#the answer is for me and when watership down and swear to the earth that i will keep it are published there will be even more

[bittersweetresilience]

i got another of those fic author self rec asks a month or two ago and i didn't know what to do with it at the time so now i'm using it as an excuse to share fic meta about soulmate au.

lose it in the morning

i love having a recurring item come up in the beginning and the end of a story with a different meaning or light. in orbital departure, it's the dress. in dead air, it's the books. in lose it in the morning, it's the shoes.

so we start with adrien tripping over his untied laces. he's a bit ditzy. he's the carefree older runaway from home type twin in the graham de vanily lineage. he has his shoes on because he wants to be active and moving and free but he isn't fully prepared for what that means. laces not done up.

but émilie wants to protect him and keep him in the bubble of her love. that's her whole thing. that's what most of the fic is about. so by the time she's worked her magic, we return to the shoes, set neatly by the bed. émilie took them off him because he's safe at home and she doesn't want him running around, and she was careful doing it, too. but she knows there will be a time when he puts the shoes on again because that's just the way he is. so she ties his laces for him. insulating him from the possibility of the fall. and speaking of...

dead air

what do you know, félix is reading a book in this one and its name is the fall. brief interlude where i talk about félix and camus. there's something that grips me so much with félix and absurdity and meaning in meaninglessness and antifascism, of course. l'étranger, la peste, le mythe de sisyphe... yes. all of this.

la chute specifically is a series of monologues by someone who calls himself a judge-penitent and spends his time talking to strangers about how his life went downhill. it's a confessional but also a reflection on society post wwii, in parallel with the fall from grace in the garden of eden, and it explores themes of justice, social class, existence, and suffering. circles of amsterdam and he's in the seediest ring. the main character contrasts his fascination for feeling above other people with his trifling present reality. félix moment.

back to dead air. the two main literary references are this book and metamorphosis, which moonie could write entire essays about, it's so on the nose. monstrousness and alienation and miscommunication and all that. but with the fall, what i meant to implicate was that by making the realization of monstrousness, adrien would be on the precipice of something life altering, as félix once was. so we start with the fall as the set up, and then clarify what the precipice is: metamorphosis. monsterhood.

by the end of the story, félix has recontextualized his relationship with adrien, and they're joking about adding adrien's antics to félix's essay on metamorphosis. but what we end the story on, what félix focuses on at the close, is the fall again... because even though adrien is adding to the depths of his struggle, which félix already finished last week, what félix is thinking about is what this means for adrien's precipice and his impending fall.

orbital departure

i've already rambled a bit about émilie as a manipulator in this post but i could go on about her as a foil to félix for days. as i told autumn, both she and félix want to protect adrien and go about it in misguided ways. for émilie, it's a ring. for félix, it's a secret.

their conversation in orbital departure is theoretically about félix's abuse, but really, it's all about adrien. and félix is fine with this, because he loves adrien, and émilie is thinking of adrien, and félix trusts his aunt. but right from the beginning he subconsciously wishes émilie would be thinking of and wanting to protect him too. and part of it is mixed up with how she and his mother have the same face. so that's what brings us to our central image, the dress.

émilie's dress is impressionistic and painting-like and light and free and happy. it's a visual representation of who and where she is in her life and his. it distinguishes her from amélie. noticing that is, in a way, comforting. moreso the more uncomfortable félix feels.

félix is touch starved, and émilie touches him the same way amélie cradles his face.

this is my favorite line from this fic and it gives me feelings i can't put into words. just kidding. i will. félix is a child who was forced to grow up too quickly, so what he means here is that he's a scientist because he's advanced enough in his education to be one. but to the reader, he just sounds like a kid with an idea of a dream job. he doesn't have any context for what émilie is trying to say. he hasn't yet been shaped into the person he is in the show, someone who claws for knowledge and power and control. he's at a disadvantage and doesn't even register this because he's a child who implicitly believes in émilie. a scientist is the best hypothesis he can come up with for what she means. and émilie agrees with him, but turns it around and describes him as the project instead of the person, as if that's what he said in the first place. a joke that only she's in on, that she's telling to herself.

i have thoughts about félix being called clever all his life. it's the gifted child complex. it's the manipulation. and émilie saying he's a gift. well. in more ways than one, he sure is.

when émilie takes félix's arm at the end of the fic, she is literally and metaphorically allowing him to share her burdens. but it's phrased as though she is letting him do it, rather than leading him to. throughout the fic, she fashions herself for the conclusions she wants to see.

makes you think about her silly, untimely dizzy spell.

follow up meta.