Down Under

[DrunkenScotsman]

The following originally appeared at the end of chapter 14 of Down Under, found in the X-Men/Marvel section of the archive:

I'm fully willing to admit that this may not have been my best work thus far, so I'm pretty glad to have maintained a 4-star rating as of 10/29/11. I thought I might give some background on how this story came to be.

A few years ago, my then-girlfriend, now-wife, wanted me to write a story featuring Pyro, since she thinks Aussies are, shall we say, 'fair dinkum'. I decided to write the story using Jean, since she's one of my favorites and a lot of fun to write. I have a thing for sexy redheads - the wife included!

I wrote a few other stories, which appear elsewhere on this site, to get into practice, a process needing a few years by now, before I felt like I could do a story like this any justice. This story was ambitious, I thought - it's something of a crack pairing, and rather than PWP, I wanted something that might make a modicum of sense. But how?

First, I decided to set the story in the X-Men Animated Series universe - the storylines weren't quite as complicated as the comics, and since I own the series on DVD I could do research easily. I remembered that Animated Pyro wasn't Aussie, but English, which gave me something of an opening. Comics Pyro had been a journalist once upon a time, a writer; my Aussie not-quite-Pyro would be a writer still, but a poet in this case. Animated Pyro's real name is never mentioned, so I kept St. John Allerdyce for the Australian poet's name.

Next, how does Jean meet him? A trip to Australia seemed an obvious solution, but why would she go alone, without her one true love, Cyclops/Scott Summers? The Animated Series came in handy here, as there wasn't much exploration of the aftermath of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Also, there were 2 different Grey-Summers weddings, one before Phoenix and one after - the first may not have been legal, since a shapeshifter was masquerading as a priest, and therefore not ordained; the second was crashed by Sinister's goons on Apocalypse's orders. I figured that all the stress of that whole Dark Phoenix thing - including dying and being resurrected - might cause Jean to need a vacation... to Australia, which is on the other side of the planet from all the shit she's dealing with back home, including a man who (according to my interpretation of the character) never really dealt w/ her first presumed death when she took the M'Kraan crystal into the star and didn't return.

The poetry itself seemed the key, the force that would draw the two characters together, so that attraction could bloom and sex could be had. The idea for the PTSD-style flashbacks came to me just as I finished the first chapter, but in some ways I felt like they, and the overall theme of dealing w/ being raped (more or less - I never could quite settle on a term for what Mastermind did to her), dying, and having a second chance at life, were too ambitious for a sex story. I still think so, though I tried to work in that Jean wanted 'comfort sex', which is where I lost some of you readers.

I also ran into the problem of how to explain St. John's existence as an entity separate from Pyro, the terrorist mutant. I considered leaving them as one entity, and Jean being attracted to a villain, but her previous issues w/ villains, I thought, would kill any attraction on the vine. So I extrapolated that Pyro is the criminal half-brother of St. JohnAllerdyce, the Australian poet; both are mutants and have very similar, if not identical powers. I think maybe I didn't explore St. John's powers enough, but I frankly wasn't interested in doing so. Some of you got hung up on those facts - the two being separate, but just happening to be related - which strikes me as odd, since weirder shit has happened in the Marvel Universe (like the whole Phoenix thing in its entirety). Further, family members have had very similar powers canonically (Polaris and Magneto), and random family members pop up all the time (Polaris and Magneto or the Summers family, for starters).

The fact that Australia is nicknamed "Oz" opened up the whole idea that Jean was Dorothy, escaping to another place to avoid her problems at home, but finding out that it wasn't what she was looking for, and that what she was looking for was always there. That, of course, is also where all the chapter titles come from, with a few lyrics from Wicked added to the mix for some of the later/darker/more "complex" chapters toward the end.

Apologies if the above didn't interest you at all, but for some reason I thought it important to peel back the curtain, so to speak, and reveal the considerations I had in mind while writing this story. I doubt it'll change your opinions at all, but sometimes, as a writer, it's necessary to display one's methodology.

[Daye]

I thought you were going to run into trouble with those author's notes. (and technically shouldn't this be in the x-men fandom section below )

Its interesting that you just started off with the pairing and worked up so much around it. While I think a lot of fanfic is like that. (i know mine is) You're right when you say that it tends to lead itself more to pwp. So I'm impressed you didn't go that route. Especially when using a villian.

It's amusing to see you refer to Scott as Jean's one true love. Most of the flak you got for this fic was based around people not being able to cope with a pairing other than Scott/Jean.

Have you got any more X-men fiction planned?

Edited November 3, 2011 by Daye

[DrunkenScotsman]

Well, Scott and Jean were headed for reconciliation by the end of my story, en route to the second wedding that happens in X-Men: The Animated Series.

I didn't expect quite the response that I got, though in part I intended the story to raise some interesting questions, like "where does a relationship stand once one has died and come back to life?" Legally, "till death do [they] part," but what about emotionally? Especially for Scott, who is consistently shown in the relevant episodes of the series as having a hard time letting Jean go to grieve for her, or even giving her space to recover from the ordeal.

I do most definitely 'ship' Scott and Jean, regardless of continuity, though I'm not necessarily afraid to have them pair up w/ others, as necessary for my plot. They seem to me to exert a sort of gravity on one another, altering each other's trajectory towards the other. Their relationship, of which I just love the dynamics and the implications, influenced me to boycott the first 2 seasons of Evolution, until I realized the authors were just having some fun shaking things up on that front; to boycott Wolverine and the X-Men (though I also didn't watch that b/c I loathe Wolverine); and to boycott some of the most recent storylines, where Jean's dead and Scott's w/ Emma, especially given the particulars of how Scott+Emma came to be.

To answer your question (sorry for the tangent there), I do indeed. I have a list of X-Men story ideas in a not-handy-at-the-moment notebook, consisting of at least a dozen more entries, and I keep developing ideas faster than I can write the stories. (Thank you, overactive imagination!) The next project's going to resemble Solo Shots a bit - a series of somewhat-unrelated vignettes. In part, this is due to some upcoming uprooting, and a less plot-heavy story will be easier to write amid the turmoil; in part, it's due to the more positive reactions I got to Solo Shots. Down Under's got the most reviews, but I think Solo Shots has been my most successful entry. Heat of the Moment has gone largely ignored, which is sad b/c it's my favorite so far; but it came out at the same time as a lot of other high-quality fics and got lost in the shuffle a bit, I think.

Sorry for rambling there. I'm the kind of person who'll talk your ear off if you'll let me.

Edited November 5, 2011 by DrunkenScotsman

[Daye]

For myself, I'm always saddened whenever a new version of X-Men plods on with the same old "Scott/Jean" plotline. Even when they throw in a curveball like Rogue in Evo, Its clear all the time he's going to end with Jean eventually. But if they're going to make a new universe why not actually make it different? Things like the Ultimate comics seem to try their darnest to get every major plotline from the originals up there asap. Sentinels, Weapon x, magneto, hellfire club, phoenix saga.

Of course, while I'm all up for Scott/some-else. Jean generally gets paired with Logan and that's the worst couple ever.

Which is another reason why, to bring this back on topic, your fic was such a breath of fresh air.

Edited December 10, 2011 by Daye

[DrunkenScotsman]

I can certainly respect that you think Scott+Jean might be tired by now. Thanks for the compliments, both here and in your reviews.

In a similar vein, I was kinda aggravated that, in Evolution, they'd played around w/ Kitty+Lance and even hinted at Kitty+Kurt, but then at the end they were all like "btw, Colossus!" and I was like "btw, lame! New universe = room to explore other options!" I'll admit that Colossus has since grown on me, though.

[Daye]

Colossus appeared in Evo, I don't recall they had him interact much with Kitty though.

Rogue/Gambit bothered me more. I never get how they're supposed to work relationship wise. But I like Evo Gambit a lot more when I found out he was voiced by Mr Gaeta from BSG.

[DrunkenScotsman]

Colossus showed up as an Acolyte, yeah. He had a short scene or two where he and Kitty interacted, and she seemed to take an immediate shine to him; dunno about him, since he was rather stoic.

Rogue+Gambit is my other major 'ship' - they always have to dance the dance, never able to entirely trust each other, but equally unable to deny their attraction. It's a fascinating dynamic, even discounting that they can't touch. One of the key things about Rogue in any relationship is, how much can she afford to let her guard down? How much physicality is needed for a relationship to survive - in other words, can there be a relationship that doesn't involve direct physical contact?

The Evo voice actor was really good, but to me he'll always sound like whoever did his voice in the Animated Series ("De name's Gambit - remember it!").