…whenever I try to write a review, it ends up feeling sloppy and uneven.
The review would have been for the Netflix show Hollywood, btw. It’s entertaining, but leads to levels of tolerance that only came up in the late ’60s and early ’90s. In other words, it starts its own alternate history that would have led to a much better world than the one we live in now. (Also, I have to wonder if Rock Hudson’s estate signed off on it in any way, because their fictional version of him is dumb as a post. Very sweet, but astonishingly, impossibly stupid. Like you can see gears turning every time he has to try to think about anything.) Still, it’s well worth a watch as a pleasant historical AU.
Right, so, actual post.
I did manage to get some writing done today, because I woke up with a story idea. It’s just another Velvet Goldmine fanfic, but it’s a short, stand-alone piece I was able to write in one sitting, which is a refreshing change of pace. And it’s a different angle on the characters than I usually have. Famously (within the fandom, anyway), back in 2015, someone on Twitter asked Ewan McGregor if he thought his character and Christian Bale’s character would get together after the movie ended, and he not only said (what she obviously wanted to hear) that they would, but even gave some details on the kind of life he thought they’d have together, including that they have kids. That obviously led to a lot of fanfiction exploring the idea of them as parents, typically by way of adoption (sometimes of nieces and nephews), though sometimes (including in one I wrote) there’s a kid from a one-night stand or brief relationship, too.
Well, this time, I gave Curt (Ewan’s character) two kids by a very different and much more traditional method: I gave him an ex-wife he’d been married to for a few years, and just had her show up at his apartment because he had custody that weekend and he’d forgotten about it. It made for a very different dynamic, both regarding his interactions with the children, and their reaction to a strange man being in his bed when they arrive.
It’s not great art — it’s not even particularly good in comparison to my usual work — and it won’t exactly set AO3 on fire whenever I ultimately post it, but I don’t think it’s especially bad, certainly no worse than my usual work.
And hey, at least I was writing!
Sure, my world-building is no more complete than before, but…something is better than nothing, surely.
Time today: 1:39
Time in July to date: 28:00:22.45
