mithen - Profile (original) (raw)

Mithen is the second moon of Krypton, and I've been circling Krypton to some extent since 2005. :)

This page features a great deal of slash--that is, male/male relationships. If that's not the kind of thing you like, consider yourself warned. That said, I love reading all kinds of fic! My interests are mostly focused on DC comics, specifically the pairing of Superman and Batman, but I've been known to dabble (very briefly) elsewhere. If you're interested in the Superman/Batman pairing but are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of canon (I know I was!) I've put together a history in scans that you might find interesting!

I also have a Twitter account where I post quick reviews of comics I read, _mithen

If you're interested in non-comic book reviews, I have a Goodreads account where I post those.

I post some context-free panels and reblog cute animals on Tumblr as MissMithen.

If you want to friend or follow me at any of those spots, feel free! If you drop me a line telling me who you are, I'll probably friend/follow you back.

All my stories are betaed by the amazing, wonderful, and sarcastic damos, who was also willing to marry me. Any errors that remain, whether in spelling, plot, or characterization, are solely my own.

All my stories can be found in the links to the left of my main page. I hope you enjoy them!

Generally what you will find in my stories are romances. That doesn't exactly mean love stories--although most of them are that as well. According to Debora Schwartz:

Like comedy, romance includes a love-intrigue and culminates in a happy ending. Like tragedy, romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals, tyrants, usurpers of thrones) and treats serious themes; it is darker in tone (more serious) than comedy. While tragedy emphasizes evil, and comedy minimizes it, romance acknowledges evil -- the reality of human suffering.

Romance is a natural step in describing human experience after tragedy. Tragedy involves irreversible choices made in a world where time leads inexorably to the tragic conclusion. In Romance, time seems to be "reversible"; there are second chances and fresh starts. As a result, categories such as cause and effect, beginning and end, are displaced by a sense of simultaneity and harmony. Tragedy is governed by a sense of Fate (Macbeth, Hamlet) or Fortune (King Lear); in Romance, the sense of destiny comes instead from Divine Providence. Tragedy depicts alienation and destruction, Romance, reconciliation and restoration. In tragedies, characters are destroyed as a result of their own actions and choices; in Romance, characters respond to situations and events rather than provoking them. Tragedy tends to be concerned with revenge, Romance with forgiveness. Plot structure in Romance moves beyond that of tragedy: an event with tragic potential leads not to tragedy but to a providential experience.

The providential "happy ending" of a Romance bears a superficial resemblance to that of a comedy. But while the tone of comedy is genial and exuberant, Romance has a muted tone of happiness -- joy mixed with sorrow. Like comedies, Romances tend to end with weddings, but the focus is less on the personal happiness of bride and groom (the culmination of an individual passion) than on the healing of rifts within the total human community. Thus, whereas comedy focusses on youth, Romance often has middle-aged and older protagonists in pivotal roles. Similarly, while tragedy deals with events leading up to individual deaths, Romance emphasizes the cycle of life and death. While tragedy explores characters in depth (emphasis on individual psychology), Romance focuses instead on archetypes, the collective and symbolic patterns of human experience. Compared to characters in a Shakespearean tragedy (or comedy), romance characters may seem shallow or one-dimensional. But Romance characters are not meant to be psychologically credible; their experiences have symbolic significance extending beyond the limits of their own lives and beyond rational comprehension. In Romance, the emphasis shifts from individual human nature to Nature.

Romance is unrealistic. Supernatural elements abound, and characters often seem "larger than life" (e.g. Prospero) or one-dimensional (e.g. Miranda and Ferdinand). Plots are not particularly logical (cause and effect are often ignored). The action, serious in theme, subject matter and tone, seems to be leading to a tragic catastrophe until an unexpected trick brings the conflict to harmonious resolution. The "happy ending" may seem unmotivated or contrived, not unlike the deus ex machina ("God out of the [stage] machinery") endings of classical comedy (where a God appears at the end of the play to "fix" everything). Realism is not the point. Romance requires us to suspend disbelief in the "unrealistic" nature of the plot and experience it on its own terms.

You can take that as something of a Writer's Credo of mine. :)