fic: iTunes meme

[chainofclovers]

Title: iTunes meme
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Prompt(s): iTunes meme, posted originally by kitnkabootle
Length/Word Count: 5 drabbles
Summary: 5 short pieces about Andy/Miranda, inspired by everything from The Boss to old-school French rap
Disclaimer: The characters are definitely not mine.
A/N: Mine are really weird. I didn't mess with them after the song was over, except I had to fix a couple of typos and a place where the words sounded out of order when I went back and read.



1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random.
3. Write a drabble/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the length of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do five of these and post them.

1) “Cry, Cry, Cry” by Johnny Cash

Ever since the papers came out, she’s felt everyone’s eyes on her. Through the glass door of her office, peering into her car a second or two after she lowers herself inside, everywhere. Everyone always looks at her. She should be used to it. But looking with eyes averted is very different from a frank stare. She fucked Andy Sachs? Really?

Stephen emailed her last week. Two words: “Any regrets?” Her fingers shook as she pressed delete.


2) “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge, sung by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman

They both love the Winter, because Miranda is always cold and Andy likes having to warm her up. Sometimes they look at each other with doubt, not because they’re skeptical of each other’s intentions but as if they can’t believe they both showed up in the same dream.

For months they shared a Hell, and they didn’t lay eyes on each other once. No matter how smart they were or how good at their jobs or how much Miranda tried to raise their children better or how much Andy reached out to her friends, they were sliding slowly down the same pit. Their usual touchstones eroded beneath them.

Then it got cold outside, too cold outside to ignore their insides any longer, and their orbits met.


3) “All They Ever Do is Talk” by Earlimart

Cassidy asked the question. “Whatever happened to Andy, Mom?”

She meant it to hurt. She was puzzling out her mother an iota at a time, learning her buttons, claiming control. She knew how Miranda would hear that question, of all possible inquiries and lines of thinking.

There wasn’t a response, unless you count a coffee mug snatched from the table, a robe pulled more tightly, a storm leaving the room and taking weeks to come back completely.

They were in the same room when it happened, at the table, eating their twentieth silent breakfast since the day Cassidy opened her mouth. Miranda said flatly, “She left.”


4) “Downbound Train” by Bruce Springsteen

Andy knew she had Miranda after she handed her the Harry Potter manuscript. Miranda had owned her for weeks, and she’d finally figured out how to get a bit of herself back. If she owned her owner she was technically, technically in charge of herself again.

This logic could only take her so far. It’s been a year, and neither of them have had any control over the other since Andy got her new job at the Mirror. But she still hears Miranda’s requests, she still hurries in the mornings like she lacks any other option, she still dresses for Miranda and her eyes are still defiant.


5) “La Musique Adoucit Les Moeurs” by MC Solaar

They are barreling toward satisfaction. They will stop at nothing. They are wearing all their clothes. They are shy around each other. They are going to get over it. They are going to get over wearing trousers, they are going to get over bashfulness, they are going to get over manners and propriety and anything that would stop them.

Listen. To yourself, to them, to voiceovers and stilted dialogue. It’s all going to come out choppy or muffled and altogether wrong, and bodies will matter far more in the end.

Bodies, even in death, will win. Bodies wear the fashion. Bodies respond to music. Bodies meet in the middle of age gaps and economic disparities and faulty diction. Bodies do the traveling. Bodies carry our words around, extend our fingers, decide the speed at which we walk towards one another, the speed at which we walk away.

Comments

[ellipsisoveruse.livejournal.com]

Oooh, these are great! I especially loved #3, I can so see that happening. I also really liked this line: "But she still hears Miranda’s requests, she still hurries in the mornings like she lacks any other option, she still dresses for Miranda and her eyes are still defiant."

[saedulaque.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for reading and replying! #3 was the one during which I most wished that the song was a little longer.

[iheartstalkers.livejournal.com]

You had me at "weird" and kept me at #3. That was heartwrenching.

I love Andy's logic on #4. I was like, "O, poor bbz. No, just, no."

MC Solaar: that's what's up. No lie. I just listened to "Nouveau Western".

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'm glad I managed "heartwrenching."

And yeah, Andy's logic is so unhealthy.

[grdnofevrythng.livejournal.com]

The first one has my brain screaming for a fic. I need to know what happened and I hope like hell she emailed Stephen back and said "Nope, because she was way better than you ever were." I loved three and four so much. You are brilliant.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed.

My idea of the backstory for the first piece (which I came up with AFTER the 2 minutes and 20 seconds of writing the piece were up) is a real bummer: after Andy leaves Miranda in Paris, they enter a short-lived relationship and are outed to the press just as they are breaking up. Really bad timing, huh? I'm not sure if I could bring myself to write something much longer about that.

[grdnofevrythng.livejournal.com]

But maybe if they're forced back together to combat the press, they realize their issues aren't insurmountable and that they still love each other and yay they get back together. Of course this is after witty banter and a lustfully hateful glances/touches are exchanged...


I'm just saying.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

That could work! Love/hate until only love is left.

[unfortunateggs.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I like these! :)

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you liked!

[vinjii.livejournal.com]

Especially loved the third one. They were all great, though. I really like your writing.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[ciprus.livejournal.com]

These are all great, but I especially liked #1. Totally possible scenario. I liked how it was just a little snippet of something much bigger.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. See my response to grdnofevrythng for some "backstory" that I came up with after the fact. It's depressing.

[kdsusa3.livejournal.com]

I really like the third, and I don't think that they are weird.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The 3rd one seems to be sticking out for people.

I wasn't trying to be (too terribly) self-deprecating when I said my stories were weird. Mostly, I was amused/confused by where my brain went with the last one. I had fun with these.

[jintymac.livejournal.com]

I loved all of these but no.1 was my favourite ;-)

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading. I'm so glad you liked them!

[kitnkabootle.livejournal.com]

whoooaa...

Okay, Miss Brilliant. These are all fantastic. The last one reads like a poem, completely unassuming and easily removed from the DWP universe as a standalone original piece.

The first I have to say was my all time favorite though. My goodness. *shakes fist* Stephen must die.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! You are too kind. Thanks especially for being brave enough to comment on the weirdness that was #5. I really enjoyed writing that one.

And yeah, Stephen's not too classy in #1.

[somniesperus.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm blown away. #2 is my hard-to-pick favorite, though I'd love to know about the world of #5.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'd like to know more about the world of #5 too. Apparently that's what happens to my brain when I listen to a song in a language I don't fully understand.

[perks123.livejournal.com]

All of these were wonderful...I loved the very last paragraph of #5...fantastic

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. I loved writing these--it was more fun than I was expecting!

[xanjames.livejournal.com]

These are terrific, as per usual. Of all the ficlets I've read lately, #5 is the most succinct description of the inevitability of disparate people coming together. Or not.

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I had a great time writing these.

[pin-drop.livejournal.com]

I really liked #5. Tell me, were you even writing fanfiction for this one? Because it applies to them, certainly, but it's much more universal than that. It turns the concept of fiction on its ass. That said, it also has a lot to do with something I often feel about fiction: that the characters are there, and they're going where they're going, and my job is just to get out of their way and do my best to write it down.

Do you speak French at all?

[chainofclovers.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I guess by that point, I wasn't really writing fanfiction. I mean, I was thinking of the characters Miranda and Andy as I wrote, but I didn't want to limit myself to their characterizations. The people in question could be them, but they don't have to be. As you say, I "got out of their way" on that one...I didn't think much at all, and suddenly the song was over and that was what I had written.

I do speak some French, but not very well. I am best at reading, considerably worse at listening/comprehension, and atrocious as a speaker. I took French in high school and a little bit in college, and generally hated my French classes despite loving the language. I have enough French to understand references in articles and French quotes in books, and I can talk about la biblioteque et la discoteque et les sports. You know, school stuff. Do you speak it?

[shesgottaread.livejournal.com]

I've been looking, and finally found it!

The feel of #5 has been poking around in my brain and I've been searching trying to figure out where it was so I could comment.

I loved these all, and wonder if #3 is possibly a follow-on to #1? And the back story is good, if you could write them getting to the loving as grdnofevrythng suggested.

But #5 -- Your use of language reminds me of Gertrude Stein. She's not someone I can read in large heavy doses, but I always enjoy the sound and rhythm when I do. That same thing happened to me reading this. FTW!

oops, forgot to add...

[shesgottaread.livejournal.com]

In the search, I've been reading others of your stories and loving them all.

[antiapathy2010.livejournal.com]

oh thank god! So the other day I used the last two sections of number five to make a point in a conversation. Quite without realizing it and thankfully not turning your profound and, as always, lovely work into word salad. So I've been searching like crazy trying to find where in hell I read this. I knew it was by one of the heavy hitters but I just couldn't place it because the tone was slightly off from your norm. Its been making me crazy! On the plus side I've gotten to read some of my favs again AND I won the argument. Thank you so much for writing this.