[FFML] (fic) (DC Comics) Now Is The Time (G)

[Scott Jamison]

--- On Thu, 10/14/10, skychan <skywize at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: skychan <skywize at gmail.com>
> My first thought is that its been far
> too long since I've seen anything
> you've written.  My second is to be curious about the
> Bechdel Test, its not
> till my third thought that I get to the story.
> 
     Yes, I've been struggling with a massive case of writer's block, and I think this is the first story I've completed in about three years.

The Bechdel Test is named after Alison Bechdel, creator of the "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip, as one of the characters in said strip formulated the idea.  The idea is to examine a work of fiction (films, in the case of the original story) and see if it can pass a three-part test.

1. There are at least two female characters (sometimes modified to state "named" or "of plot relevance" to avoid some of the usual cheats.)

2.  They talk to each other.

3.  About something other than a male character.

Note that the test does *not* imply anything about quality; the point is how many movies/books/etc fail the test for no particularly good reason.  (And this was much more obvious back in the late 70s/early 80s when the test was devised.

How the mentioned comic book story fails the Bechdel Test is, alas, a bit of a spoiler.

> It is a bit of fluff, and I'm curious if all the fortress
> of silence
> paraphenalia exists at the time you set the story, but my
> DC lore is
> certainly not up to the task of proofing such a
> situation.  It seems to be a
> simple fluf piece, and without knowing the original meeting
> I can't really
> say if it is better or worse, but it does provide an
> ammusing little
> snapshot into history.

Most of the Fortress of Solitude paraphenalia is indeed genuine and was shown in stories of the period.  (I've fudged the timeline a little to get Supergirl and Batgirl together on that particular date.)

Yep, fluff, but it was fun to plot out.  Had to cut about five pages worth of dialogue when I came up against the deadline though.


Cheers,
SKJAM!