[Fic] "Raven Carlson" part 2 -- X-Men
Aug. 13th, 2005 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingA while after the first X-Men movie came out, I started a series of drabbles about one of the everyday mutants in that world. Of course, I also feel free to steal from the comics, since Marvel has retconned and contradicted itself so many times that canon is... shall we say... rather mutable.
Anyway, Raven Carlson has four arms, a tail, and black fur over every inch of her body -- except her lips, her palms, and the soles of her feet. The first set of drabbles can be found here.
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Methodology
The X-Men baffle Raven. True, mutant terrorists are a greater threat than normal humans with similar equipment, but if you're going to fight fire with fire, or mutants with mutants, you should work through official channels. That way everyone's held accountable, and law enforcement gets to experience firsthand that not all "freaks" are crazy or evil.
But the X-Men leave nothing but dazed villains and damaged property to mark their passing, they make no effort to fit into the world less "privileged" mutants have to live in, and they contribute as much to the fear as the people they fight.
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Mithridates
Raven once read a story about a king who was convinced his enemies would poison him. So he spent years taking tiny doses of every poison he could think of, until nothing could hurt him anymore.
Prejudice is like poison, but Raven hasn't figured out how to create immunities. Some people look at her arms, her fur, and her tail, and cross to the other side of the street. Other people lecture her for not joining NAMA and leading protest marches. She's a mutant, a Christian, a college dropout, a woman.
Everybody hates something, and she can't find an antidote.
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Prayer
When her second arms grew in -- when her tail sprouted from the base of her spine -- Raven thought the pain might kill her. Sometimes she hoped it would. Her parents swore that everything would work out, that God would provide, but Raven was pretty sure God had turned away from her.
These days she's equally sure that God never turns away from anyone, but sometimes when she prays, she has to bite her tongue to hold back the accusations. God has a plan, and it must all work out in the end, but here and now, Raven can't see how.
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Pain
The first sign that she was different came when Raven was twelve. She started growing thick, dark hair under her arms, around her crotch, and on her legs. Raven thought it was ugly, but her mother insisted it was normal.
Then hair started growing around her mouth, down her spine, between her toes, on the backs of her hands... Her mother looked worried, and Raven knew something was wrong.
She spent several months dulling half a pack of disposable razors per day, before strange lumps on her sides and back made her realize there were worse things than excessive hair.
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Karma
When Vivian complained about pain in her back and shoulders, the Carlsons prayed her change would be kinder than Raven's. Sprouting wings turned out to hurt less than growing arms -- fewer nerve endings, Raven thought -- and though Vivian came to loathe halter tops, she didn't have to sew extra sleeves on all her shirts. Nobody even suspected Kevin's headaches were a sign of change... not until Raven noticed he'd escaped all his chores for three weeks.
Raven wonders, sometimes, if the Hindus might be on to something with reincarnation. She must have sinned a lot to earn her current body.
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Kisses
Andrew Brightman waited in the organ loft one Sunday, and asked where Raven had learned to play. "I taught myself," she told him, and he smiled.
They dated for six months, before Raven couldn't take it anymore.
"You're beautiful and you're brilliant," Andrew said. "I don't care about the fur, or the tail. They don't matter." But they did matter, and Raven wanted him to admit it. She wanted him to admit that she was different, to stop ignoring her problems.
"Why?" he asked at the end.
"Because real love isn't blind," she said, and kissed him one last time.
---------------------------------------------
Drabbles -- in the strict 100 word definition -- are hard to write, since you have to squeeze everything down into so few words. I think of them kind of like haiku or sonnets: the trick is to paint an impression, evoke an emotional response, tell a miniature story, within a highly stylized format. When you do them right, they create a spare, elegant beauty.
I don't know if I reach that goal, but it's a useful exercise to try now and then.
Anyway, Raven Carlson has four arms, a tail, and black fur over every inch of her body -- except her lips, her palms, and the soles of her feet. The first set of drabbles can be found here.
---------------------------------------------
Methodology
The X-Men baffle Raven. True, mutant terrorists are a greater threat than normal humans with similar equipment, but if you're going to fight fire with fire, or mutants with mutants, you should work through official channels. That way everyone's held accountable, and law enforcement gets to experience firsthand that not all "freaks" are crazy or evil.
But the X-Men leave nothing but dazed villains and damaged property to mark their passing, they make no effort to fit into the world less "privileged" mutants have to live in, and they contribute as much to the fear as the people they fight.
---------------------------------------------
Mithridates
Raven once read a story about a king who was convinced his enemies would poison him. So he spent years taking tiny doses of every poison he could think of, until nothing could hurt him anymore.
Prejudice is like poison, but Raven hasn't figured out how to create immunities. Some people look at her arms, her fur, and her tail, and cross to the other side of the street. Other people lecture her for not joining NAMA and leading protest marches. She's a mutant, a Christian, a college dropout, a woman.
Everybody hates something, and she can't find an antidote.
---------------------------------------------
Prayer
When her second arms grew in -- when her tail sprouted from the base of her spine -- Raven thought the pain might kill her. Sometimes she hoped it would. Her parents swore that everything would work out, that God would provide, but Raven was pretty sure God had turned away from her.
These days she's equally sure that God never turns away from anyone, but sometimes when she prays, she has to bite her tongue to hold back the accusations. God has a plan, and it must all work out in the end, but here and now, Raven can't see how.
---------------------------------------------
Pain
The first sign that she was different came when Raven was twelve. She started growing thick, dark hair under her arms, around her crotch, and on her legs. Raven thought it was ugly, but her mother insisted it was normal.
Then hair started growing around her mouth, down her spine, between her toes, on the backs of her hands... Her mother looked worried, and Raven knew something was wrong.
She spent several months dulling half a pack of disposable razors per day, before strange lumps on her sides and back made her realize there were worse things than excessive hair.
---------------------------------------------
Karma
When Vivian complained about pain in her back and shoulders, the Carlsons prayed her change would be kinder than Raven's. Sprouting wings turned out to hurt less than growing arms -- fewer nerve endings, Raven thought -- and though Vivian came to loathe halter tops, she didn't have to sew extra sleeves on all her shirts. Nobody even suspected Kevin's headaches were a sign of change... not until Raven noticed he'd escaped all his chores for three weeks.
Raven wonders, sometimes, if the Hindus might be on to something with reincarnation. She must have sinned a lot to earn her current body.
---------------------------------------------
Kisses
Andrew Brightman waited in the organ loft one Sunday, and asked where Raven had learned to play. "I taught myself," she told him, and he smiled.
They dated for six months, before Raven couldn't take it anymore.
"You're beautiful and you're brilliant," Andrew said. "I don't care about the fur, or the tail. They don't matter." But they did matter, and Raven wanted him to admit it. She wanted him to admit that she was different, to stop ignoring her problems.
"Why?" he asked at the end.
"Because real love isn't blind," she said, and kissed him one last time.
---------------------------------------------
Drabbles -- in the strict 100 word definition -- are hard to write, since you have to squeeze everything down into so few words. I think of them kind of like haiku or sonnets: the trick is to paint an impression, evoke an emotional response, tell a miniature story, within a highly stylized format. When you do them right, they create a spare, elegant beauty.
I don't know if I reach that goal, but it's a useful exercise to try now and then.
