{ keep it light enough to travel. }

[delga]

You know that part in the Raines pilot, when he's talking to Charlie, convinced the whole thing is over and the case has been solved? And then Charlie asks him something, and the victim comes sailing back into view, skirting about on roller blades? Or that moment in Independence Day when they first send off those explosives with the hope that they'll penetrate the shield of that terrifying ship, and everyone is triumphant until they've realised they've actually failed? Those are the moments in the middle of a story, those are moments that we just glaze over because that's just part of the plot, that's just one problem. The failed attempt. We gloss over those because we acknowledge that they're part and parcel of the narrative.

But what happens when you get to the end of the narrative, and the ghost doesn't disappear? It's such a disappointment for the protagonist. It makes me rethink the victim's reappearance in the Raines pilot, how much that must have effected him. Because the possibility that stares him in the face is: the ghost may never leave. And that's what I wrote at the end of Faces I Have Known, but I didn't really think about what I was doing. It just seemed sort of inevitable at the end of that fic. Here's Michael Raines, he's getting used to this whole process, he's surviving it and then, snap, something new, something else that he has to adjust to, something else to hide from Kohl and Lewis, something else to fight inside his own head. Charlie is one thing; he needs Charlie. But that girl at the end of the fic is something else. I feel a little guilty doing that. Which is to say: there are no simple fixes, and Dawson makes that clear enough in Watch Me Disappear.

Comments

[emmademarais.livejournal.com]

/is confused/

I don't remember the vic reappearing at the end of the first Raines. I just thought it was a random woman blading. The crux was that *Charlie* didn't go away. She did. At least as far as I thought.

And stupid me, I never saw the twist with Charlie coming. Good one though.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Those are the moments in the middle of a story [...] The failed attempt.

That's because, as I said, it didn't happen at the end of the episode, it happened after the first or second act.

[emmademarais.livejournal.com]

Ah. So yet another reason for me to not try to read my Friends page and comment late at night.

Especially when it's your 2pt font.

/squints/

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. :) Especially considering (a) you would have seen it on your flist before commenting and (b) even if you hadn't, I posted this before my layout update.

[emmademarais.livejournal.com]

When a post looks interesting on my Friends page I open it in a new window so I can keep going through the other entries. Then I go back to the ones I have open windows for.

I get through what I've missed a lot faster then have time to linger over ones I thought I might want to comment on.

And hon, your fonts are *always* hard to read for me - every layout.

/feels old/

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

This layout is particularly bad and I keep being surprised when the page loads because I uploaded the layout and then didn't check the page for a while. Sometimes I'm on my flist and I feel like I accidentally clicked someone else's LJ!

As for the previous ones.... heh, no comment.