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Howdy fellas! I have stopped writing for Boosh but the links will stay up. I’ve got the fics split between the different shows or movies, and feel free to ask me anything

Hi. I kind of wanted to ask you about Lives in Abstraction for the fanfic commentary ask but found it so hard to chose just one section. Could you possibly do it for the letter by Victor in chapter 37? I’ve always kind of wanted to know what actually happened to Victor because the letter doesn’t say much.

Okey-dokey, so… when I wrote this it sort of killed me. I hated how sad it was and I fudged over a lot of details in the letter because it just seemed a bit much. Cos I know what happened to Bauer but I didn’t want to put it in the story. Nevertheless I’m going to give it a go, because I love Bauer and Rosey so much and it’s nice to revisit them from time to time, even the sad bits. I’ve written too much beneath the cut.

“I am so sorry, my Rosey (he wrote) for all that you suffered, for what befell you. I loved you so fiercely. I love you still. I am sorry you were stolen from me, that I had not the chance to grow old with you as I always hoped. I wish that we were still in possession of the crab phones that we fashioned, do you remember those? I am sure they could cross such distance, could connect us. But they are gone, I suppose. Everything is gone now. I do not talk of those years, do you know, because when I have tried it has made the people who heard my words rather upset, but you have asked me, and I can deny you nothing, and besides, perhaps writing shall be easier than talking. Perhaps I should apologise now, in case I write something which does not agree with you. Will you forgive me, my Rosey, my dearest one, for all that befell me?

(I really wanted the tone of this letter to be soft and melancholy and quite slow, especially to begin with, like Bauer is struggling with putting the words down and with ordering his thoughts. This is basically the only time when the story is in his voice but it’s not the voice he would have used in any other chapter, because he’s been through so much and is mentally fragile and just so tired in body and soul. The crab phones are a reminder of their time at Nice, obviously, of that most happy time, and when Rosey first felt a strange sense of foreboding about their future, because Bauer talked of dying together. And the phones are sort of their thing, in the Dali film and in a lot of fan art of them. Bauer is wishing there were some way they could communicate. I wanted to show that they were as important to Bauer as they were to Rosey, that Rosey’s feelings weren’t one sided, and that his narrative can be trusted, I guess, even when he’s been focused on only one thing, or stuck in the darkness of his own mental illness. And truly, no one understands Rosey’s mind better than Bauer, hence the apology in case he writes something that upsets him, because Bauer spent so much of their time together attempting to shield and protect Rosey. Still, he knows he can’t deny Rosey’s questions.

I spent some time at first still in Milan, at the San Vittore Prison, but not in any part that I had previously broken in to. I suppose they knew me. They kept me underground instead. They asked many questions, in a wide variety of ways, but I convinced myself to unlearn the answers they were looking for after a while, and so was no use to them, and told them nothing. They took things from me. They hurt me. My feet - my fingers - I - they … I cannot -I fear am not so easy on the eye as your letter seems to suggest that I was all those years ago. They kept me in the dark, in the very dark, for a very long time. I could not-

(Yeah. So, San Vittore was built in the late nineteenth century and housed a lot of political prisoners in Italy in WW2. It tends to be referred to as ‘notorious’ in most books. Not a nice place. My mother’s father and brothers were imprisoned in Spain during the war and I’ve been informed it was a similar sort of shit show. Also, books I have on San Vittore talk of how there was a lot of torture. My great uncle had his toe and finger nails forcibly removed during interrogation. Victor wants to be able to tell Rosey what happened, about all this terrible stuff, but in a way it’s too difficult to write it down, it still hurts him too much, and he also doesn’t want to think of Rosey getting upset, or worse, sighing at him for getting himself in to such trouble. I wondered for a long while about the phrasing “in the very dark” but in the end left it like that because it just seemed right. I felt like Bauer would struggle to describe that as well, he’s still afraid of that cloying darkness and believing he had been forgotten and left to die, but also that, as he ages, his ability to navigate between the languages he knows might be slipping too, hence the odd nature of his writing and wording and sentences going unfinished.

But then there were explosions and fire and I was able to count the nights by the sounds of destruction and then the guards fled but they did not unlock the door and no one unlocked the door Rosey and when they finally did it was not for freedom but for a new prison. Risiera di San Sabba. I believe they thought I was someone other than I am for they asked a great many questions, and did so much, so many things, to me, my body, to try and get answers. I recited for them my mother’s prayers in response to their demands and so they allowed me the job of carrying the corpses to the furnace rather than joining them in the oven. Then there was more fire, more death, and then they too were gone, and we were called free and expected to go on our way.

(I guess this is a continuation of that fear of the darkness and being left for dead. And I also wanted to somehow show that for Bauer, in writing this, a panic is rising. When he says “and no one unlocked the door Rosey” he’s panicking because he’s back in that moment and it’s terrifying him. It also affects his punctuation, he’s just trying to get the words out and doesn’t care that the sentence is running on. Until Risiera di San Sabba. I struggled with my history nerdiness here because I didn’t want to do a whole lot of background or filler information because Bauer just wouldn’t, that’s not where his head is at in this. Risiera di San Sabba was a concentration camp in northern Italy. It was a transit camp for Jewish prisoners being sent to Auschwitz but also a permanent camp for political prisoners. In the section a bit before Bauer notes that the guards knew him, or something about him, and so it made sense that he would end up there. It wasn’t a nice place. My partner’s family lost a lot of family in WW2. The story goes that they converted to Christianity to try and avoid the Nazis but it didn’t save many of them. To my mind Bauer talked his way out of execution by creating another character, and it because it was nearing the end and things were in such chaos in northern Italy at the time, he managed to survive. I also imagine Bauer has a rather poetic kind of speech most of the time. He is, through the story, occasionally crass but he also has a rather lovely way of speaking and so that final line “more fire, more death, and then they too were gone” seemed to fit. A lot of freed prisoners and refugees got stuck at San Sabba for years after the war because they had nowhere to go and in my mind Bauer, in a state of shock, was there until Maria found him, by chance, and took him with her. She tried to settle back in Milan but just couldn’t do it, too much had changed for them both, and so they began a slow drift toward Nice, ending up there without really meaning to, certainly without Maria knowing the full significance of the place.

I am sorry. I have written too much, things you do not want to read and-I still wait for you to finish my sentences, do you know. Still expect to feel the squeeze of your hand in mine. But you never shall, never again. I know. You are dead and I write these letters to a ghost. I even thought that I had received a reply from you, a beautiful thing full of love and memories and it brought such joy to my heart, but now I cannot find it anywhere. For how could you reply? It was a small consolation, a tiny shred of comfort, that at least you had died and they could not do to you what they did to-I miss you so. But even if you were living I do not think I could bear to have you see me. Though I long to see you, oh my beautiful Rosey, I could not live if you were to see what I have become. Such a vain creature I am. I used to revel in the way that you gazed at my form, at the press of your hands against my skin, as if you worshipped me. Childish fool that I was. But you did love me. You did? I found a copy of your poems. Not my copy, another copy, and I signed it for you and she said she would send it off to you, as if she could send a book of poems to the underworld. Did it find you, my dear, beloved, constant Rosey? I hope so. I hope that you know what your love has meant to me.

(The idea of finishing sentences is pretty integral to this story. It was the whole focus, wasn’t it? But it’s also a Noel and Julian thing, because a lot of this fic goes back to that relationship and that magic they have when they look at each other across the stage, that holding hands, trade mark tenderness. Hmm. But this is also where it’s revealed that Bauer thinks Rosey is dead. Maria didn’t say it to him, he was sure Rosey was dead when she found him and she just didn’t tell him otherwise, because she had honestly assumed that Rosey would attempt suicide again and possibly succeed. She didn’t want to give Bauer hope and then have it destroyed. I found the idea of writing to a ghost fascinating. To me it was a way of further showing where Bauer’s mind was, the level he was functioning. The lines between dream and reality are blurring and he can’t quite remember what’s true and what he’s just thought up or remembered from long ago. He’s pretty blunt and clear in his assessment of himself though, but not when it comes to his belief that Rosey loved him. I actually hate that his certainty in that might have been broken a bit, over the years. The memories of Rosey worshipping him are a real kick in the guts for Rosey though, they’re designed to be, because those memories are so sacred and he’s refused to acknowledge them. I also quite liked the notion of sending a book of poems to the underworld.

It gave me the thought to write to you, simply so that I might not be so alone. I try to paint, it is only water and colour and lines now on paper, and when I mumble to myself about the form or the colour they look at me strangely, so I try to hide what we all know, that I have lost myself, slipped almost completely from a mind that was never quite secure to begin with.

(So, this is really the way I feel about painting, more so now actually, than when I wrote it. And this is the most lucid I think Bauer is in this letter, strange considering he’s talking about the fact that he feels his mind is ebbing. And acknowledging that his mental health has never been great. I guess I wanted to show that Bauer was always aware of that, he wasn’t ignorant of his problems.

I miss you. But I am gad that you cannot see me. I am as dead to the world as you are in my way. It is for the best, I think. I only wish I could have laid bougainvillea at your grave, for it grows here, up the wall by my window. I wish I knew where you lay so that I could send some now. Who will know to do the same for me? It will be my turn so soon. Who will leave flowers for me to remind of the night I found my twin, my ‘found remembrance of spiritual love’, of complete love, who will there be to hold my hand? I miss your hand in mine…”

He signed it: “With all the love in the world, always and forever, your Victor”.

(I think I forgot to mention before how the idea of Bauer not wanting to be seen was important for me in this as well. Because the story covers so much of their lives I felt it was important to show that views can shift and evolve and that Victor’s understanding of his own body has changed, though not for the better. He always used clothing to hide or play characters but not with Rosey, with him he would waltz around nude or use clothing as an in joke. He always showed his heart so openly and clearly to Rosey and now he can’t even bear the thought. It’s not just that his body has been altered by age and torture and hardship, it’s that his heart has as well, and the idea of Rosey seeing that, which he would, is horrifying to Bauer. Finally I wanted to throw in the mention of the bougainvillea because that was another image that carried through the story. I love bougainvillea, they’re fascinating plants and I have several growing around my little house. I saw a lot of them in Europe when I was a little kid and have such strong memories of them. They are so vibrant, so strange in their colouring and flower formation and once they’re established they are hardy as fuck. But here the remembrance is sad. Bauer doesn’t know where Rosey’s grave is and worries that there will be no memory of what they were together. He’s not so fussed about being forgotten as an individual but the idea of losing the life they had together is painful for him. It was really quite sad. Damn. Um. And then it ends with the refrain of “always and forever” but is signed simply Victor. I tend to refer to him as Bauer, Rosey does too for a lot of it, and Bauer don’t self-refer in that way much. He calls himself an idiot or refers to his titles like Madman and General but I wanted this to be very pared down. Rosey calls him Victor when he’s being tender, and that’s what Victor is remembering most.I actually hated writing this a bit. I wanted to change my mind and have them find each other and have a happy ending. I had a good readership of about five who talked me through it and understood that it needed to go that way and I gave them fair warning, and that helped me feel less horrible about it. Sorry this has run so long but thank you for the ask.

#my writing #victor Bauer #Gui Rosey