(no subject)

[calime]

Mininano-ing? Drabbling? Ficlet-ing? Hmm, that sounds like ... bloodletting. Might be also healthy if not taken to extremes.
Ok, to the point. I seem to recall I had one. Ah, yes.

Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Kronos
Disclaimer: Not mine, if recognizable.
100 words
Notes:Inspired by highlander100 challenge "Chaos and Order"

Tied down, immobile, the blindfold the final touch sending him tumbling out of himself, through the churning panic, twisting, into the chaos.

For an infinite moment there’s only the power-laden swirling nothingness. He’s devoured, unravelled, consumed in it. Lost, suffocated, trapped.

Then the pain comes, a glorious, brilliant thread, gathering him together. Raising him high on the waves, to ride the surging chaos. Up, to reach the apex, poised for one shimmering second before coming crashing down.

Down in jumbled pieces, an endless fall... Caught, steadied by familiar hands, restored to reality and order, shaking. Safe. Until the next ride.

Comments

[boji.livejournal.com]

Here from mini_nano...

Really like the way your describing pain and that rush of endorphines. I think of blades and blood and orgasm. Interesting. Not as disturbed as imagine Kronos to be ;-)

[calime]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked.
The really scary thing about Kronos, IMO, is precisely that he's not actually so deeply 'disturbed' as we might assume :)

[mmapmaker.livejournal.com]

Well, oooh!

What I love about this piece is that it takes two players (Tied down, immobile, the blindfold the final touch and Caught, steadied by familiar hands), yet you haven't specified who the second player is.

Because you've told us the name of only one of the players, Kronos, we conclude he is the one who is tied down and who panics, but who later finds safety in the touch of the unnamed second player's hands. This is powerful insight into Kronos. It relies on the reader to supply the name of Kronos' partner, who could be anyone from any time.

Something else I love about your story is that it made me think. Sometimes when I enjoy the author's work and I see that Highlander is the fandom, I don't bother to carefully read a new story's character list. Lazy or eager, I just start reading. Which is what I did with this story. So I missed that you'd named only one character. And when I got to the end, I really wondered which player Kronos was -- the one who was tied down, blind and panicked, to then find comfort in the touch of the person who had hurt him; or the one who had done the tying down, the hurting, the comforting? I felt he could have been either, both were believeable and fascinating. When I realized you'd listed only one character, I knew Kronos could only be the one who'd been tied down. But I spent a lot of time *thinking* about Kronos before I rechecked your character list for an answer. -g-

I really enjoyed your story. I love it for everything it says about Kronos, and for making me think. Thank you.

[calime]

I think this is one of the absolutely best and most wonderful fb's I've ever recieved!
I'm still a bit stunned, and happy, and at a loss for words, actaully.
I'm very glad it made you think.
I was debating myself while posting whether to specify charaters at all or no. But in my mind, the one who spoke was very clear, so I didn't really leave it too open to interpretation, though I'm aware it's not a prevalent angle of view for the fanon/fandom presented here. Also, IMO, there's only one person canon could hint at whom Kronos would ... maybe not trust, but still allow to do something like taht to him, but I guess that if I'd put two names up there, most people would've jumped to rather an opposite conclusion re: power dynamic. So, finally, I left it like that.
Again, I'm very happy it provided a starting point for you to amble off in maybe previously unvisited roads of thought. And weirdly, the internal debate with myself over the character list provided me with some thought fodder that maybe one day wants to turn into a story, though now it's more like a foggy rambling blob of meta in Methos!voice.

[mmapmaker.livejournal.com]

Ordinarily I prefer sending feedback of this detail in email because I think such a thing is private. But I've got RL issues and the choice was leave fb here or send none at all, and this piece made me think too darn much to say nothing. So here it is. -g-

Thank you so very much for explaining your thoughts! I agreed with you about the subject so obviously being Kronos. Until I read one word. "Safe." Such a little word to make me think so hard, but there you are. -g- I don't think Kronos ever feels *safe*. Which isn't to say he doesn't feel fear -- he does, but not the level that feels safe when it's over and he's comforted. *Done* maybe, but not safe. Because your story reads that he does this ritual again and again and again, that he needs it. And my take on the psychopath that is Kronos, is yes, he would do this, yes, he would allow himself to feel fear, and yes, he would feel relief of some sort when it was over, but what would that relief be? To me it was "Done", to you to was "Safe." That's why I initially thought the subject of the piece was not Kronos but someone else.

Along those lines, since you've written that Kronos does this, needs this, more than once, I think he'd find someone to trust long enough to play torturer for him. Whether that's for a month, a year, 10 years.... But I also believe he'd kill that torturer, because he doesn't trust that person enough. And also, for not being Methos, once he knows Methos exists, and doing this for him. But for a long time Kronos thought Methos was dead. If he needed this therapy so much, would he have done without during those 1000's of years while he was without Methos' company?

And you're absolutely right, had you specified the second player in the character list, *everyone* would have put Kronos in the position of the torturer. But that wasn't your vision, and you had to write to your vision. I think you were very clever indeed to leave the character list as you did, and to not use any names in the story. It really worked for me, and I can't thank you enough for the experience.

Best regards,

Susan

[mmapmaker.livejournal.com]

In my haste I forgot to add, I really hope you write this longer fic some day. You've got me quite intrigued and I look forward to reading more. -g-