the Dalaverse

Sometimes it just hits me -- my parents are great people. Considering that your family is pretty much luck of the draw. I didn't do too badly at all (especially compared to my extended family...) They just called me from the game, tailgating (Mom: "Sitting here all by ourselves") and chattering and excited. Dad asked me about what I did this weekend, then Mom told me about her office holiday party and her devious plan to get an extra ticket for the nosebleed seats for the Thanksgiving weekend game so we can all three go for once. She complained that Dad was grilling the burgers too early, and then Dad got back on to tell me about the new ales he got the other day and said, "Well, I think I'll start up the grill now," and I could hear Mom in the background going "Don't you do that, it's too early!"

In case it was missed because of LJ's power failure -- I posted fic just before all the shit went down, over here. And you know, I had some thoughts while writing it... When I saw the movie that first giddy weekend, I said something along the lines of, "I want Will and Elizabeth to have had sex before DMC, because after DMC, I want HAWT ANGSTY ANGER-AND-GUILTSEX" (to sinister_beauty, mostly likely). And that is where this fic was supposed to go. I pulled the first part off, but when I got to the second, Will just flat-out refused. Or to not use an imaginary muse as an excuse, my interpretation of the character is such that I can't buy into Will going through with such an encounter. I had such a difficult time with it that I tried to analyze my reaction.

Firstly, there is justification from canon and how I read it. Will loves Elizabeth. That is one of his primary characteristics -- Will has brown hair, Will is good with a sword, Will has daddy issues, Will loves Elizabeth. Now, I have always been extremely poly-pairing in this fandom, but DMC had the effect of sending me to an almost OTP place with Will and Elizabeth (I say almost because it's not that I can't consider or enjoy Will with some other partner, after a believable change in circumstances -- but at this time, at the end of DMC, that is where he is). Why? For one thing, I personally am certain that this is where Disney and Ted and Terry will take the characters at the end of the trilogy (with a certain degree of J/W/E subtext -- this is pure speculation, not based on spoilers or rumors). One could argue that that's where they are at the end of CoBP, but for me, having them (presumably) stick together after having gone through all this makes the relationship more vivid and interesting. It's not just because Disney makes it so; it's because that's the message I get from the performances.

Why, again, is Will so stupid in love with Elizabeth even after he's SEEN her kissing Jack -- in that last scene, when Will is hurling the knife into the tabletop, there's the anger that initially intrigued me. But then he looks at Elizabeth, and we get a great shot of her looking absolutely sick with herself (possibly I have mentioned that I thought both actors knocked it out of the park in this scene?). Cutting back to Will, I see many emotions in his eyes. The anger and betrayal gives way to this grudging but inevitable resignation, because it doesn't matter what she's done or how she feels: Will loves her, and he can't turn that off even if he wants to, even if she deserves it, and in that look he knows all of this. It doesn't make him happy, but it's nothing he can change. And I don't mean he's Elizabeth's puppy who will be kicked and neglected and still come running back (or be totally sanguine if she does choose Jack in the end) -- there is still an undercurrent of resentment beneath that look. But I don't believe he could ever bring himself to hurt Elizabeth, or to deny her what she truly wants. He's Norrington at the end of CoBP, only it's all more dark and fucked-up and unresolved.

Anyway. Those are all the reasons why I couldn't bring myself to write Will as a character engaging in violent or borderline non-con sex with Elizabeth. Hatefucking, I believe is the term. Elizabeth, on the other hand -- she could and would; it's Will who couldn't go through with it. So it would havev to be with another character who doesn't carry that unreasonable level of love for her (like Norrington? ::brain whirs::). Likewise, I think Will could have his angry guiltsex with someone else -- again, Norrington or perhaps Jack -- who may bring their own guilt and anger that will not compliment his the way Elizabeth's would.

Lastly, there are gender issues that have less to do with the characters than with my own level of comfort in writing. I know why I would have an easier time writing hate/anger/guiltsex between two men -- "equals," physically and socially -- than between a man and a woman, in which case it represents a dichotomy of power that comes too close to rape for my comfort. That's in the simplest turns I can explain it, and it looks kind of awful and wrong -- but those are the set of cultural assumptions and hang-ups I carry into my writing. Then there's the difference between Will/Elizabeth and James/Elizabeth in this situation, if I come back to the gender problem, and I think it's that I am deeply uncomfortable tangling Will's love for Elizabeth (and his social position as her intended husband) with anger/violence in sex. It's not that this doesn't happen in real life, or whatever -- but I cannot do it. If I did, I would have to break Will mentally and psychologically, because that's the only way I could get him to that place without making myself sick. Whereas with James, a. he's already a lot closer to that place and b. there isn't the semblance of Elizabeth "paying" for her mistakes/sins in bed, to the one she has wronged. That's what stalls me -- dominance and sex issues juxtaposed with both Elizabeth and Will believing she has betrayed Will in some way. I can't write that. I could possibly read it, if very, very well-done and delicately handled, but I am incapable of writing it.

...That went on a bit. It really has no purpose; I just wanted to map out my parameters. I blame this on my film class.