I can't help laughing, because...

[Ian]

Very nice stuff, Dave.

I LOVE chocolate milk. Having some tonight. With myself. Hmmmm, not sure what that implies....

[DMt.]

Thanks, folks! Views and appreciation are sunshine and nourishment to us FAFFers. Nearly as good as getting paid...

[DMt.]

*

Jessica picks up the phone, juggling it with the wok, and tucks it under her ear.

“Hello?”, she says, and a poisonously-sweet voice replies, “Hello-o-o...is Elin there?”

“No,” says Jessica shortly, “she's gone out. Any message?”

“Gone out where?”, says the voice. There are whispers and giggles in the background, and suddenly Jessica has a bad feeling, right in the pit of her stomach.

“Dunno, she didn't say”, she replies neutrally, “look, I'm a bit busy here, any message?” She clatters the pans, meaningfully.

“Is she with that dyke?”, says the voice, with an audible smirk.

“That would be your business how, exactly?”, says Jessica coldly, “what do you want, Camilla?”

“I don't want anything, thanks”, says Camilla, “I'm not the dyke around here. Just tell her I rang.”

The line goes dead, and Jessica puts down the phone, thoughtfully, and returns to the stir-fry and rice.

Playing to the gang, are we? I'm glad I showed you I knew who it was.

“Who was that?”, says Elin with elaborate casualness, appearing at the kitchen door.

“Camilla”, says Jessica, busying herself with the preparation, and carefully not looking at her.

“What did she want?”

“She wanted to know where you were. And she said 'dyke', twice.” She shoots a quick glance at her little sister, and is not reassured by her stricken expression. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything…

“That smells nice”, says Agnes from behind Elin, “Do you want a hand?”

“Yes”, says Jessica, glad of the distraction, “you two could lay the table.” She busies herself chopping up sausage for her and Elin, the rice is nearly ready.

“What do you do for protein, Agnes?”, she adds, as the other two set out dishes and utensils, “is an egg OK? Or more beansprouts?”

“Beansprouts are good”, says Agnes, who, Jessica now notices, has removed the lipstick. The table is ready, Jessica separates a third of the stirfry and adds the meat to the larger portion, then puts the last of the beansprouts in the wok to sear.

Elin is uncharacteristically silent, as she and Agnes sit down at the table; Agnes smiles at her, as Jessica doles out the portions, and she smiles weakly back.

[katka]

damn Dave is so speed that ahead of my thoughts and messages

[DMt.]

Oh, I don't know, katka...where does inspiration come from, anyway?

[katka]

I thought that even than I write some message here..you have next continue your fun story. Without I noticed that I wrote more about some milk and about angry Jessica which is rushing into the room because I thought that it will be continue of the first column of the your story. And it not... Jessica is quite good

[DMt.]

*

[Ohhh...She's worried, now....can they really not stand to see us happy?...is it going to be like in Mariefred, all over again?...why do people have to be so horrible?]

“Why does she have to be such a bitch?”, says Elin plaintively, making Agnes start, and look at her in surprise.

“Why does anybody?”, says Jessica, sitting down and attending to her plate. “Anyway...I've got a surprise for you, too, Baby-Sis.”

“Oh? What?”

“Johan came along, while you two were in the bog, and bitch-face told him you were in there with a guy...”

“Oorgh! Noooo! Poor guy!”, says Elin, dropping her second forkful back onto the plate in dismay. “But...he knows, now, right?”

“Everybody knows, now”, says Jessica with a sly grin at them both, “you two made a big splash, there. The thing is...he was really upset, you know, when she said that, and I was worried about him on that stupid bike, so I went out after him, and -”

“I think I can see where this is going”, says Elin, eyeing her sister, “you went out to comfort him, right?”

“Right”, says Jessica.

“And...no, don't tell me...while you were comforting him, Markus came along?”, says Elin, one eyebrow raised.

“Got it in one”, says Jessica, busily shovelling stir-fry and rice. She looks at Agnes, who is goggling at them both, and shrugs, her mouth full.

“So...what happened?”, says Agnes, trying not to laugh.

“He got really snotty”, says Jessica, “calling me a whore and all that, and I told him where to go, and that Johan was fifteen times nicer than him, which he is, and exactly what he could do with his mobile phone and his crap attitude.”

“And...?”, says Elin, impatiently.

“He thought he was going to get tough about it; but then Johan took his head off my shoulder, and dried his eyes, and then he told him if he didn't fuck off, right now, and stop calling me names, he was going to beat the shit out of him.”

“Whoa!”, says Elin, wide-eyed, “and...did he?”

“Did who what?”, says Jessica, innocently.

“Did, Mar-kus, fuck, off?”, says Elin, as if to a dim child.

“Like a little bleached-blond mouse”, says Jessica, and they all laugh.

"Then what?", says Elin curiously.

"Then we saw you two walking off on a big pink cloud, holding hands; and then practically the whole school came to tell me what you'd been up to."

"And what did you say?", says Agnes, who is beginning to like Jessica more and more, "this stir-fry is really nice, by the way, people usually put far too much sesame oil in them, this is just right."

"I said good for you, and who's business was it anyway, what do you think I said? I thought Camilla was going to have a fit, she kept opening and closing her mouth, like a fish. The others were all just...stupefied, like they'd seen a ghost or something. Good, I'm glad you like it."

“So...it's you and Johan, now?”, says Elin, cautiously.

“Well, put it this way,” says Jessica, blushing just a little, “he's taking me to the pictures this evening, so we'll see, shall we? I'm not sitting around here, in the way, and you two can have a couple of hours to yourselves, 'til Agnes has to go home, right?”

“Right”, says Elin, silently vowing that Jessica can steal all the chocolate milk forever, now; and Agnes looks down demurely at her plate, a little smile playing around her lips.

[snaps]

I like the way this is developing into an easy dialogue between the girls.

In my long term story about 12 years on, ''THE LAND THAT IS NOT'' which exists only as an unfinished storyboard, I had it that Jessica ended up with Johan, and that Elin, after a tempestuous relationship with Agnes (supported by Papa Olaf, but NOT Mama Karin) ended up with Markus. Elin, largely through Agnes tutelage exceeds academic expectations and becomes a nurse in the hospital where Mama Birgitta is a domestic superviser. Agnes goes away to study psychology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Markus graduates from being a car mechanic into a flash, smooth talking car salesman. He is never satisfied and becomes a drug-dealer on the side, after he and Elin have their first-born. He is a womaniser and cheats a lot on Elin. That is the point at which Elin tries to re-establish contact with Agnes. I did post the sequel, one year on from that, as a one-shot but some people thought it was rather ''soap-opera'' ish. so I binned it.

I think FF is always problematic in that people feel that they ''own'' the characters, in large measure, of course they do. They become internalisations. In the same way some people have already told me they will not read my LTROI fanfic if I split Eli & Oskar up, so some people cannot conceive of Agnes and Elin ever being apart. If you split A&E up, Ian will fly directly over from Oztralia, break your legs and shout until you have written them back together again. (Like the film ''Misery'' ). personally I think you have to take FF in whatever direction you believe. If the writing is convincing, people will follow.

I think an interesting sideline here, would be when Mama Birgitta walks in on them. I think she is a much under-rated character in the story, and has a lot of potential for good in this situation.

I did write a prequel. I posted the scenario of the day before, centered on Agnes, which I think is still around here somewhere. I also composed in my head, the story of the day before that which begins with Mama Birgitta at work. I did this as a sort of narrative to set the scene, in trying to write up the screenplay into novel format, filing in the backstory.

I'll be interested to see where it goes from here.

I think there is a lot of potential for dramatic tension. It may be Sweden, but it is in a small rural town, in the late nineties. The battle lines get drawn up.

I did write a 3000 worder based, at this point, on Agnes introducing Elin to her family, and the resultant tensions explored. I posted it, but I did withdraw it as, (with some of my other FF's) I worked it up into an original semi-autobiographical short story.

Let's see where you take us with this.

[DMt.]

Where IS all this stuff of yours, snaps? Why can't I see it anywhere?

I don't really like to storyboard or outline too much, I want the characters to drive the story themselves, to tell me what to write, so the whole thing unfolds naturally from within [so to speak ]. I only usually have the vaguest notion of the next few steps, and I like it that way, because it stays exciting for me.

These are such vivid, accessible characters that it's coming through quite nicely, at the moment anyway.

[katka]

It happens me too snapsie When I decided that I finish writing one of FF so I stagnated after five sentences...and I didn't know how continue in my vision of the story. So I have half a page written a sequel, but I don't know what to do next, so it will probably take more than Kyle's FF ( after five years ) finish. I don't want also it will be soap-opera or to be as typical ''holywood'' melodrama, but it's all simply '' on dead point ''

[DMt.]

...tum te tum te tum...tiddly diddley dee...what, pretentious, moi? What, pretentious - me?

[fish]

It's probably not pretentious if you actually live up to all the hyperbole.


I'd like to find all of Snapsie's writings too, she seems to have them dotted around in a variety of places, and when you find out where, she goes and moves them. (There's a hint in there somewhere Snaps. )

I think we're super-fortunate to have a number of very talented writers here. Different styles all, but that only makes for a lot of excellent ideas and a lot of wonderfull reading.

[Ian]

Snaps is right, Dave. Fair warning.

More seriously, Snaps has a neat point there about our claiming ownership of characters we love in an internal manner. In a similar way to people who will not read LTROI fanfic that split up Eli and Oskar, having become a hardcore fanatic of Harry Potter fanfic in the last 5 months, I absolutely WILL NOT read any fanfic that puts Hermione with anyone but Harry or Luna. I WON'T HAVE IT IN THE HOUSE, DAMMIT!

[snaps]

I've posted some of my old FF to Dave. There are some bits I can leave on here, and others I need to remove if they've been turned into original stories. I've still got some manky FF poems kicking around here somewhere.

It would be good if we could have a more defined space, say 'creative resources', where FF and links to vids could be stored and visible.

[katka]

It would be good if we could have a more defined space, say 'creative resources', where FF and links to vids could be stored and visible.

it's good idea. I totally agree some special topic...