Intermission

As I write this, having missed a self-imposed deadline for a fourth chapter and finding myself no longer able to pretend to have “fun” with words clumsily grafted over Biggie Small lyrics like Leatherface’s human mask, it feels necessary to remind myself what the hell I’m even doing. Failing at imitation flatters no one and the road ahead is somewhere “over there” while I’m upside down spinning my wheels in a ditch.

Mademoiselle was meant to be a capital-C Character, but I don’t really wish to catalog the journey to her. It will have to suffice to say she was conceived in the tailend of 2013 as a schizophrenic male cop unfairly transferred to a podunk Louisiana precinct until the first True Detective promo caused me to metaphorically flip the table with a “Well, fuck me and that idea!” Don’t fret over it: True Detective season 1 turned out much better than what I could have written. Hell, True Detective season 2 turned out better. Through questionable word association, “police” leads to “secret police” which transmogrifies Louisiana and hoodoo into the Caribbean and voodoo… That’s enough about that. Point is, the “madness” and her position to power stuck.

Mademoiselle is an “illusion of my youth”.

Mademoiselle is a “manifestation of the adolescent feelings in my heart”.

Mademoiselle is a manic pixie dream girl.

I don’t run from that pejorative label. I’m stubborn. When everyone with common sense tells me I shouldn’t do something (in this case craft a dweeby male fantasy) I ask, “Why not?” In the realm of self-published books, the answers to that question are isekai for boys and romantasy for girls, both of which I very much dislike. But those sell like hotcakes and I’d like to write commercial fiction. A conundrum.

Ultimately, to get right down to it; to arrive at the point as promptly as possible and put a pin in all the pontificating: Mademoiselle is a manifestation of trauma.

Wait! Come back! I promise no trauma-dumping or pornographic depictions! She doesn’t whine, complain about it, or even acknowledge any traumatic event from her past as such. She’s Gen X in that sense (parts La Femme Nikita, Aeon Flux, and… Haruko from FLCL, I guess?). Whether through delusion or sheer will, she keeps it pushing, as they say. But her body remembers, manifesting in the form of a mirror response. She’s whatever another person needs her to be (save this for later).

What could I do with this?

An insidious fever within the culture at the moment seems to center around dating or the lack thereof. While euphemistically labeled a “loneliness epidemic”, suggesting the gap ought to be able to be filled by family, friends, and community, it really seems to boil down to sex. A 20-something year old young man isn’t craving grandma’s hugs or a church group in most cases. Here, I’ll step back from the cliff of Armchair Sociology and gender-stereotyping, simply stating that dating somehow sucks even more with the aid of technology. Happy accidental encounters throttled by algorithmic determinism (though skyrocketing divorce rates in the past imply these accidents were more often comparable to uninsured car crashes).  

So what if I presumed life-and-death stakes in regard to something as mundane as dating? Romantic prospects are now “targets” or “allies”. Dates are now “missions.” And a “kiss” is just as often the point of a bullet. I mean, James Bond is just as notorious for his philandering, right? What if instead of “Bond girls” Mademoiselle had “Mad Lads”? 

So now I have a general framework, but the next question really ought to have been the first (story stems from character motivation): what does Mademoiselle want? To be loved. But how can that be made active rather than passive? 

Lee Child (author of the Jack Reacher novels) conceived his flagship character in direct opposition to the increasingly neurotic, self-aware, and vulnerable action heroes of airport thrillers at the time. In turn, I want Mademoiselle to contrast well against the largely white, basic bitch, Dr. Handsome Horsecock-Johnson-attracting heroines found in romance/romantasy novels today. I’m a man. I don’t know what the hell women want. Nor do they need me to guess at it. So one last “what if”… What if Mademoiselle was an exceptional villain attempting to attract average men? Don’t get too excited, fellas. “Average” in this case still means “successful on dating sites”. Sorry, but in the words of TLC: “No Scrubs”. 

The problem for her then becomes finding the cream amongst the crop. This is where the “Damsel” in the title comes into play. Mademoiselle is awesome and is kind of sick of being awesome. She, being a villain with wrong ideas and all that, wants to be a Trad wife taking the backseat a little. But how does one find her equal amongst average Joes? The conceit would be her feigning deficiency in an area where the average Joe can step up and meet the challenge. Let’s say he’s a smart guy: look at that, Mademoiselle needs that big brain of his to help get her out of her current predicament (while she may assist as his muscle); said predicament usually being caused by the mark she’s meant to assassinate. I forgot to mention Mademoiselle is an assassin (she treats it like an incidental day job, too). I feel humor and pathos could be mined from the extent Mademoiselle has to diminish herself (or occasionally say, “Fuck it!” and go balls out) in order to settle down.

Bah, I’m making all of this sound more interesting than I can achieve and I haven’t even mentioned the Don Quixote or literal magic of it all, but let me stop here. As for CHARLOTTE, I can’t give away the entire key to the puzzle but she represents capitalism and White supremacy. Earnestly; but there’s a difference between white as a skin color and even social grouping and capital-W White as a systemic hierarchy.