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nebroadweTitle: The Machine Unmakes the Man
Fandom: Princess Tutu (anime version)
Character(s): Edel and Fakir
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG (for implied character death and the manner thereof)
Word Count: ~1625
Warnings: Spoilers for episode 13
A/N: I would not pry a minute out of episodes 12-13 of the Princess Tutu anime, but it has always troubled me, artistically speaking, that the animators failed to storyboard in even a hint of [spoiler]'s rescue. That character's abrupt reappearance seems more cheaply theatrical than it ought to be in a story which is otherwise much better about managing plot consequences. So here, for anyone interested, is a deleted scene from episode thirteen to fill in the gap. Crossposted from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nebroadwe to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
princesstutu and tutufic.
Dedication: For Katie the Elder, who also feels the lack.
Once upon a time there was a man who had no children.
One day he tripped over a piece of wood that groaned when he kicked it.
So he carved it into a puppet and called it his son.
Fakir toppled backward into the dark lake, and the water his falling body displaced closed over him as swiftly as a courtier effacing a breach of protocol. The chill that had clawed at his flesh while he grappled with Kraehe's minions held him now in a gentler grip; a perfidious ease denied the wounds he had taken. Cuts and bruises, he thought, reflexively dismissive. Cracked rib, maybe. Not that it matters ...
He sank relentlessly, dragged down by the weight of his boots and the practice leathers that served him for armor and the sword his right hand refused to release. Lohengrin's sword -- he hadn't disgraced it, hadn't failed Charon or Mytho ... or her ... or himself. He had made good his boast: he had changed fate, striking the blow the Knight of The Prince and the Raven could not. Now it's her turn. He hoped she had the wit to follow his lead, to tear the rent in the story wider and cheat the Raven of her prize. She's got to have sense enough for that. She's got to.
His throat still barred from escape the last breath he had drawn, but he made no other gesture to save himself. He had spent his strength to prevent the diving crows from skewering him; the stroke that shattered Mytho's sword had in turn drained his will. Soon enough, this last instinct too would exhaust itself and let him rest. I won, he thought. It's over. I'm done.
Not yet.
The denial irked him: he let his head fall back, as once he would have stared down his nose at a first-year student who contradicted him. The hell you say. I'm finished with this story.
Nothing troubled the pall of water that swathed him, but the answer thrummed in his ears again. Not yet.
Just because I haven't been torn in two? His eyelids lifted in quest of his interlocutor, but the gloom was impenetrable. I am not going back up there to be slashed in half for -- indignation tightened his muscles -- for completeness's sake! Haven't I done enough?
Not yet.
Uneasy now, he tried to turn his wrist, to haul the sword up to guard. His heart began to thud behind lungs rebellious for want of air; his throat spasmed in thwarted gulps. Who are you? What do you want? The knife in his boot was out of reach and the sword hung from his arm like an anchor. If he couldn't raise it, he'd be a sitting -- he'd have no defense. Can't you just leave me alone?
Not yet.
Something caught him at knees and chest, arresting his descent for a last assault, the vengeful claws seeking his heart -- or, no, he really had broken a rib, damn it, let go! His lips gave way in a whimper of agony; helpless, he swallowed water and darkness as his captor stole his victory with his peace.
But the wooden boy was mischievous and willful.
No matter how often the man reproved him, he went his own way.
He offended all the neighbors with his tricks,
so at last they tied a rope around his neck and hanged him.
Taking the boy's body firmly in her arms, Edel stepped off the storyline into a muddle of events. They jostled and jolted her, but her frame was constructed to withstand such shocks. Of the boy's structural integrity she was less certain, so she raised her voice and dropped a quatrain into their circumstances like a spindle.
"Crawler, here no crow shall spy you;
Neither hap nor weird deny you
Leave to spin your tomb and die
To live again, a butterfly."
Her words gathered contingencies, twisting them into a thread of plot as fine as spider silk. Edel took another step forward and felt the strand sag beneath her foot -- then it tautened, springing back as it found anchorage elsewhere in the story.
She strode out briskly along the line, unhampered now by random incidents. Only time still pressed. Her master's attention was occupied by the main plot, in which neither she nor the boy had any further part to play, but until Herr Drosselmeyer recalled her, she remained in the tale as his proxy: to manipulate the action, to illuminate its mysteries, and (most important of all) to be wherever she was needed, without regard to the unities. Dropped from her master's notice, she might act without his sanction, but who could tell how long the contest between the two princesses would hold his interest?
Her pace quickened, but she had already reached the junction between her own narrative and the history of Goldkrone. The Brunnenplatz took silent shape around her: a foggy cobblestone square hard by the old cathedral, empty and dark as the windows of the counting-houses opposite, a mile and more from the bottom of the lost lake.
She could not remember when last she had been called upon to travel thus. Her master had grown to abhor such shortcuts: crude shifts, he called them, unworthy of a true artist -- which she assuredly was not. Remember your place, he'd said as he cut the heartstrings she'd so unexpectedly developed. A cheap deus ex machina, that's what you are, and all that's fit for this degenerate age. He'd closed her torso with a snap and left her sitting slumped at the workbench while he paced. The Greeks could winch Pallas Athena herself down from the heavens to cleanse a man of blood-guilt ... or Artemis to rescue a virgin sacrifice at the very foot of the altar! And I must dangle a marionette from the flies and sing "Hi Lili" to get anyone's attention. Magic realism, pah! And then he'd sent her out to guide Princess Tutu and the Prince's Knight to the threshold of the labyrinth at whose heart lurked tragedy ...
Edel laid the boy's body on the ground beside the fountain. Water soaked his clothes and hair, dribbled from his nose and half-open mouth, but he did not stir. She knelt and turned his head to the left, then pressed her hands, one atop the other, sharply into the muscle below his ribs. His chin flooded; he choked on the backwash, but she drove her palms down once more and forced his lungs clear. A breeze swept across the square, ruckling Edel's blouse and the puddle spreading on the stones. The boy gasped, coughed, and began wheezily to breathe again.
Edel sat back on her heels. Duck had not wanted the boy to die: she had wept and dropped to her knees on the rough sand, calling his name as he sank, her face as pale as the feathers that framed it. Yet when she rose to face Princess Kraehe's challenge, her eyes were dry. Edel had decided then that she had no more need of tears. If Duck found her way out of the labyrinth with the Prince, let the boy Fakir be there to greet her, to smile on her success. That, Edel judged, was a proper ending.
Had she done enough to bring it about?
She considered the boy once more as the wind whispered around them. His breaths were quick and shallow, his skin clammy. That was not right. Human beings were warm creatures, their flesh aglow from within, stimulated by something tenderer and fiercer than her master's weights and cogs. The boy had shone no less brightly than Duck, for all he'd tried to muffle the gleam, but now he seemed to Edel like a candle guttering in a storm lantern. She put her hand to his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. Cold. Too cold.
The answer was obvious, yet she hesitated.
After a moment, she reached for her jewel box and it materialized under her seeking fingers. She rummaged through a side compartment full of beads and baubles (chalcedony for battle, onyx for fortune, carnelian for joy ...) to find a glassy, blue-gray stone crudely knapped into the shape of a triangle. Taking it in her right hand, she drew the pinecone-hilted dagger from its sheath in the boy's boot. Flint for resolution; steel for truth and faith. Strange to call upon those virtues as she betrayed the author of her being -- but perhaps her master would appreciate the irony, a last service from his feckless factotum.
Three times she smote the stone against the blade. Sparks flew, catching in her skirt, setting it afire. As the flames consumed her linen dress and gnawed at the linden beneath it, she raised the knife above her head. In the unscarred mirror of the flat, Edel glimpsed her own face bathed in light.
Then, with a single, wrong-handed stroke, she severed her strings.
What else can a boy expect, who does not heed his father?
What else can a father expect, who treats his son as a puppet?
Fakir rolled instinctively toward the pleasant bloom of heat, but was brought up short by the wrench to his battered ribs. Aching, his mind still half-drowned in strange dreams, he lay on his back and searched the hard pallet of his childhood for a quilt to ward off the autumnal nip. 'S not time t'get up, is it?
The reply chuckled in his left ear. Not yet.
Relieved, he drowsed again, drawing strength from the warmth that drifted across him like a breath of Indian summer. His nose wrinkled at the smell of burnt cloth until the wind bore it away.
Author's Note: In addition to the usual references to classical literature and Hollywood movies, this story takes particular inspiration from Christina Rossetti's caterpillar poem, which underlies Edel's quatrain. The framing story harks back to the original Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
[Acknowledgments: Princess Tutu was created by Ikuko Ito and Junichi Sato. Copyright for this property is held by HAL and GANSIS/TUTU.]
Fandom: Princess Tutu (anime version)
Character(s): Edel and Fakir
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG (for implied character death and the manner thereof)
Word Count: ~1625
Warnings: Spoilers for episode 13
A/N: I would not pry a minute out of episodes 12-13 of the Princess Tutu anime, but it has always troubled me, artistically speaking, that the animators failed to storyboard in even a hint of [spoiler]'s rescue. That character's abrupt reappearance seems more cheaply theatrical than it ought to be in a story which is otherwise much better about managing plot consequences. So here, for anyone interested, is a deleted scene from episode thirteen to fill in the gap. Crossposted from
nebroadwe to princesstutu and tutufic.Dedication: For Katie the Elder, who also feels the lack.
One day he tripped over a piece of wood that groaned when he kicked it.
So he carved it into a puppet and called it his son.
Fakir toppled backward into the dark lake, and the water his falling body displaced closed over him as swiftly as a courtier effacing a breach of protocol. The chill that had clawed at his flesh while he grappled with Kraehe's minions held him now in a gentler grip; a perfidious ease denied the wounds he had taken. Cuts and bruises, he thought, reflexively dismissive. Cracked rib, maybe. Not that it matters ...
He sank relentlessly, dragged down by the weight of his boots and the practice leathers that served him for armor and the sword his right hand refused to release. Lohengrin's sword -- he hadn't disgraced it, hadn't failed Charon or Mytho ... or her ... or himself. He had made good his boast: he had changed fate, striking the blow the Knight of The Prince and the Raven could not. Now it's her turn. He hoped she had the wit to follow his lead, to tear the rent in the story wider and cheat the Raven of her prize. She's got to have sense enough for that. She's got to.
His throat still barred from escape the last breath he had drawn, but he made no other gesture to save himself. He had spent his strength to prevent the diving crows from skewering him; the stroke that shattered Mytho's sword had in turn drained his will. Soon enough, this last instinct too would exhaust itself and let him rest. I won, he thought. It's over. I'm done.
Not yet.
The denial irked him: he let his head fall back, as once he would have stared down his nose at a first-year student who contradicted him. The hell you say. I'm finished with this story.
Nothing troubled the pall of water that swathed him, but the answer thrummed in his ears again. Not yet.
Just because I haven't been torn in two? His eyelids lifted in quest of his interlocutor, but the gloom was impenetrable. I am not going back up there to be slashed in half for -- indignation tightened his muscles -- for completeness's sake! Haven't I done enough?
Not yet.
Uneasy now, he tried to turn his wrist, to haul the sword up to guard. His heart began to thud behind lungs rebellious for want of air; his throat spasmed in thwarted gulps. Who are you? What do you want? The knife in his boot was out of reach and the sword hung from his arm like an anchor. If he couldn't raise it, he'd be a sitting -- he'd have no defense. Can't you just leave me alone?
Not yet.
Something caught him at knees and chest, arresting his descent for a last assault, the vengeful claws seeking his heart -- or, no, he really had broken a rib, damn it, let go! His lips gave way in a whimper of agony; helpless, he swallowed water and darkness as his captor stole his victory with his peace.
No matter how often the man reproved him, he went his own way.
He offended all the neighbors with his tricks,
so at last they tied a rope around his neck and hanged him.
Taking the boy's body firmly in her arms, Edel stepped off the storyline into a muddle of events. They jostled and jolted her, but her frame was constructed to withstand such shocks. Of the boy's structural integrity she was less certain, so she raised her voice and dropped a quatrain into their circumstances like a spindle.
Neither hap nor weird deny you
Leave to spin your tomb and die
To live again, a butterfly."
Her words gathered contingencies, twisting them into a thread of plot as fine as spider silk. Edel took another step forward and felt the strand sag beneath her foot -- then it tautened, springing back as it found anchorage elsewhere in the story.
She strode out briskly along the line, unhampered now by random incidents. Only time still pressed. Her master's attention was occupied by the main plot, in which neither she nor the boy had any further part to play, but until Herr Drosselmeyer recalled her, she remained in the tale as his proxy: to manipulate the action, to illuminate its mysteries, and (most important of all) to be wherever she was needed, without regard to the unities. Dropped from her master's notice, she might act without his sanction, but who could tell how long the contest between the two princesses would hold his interest?
Her pace quickened, but she had already reached the junction between her own narrative and the history of Goldkrone. The Brunnenplatz took silent shape around her: a foggy cobblestone square hard by the old cathedral, empty and dark as the windows of the counting-houses opposite, a mile and more from the bottom of the lost lake.
She could not remember when last she had been called upon to travel thus. Her master had grown to abhor such shortcuts: crude shifts, he called them, unworthy of a true artist -- which she assuredly was not. Remember your place, he'd said as he cut the heartstrings she'd so unexpectedly developed. A cheap deus ex machina, that's what you are, and all that's fit for this degenerate age. He'd closed her torso with a snap and left her sitting slumped at the workbench while he paced. The Greeks could winch Pallas Athena herself down from the heavens to cleanse a man of blood-guilt ... or Artemis to rescue a virgin sacrifice at the very foot of the altar! And I must dangle a marionette from the flies and sing "Hi Lili" to get anyone's attention. Magic realism, pah! And then he'd sent her out to guide Princess Tutu and the Prince's Knight to the threshold of the labyrinth at whose heart lurked tragedy ...
Edel laid the boy's body on the ground beside the fountain. Water soaked his clothes and hair, dribbled from his nose and half-open mouth, but he did not stir. She knelt and turned his head to the left, then pressed her hands, one atop the other, sharply into the muscle below his ribs. His chin flooded; he choked on the backwash, but she drove her palms down once more and forced his lungs clear. A breeze swept across the square, ruckling Edel's blouse and the puddle spreading on the stones. The boy gasped, coughed, and began wheezily to breathe again.
Edel sat back on her heels. Duck had not wanted the boy to die: she had wept and dropped to her knees on the rough sand, calling his name as he sank, her face as pale as the feathers that framed it. Yet when she rose to face Princess Kraehe's challenge, her eyes were dry. Edel had decided then that she had no more need of tears. If Duck found her way out of the labyrinth with the Prince, let the boy Fakir be there to greet her, to smile on her success. That, Edel judged, was a proper ending.
Had she done enough to bring it about?
She considered the boy once more as the wind whispered around them. His breaths were quick and shallow, his skin clammy. That was not right. Human beings were warm creatures, their flesh aglow from within, stimulated by something tenderer and fiercer than her master's weights and cogs. The boy had shone no less brightly than Duck, for all he'd tried to muffle the gleam, but now he seemed to Edel like a candle guttering in a storm lantern. She put her hand to his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. Cold. Too cold.
The answer was obvious, yet she hesitated.
After a moment, she reached for her jewel box and it materialized under her seeking fingers. She rummaged through a side compartment full of beads and baubles (chalcedony for battle, onyx for fortune, carnelian for joy ...) to find a glassy, blue-gray stone crudely knapped into the shape of a triangle. Taking it in her right hand, she drew the pinecone-hilted dagger from its sheath in the boy's boot. Flint for resolution; steel for truth and faith. Strange to call upon those virtues as she betrayed the author of her being -- but perhaps her master would appreciate the irony, a last service from his feckless factotum.
Three times she smote the stone against the blade. Sparks flew, catching in her skirt, setting it afire. As the flames consumed her linen dress and gnawed at the linden beneath it, she raised the knife above her head. In the unscarred mirror of the flat, Edel glimpsed her own face bathed in light.
Then, with a single, wrong-handed stroke, she severed her strings.
What else can a father expect, who treats his son as a puppet?
Fakir rolled instinctively toward the pleasant bloom of heat, but was brought up short by the wrench to his battered ribs. Aching, his mind still half-drowned in strange dreams, he lay on his back and searched the hard pallet of his childhood for a quilt to ward off the autumnal nip. 'S not time t'get up, is it?
The reply chuckled in his left ear. Not yet.
Relieved, he drowsed again, drawing strength from the warmth that drifted across him like a breath of Indian summer. His nose wrinkled at the smell of burnt cloth until the wind bore it away.
Author's Note: In addition to the usual references to classical literature and Hollywood movies, this story takes particular inspiration from Christina Rossetti's caterpillar poem, which underlies Edel's quatrain. The framing story harks back to the original Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
[Acknowledgments: Princess Tutu was created by Ikuko Ito and Junichi Sato. Copyright for this property is held by HAL and GANSIS/TUTU.]
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 11:35 pm (UTC)Thanks! The Fakir part was written first; I remember gravelling unhappily over it for reasons that escape me now. The prose took its own sweet time shaping up and then I dropped the whole thing in the basket because I couldn't face doing Edel (whose interior monologue was complicated by the fact that I decided I didn't want to have her express any feelings directly and as few "normal" tactile experiences as possible, in order to get that slightly not-a-human quality into her characterization. Urgh.). Which is weirdly back-to-front, because the plotbunny began with Drosselmeyer's line about Edel being a cheap deus ex machina. Oh, well. The Muses are inscrutable.
I particularly like Edel's constant reply of 'not yet' ...
Hee hee. Author trick: certain kinds of repetition take on an air of oracularity (cf. Babylon 5: "What do you want?"/"Who are you?"). I had to concentrate to get Fakir's responses right, though. His last line mutated around a bit before settling on what's there.
... and the ending showing a slightly vulnerable side of Fakir (something which he never shows if he can help it, of course).
Some heroes you just have to beat half to death to get them to drop the tough-guy act. :-) I needed Fakir back to end the story, but since he doesn't realize what's going on until Mytho and Duck wake him later, he had to be a bit addled here, and I always knew that he'd hark back to his childhood to produce Edel's last "Not yet." It was just the getting there ...
I love your Princess Tutu fanfics!
I'm fond of yours myself. [tries not to rudely crane neck to check potential progress on Raven!Fakir fic]
no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 12:15 am (UTC)Ahh, I had to do something similar with Autor on the RP I'm in recently--long story short, he lost his heart. He still doesn't have hope or happiness back yet--I have to keep catching myself from having him say "I hope so" or "I'm glad". ^^;;
I think you pulled it off really well with Edel, though--I remember thinking that she sounded particularly doll-like, although with a hint of emotion hiding in the background.
Hee hee. Author trick: certain kinds of repetition take on an air of oracularity (cf. Babylon 5: "What do you want?"/"Who are you?").
^^ I love using repetition as well. (I think I've done something similar in one of my Autor fics, although I can't remember which one it was if I did.) I really liked Fakir's responses, too--particularly his first stubborn reply that he's not going to go back up to the battle to simply get torn in two like the knight from the story.
Some heroes you just have to beat half to death to get them to drop the tough-guy act. :-)
Or starve them for three days...then again, he was still valiently trying to be tough even then. Maybe a better one is "or beat up their little duck friend".
I needed Fakir back to end the story, but since he doesn't realize what's going on until Mytho and Duck wake him later, he had to be a bit addled here, and I always knew that he'd hark back to his childhood to produce Edel's last "Not yet." It was just the getting there ...
Ooh, I had forgotten about the fact that he was still asleep when Mytho and Tutu reached him...that's why you did it!
I'm fond of yours myself. [tries not to rudely crane neck to check potential progress on Raven!Fakir fic]
Yeah, I still need to work on it. I have a bad habit of starting things and then putting off finishing them. ^^;; What I need to do is rewatch the first episode and then write the first chapter based on that, I think...it probably won't work out following original story so closely, but it's a good starting point, at least.
...I need to finish my Autor challenge, too. For some reason Autor-muse is being taken over by Fakir-muse and Mytho-muse. (I just got an idea for a Fakir ficlet from this story, but I should wait until I have Autor's challenge done...)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 01:06 am (UTC)And they're such natural locutions that it's quite a jolt when they're not available. (Somewhere in Anne of the Island there's a bit where a disapproving old lady wonders what's happened to the word love -- in her day, she claims, girls wouldn't say they loved carrots like they loved their mothers :-)
I love using repetition as well. (I think I've done something similar in one of my Autor fics, although I can't remember which one it was if I did.) I really liked Fakir's responses, too--particularly his first stubborn reply that he's not going to go back up to the battle to simply get torn in two like the knight from the story.
That line was a gift -- I heard it in my head and knew that it was exactly right. I also generally enjoyed putting him in a situation where he begins by acting all heroically resigned and stoic and then gets bugged right back into it's-me-against-the-world mode by two little words. Such a predictable young man. :-)
"Some heroes you just have to beat half to death to get them to drop the tough-guy act. :-)"
Or starve them for three days...then again, he was still valiently trying to be tough even then. Maybe a better one is "or beat up their little duck friend".
Not something I intend to try. He glares intimidatingly at my hands upon the very suggestion.
I had forgotten about the fact that he was still asleep when Mytho and Tutu reached him...that's why you did it!
Yep. I must have watched episode 13 three or four times through while drafting this piece: for costuming details, for sequence-of-action stuff, for characterization help ... most of which never made it into the actual 'fic. Research drives me nuts sometimes. But whenever I'm trying to produce a deleted scene, I like to make sure I've got the surrounding story properly in my head. "Ivory Gate" (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3036656/1/), which insinuated itself into FMA:CoS and dragged along several dialogue exchanges from the film, was even worse for that. (Not to mention all the fiddling about with math I did trying to determine how long it would take to travel from Munich to Berlin and back in Weimar days because ILL couldn't cough up a contemporary schedule. Oy.)
Yeah, I still need to work on it. I have a bad habit of starting things and then putting off finishing them.
I've yet to meet a writer who doesn't. The plotbunnies just multiply too fast, one litter overtaking the next. [stares at Fakir postseries fic, Mytho/Rue fic, back end of Mustang-tachi fic, Winry and Paninya at the movies 'fic and three different original fics, all in various states of draft]
no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 05:17 am (UTC)Yeah, it's been really difficult trying to remember not to use them. XD; I'm looking forward to when he gets his entire heart back (which should've already happened, I've just been lazy in the RP for the past week or so). (The word love has become rather odd, hasn't it? You can say you love a movie, or a song, but if you say you love someone it automatically has to mean either they're family or you're romantically attatched to them...)
That line was a gift -- I heard it in my head and knew that it was exactly right. I also generally enjoyed putting him in a situation where he begins by acting all heroically resigned and stoic and then gets bugged right back into it's-me-against-the-world mode by two little words. Such a predictable young man. :-)
Fakir is just so much fun to mess with, isn't he? Some of my favorite moments in the series are when he's caught with his defenses down, like when Duck!Duckgoose sees him crying in Akt 10, or the various times that he's sent running for cover when Duck transforms back into a girl.
Not something I intend to try. He glares intimidatingly at my hands upon the very suggestion.
I have a feeling I might do something mean like that when I do the
Yep. I must have watched episode 13 three or four times through while drafting this piece: for costuming details, for sequence-of-action stuff, for characterization help ... most of which never made it into the actual 'fic.
Yeah, I've watched several episodes over and over again for writing and RPing...I've watched Akt 22 so much that I have Autor's love confession to Rue memorized. XD;; (Just the dub version, though.) It's fun to write deleted scenes and things that reference the original series, though.
I've yet to meet a writer who doesn't. The plotbunnies just multiply too fast, one litter overtaking the next.
I've heard of a lot of writers that tend to procrastinate...I know Tolkien definantely did! (...Hopefully it won't take me 20 years to write the Raven!Fakir fic.)
Hm...plotbunnies...I wonder if that's how they got that name? Because they multiply quickly? XD
no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 01:44 pm (UTC)Snortle.
... sees him crying in Akt 10, or the various times that he's sent running for cover when Duck transforms back into a girl.
I can't pull up the reference, but somebody commenting on, of all things, Star Trek once pointed out that many cynics are actually bleeding-heart humanists; cynicism is the armor they wear because social interactions affect them deeply, contrary to appearances. Fakir seems to have a touch of that to his character: what he calls pointless (Duck's affection, Mytho's protective instincts) is often something which we know from context has great point for him. At the beginning of PT Fakir's in danger of believing his own propaganda, particularly about Mytho; pushing him off his guard is one of the ways the story both reveals more about his character and forwards his growth. Duck's not the only one who does it for him (though her contribution is of primary importance) -- Charon catches him out in 10 and Mytho in 11, frex.
I have a feeling I might do something mean like that when I do the
Heh, heh. I look forward to it in both places. (Taking Raven!Fakir off-guard will be quite the character moment.)
Hm...plotbunnies...I wonder if that's how they got that name? Because they multiply quickly? XD
I suspect so. :-) I can find plenty of basic definitions (including the synonym "Nuzgul" in LOTR fandom from a filkesque typo), but the term hasn't gotten widespread enough yet outside the fan community for mainstream slang dictionaries to pick it up and really etymologize it. Give it fifty years and the OED will do its stuff (they finally got around to "ansible" recently, after all).
no subject
Date: 2007-06-10 09:22 pm (UTC)That's a really good point, actually. It seems like sometimes those that fiercly deny that they feel something are those that feel it the most, eh? (It seems like most of the characters in Princess Tutu are hiding things about themselves, too--even characters that at first glance seem open, like Duck. Mytho's really one of the few that ever expresses what he's really thinking, and that might be because that he's heartless, too.)
Duck's not the only one who does it for him (though her contribution is of primary importance) -- Charon catches him out in 10 and Mytho in 11, frex.
Ooh, yeah, I forgot about that. Mytho's really good at that, isn't he? After he gets the heartshard of Curiosity back, he seems to constantly be asking questions that forces a person to drop their guard or to really think about what they're doing. (Like asking Fakir why he's trembling...)
Heh, heh. I look forward to it in both places. (Taking Raven!Fakir off-guard will be quite the character moment.)
I think it's probably going to happen quite a few times, since Raven!Fakir has so many walls he puts up between himself and other people.
Give it fifty years and the OED will do its stuff (they finally got around to "ansible" recently, after all).
It always amuses me what words manage to find their way into the dictionary...I vaguely remember there being some sort of controversy when one of the popular dictionaries out there (it was probably the OED, but I can't remember) put 'McJob' into their dictionary...McDonald's threw a fit, and it was on the news and everything. ...I'm not really sure why I remember that, though.