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asherdashery) wrote2012-09-07 02:05 pm
asherdashery) wrote2012-09-07 02:05 pm
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DVD Commentary: Haven in a Heartless World
[A fill for HSO BR1, the genre-mixing round. The prompt was "Popular History + Proverbs - Alpha!DaveAlpha!Rose" and as soon as I saw it I was like WHOA THAT IS COOL. Plus everyone knows I have a lot of headcanon about Guardian Dave. I kind of had to do it.
I didn't have more than an amorphous notion of what both popular history and the actual definition of a proverb was, though, so while I had an idea of what I wanted almost immediately, it took some research for me to figure out how to go about doing it. Wikipedia was actually largely unhelpful this time, but that's because popular history is a pretty ill-defined category to start with. And Googling "proverbs" mostly came up with Bible stuff, so I ended up searching quotes about family instead.
From the beginning, I wanted this to read as excerpts from a book that referenced maxims about family. I wanted this to be a book Dirk or Roxy might have had access to, that would have shaped how they relate to their ancestors and to each other. I ended up not writing the parts where Dirk or Roxy would take this off their shelf and try to parse it because I waited until the last minute to write it.
Anyway, I'm still less than happy about the way I formatted this piece in the end, but I was working with what I had. Sometimes I consider breaking it so that each "page" is its own chapter on AO3 because that would look more like a book, but it's not worth it for such a small fic, I think.]
From Haven in a Heartless World: Unraveling a Revolution, Revealing a Relationship
["The family is a haven in a heartless world." - Attributed to Christopher Lasch
Because even if people were still around, Alphaverse Dave and Rose were all the other had. Their only haven in a world that had ceased to make any sense, to have any human heart.
God, and originally I started with the idea that Stephenie Meyer actually wrote the book, so there was this long intro that said basically nothing until I scrapped it and started over. It's also been ages since I read Twilight and I was NOT doing it again just to get a feel for her voice.]
pp.133 Chapter Four: He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune
["He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief." - Francis Bacon
The two of them stayed alone so that nobody could be used against them. Except each other. But they were un-freaking-touchable, they could rely on that, at least.]
[...] unclear when they met. Hypotheses abound: perhaps in Hollywood during early discussions of the film adaptations of her novels, at a party on a mutual acquaintance’s yacht, at a private high school known only to the gifted elite, during a sudden rainstorm in upstate New York. One popular pet theory--first put forward, it seems, by an member of one of Mr. Strider’s infamously volatile fan forums with the username “turntechGodmyfansarecredulousassholes”--is that they bonded in childhood, maintaining their friendship across the fifteen hundred-mile distance through first letters, then phone calls and even gifts. This hardly seems likely, though, given Ms. Lalonde’s notable elusiveness and Mr. Strider’s notorious eccentricity. Most scholars now give little credence to what they call the Pen-Pal Fallacy, though the idea refuses to die.
[turntechGodmyfansareincredulousassholes IS actually meant to be Dave trolling his fandom by telling them the truth, but of course no one would believe the story, and therein lies the irony.]
When asked, both director and author avoided comment on their relationship; Mr. Strider only admitted to knowing of her, while Ms. Lalonde said even less, though both were asked multiple times. The following is an transcripted excerpt from a promotional interview for SBaHJ the The Film hosted by renowned journalist Stephenie Meyer.
[I'm a little sad that SBaHJ the The Film is not immediately recognizable as a typo. It's subtle. Maybe Rose's influence, there.]
SM: [...] Maybe we’ll discuss that off the air. [Laughs.] Besides, I’m married.
[It has always boggled my mind that she's married. Before I learned that, I shipped her with Christopher Paolini. "Remember, kids, everything is shippable. Even I'm shippable. But that's called self-insertion, and is frowned on in most fandoms."]
DS: Don’t worry, it’ll all come back to you eventually. It’s like riding a bicycle: uncomfortable in the crotch regions, a pretty decent cardio workout, and perfect for pissing off everyone around you.
SM: [Laughs again.] What would your girlfriend think if she saw this?
DS: Nah. I keep all my conquests chained up in the crawlspace with a typewriter and some Cheetos. By Day thirty-seven, every page is gold.
SM: Oh, is that the story behind Complacency of the Learned?
DS: Uh.
[Most interviewers probably wouldn't leave in that "Uh," but Dave's hesitations are always hilarious to me. Apparently the author of Haven thought so, too.]
SM: That’s so romantic.
[Because Stephenie Meyer finds stalkers staring at you through your window while you sleep romantic.]
DS: Wow, okay, hold onto your panties there, Steph.
SM: Come on, admit it. Weren’t you and Ms. Lalonde a thing?
DS: If we were a thing it sure wasn’t a thing anything like the thing that you’re thinking was a thing that could actually happen.
SM: So, yes or no?
pp.134 Haven in a Heartless World
[A note about the page numbers: I tried to make important "conclusion" moments fall on pages that combined 1, 3, and 4.]
DS: Have you seen her? I could get the same effect by grinding a mirror, but with less freezerburn.
[I'll admit it, that's my favorite line in this. And also the line I basically hung my diamondship on. This story can very easily be read as flushed, but I always write them as the closest of siblings and comrades in arms.]
A similar question put to Ms. Lalonde at a book signing in Seattle yielded the following answer:
RL: Who?
[...]
pp.312 Haven in a Heartless World
[Like a real book, the pages alternate between showing the title of the book and the title of the chapter.]
[...] stories about running into them at charity events and A-list parties exploded after their disappearances. Celebrities and Joe Plumbers lunged for the spotlight, drooled over a chance to share in the mythos surrounding two such controversial and, dare I say it, inspiring rebels and social shakers.
[The author was a rebel sympathizer. There aren't many copies left of the book, and maybe Dirk and Roxy never did manage to get their hands on it.]
One source, a young Disney channel starlet in their time who asked not to be named in this chronicle, claimed to have met Ms. Lalonde at a Hollywood function.
[Pretty sure "starlet" usually refers to a female person, but I was crunched for time and couldn't be bothered to fix it. GENDER IS STUPID.]
“I was drunk,” he said. “I was sixteen and signed on for a second season, we were gonna shoot in Florida [Shoutout to the developing film industry in my hometown.] and I was going to have four solo songs on the album, and I was wasted off my ass. And that lady was a fine piece of ass, let me tell you, and she was standing in the corner with a glass of, I don’t know, I don’t even think it had a drop of booze in it, the bartender told me later it was like apple juice or some shit but I don’t know, he ain’t exactly a reliable narrator. You copying all this?”
[Writing this kid actually reminds me of writing Dave, in a way. All stream of consciousness and wordplay. But he definitely doesn't use it to any effect.
Also, apple juice for Dave. They influence each other.]
I reminded him that I had a tape recorder.
[The author doesn't have much respect for this kid. They could have left that out.]
“Right, yeah. Anyway, she was standing all by her lonesome, and I’m a friendly guy, right? I didn’t have any dishonorable intentions or anything like that. So I go up to her, and I’m like, ‘Hey,’ and she’s like, well she doesn’t say anything, but she gives me a once-over or something. And you know, she smiles and maybe flutters her eyelashes a little--”
“The bartender’s on record that she rolled her eyes--”
“Yeah, what does he know. I’m telling you that dude was fucking unreliable. Anyway, I’m introducing myself, and along comes Strider,
pp.313 Chapter Eight: The ones to catch you when the world lets go
["Although your friends may be your world, your family will always be the ones to catch you when the world lets go." - Anonymous]
[A photograph of Ms. Lalonde and Mr. Strider in gala attire. They are not looking at one another, but his hand is on her elbow.]
[Inspired by fanart of Alphaverse Dave and Rose, when her hair is kind of curly. Hopefully someone knows which one I'm talking about, I don't have it saved.]
Mr. Strider and Ms. Lalonde at a party in Los Angeles.
pp.314 Haven in a Heartless World
and he goes, ‘Didn’t know jailbait was in this year.’
“And she’s like, ‘You know me, Strider, I make my plays in advance.’
“I tell him, ‘Beat it, Bozo, you’re standing in my sun,’ and he gives me this look, like, I know he’s got those shades but like I’ve got this killer instinct, right, and that’s what he is. He was a killer, lady, and I knew it even before he went bananashit on the Presidents.
[I blatantly stole "you're standing in my sun" from a District413 thread. Jackie's Roxy said it to my Dave. Also, a reminder that this book was written after Dave and Rose's deaths, like all good biographies, and thus, subject to the whims of the historians.]
“Anyway, yeah, he gives me that look, and he’s like, ‘Kid, I think they’re handing out glowsticks downstairs, why don’t you go pick yourself up a nightlight?’
“And of course he’s being a huge asshole and I don’t take that shit from anyone, and I know Lalonde doesn’t think he’s funny, either, so I tell him, ‘Dude, who do you think you are, King Arthur? This ain’t chivalry, it’s fucking sexism, you don’t have to protect her from me.’
[Because yeah, rude, Dave.]
“And he just smirks. Like it doesn’t even qualify as that, it’s like one pixel moved in his whole face. ‘You got it all wrong, dude. She doesn’t need my protection from anything. I’m magnanimously protecting the bottom of the gene pool from her.’
“And then he just walks off, and she slides her hand in his elbow and they leave like that, and it’s like, man, everyone already knows you’re banging, why you gotta make everyone want to rageclock you in the douchesmirk, please?”
[My callbacks, let me show you them. Another point where this could easily be read as flushed, but that's the Disney kid's interpretation, not mine. Who wouldn't think they were together, anyway?]
[...]
pp.413 Chapter Twelve: For there is no friend like a sister
["For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands." - Christina Rosetti]
[...] Yes. It was the boy, Strider, just sitting out by his lonesome on the roof. I wanted to tell him to get down, it’s not safe up there, but he wouldn’t have heard me. For a whole minute there, I was afraid he was going to jump. We get jumpers sometimes, yes. And he looked--he didn’t look like a jumper, but he looked. Thoughtful, I guess.
[I have no idea who this voice is. A janitor for Dave's building? I like him, though. He seems so kind and the sort of rough of something well-worn.]
“I was going to call the police when I saw the lady come up behind him, and he looked at her over his shoulder. I couldn’t see his eyes, of course. Nobody’s ever seen them. But as old as I am, you know, you get to know some things. He was hurting. And they didn’t notice me, neither of them. Nobody notices the old people.
“‘I bought him a chair,’ he said. Just like that, none of those weird things he says on the T.V. sometimes, just quiet and gentle and sad. ‘I bought him a chair. Put it together myself. With a screwdriver.’
[I think this might be a reference to a thread I was doing with Pin's Bro. I just really enjoy images of Dave trying to do domestic things for the people he loves: cooking, putting together a chair, helping them with their jackets. He's bad at expressing how much he cares about people; it's almost all in the things he does for them.]
“And that girl, she just knelt right there in her pretty dress and everything, and there’s pigeon droppings all over the roof, and she puts her arms around that boy’s shoulders and rubs his back and whispers to him, and you know? I think he was crying. Because he hugged her back, too.
[Wow hi gross tense change, I don't know why I didn't notice you. I hereby absolve myself of this by pretending it was the voice, not me.
Also Rose may often be a picture of elegance, but she's so real, too. She's willing to sully herself to do what's necessary and also to show her love. I can't agree with anyone who says Rose is boring or unemotional or perfectly classy.]
“I never seen anything so lonely in my life. I went home and held my wife and kids and never told a soul.”
[Here's where it would have been good to zoom out, show someone reading this book, but so it goes. I barely made it by the midnight deadline as it was.]
I didn't have more than an amorphous notion of what both popular history and the actual definition of a proverb was, though, so while I had an idea of what I wanted almost immediately, it took some research for me to figure out how to go about doing it. Wikipedia was actually largely unhelpful this time, but that's because popular history is a pretty ill-defined category to start with. And Googling "proverbs" mostly came up with Bible stuff, so I ended up searching quotes about family instead.
From the beginning, I wanted this to read as excerpts from a book that referenced maxims about family. I wanted this to be a book Dirk or Roxy might have had access to, that would have shaped how they relate to their ancestors and to each other. I ended up not writing the parts where Dirk or Roxy would take this off their shelf and try to parse it because I waited until the last minute to write it.
Anyway, I'm still less than happy about the way I formatted this piece in the end, but I was working with what I had. Sometimes I consider breaking it so that each "page" is its own chapter on AO3 because that would look more like a book, but it's not worth it for such a small fic, I think.]
From Haven in a Heartless World: Unraveling a Revolution, Revealing a Relationship
["The family is a haven in a heartless world." - Attributed to Christopher Lasch
Because even if people were still around, Alphaverse Dave and Rose were all the other had. Their only haven in a world that had ceased to make any sense, to have any human heart.
God, and originally I started with the idea that Stephenie Meyer actually wrote the book, so there was this long intro that said basically nothing until I scrapped it and started over. It's also been ages since I read Twilight and I was NOT doing it again just to get a feel for her voice.]
pp.133 Chapter Four: He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune
["He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief." - Francis Bacon
The two of them stayed alone so that nobody could be used against them. Except each other. But they were un-freaking-touchable, they could rely on that, at least.]
[...] unclear when they met. Hypotheses abound: perhaps in Hollywood during early discussions of the film adaptations of her novels, at a party on a mutual acquaintance’s yacht, at a private high school known only to the gifted elite, during a sudden rainstorm in upstate New York. One popular pet theory--first put forward, it seems, by an member of one of Mr. Strider’s infamously volatile fan forums with the username “turntechGodmyfansarecredulousassholes”--is that they bonded in childhood, maintaining their friendship across the fifteen hundred-mile distance through first letters, then phone calls and even gifts. This hardly seems likely, though, given Ms. Lalonde’s notable elusiveness and Mr. Strider’s notorious eccentricity. Most scholars now give little credence to what they call the Pen-Pal Fallacy, though the idea refuses to die.
[turntechGodmyfansareincredulousassholes IS actually meant to be Dave trolling his fandom by telling them the truth, but of course no one would believe the story, and therein lies the irony.]
When asked, both director and author avoided comment on their relationship; Mr. Strider only admitted to knowing of her, while Ms. Lalonde said even less, though both were asked multiple times. The following is an transcripted excerpt from a promotional interview for SBaHJ the The Film hosted by renowned journalist Stephenie Meyer.
[I'm a little sad that SBaHJ the The Film is not immediately recognizable as a typo. It's subtle. Maybe Rose's influence, there.]
SM: [...] Maybe we’ll discuss that off the air. [Laughs.] Besides, I’m married.
[It has always boggled my mind that she's married. Before I learned that, I shipped her with Christopher Paolini. "Remember, kids, everything is shippable. Even I'm shippable. But that's called self-insertion, and is frowned on in most fandoms."]
DS: Don’t worry, it’ll all come back to you eventually. It’s like riding a bicycle: uncomfortable in the crotch regions, a pretty decent cardio workout, and perfect for pissing off everyone around you.
SM: [Laughs again.] What would your girlfriend think if she saw this?
DS: Nah. I keep all my conquests chained up in the crawlspace with a typewriter and some Cheetos. By Day thirty-seven, every page is gold.
SM: Oh, is that the story behind Complacency of the Learned?
DS: Uh.
[Most interviewers probably wouldn't leave in that "Uh," but Dave's hesitations are always hilarious to me. Apparently the author of Haven thought so, too.]
SM: That’s so romantic.
[Because Stephenie Meyer finds stalkers staring at you through your window while you sleep romantic.]
DS: Wow, okay, hold onto your panties there, Steph.
SM: Come on, admit it. Weren’t you and Ms. Lalonde a thing?
DS: If we were a thing it sure wasn’t a thing anything like the thing that you’re thinking was a thing that could actually happen.
SM: So, yes or no?
pp.134 Haven in a Heartless World
[A note about the page numbers: I tried to make important "conclusion" moments fall on pages that combined 1, 3, and 4.]
DS: Have you seen her? I could get the same effect by grinding a mirror, but with less freezerburn.
[I'll admit it, that's my favorite line in this. And also the line I basically hung my diamondship on. This story can very easily be read as flushed, but I always write them as the closest of siblings and comrades in arms.]
A similar question put to Ms. Lalonde at a book signing in Seattle yielded the following answer:
RL: Who?
[...]
pp.312 Haven in a Heartless World
[Like a real book, the pages alternate between showing the title of the book and the title of the chapter.]
[...] stories about running into them at charity events and A-list parties exploded after their disappearances. Celebrities and Joe Plumbers lunged for the spotlight, drooled over a chance to share in the mythos surrounding two such controversial and, dare I say it, inspiring rebels and social shakers.
[The author was a rebel sympathizer. There aren't many copies left of the book, and maybe Dirk and Roxy never did manage to get their hands on it.]
One source, a young Disney channel starlet in their time who asked not to be named in this chronicle, claimed to have met Ms. Lalonde at a Hollywood function.
[Pretty sure "starlet" usually refers to a female person, but I was crunched for time and couldn't be bothered to fix it. GENDER IS STUPID.]
“I was drunk,” he said. “I was sixteen and signed on for a second season, we were gonna shoot in Florida [Shoutout to the developing film industry in my hometown.] and I was going to have four solo songs on the album, and I was wasted off my ass. And that lady was a fine piece of ass, let me tell you, and she was standing in the corner with a glass of, I don’t know, I don’t even think it had a drop of booze in it, the bartender told me later it was like apple juice or some shit but I don’t know, he ain’t exactly a reliable narrator. You copying all this?”
[Writing this kid actually reminds me of writing Dave, in a way. All stream of consciousness and wordplay. But he definitely doesn't use it to any effect.
Also, apple juice for Dave. They influence each other.]
I reminded him that I had a tape recorder.
[The author doesn't have much respect for this kid. They could have left that out.]
“Right, yeah. Anyway, she was standing all by her lonesome, and I’m a friendly guy, right? I didn’t have any dishonorable intentions or anything like that. So I go up to her, and I’m like, ‘Hey,’ and she’s like, well she doesn’t say anything, but she gives me a once-over or something. And you know, she smiles and maybe flutters her eyelashes a little--”
“The bartender’s on record that she rolled her eyes--”
“Yeah, what does he know. I’m telling you that dude was fucking unreliable. Anyway, I’m introducing myself, and along comes Strider,
pp.313 Chapter Eight: The ones to catch you when the world lets go
["Although your friends may be your world, your family will always be the ones to catch you when the world lets go." - Anonymous]
[A photograph of Ms. Lalonde and Mr. Strider in gala attire. They are not looking at one another, but his hand is on her elbow.]
[Inspired by fanart of Alphaverse Dave and Rose, when her hair is kind of curly. Hopefully someone knows which one I'm talking about, I don't have it saved.]
Mr. Strider and Ms. Lalonde at a party in Los Angeles.
pp.314 Haven in a Heartless World
and he goes, ‘Didn’t know jailbait was in this year.’
“And she’s like, ‘You know me, Strider, I make my plays in advance.’
“I tell him, ‘Beat it, Bozo, you’re standing in my sun,’ and he gives me this look, like, I know he’s got those shades but like I’ve got this killer instinct, right, and that’s what he is. He was a killer, lady, and I knew it even before he went bananashit on the Presidents.
[I blatantly stole "you're standing in my sun" from a District413 thread. Jackie's Roxy said it to my Dave. Also, a reminder that this book was written after Dave and Rose's deaths, like all good biographies, and thus, subject to the whims of the historians.]
“Anyway, yeah, he gives me that look, and he’s like, ‘Kid, I think they’re handing out glowsticks downstairs, why don’t you go pick yourself up a nightlight?’
“And of course he’s being a huge asshole and I don’t take that shit from anyone, and I know Lalonde doesn’t think he’s funny, either, so I tell him, ‘Dude, who do you think you are, King Arthur? This ain’t chivalry, it’s fucking sexism, you don’t have to protect her from me.’
[Because yeah, rude, Dave.]
“And he just smirks. Like it doesn’t even qualify as that, it’s like one pixel moved in his whole face. ‘You got it all wrong, dude. She doesn’t need my protection from anything. I’m magnanimously protecting the bottom of the gene pool from her.’
“And then he just walks off, and she slides her hand in his elbow and they leave like that, and it’s like, man, everyone already knows you’re banging, why you gotta make everyone want to rageclock you in the douchesmirk, please?”
[My callbacks, let me show you them. Another point where this could easily be read as flushed, but that's the Disney kid's interpretation, not mine. Who wouldn't think they were together, anyway?]
[...]
pp.413 Chapter Twelve: For there is no friend like a sister
["For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands." - Christina Rosetti]
[...] Yes. It was the boy, Strider, just sitting out by his lonesome on the roof. I wanted to tell him to get down, it’s not safe up there, but he wouldn’t have heard me. For a whole minute there, I was afraid he was going to jump. We get jumpers sometimes, yes. And he looked--he didn’t look like a jumper, but he looked. Thoughtful, I guess.
[I have no idea who this voice is. A janitor for Dave's building? I like him, though. He seems so kind and the sort of rough of something well-worn.]
“I was going to call the police when I saw the lady come up behind him, and he looked at her over his shoulder. I couldn’t see his eyes, of course. Nobody’s ever seen them. But as old as I am, you know, you get to know some things. He was hurting. And they didn’t notice me, neither of them. Nobody notices the old people.
“‘I bought him a chair,’ he said. Just like that, none of those weird things he says on the T.V. sometimes, just quiet and gentle and sad. ‘I bought him a chair. Put it together myself. With a screwdriver.’
[I think this might be a reference to a thread I was doing with Pin's Bro. I just really enjoy images of Dave trying to do domestic things for the people he loves: cooking, putting together a chair, helping them with their jackets. He's bad at expressing how much he cares about people; it's almost all in the things he does for them.]
“And that girl, she just knelt right there in her pretty dress and everything, and there’s pigeon droppings all over the roof, and she puts her arms around that boy’s shoulders and rubs his back and whispers to him, and you know? I think he was crying. Because he hugged her back, too.
[Wow hi gross tense change, I don't know why I didn't notice you. I hereby absolve myself of this by pretending it was the voice, not me.
Also Rose may often be a picture of elegance, but she's so real, too. She's willing to sully herself to do what's necessary and also to show her love. I can't agree with anyone who says Rose is boring or unemotional or perfectly classy.]
“I never seen anything so lonely in my life. I went home and held my wife and kids and never told a soul.”
[Here's where it would have been good to zoom out, show someone reading this book, but so it goes. I barely made it by the midnight deadline as it was.]