Aurora is essentially the “perfect woman” in the context of the society she lives in. She skipped high school entirely and went straight into university, so at only 20-years-old she’s already an accomplished data analyst. She’s savvy about taking care of herself, and is drop-dead gorgeous to boot.
The artifacts were her project. She discovered their existence while researching something or other for one of her classes, and met Talon in pursuit of them. Through working together, they decided to become “engaged to be engaged” lol.
Her hope was that with utilizing the artifacts, humans would be better able to protect themselves against the increasing numbers of killer mecha that pop up and wreak havoc. However, her plans still ultimately relied on CR1515 to destroy the mecha, because it never occurred to her that humanity’s protector might not come through.
Although smart, she struggles with thinking outside the box.
She agrees to become CR1515’s companion and live in the space station with him, and while she’s emotionally conflicted about it, she sticks to her word.
I’m currently forcing myself to read Outlander for research purposes. Not doing a real review on it given that I’m not remotely the target audience for the novel, but I do enjoy ranting about it.
The love interest, Jamie, is way too much of a woobie for me to like him on any level. He shows up injured, proceeds to get shot, then is given a good thrashing — all within a few chapters. In the meantime, his dialogue seems to revolve entirely around some horror story from his past, with plenty of scars covering his body to prove it (naturally the main character is there to tend to his wounds and listen sympathetically).
A story with the Woobie allows the audience to vicariously experience relief from some pain by fantasizing about relieving the Woobie’s pain. … Woobification can also tie into a disturbing hurt/comfort dynamic, in which fans enjoy seeing the Woobie tortured so they can wish the hurt away.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, given that Outlander was originally published in 1991, but I can’t help but look at Jamie and think that he’s so pathetic, he wouldn’t do anyone any good in a post-2020 world. Like, if there was only one package of toilet paper left in the entire city, and Jamie had a family counting on him to come through for them, he’d probably get hit in the eye and be left completely incapacitated, thus failing miserably. Ain’t got time for that sympathy crap in this society. Toughen up, dude, and learn how to take care of yourself.
I prefer men who are capable of protecting babies against hordes of zombies during the apocalypse. Just sayin’.
The big question for Talon was, “Should he turn out to be a jerk?”
Having him be the meanie antagonist for the story would be comfortably in the realm of familiar — a sort of “Gaston” figure from the Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. Mind you, tropes aren’t bad; people like to have familiar and new concepts evenly mixed in their entertainment, so this was a perfectly valid option.
But I didn’t really like the idea of Aurora being betrothed to (and working closely with) someone who was bad — she’s smart enough that she’d notice if he was possessive and angry under the surface, and independent enough that she wouldn’t be in a relationship with him if that was the case. I decided instead that Talon should be a decent guy in the context of the world they live in.
So, I flipped the story.
Talon will take the place of the tragic hero, who’s girlfriend is kidnapped away and he has to desperately seek her out. CR1515, in turn, is the villain who arrogantly looks down on humanity and does what he pleases.
I decided to read Outlander for research purposes, but since I’m not remotely the target audience, I’m not going to review it. Instead, I will tell you that I’m really struggling to get through the book.
Outlander is classic Mary-Sue fiction. As in, the main character is an orphan, but instead of carrying any deep emotional scarring over the loss of her parents, she grew up traveling the world and going on all sorts of adventures with her uncle. Wheee!
It goes downhill from there.
Naturally it leaves me, someone with a traumatic backstory, absolutely nothing to relate to. Actually, I find it quite triggering. Do other women really have someone constantly swooping in to protect them from everything unpleasant? Why was I never so fortunate?
Cue the accusations of being self-centered and making everything about me.
Given that Mary-Sue is one of the most popular sub genres of romance, I can’t help but wonder if I really am that much of an anomaly. Where are the fictional characters that are like me?
The villains in horror novels, I’m sure.
This massive disconnect is the reason why I write the sorts of things that I write. My productivity is so slow in the winter because January is my “traumaversary” month — the event that permanently robbed me of my ability to write PG stories, so to speak. I have a darkness inside, and while it prevents me from relating to most people, it is also why I appreciate the things that everyone else takes for granted. You learn to live in peace with your demons.
Anyway
I’m not sure if I’ll actually make it to the end of Outlander, even for the research purposes. It just feels too juvenile and naive for me to stomach.
I do feel bad that I haven’t been posting more of my fiction writing for the past several months.
At this point, I’ve got half of The Scion Suit written, which I’ve decided to expand from a novelette into a branching, multiple-possible-endings novel. Unfortunately, with the fact that the reader gets to periodically choose which path to go down, I haven’t the slightest idea how I’d go about posting it on a blog.
Not to mention, I’ve reached the part where I planned to switch over to MSG Hartmann’s perspective, only I’m not in a state where I can readily get into a masculine frame of mind. I’ve decided to put it off until after the arrival of baby #6, so I don’t have pregnancy hormones affecting what I write (though I still plan on publishing The Scion Suit in 2022).
In the meantime, I’ve started working on a different idea, which is a lot more feminine with plenty of emotional drama. The catch is that this one is so securely rated M, I don’t know if I should post it as I work on it, or wait to officially publish it.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m using the sex scenes to distract from the philosophical rants, or vice versa. They both get pretty heavy, lol.
I’m going to be honest: progress is slow. Winter is not remotely my most productive season when it comes to writing, so even if I decided to post this new story with all the juicy bits cut out (and by that I mean the philosophical rants), it will still take some time to get to that point. By which I mean … February.
I can’t help but jokingly think of this as “Beauty and the Beast with robots”.
This is still massively underdeveloped, of course, but I find it to be a thoroughly fascinating idea.
Aurora’s eyes closed, and for a moment she drifted into sleep before she snapped herself back into consciousness. The horizon was growing lighter, and he still hadn’t appeared. While she was doing her best to maintain the vigil, it was difficult to feel a sense of urgency when the fate of humanity rested on someone who was now hours late.
“He’s not coming,” Talon murmured, closing his hand around Aurora’s. His skin felt burning hot over her cold fingers, so she snuggled up against his side to soak in his warmth.
“He has to,” she replied quietly.
“As soon as the first sun rays appear, we’re out of time.” Talon motioned to the frozen mecha that stood some yards away, still poised in mid-attack. “The artifacts won’t hold it after daybreak.”
“He’ll be here,” Aurora weakly insisted. “He’s the only one who can stop it.”
“We need to leave before we get killed.” Talon stood then pulled on her. “Come on.”
“But what about the artifacts?”
“They’ll probably be destroyed. We’ll have to worry about that later.”
Aurora reluctantly followed Talon, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back. Recovering the three golden artifacts had been a long and difficult process, and activating them to imprison the mecha had cost them the life of a friend. The thought of being abandoned by CR1515 at the last minute was too much to bear.
“Let’s go find him,” she suggested hopefully.
“If Robot Boy was coming, he would have been here hours ago,” Talon snapped, using the derogatory nickname for CR1515. Even though he was humanity’s protector, there were many people who resented and feared his abilities, and consequently sought to drag him down in petty ways. Despite the intended disrespect, CR1515 had never given any indication of noticing the nickname or the negative attitudes towards him … until his failure to appear that night.
“The Gate isn’t far from here. Let’s just go see if we can contact him, at the very least.” Aurora hated the thought of giving up, and even though she knew her idea sounded silly and irrational, it was far better than doing nothing.
“You go then, if it will make you happy. I need to tell the others what’s happened.” Talon stopped and turned to Aurora, put his arms around her waist, then kissed her lips. “Don’t risk waiting around, though,” he whispered. “If he doesn’t answer in two minutes, get underground.”
“I promise I will.” Aurora closed her eyes as they kissed farewell again, then continued to the Gate alone. She approached the metal door, standing in the middle of an empty lot free from any buildings or walls, and pushed the small button next to it. Silently, she began to count the seconds, feeling the weight of fatigue build with every number.
At 64, the door swung open.
She hesitated, then stepped through.
Aurora was no longer in the empty lot with solid earth beneath her feet. She was inside a large room with windows on every side, looking out at a dark sky that was speckled with innumerable stars, and her breath caught in her throat at the realization that she was no longer on the planet, but far above it in space.
Metallic footsteps came towards her, and she turned to face CR1515. It hurt to find him home, staring at her with his expressionless face, and she couldn’t stop herself from crying out, “How could you?”
He stopped. “Have you never questioned whether or not you are worthy of my help?”
“Aren’t … we?” Aurora was lost for words. The truth was, through all the hard work and sacrifices that they had made to reach their goal, it never once occurred to her to wonder what CR1515 thought of them – she had assumed that he would assist the moment he was needed, because he always had before.
“I have grown tired of humanity. Save yourselves.” He turned to walk away, but Aurora jumped forward and caught hold of his back, pressing herself against him as she begged,
“Please. Please. We’ve done everything we can, but that mecha is … a lot of people will die if you don’t do something right now!”
“No,” came his harsh reply.
“I swear that I’ll do anything you ask, if only you’ll kill that thing!”
“You swear?” CR1515’s metal hands pressed down over her wrists, holding her in place with her arms around him.
“I swear!”
“I want what your species takes for granted.” He thrust Aurora’s arms away from him and once again turned to face her. “I want to touch, and to love.”
She stood, numbed by the words, unable to stop the thought, He’s a robot, from repeating itself over and over in her mind. CR1515 possessed the likeness of a human, but he was undoubtedly made of hard metal. How could he touch?
“Will you be mine?” he asked.
“But …” Aurora’s voice faded.
“Those are my terms. If you won’t accept, then begone.”
“…Yes.” Her lower lip trembled, and she wondered if she should try to take back the word despite having said it.
This year has been very draining for a number of reasons. I don’t even want to get into them, because of the overwhelming, “Ugh, just get everything over with already,” feeling that comes with them.
So, along the lines of Things That I’ve Been Thinking About….
Mandatory Exposition: I wrote The Scion Suit in 2019 as a response to a Reddit writing prompt, and it ended up becoming mildly popular, etc. This year, I’ve been working on an expanded version of it.
Given the circumstances of when I originally wrote the story, MSG Hartmann’s character ended up being regretfully underused. I wrote some other thoughts about that. With rewriting and expanding The Scion Suit, I’ve had a lot more time to further develop his character.
At some point during the last several months, I decided that Hartmann coped with the stress of military life through womanizing (specifically PUA), and it’s had a rather interesting effect on his overall characterization.
In 2019, I wrote, “Brooding, he hung around to watch Carol work on his beloved Suit, and his heart stung with jealousy when he saw how tenderly she touched the metal. When she opened it up to wipe down the leather interior, he couldn’t stand it anymore; it was worse than walking in on a spouse in the thralls of another lover.”
But, this new course in characterization has resulted in a fundamental shift.
Instead of feeling possessive ownership over the Suit, Hartmann instead sees himself as The Other, who has no choice but to return the Suit to its loving spouse (Carol) after every excursion. He uses the Suit, but he knows that he doesn’t belong to it — which adds an element of pain to his actions and motivations (and all that jazz).
His development and redemption now involves learning to see himself as a person worthy of an actual relationship and future goals, instead of simply being a military puppet with zero long-term prospects.
But he still has to give up the Suit in the end … because of the aliens… >.<
All I need to do is write up the last few paragraphs, which I have neatly planned out and all that jazz.
But something about it doesn’t feel quite right, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what.
I’ve decided that it’s been long enough that I ought to go ahead and post what I have written, and I apologize that it’s not 100% finished.
Miranda waited outside the prison gates, resting against the hood of her car as she kept a careful eye on the drive between the thick walls and the building kept therein, occasionally fidgeting to check the time on her phone. Her fingers were growing numb in the late Autumn air, and while she considered retreating into her car to keep warm, she knew that she didn’t want to miss the exact moment he appeared.
After ten long years, she was about to be reunited with the man who had both destroyed and saved her life. He had gone into prison every bit a scoundrel, and Miranda hoped against hope that the improvements he had professed to have undergone during their correspondence were genuine. It was easy to keep up a facade in letters, and she didn’t want reality to prove differently.
Two figures appeared, and a relieved smile swept across her face as she recognized the gait of one of them. She stood straighter as they approached, but she didn’t take a step forward until the guard saw the former prisoner and his small box of personal items through the gate to the outside world, then turned to retreat back to his duties.
Damon faced her wordlessly, and they both struggled with how they should greet each other in the moment. He awkwardly put out his hand at the same time that Miranda moved for an embrace, and they laughed nervously then settled on a one-armed hug.
“You sure about this?” he asked, as Miranda motioned for him to get into her car. “It’s not too late to have second thoughts.”
“I’m sure. Just … don’t ever lie to me again, okay?” She folded her arms and bounced lightly on her feet, feeling both antsy and cold. There was a clarity in Damon’s face that hadn’t been there when they had first met a decade ago, and it made her certain that what they had written to each other wasn’t just a fantasy.
Damon looked her up and down, and a mischievous glint entered his eyes. “In that case,” he murmured, pushing Miranda back against he car as he pressed himself against her, gently touching the side of her face as he locked his gaze on hers. “Should we pick up where we left off?”
Miranda wrinkled the bridge of her nose. “With deceit and blackmail? Definitely not!”
“I meant in our letters.” He brushed his lips against hers. “I seem to remember a very sweet confession of love from you, and I want to reciprocate it.”
Her heart quickened and her eyelids fluttered as they deepened the kiss, and his touch felt both new yet familiar. Memories flooded her mind of the nights that they had spent together before his incarceration, back when Miranda had been reluctant to admit how much she loved the way Damon had made her feel alive and feminine while underneath him, and she quivered with emotion as her hands found the nape of Damon’s neck. However, her touch made him flinch, and he took both of her hands into his as he said, “You’re freezing.”
A minute later, Damon’s boxed was neatly in the trunk, and they were both sitting in the car with the engine idling and the heat blasting as Miranda held her hands over the vent to warm up, continually glancing over at Damon to study him. “You’ll like the ranch, I think. It’s good land, and the house is a decent size, too, with a detached garage that you can use as your shop. All we need now are the horses.”
“Sounds good,” he replied simply.
Miranda took a deep breath to work up the nerve, then said, “Let’s get married.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” Damon grinned. “You don’t want me down on one knee, after sneaking a diamond ring into your glass of champaign?”
“Don’t you think that we’re a little old for that sort of stuff?” Miranda shook her head with a smile. “We can stop by the courthouse on the way home and get it done today.”
“Sure. No point in waiting any longer than we already have.” He reached over to touch her leg, his fingers absentmindedly stroking the fabric of her pants as he sank into his thoughts. After a minute, he said quietly, “I half expected you to lose interest as soon as I was out.”
Miranda giggled slightly. “I half expected to discover that everything was a lie. We’re a couple of pessimists, aren’t we.”
“Guess so.” Damon chuckled as well. “We’ll suit each other well enough.”
They paused as Miranda popped her car into gear and began driving, then she ventured to ask, “Are you going to reach out to Alicia?”
Damon frowned. “No.”
“Why not?” Miranda asked, surprised.
He looked away. “I … don’t want her to be ashamed to have me as her father. Right now, all I have is my former life and the time I spent in prison, which isn’t anything to brag about.”
Miranda opened her mouth, then thought better of what she had been about to say. Instead, she mused, “I guess a little bit more time won’t hurt,” then glanced over at Damon as she bit her lip. She wanted to argue with him, and tell him that he was being pointlessly insecure about his daughter, but she had grown enough sense to know that she shouldn’t push him during his first hour of freedom. There would be plenty of time for that later. She asked sweetly, “Do you have a recent photo of her?”
“Yeah.” Damon shifted to pull out his wallet, and produced a picture of a 10-year-old girl grinning widely at the camera. “The warden gave it to me this morning.”
“She seems really happy,” Miranda murmured, doing her best to divide her attention between driving and studying the picture. “Spitting image of you, too.”
“Ha. Maybe a little.” Damon smiled warmly at the photo. “Lets get that ranch you wanted up and running first, then we’ll see how it goes.”
“Do you think I can actually do it?” Miranda felt her nerves bubble up as she thought about the plans that she had worked out with Damon over the last few years. “I’m terrified that there’s nothing left of me outside of being a lawyer.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“For starters, there’s not going to be someone announcing whether I won or lost. How am I supposed to know how well everything is going without that?”
Damon patted Miranda’s shoulder, then smiled devilishly. “You’ll just have to go off of how pleased I am with you.”
She felt her cheeks turn warm. “It looks like there’s one part of you that hasn’t changed at all.”
“Don’t think it ever will.”
Miranda smiled as she reached over to take Damon’s hand and give him a squeeze. “It’s a good thing I’m not a pushover; you’re going to have your work cut out for you.” She laughed. “All right, we’re here. Let’s get married before either one of us has second thoughts.”
After a short ceremony and several signatures, they were back out on the road, silent as they drove towards the outskirts of town, each deep in their own thoughts.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
A few months ago I wondered if I should pull back on the romance label to help broaden the appeal of my writing, but recently I saw a youtube comment (on this year’s overtly capitalist re-imagining of Cinderella of all things) about how women are constantly attacked and shamed for liking romance.
I thought about my own personal experiences, how I was treated like I was too stupid to appreciate more sophisticated story lines, and how I was told repeatedly through my childhood and teenage years that I needed to settle on a career because no one was going to find me lovable. Not to mention, the frequent accusations of romance novels being nothing more than porn …
So I decided that the world needs to change. What I went through is messed up, and society needs to stop inflicting that on women and girls.
And I can’t change the world if I don’t own the fact that I write romance novels.
I love romance. I love deep emotional connections. I love happily ever afters.
This is a subject that I have researched and lived, and despite romance being considered a “stupid” genre, it takes an enormous amount of knowledge and skill to write emotionally engaging relationships that don’t fall flat.
A good romance novel is inspirational.
I’m not going to downplay the nature of the novels I write. I’ve already endured an enormous amount of criticism for being who I am, so there’s no reason to back down now.
By Autumn Rain 