewhere.  Because this is totally a thing they would do, yes?  And if they and I were at the same concert they might talk to me right?  So maybe someone at the actual concert will actually talk to me?  And not find me completely weird?

But they can't help me anymore, because Daphne is dead and Chaz is mourning.   It's also going to be hard not thinking about this as I'm there. (and, I'm sorry, is not the wake this same night? or is it the night before?  I've been trying to ignore the wake for exactly this reason) And you know, taking chances like that is really not the time that I need extra reasons to feel out of step with everyone else in the room.

So I'm not trying to disagree that what you are saying is one of things that fiction does (this is, in fact, part of what makes their friendship real enough and makes me hopeful), what I've been trying to say is that your argument doesn't account for other ways in which fiction can take us outside our comfort zones, and how the first kind can sometimes mess up other stuff - especially when there isn't a lot of control about when you read it (like, really universe, could this not have waited until next week?  although, thank you for it being last week instead of this week), and how the way that you seem to be trying to put fiction into boxes according to what the writers intend for the readers relationship with fiction to be... how all of that is still coming across, to me, as very prescriptive.  Especially when you try to use my reactions as "proof" of your argument - that's just...I am *trying* to not read it as not co-opting my experiences and defining them for me, but you aren't making it easy to do so.

(edited to add:)  I'm glad that Shadow Unit is doing this for you and I'm not trying to get you to stop talking about what it is doing for you, I'm just trying to say that...you said something at one point about "this" being what most of us read Shadow Unit for.  I'm just trying to point out that "most" = / = "all" and offer one of those perspectives that maybe doesn't fit all the way into "most."

Even if you do not, let me know when you are in SF and maybe I can drive up.

I might have to try making each of those cakes - after the appropriate dates.  Just because.  If I can manage in between the sobbing. :p

It's not like hawkwing_lb didn't warn me.  :p  Or like I've never read anything else of yours. 

When I say I thought I meant I was reading something different, I don't mean that I didn't expect anyone to die.  More that I wasn't expecting this character this early - partly due to how I was reading it and partly due to willful blindness, if that makes sense?  I guess what I'm more trying to say is that I was seeing something different in terms of *whose* story I was reading, not in terms of the kind of story with regards to death and loss.  Because while it's not a hard and fast rule, the narrative does tend to stop when the person whose story you are reading dies. Unless, you know, you are going to follow them to the underworld  :p

To be honest, I think trying to take a step back last fall (?) when I felt myself getting too close ended up backfiring big time, because maybe if I was reading it more consistently I would have been reading it more analytically as well, instead of just sorta letting it be a treat.  And then I would have remembered that *I* said, long ago, that the time to be worried was when everyone was all happy go lucky in the journals.

You were nothing close to it, the complete opposite of asshole, I assure you.

One of the things I was realizing today, as I've been talking this through is that I am also doing that thing I do, where I think I have processed stuff, but really haven't. (And I am going to skip that story for now and just say) Yeah, I'm kinda in the middle of that fourth wall regarding writers being dismantled right now in various ways, not just with regards to Shadow Unit, and I think this hit me at a weird point in that process.


Yeah...I just found out today that I may be losing my job soon - or at least my full-time status.  Oddly, I'm mostly just feeling kinda meh (aside from massive rage at some of the details of how it will play out), and the difference in my reactions to these two things has a lot to do with other stuffs going on in my life.


I solemnly swear to honor this pact and to do a better job at both the reading and writing.