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Title: The Seduction of Wendy Darling: A Tragedy in Three Parts
Author: seraphcelene
Email: seraphcelene at yahoo dot com
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Movieverse. There was something about Jeremy Sumpter and Rachel Hurd-Wood, both on the cusp of adolescence, that made the 2003 film uncomfortable and darker than its usually played for. I can't say that I'm exactly happy with this, three years later and it's still not quite what I was aiming for (especially the second section), but I guess that I am content. Or just damn tired of it sitting unfinished on my harddrive.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Disclaimer: Peter Pan belongs to the JM Barrie estate of which I am not a part. This is just for fun and not profit.
Summary: Some girls wander by mistake.
one. of folly and mad obsession
Wendy huddles into the warmth of Hook’s embrace, mesmerized by the rumbling bass of his voice and the bewildered tattoo of his heart beating frantically against her back. With his mouth pressed to her ear, Hook purrs to Wendy his dreams of the Pan: Peter’s blood on his blade; Peter’s broken body abandoned on Marooner‘s Rock; Peter’s head gracing the tallest mast on the Jolly Roger. She drowns in his vision of conquering the Neverland with Red-Handed Jill at his side.
Gently, Hook fits the ceramic bowl over her nose and mouth, and this time Wendy inhales the opium easily.
“You could be my … my companion,” he lazily promises beneath the hover of smoke. “Tell grand tales about my daring adventures. I’ve heard you’re quite the little storyteller. But mother‘s always are, aren‘t they?” He sets the pipe aside, the tube coiled into a heap beside the hookah.
“Would you call me Mother?” Wendy lays collapsed into the curve of Hook's chest and the cradle of his lap. Lost in clouds of scarlet and roses, Wendy dreams as wide as the sky and bright as stars. Her body is heavy only when she remembers to think of it.
“Of course,” Hook whispers. “Whatever you would like.” He kisses her on the temple and again just behind the ear. “Would you like that? If I called you Mother?”
Wendy stretches beneath him then, strains away from the heavy throb in her veins and between her legs. "There is something unsettling about all of this," she responds. "Your eyes remind me quite suddenly of Father and to be honest, I'd much rather be Jill."
"Well, I am no father to babes," he snarls and leans in close, dips down to kiss the corner of her mouth and inhale the sweet tinge of the opium on her breath.
Peter is the ghost between them. Masquerading as the cock that crows them awake. His shadow dances bare foot across the ceiling by candlelight. Beyond the port hole there is the flash of his smooth cheeks and sulky man-child smile.
When Hook touches her, he grunts out stories about Peter and what he will do should he ever manage to catch him.
“Peter Pan!” Hook shouts.
“Peter,” Wendy echoes.
*
Wendy sees in Hook, cuddled around her, one hand tucked between her thighs, the boy he once was and the man Peter could become. Beyond the crow of the cock, Honor and Good Form are spread thinly across the warmth of his skin. It is in the scent of his breath and the tickle of his hair curling along her neck. When Hook speaks the deep growl of manhood cloaks the mew of the nursery, as it must, and for the briefest moment Wendy can picture him, a doddering old fool staring at the dim stars over London and waiting for a shadow to appear at the window. The man who refused to grow old, finally aged, waiting for the boy who refused to grow up. And like all boys that would be men (and men that would be boys) he hides his fear beneath bluster and vitriol, brandishing his sword and shouting at the clouds.
She imagines them in London, Peter and Hook, and the way they would fade like the Darling’s summer roses, growing brown and wilted with the passage of time, the nursery their prison once more. And if they should grow old, staring at the stars, trapped in the gray of London, she has lost them. She has lost the warmth of Hook at her back (swinging from the masts and sailing the high seas) and the promise of Peter in the corner of her eye.
two. thimbles
She comes, just barely remembering the way, and she cooks, tidies and calls Peter "Father." He calls her Mother and they tuck the Lost Boys into bed, dispensing pats and kisses, tipping flowers full of dew into hungry, gaping mouths.
They do not kiss the way that parents do or cuddle or say My Dear or Darling. Wendy knows the words but she does not think that Peter will quite take the meaning. In any case, they do not talk as they once did. The length of Wendy’s legs and the summer she spent with Hook is a wall between them.
In the midst of longer spring days, Wendy bleeds and Peter panics, sending one of the Lost Boys to fetch Tiger Lily.
Tiger Lily laughs in his face. “Silly boy,” she says. “Take her back. Wendy has outgrown you. Things cannot be as they were or remain as they are. Such is the way of the world, even in the Neverland. “
*
Wendy finds Peter perched in a blossoming tree and naming stars with Tink. The night is balmy and soft. A lazy crescent of moon hangs gently in the sky.
“Peter, come down,” Wendy calls breathlessly. “I have a gift for you.”
“What sort of gift?” asks ever suspicious Peter.
Wendy stares up at him, her eyes momentarily glittering with tears before she blinks them away and smiles a sad, warm Wendy smile. “It is a gift for men and not for boys, and you can only have it if you come down.”
“What good would it do me if it is a gift only for men,” Peter throws back at her. “I am a boy and the best boy there ever was.”
“But Peter,” Wendy sighs, for this is the same argument that they always have. “Don’t you want to grow up? To be a man with a house and a wife and boys of your own?”
“I already have a tree house. And I have you, and boys are just babies and good for nothing. Besides I would need to work to feed them and pay for the house, and wear ties and tight shoes.”
“But, Peter.” Wendy moves closer to the tree, places her hand against the trunk to feel its heartbeat. The tree sighs at the contact.
“No!” Peter shouts, leaping to stand on a branch. Petals, the softest, shyest shade of pink Wendy has ever seen, spin down.
Peter was so sure that he was right and what more could there be to adulthood then children and jobs and things called mortgages. Wendy’s insistance on growing up was unfathomable, an itch beneath his skin and at the back of his brain.
Determined, Peter hops lightly onto a higher branch, pokes his tongue out at Wendy below and steps up even higher. But blossoming trees are sensitive trees and not like other trees. This one took offense at Peter's callous treatment of Wendy's delicate sensibilities and as Peter jumped, took the opportunity to swat him right out of the air. Too surprised for a moment to fly, he tumbled, landed on Wendy and whooshed the breath right out of her.
Wendy closes her eyes and thinks of Hook's blue eyes and the room that her father had given her on the floor above the nursery. She lays still and thinks desperate, impossible things. The way that Peter's hair curls along the back of his neck and how his hands are too big for his body, rough and square dangling at the end of his childish arms. She thinks of map making and star charts and instructions for flying. Wendy laughs wickedly at the thought of Tinkerbell stored in a jar for fairy dust.
Peter taps her cheek gently, worridely calling her name and apologizing for falling on her and cursing the tree all at once. Tinkerbell hums gleefully around his head until Wendy leans up, quite suddenly and presses a kiss squarely on his mouth.
He tastes of Peppermint, wishes and summer strawberries. Wendy could kiss him forever. For a moment she thinks that he will let her. Pressed against her ripening body, he holds very still, relaxes and sinks softly against her. For a moment, Wendy holds everything she ever wanted tangled in her skirts and clasped between her thighs. Until Peter breaks the kiss, his head guided by the jealous tug of Tink's hands in his hair.
His eyes are wide and startled. Wendy holds her arms outstretched as he flies away, yearning and desperate and sad.
"Peter," she whispers.
three. kisses, hidden or otherwise
Every Sunday Wendy Moira Angela once Darling wears a hat to church. She also wears white gloves with pearl buttons at the wrist and a demure smile that says “Hello, I am pleasant. I am safe. I will not surprise you.” But just behind the gentle spread of Wendy’s mouth are teeth.
Wendy wears that meaningfully pleasant smile on other days as well. It is there on Monday when she gives the week's menu to Cook and on Tuesday when she joins the Ladies League for tea. It is there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for brunch and walks in the park. On Saturday her laughter is a trifle louder and her teeth flash from the part of her lips.
Her children lie in wait for Wendy's Saturday laugh. Her head thrown back, hair unraveling as she romps with them on the nursery floor. It is a pirate’s laugh they realize. The laugh of an Indian warrior maid. The raucous call of merriment between mermaids. The children lay traps for that laugh. Their fingers dance up her ribcage, dart into the cuddle of space where her shoulder and neck collide. They tell jokes that begin with "knock knock" and "there once was a man". Jigs are danced to much applause, the youngest of Wendy‘s nestlings tucked into her lap safe from flying elbows and knees. Through it all, Wendy smiles at her children and laughs broadly.
When the children run down like the tick of an alligator clock, Wendy tucks them into their beds. She brushes the hair from their sweaty, tired faces and presses a kiss onto their foreheads to sweeten their dreams.
Jane begs for one more story and the lament is taking up by the others. Even in their weary, half-slumbering states they cling to Wendy, horde the brittle bones of her smile for as long as they may. Wendy tells them a nonsense tale and when they sleep they dream of gnashing teeth.
Wendy kisses the children once more and the children kiss her back. They kiss her in the right hand corner of her mouth, seeking with their lips what is no longer there to be found. Wendy touches the empty right tip of her smile as she stares down at her slumbering babes and thinks of how she should have saved that kiss. Held it tight until she could kiss it into her babies or at the very least she should have saved it for her lawful husband and not a dirty faced boy who had forgotten her with the dawn.
But how could she have resisted. Of all the boys in the world Peter Pan was the bravest and most beautiful. A boy made of dreams for just such a girl as she once was. Even now she feels a clawing hunger as she throws wide the nursery window.
Wendy stares into the night for as long as she dares and waits for his shadow in the clouds.
Wendy thinks of her very own mother during those quiet hours. She thinks of all the time her mother spent in the nursery her gaze always straying to the window. She suspects that the kiss hidden conspicuously in the right hand corner of Mother’s mouth had always waited there for Peter. She also suspects that Peter has always come to windows searching for mothers and that there behind the glass he's seduced away many a darling girl old enough to know better but still too young to resist the twinkle in his eyes.
Wendy is also quite sure that Peter has forgotten them all.
Sometimes, Wendy creeps out onto the roof and stares at the sleeping world and wonders what would happen if she stepped out into the air. Would she remember how to fly and could she make it to the Neverland? Surely flying would be like riding a bike, something she’d never really forgotten even though, perhaps, she’s a bit shaky at the beginning. She’d plunge down a little at first, brace herself for the kiss of earth but at the last possible moment she’d swing upwards, skimming the snow.
Wendy stands on the edge of the roof with her arms thrown wide. The world is quiet and still and there’s no breeze to speak of, nothing to catch her falling body. No air to gust into the folds of her gown and buffet her gently to the Neverland.
Author: seraphcelene
Email: seraphcelene at yahoo dot com
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Movieverse. There was something about Jeremy Sumpter and Rachel Hurd-Wood, both on the cusp of adolescence, that made the 2003 film uncomfortable and darker than its usually played for. I can't say that I'm exactly happy with this, three years later and it's still not quite what I was aiming for (especially the second section), but I guess that I am content. Or just damn tired of it sitting unfinished on my harddrive.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Disclaimer: Peter Pan belongs to the JM Barrie estate of which I am not a part. This is just for fun and not profit.
Summary: Some girls wander by mistake.
one. of folly and mad obsession
Wendy huddles into the warmth of Hook’s embrace, mesmerized by the rumbling bass of his voice and the bewildered tattoo of his heart beating frantically against her back. With his mouth pressed to her ear, Hook purrs to Wendy his dreams of the Pan: Peter’s blood on his blade; Peter’s broken body abandoned on Marooner‘s Rock; Peter’s head gracing the tallest mast on the Jolly Roger. She drowns in his vision of conquering the Neverland with Red-Handed Jill at his side.
Gently, Hook fits the ceramic bowl over her nose and mouth, and this time Wendy inhales the opium easily.
“You could be my … my companion,” he lazily promises beneath the hover of smoke. “Tell grand tales about my daring adventures. I’ve heard you’re quite the little storyteller. But mother‘s always are, aren‘t they?” He sets the pipe aside, the tube coiled into a heap beside the hookah.
“Would you call me Mother?” Wendy lays collapsed into the curve of Hook's chest and the cradle of his lap. Lost in clouds of scarlet and roses, Wendy dreams as wide as the sky and bright as stars. Her body is heavy only when she remembers to think of it.
“Of course,” Hook whispers. “Whatever you would like.” He kisses her on the temple and again just behind the ear. “Would you like that? If I called you Mother?”
Wendy stretches beneath him then, strains away from the heavy throb in her veins and between her legs. "There is something unsettling about all of this," she responds. "Your eyes remind me quite suddenly of Father and to be honest, I'd much rather be Jill."
"Well, I am no father to babes," he snarls and leans in close, dips down to kiss the corner of her mouth and inhale the sweet tinge of the opium on her breath.
Peter is the ghost between them. Masquerading as the cock that crows them awake. His shadow dances bare foot across the ceiling by candlelight. Beyond the port hole there is the flash of his smooth cheeks and sulky man-child smile.
When Hook touches her, he grunts out stories about Peter and what he will do should he ever manage to catch him.
“Peter Pan!” Hook shouts.
“Peter,” Wendy echoes.
*
Wendy sees in Hook, cuddled around her, one hand tucked between her thighs, the boy he once was and the man Peter could become. Beyond the crow of the cock, Honor and Good Form are spread thinly across the warmth of his skin. It is in the scent of his breath and the tickle of his hair curling along her neck. When Hook speaks the deep growl of manhood cloaks the mew of the nursery, as it must, and for the briefest moment Wendy can picture him, a doddering old fool staring at the dim stars over London and waiting for a shadow to appear at the window. The man who refused to grow old, finally aged, waiting for the boy who refused to grow up. And like all boys that would be men (and men that would be boys) he hides his fear beneath bluster and vitriol, brandishing his sword and shouting at the clouds.
She imagines them in London, Peter and Hook, and the way they would fade like the Darling’s summer roses, growing brown and wilted with the passage of time, the nursery their prison once more. And if they should grow old, staring at the stars, trapped in the gray of London, she has lost them. She has lost the warmth of Hook at her back (swinging from the masts and sailing the high seas) and the promise of Peter in the corner of her eye.
two. thimbles
She comes, just barely remembering the way, and she cooks, tidies and calls Peter "Father." He calls her Mother and they tuck the Lost Boys into bed, dispensing pats and kisses, tipping flowers full of dew into hungry, gaping mouths.
They do not kiss the way that parents do or cuddle or say My Dear or Darling. Wendy knows the words but she does not think that Peter will quite take the meaning. In any case, they do not talk as they once did. The length of Wendy’s legs and the summer she spent with Hook is a wall between them.
In the midst of longer spring days, Wendy bleeds and Peter panics, sending one of the Lost Boys to fetch Tiger Lily.
Tiger Lily laughs in his face. “Silly boy,” she says. “Take her back. Wendy has outgrown you. Things cannot be as they were or remain as they are. Such is the way of the world, even in the Neverland. “
*
Wendy finds Peter perched in a blossoming tree and naming stars with Tink. The night is balmy and soft. A lazy crescent of moon hangs gently in the sky.
“Peter, come down,” Wendy calls breathlessly. “I have a gift for you.”
“What sort of gift?” asks ever suspicious Peter.
Wendy stares up at him, her eyes momentarily glittering with tears before she blinks them away and smiles a sad, warm Wendy smile. “It is a gift for men and not for boys, and you can only have it if you come down.”
“What good would it do me if it is a gift only for men,” Peter throws back at her. “I am a boy and the best boy there ever was.”
“But Peter,” Wendy sighs, for this is the same argument that they always have. “Don’t you want to grow up? To be a man with a house and a wife and boys of your own?”
“I already have a tree house. And I have you, and boys are just babies and good for nothing. Besides I would need to work to feed them and pay for the house, and wear ties and tight shoes.”
“But, Peter.” Wendy moves closer to the tree, places her hand against the trunk to feel its heartbeat. The tree sighs at the contact.
“No!” Peter shouts, leaping to stand on a branch. Petals, the softest, shyest shade of pink Wendy has ever seen, spin down.
Peter was so sure that he was right and what more could there be to adulthood then children and jobs and things called mortgages. Wendy’s insistance on growing up was unfathomable, an itch beneath his skin and at the back of his brain.
Determined, Peter hops lightly onto a higher branch, pokes his tongue out at Wendy below and steps up even higher. But blossoming trees are sensitive trees and not like other trees. This one took offense at Peter's callous treatment of Wendy's delicate sensibilities and as Peter jumped, took the opportunity to swat him right out of the air. Too surprised for a moment to fly, he tumbled, landed on Wendy and whooshed the breath right out of her.
Wendy closes her eyes and thinks of Hook's blue eyes and the room that her father had given her on the floor above the nursery. She lays still and thinks desperate, impossible things. The way that Peter's hair curls along the back of his neck and how his hands are too big for his body, rough and square dangling at the end of his childish arms. She thinks of map making and star charts and instructions for flying. Wendy laughs wickedly at the thought of Tinkerbell stored in a jar for fairy dust.
Peter taps her cheek gently, worridely calling her name and apologizing for falling on her and cursing the tree all at once. Tinkerbell hums gleefully around his head until Wendy leans up, quite suddenly and presses a kiss squarely on his mouth.
He tastes of Peppermint, wishes and summer strawberries. Wendy could kiss him forever. For a moment she thinks that he will let her. Pressed against her ripening body, he holds very still, relaxes and sinks softly against her. For a moment, Wendy holds everything she ever wanted tangled in her skirts and clasped between her thighs. Until Peter breaks the kiss, his head guided by the jealous tug of Tink's hands in his hair.
His eyes are wide and startled. Wendy holds her arms outstretched as he flies away, yearning and desperate and sad.
"Peter," she whispers.
three. kisses, hidden or otherwise
Every Sunday Wendy Moira Angela once Darling wears a hat to church. She also wears white gloves with pearl buttons at the wrist and a demure smile that says “Hello, I am pleasant. I am safe. I will not surprise you.” But just behind the gentle spread of Wendy’s mouth are teeth.
Wendy wears that meaningfully pleasant smile on other days as well. It is there on Monday when she gives the week's menu to Cook and on Tuesday when she joins the Ladies League for tea. It is there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for brunch and walks in the park. On Saturday her laughter is a trifle louder and her teeth flash from the part of her lips.
Her children lie in wait for Wendy's Saturday laugh. Her head thrown back, hair unraveling as she romps with them on the nursery floor. It is a pirate’s laugh they realize. The laugh of an Indian warrior maid. The raucous call of merriment between mermaids. The children lay traps for that laugh. Their fingers dance up her ribcage, dart into the cuddle of space where her shoulder and neck collide. They tell jokes that begin with "knock knock" and "there once was a man". Jigs are danced to much applause, the youngest of Wendy‘s nestlings tucked into her lap safe from flying elbows and knees. Through it all, Wendy smiles at her children and laughs broadly.
When the children run down like the tick of an alligator clock, Wendy tucks them into their beds. She brushes the hair from their sweaty, tired faces and presses a kiss onto their foreheads to sweeten their dreams.
Jane begs for one more story and the lament is taking up by the others. Even in their weary, half-slumbering states they cling to Wendy, horde the brittle bones of her smile for as long as they may. Wendy tells them a nonsense tale and when they sleep they dream of gnashing teeth.
Wendy kisses the children once more and the children kiss her back. They kiss her in the right hand corner of her mouth, seeking with their lips what is no longer there to be found. Wendy touches the empty right tip of her smile as she stares down at her slumbering babes and thinks of how she should have saved that kiss. Held it tight until she could kiss it into her babies or at the very least she should have saved it for her lawful husband and not a dirty faced boy who had forgotten her with the dawn.
But how could she have resisted. Of all the boys in the world Peter Pan was the bravest and most beautiful. A boy made of dreams for just such a girl as she once was. Even now she feels a clawing hunger as she throws wide the nursery window.
Wendy stares into the night for as long as she dares and waits for his shadow in the clouds.
Wendy thinks of her very own mother during those quiet hours. She thinks of all the time her mother spent in the nursery her gaze always straying to the window. She suspects that the kiss hidden conspicuously in the right hand corner of Mother’s mouth had always waited there for Peter. She also suspects that Peter has always come to windows searching for mothers and that there behind the glass he's seduced away many a darling girl old enough to know better but still too young to resist the twinkle in his eyes.
Wendy is also quite sure that Peter has forgotten them all.
Sometimes, Wendy creeps out onto the roof and stares at the sleeping world and wonders what would happen if she stepped out into the air. Would she remember how to fly and could she make it to the Neverland? Surely flying would be like riding a bike, something she’d never really forgotten even though, perhaps, she’s a bit shaky at the beginning. She’d plunge down a little at first, brace herself for the kiss of earth but at the last possible moment she’d swing upwards, skimming the snow.
Wendy stands on the edge of the roof with her arms thrown wide. The world is quiet and still and there’s no breeze to speak of, nothing to catch her falling body. No air to gust into the folds of her gown and buffet her gently to the Neverland.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 06:58 pm (UTC)From:I love the darkness in this. There's a darkness in Peter Pan, not just in the movie but also in the Barrie book--a haunted seduction lying under the treacly sweet fairy story.
And this reaches for that darkness and drags it into the light. It gives me the shivers.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 10:56 pm (UTC)From:Thank you! That's what I wanted. That's so what I'm wanted. I'm very happy to hear that it worked.
I'm nervous about this. But tired of it. Worried that the opening bit was pushing things a little too far even though it's a lot of innuendo and nothing absolutely blatant. Mostly.
It's been many moons since I've read Peter Pan. I keep promising myself that I'm going to do it. Christmas. Maybe for Christmas after everyone's done tearing paper and stuffing their faces with Cranberry sauce.
;)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 11:07 pm (UTC)From:Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 06:39 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-18 12:24 am (UTC)From:I loved Wendy's pert little proper sounding voice here, and the sentiment behind it:
"Your eyes remind me quite suddenly of Father and to be honest, I'd much rather be Jill."
That whole scene was really creepy and eerie and twisted. I liked that there was opium. And the way "that summer" later comes between Peter and Wendy. And of course I loved the creepiness of Hook shouting Pan's name. Loved also the way you showed that Hook was once Peter, and is so still in some ways, and that makes Peter Hook. Oooh, loved this line too:
And like all boys that would be men (and men that would be boys) he hides his fear beneath bluster and vitriol, brandishing his sword and shouting at the clouds.
(I'm remembering now more about the movie, about how Wendy said she wanted Hook because he was more of a man. Of course the tension is she wants both, she wants the maturity and the mysterious "something more" she doesn't understand [sex], but she still wants the magic and the dreams of youth. The incredible thing you show here is she wants that for herself, too--both those things, and you can't have both. I found the part about Wendy's period incredibly sad, actually.)
I love your Peter voice too--there's not much dialogue in this but what there is is spot on. I love the lines about tight shoes and things called mortgages.
That whole tree scene is lovely because the imagery is so perfect, with very few actual descriptor words about the tree. This is like my favorite sentence ever: But blossoming trees are sensitive trees and not like other trees. (and the later rhyme with "sensitivities")--I love this sentence just for the language, but it fits nicely with the theme of "growing up" too.
And these too are super gorgeous lines. They weren't such a delight to read and I couldn't believe how they just got better and better:
Her children lie in wait for Wendy's Saturday laugh. Her head thrown back, hair unraveling as she romps with them on the nursery floor. It is a pirate’s laugh they realize. The laugh of an Indian warrior maid. The raucous call of merriment between mermaids. The children lay traps for that laugh.
Although I felt like there was less meaning tucked into every moment of the thrd part, it had a lyricism and ease I think the other two parts struggled for.
[to be continued--I have to go home on the bus now because someone else has to work my position, but I LOVED THIS and have a few more things to say!]
no subject
Date: 2008-12-18 04:29 am (UTC)From:Loved this, because again, the tension between youth and maturity. Also, darling word play.
She’d plunge down a little at first, brace herself for the kiss of earth
Love the rhyme of this.
And I love the end. I think it again plays with the youth/age aspect. It's almost as if--if her dreams aren't real, then she wants reality to come crashing down (or her to crash into reality) to destroy her, because what's the point anyway? It's a really poetic and meaningful way to end it. Though I almost hoped you wouldn't say whether she remembered how to fly or not. But the last line is lovely.
Thanks for this. I'm glad you posted even if you weren't entirely happy with it. It gave me lots to chew on. It's amazing both for the sake of the writing and for the sake of all the thoughts and metaphors and real life issues you bring to it.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 06:25 am (UTC)From:The third section was pretty seamless as far as actually writing it goes and had the fewest number of revisions. It definitely flowed in a way that the first two did not. My intention was for the ending to be more ambiguous so that you're not sure if she jumps or not. Honestly, I'm not even sure if she jumps or not. I suppose I want to leave that up to the reader. Of course, Wendy can't ever fly again and will never be able to return to Neverland because she's done the unforgivable; she grew up. Neverland being only accessible to children, I like to think that she's gone slightly mad with regret. It's very much like what you mentioned. She wants both, to be young and old, and you can't have both. There's ALWAYS a decision to be made. In a way, in this fic, that choice has been stolen from her. Both Hook and Peter force her to grow up. Hook steals her innocence and Peter rejects her. The realization is that there is no place for her in Neverland so her only choice, really, IS to return to London. Although, that's totally my reading. I don't know how successful it really is, but I wanted a lot of what happens to be kind of be up to the reader.
The first part was really difficult because I wanted to really explore the impropriety of their relationship but in the end wigged myself. So, I only hinted at the nature of Wendy's relationship with Hook. Although, the opium became a real indicator of what they are about. Hook is an adult in a child's world and there's nothing about that that doesn't scream pedophile. Jason Issacs did such a great job with nuancing the anger and longing that Hook felt for Peter. I kept having to pull the fic back. I was afraid that the explicitness would put people off and, to be honest, it wigged me quite a bit as well.
The second part was just a nightmare because I just couldn't quite wrap my mind around how to express what I wanted which was the growing distance between Peter and Wendy. How she's growing up and he's not and their relationship just WON'T work!
I love how you put this: The incredible thing you show here is she wants that for herself, too
Wendy's agency in the movie was gorgeous and really wanted to play with that. She had so much potential and, I thought, that Rachel Hurd-Wood invested her character with SO MUCH longing. And she was so perfectly at that age right where little girls are balanced between being a child and growing up. I saw her and the idea for this was born.
I am thrilled that this worked for you! Thank you. Thank you for the kind, kind words.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 05:44 am (UTC)From:She wants both, to be young and old, and you can't have both. There's ALWAYS a decision to be made. In a way, in this fic, that choice has been stolen from her. Both Hook and Peter force her to grow up. Hook steals her innocence and Peter rejects her. The realization is that there is no place for her in Neverland so her only choice, really, IS to return to London.
Oh, that's interesting. I read it more as--there is no choice, because in reality you can't stay young forever. So basically everyone but Peter (and those under his spell) have to grow up; Wendy was an "outsider" so she has to too. But what I loved was she sort of wants to grow up. She wants to have the adult relationship with Peter. But she wants it with Peter because she doesn't want to lose that youth-magic so wants to bring it with her.
And the same thing is true with Hook in a completely different way. Hook says "yes" when Peter says "no". But though Hook makes her feel like an adult (the way she wants and can't get with Peter), Hooks steals from her and makes her feel like something is irretrievably lost also. So Hook gives her adulthood and makes her wistful for childhood and Peter gives her childhood and makes her wistful for adulthood. In the end she doesn't get to choose--she doesn't even get to choose what she wants; her body and her desires make her leave behind something more and more intangible.
But anyway like you say, it's up to the reader--that's how I read it and I loved it!
I can see that about the Hook parts wigging you, but there's such a sense of wrongness there; weirdly, that's why I wasn't wigged and wouldn't be even if you had gone further. It's when I feel like the author thinks nothing is wrong that I'm kinda creeped out. But anywho, I don't think you needed to go further. We got a real sense of what their relationship involved without anything explicit, which in this context was for the best, I think.
Anyway, again, I loved this. So glad you posted.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 03:33 am (UTC)From:she doesn't even get to choose what she wants; her body and her desires make her leave behind something more and more intangible.
I really, really like that reading!
Here from tkp's LJ
Date: 2008-12-19 02:15 pm (UTC)From:Re: Here from tkp's LJ
Date: 2008-12-19 11:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-21 08:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 03:37 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 04:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 02:50 am (UTC)From:the tragedy of her growing up and learning what she can't have
I think that was the impetous for this fic (If I can really remember that far back). Watching Rachel Hurd-Wood and thinking about how she's at that moment where everything is possible (even Neverland) but where she's tipping into an Adult Reality that won't let those childhood things remain possible. I thought she was superb and it really made me think about Wendy. Especially awesome since mostly I only think about Peter or Hook.