Name: Oregonian (Signed) · Date: 11 Mar 2024 12:43 AM · For: And I Don’t Wanna Forget How Your Voice Sounds

Hi, Robin.

 

This is an unusual format you have chosen for this chapter. I tried reading it both ways, first just reading it straight through as printed, and then reading just the non-italic lines straight through, which makes it sound a ittle different because it shows how all the non-itqalic lines fit together.

 

The repeating chorus in the background of I think we should break up gives the whole piece a gloomy mood, like a death march being slowly beaten out on a drum.  It implies that Catherinc can't stop thinking about, even obsessing about, that statement by Alex.  I', not even certain that he spoke those exact words, but she's convinced herself that his did say exactly that. 

 

Sometimes we think that we remember some traumatic or distressing event exactly as it happened, but we really don't.

 

But when you read the lines without the chorus, it sounds more hopeful, that Catherine sees the logic/rationality in the two of them spending a few years doing their own things, and maybe their lives will become richer and they will be able to have an even better relationship, or maybe it will become plain that they were fated to ge in different directions.

 

there are still many little chapters in this drabble story that I haven't read yet, so maybe my prediction is way out in left field.  We shall see.  But I'm glad Catherine feels better abut things.

 

Vicki

Name: Oregonian (Signed) · Date: 11 Mar 2024 12:27 AM · For: Call It Desperation

Hi, Robin.  Here to read and review some more about Alex and Catherine.

This chapter started off hard.  The big, always-there conflict between the "normal world" and the world of the students at the institute.

It's really a shame that Catherine feels so totallly out-of-place with the peop0le in the outide world (and judgmental too) that she can't even carry on a congenial conversation with them.  That's hard.

 

She seems to be envious of Alex's ability to have a foot in each of the two worlds, so she denigrates him in her mnd as Mr. Normal and Mr. Perfectly Normal.  That's too bad.  You'd think she would be more able to perceive what he was really thinking, but she's eager to assume the worst, so as not to be too distressed when the worst actually happens.  What a way to live.

 

He shows a lot of patience in reassuring her and assuaging her fears.  Good for him.  These are interesting, likable characters.  :)

 

Vicki

Name: Oregonian (Signed) · Date: 25 Oct 2023 03:37 AM · For: And I Can’t Change Into a Person I Don’t Want to Be

Hi, Robin!  

I was reading your collection of short and short-ish pieces for the October Forum Challenge of Trick or Treat, in which I give Treats (reviews) to 5 authors.

"100 Ways To Leave a Lover" sounds definitely non-fluffy, probably moody and sad, but hopefully the reviews will be treats nevertheless.

You blend the prompt (meeting family or friends) with the challenge (a love relationship that's on the rocks) very well in this first chapter.  Meeting family and friends is probably stressful in most instances, even when it's not necessarily destined to turn out badly.  And even if Catherine and the Summers family are culturally miles apart, perhaps they were at least trying to engage with Catherine, although Colonel Summers asked so many questions that it felt like an interrogation, and little brother Scott concentrated on the awkward topic of Alex's former girlfriends in his hometown.  I noticed that the story did not include any dialogue by Mrs. Summers.  Perhaps it's hard for her to get a word in edgewise, given her husband's interrogation style of conversation. (But she did hug Catherine, and that was nice.)

It's too bad that Alex had forbidden Catherine to mention her everyday life and work at the Institute because it left her with very little to talk about, other than growing up on an apple orchard.  I guess we nust trust Alex to know what his parents would have liked to hear about.

Throughout this entire chapter Catherine is fixated on what is "normal" and what is not, in clothing, architecture, bedroom wall decor, etc.  I wonder why these visual differences "horrify" her.  Is there something intrinsically wrong with them, or is it just that they serve as a reminder about non-mutant people, with whom she feels she has nothing in common?  That's an intriguing idea. Is it a value judgment comparing mutants and non-mutants?  I find myself wondering how she would react to being in a foreign country with its distinctive, traditional clothing, foods, architecture, etc.

I liked Alex's remark "Welcome to outside of the Institute bubble." And she answers "It's not a bubble."  Yeah, right.  

Is there any future for these two as a couple, given their different tolerances for the outside world?  We shall see.

I enjoyed this little story (and I read all the rest of the posted chapters too).  Thank you for writing. :)

Vicki

 

Author's Response:

Hi Vicki!

 

It's always so nice to see your reviews!

 

...I completely forgot to put dialogue for Mrs. Summers in. She's really nice, but since we were focusing on Catherine really being her own worst enemy in this, we didn't really get to see that. It's not that Colonel Summers and Scott dislike Catherine (okay, Scott probably does, but to be fair to Scott, he doesn't like any of Alex's girlfriends), but it's more that they don't know her. I've always seen the character of Alex and Scott's dad as a kind of... intense man? They (other than Scott, who is just being a brat in this fic, tbh) actually do want to know about Catherine, but I'd say Catherine herself is really the cause of the problems in this chapter.

 

I don't really know when I set this, so I think I had them not mention mutants because not only would that be a really awkward thing (hey, mom and dad, I brought home a telepath!) to bring up when your parents are meeting your girlfriend for the first time, but also because Scott's, like, nine? ten? eleven? and they probably wouldn't want him mentioning things like that to his friends. Also, having a girl who looks like she's a college student being like 'yeah, I teach genetics at a boarding school and also how to move things with one's mind' would probably weird people out.

 

It's pretty basic suburban America, so it's just Catherine. She's never really fit in, so going somewhere that's so completely normal and not filled with mutants just makes her feel out of place. It's something that doesn't come up in a few other fics, but I'm trying to explore her insecurities a bit more, and this is probably her biggest insecurity. She's never fit in, and Alex always fits in. Except with her and Hank, as he points out. The funny thing is that I based the Summers' house and their neighborhood off of suburbs I'm familiar with (the vague vibe of them, not layout), so there's nothing wrong with them.

 

Funnily enough, I think she'd actually be more comfortable in a completely different country than she is in Omaha. I think it's kind of a Twilight Zone thing for her because it's something that she has just never dealt with, especially when people are, actually, pretty nice to her, and it's how things should be, but in her experience, they never were. She was the weird kid in Iowa and the weird kid at Harvard, so going from the Institute, where Charles keeps everyone sheltered from the real world, to Omaha is kind of culture shock to her. I kind of want to write more of that because I think in something that's a bit longer, it would be really interesting to explore just how out of place she feels. The funny part is that it's a prison of her own making. Mrs. Summers was welcoming, and while Colonel Summers is intense, he's not a bad person? Scott, as we all know, grows out of being a brat, and as a younger sibling, your older sibling bringing someone home for the first time can be really awkward and, sometimes, infuriating.

 

I actually had to tone down Alex's snarkiness in this one. I think I deleted a pretty large almost-rant he had about how out-of-place he felt in the Institute occasionally, mostly because it just felt a bit forced and shoehorned to get them to break up. Alex and Catherine have similar feelings about places, but Alex is a bit more well-adjusted to the world outside of the Institute. Ironically, in the first proto-draft of Goody Two-Shoes, Catherine and Alex break up because of reasons like this. Well, that was because Alex wanted to pretend that he wasn't a mutant and didn't want to have his entire life revolve around not being killed by Sentinels and other stuff. They did end up back together after, like, ten years and apologies on both sides.

 

I had so much trouble writing these prompts! I know I've written Catherine and Alex breaking up before, but I just found it difficult getting them to break up in under 2k words. I feel like if they broke up, it would be more of a death by a thousand cuts, especially if it were for a reason like this. Catherine is definitely insecure, and I feel like that would be the reason they would break up. It would probably build up for a while. These two tend to work out a lot better if they get back together later on, after they both have some time to exist as their own people and grow on their own, rather than staying together for that period of time. I'm not sure what that says about them...

 

I like to think that there is a future for these two, and I do think that if they took some time to both mature at their own pace, they would get back together. It would take a lot of maturing for both of them, especially Catherine, but I think they would have a pretty healthy relationship. Outside of this challenge fic, they do have a pretty healthy relationship, surprisingly. There is a lot of communication, after a few bumps in the road, and the only real problem I think they would have to deal with is Catherine's insecurity. She's a very insecure person, and that isn't exactly helpful for a relationship.

 

I feel like I rambled a lot, but I hope that made sense. While I don't think I was super-successful at writing them breaking up, it did give me a lot to think about these two and what problems their relationship would run into.

 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a nice day!

 

-A