~~ tell the truth, but tell it slant.

[reenka]

First of all, this `very important announcement': I am updating links on my recs page and omg. Trin's fanfic reminds me of all the joy I've been forgetting a bit. Every single one. Wah. No serious plotty epics for me, no sir. Gimme the weird, the quirky, the insane, the gorgeous and the deeply unbalanced (but in a brilliant way). Guh. Fiction like a candy-drug-- melting in your mouth, not in your hand. I'm trying to think of "epics I have loved" in general, and am drawing a blank. I like small stories-- tight-knit focus, intense emotion, feverish madness, deep as nightmare and sharp as a knife. The long stories, you can wander in, get lost in-- but for me, that isn't fanfiction, that is a whole new world reinvented. Maybe that's it. In fanfiction, epics get repetitive, plot-devices overused, emotion diluted and momentum lost. If it takes me 25-fucking-chapters to get to a goddamn H/D kiss-- no thank you, goodnight. Hell, I don't even want 15 chapters, though that depends how much UST there is. No, seriously, I have no patience for so-called fanfic-world-building and painstaking characterization efforts. If a ficlet can make me feel the insides of a person in one page, one can -definitely- do it in 10 or whatever the length of a chapter is. Character development is great if you give me some -other- reason to read. I'm a picky biatch with a fickle attention span, what can I say. Being jaded isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In that spirit, a general review-disclaimer:


Sometimes (not often), I just feel so awfully old and jaded about writing (well, fanfic). I've never had tolerance for what I saw as "bad writing" in original fic either (say, Piers Anthony, gack), but for awhile my lust for moremoremore H/D slash overwhelmed any desire to outright reject fics beccause they didn't work for me on some particular issue. I suppose that was the honeymoon period.

spare_change said people's joy in fic seems to have leeched away, and I dunno about other people, I just know about me: I still adore a number of fics, even plebey ones. I have my happy-buttons like everyone else, and if you push them, I will squeal. The problem is, my happy-buttons have remained stable in quantity while my "yuck!" buttons keep multiplying. I don't mean squick, because few pairings or scenarios disgust me on a squick level. I mean fics which automatically am unable to enjoy because of that one particular thing in the fic, regardless of its other attributes-- unless it's very well-written stylistically, but even then-- it's hard to suspend your disbelief when you're constantly reminded of that one thing as you read.

I've seen people protest that these yuck-buttons are offensive if you act as if they're objective measures by using the discourse of "good" vs. "bad" writing or characterization. But the boundary between objective and subjective judgement is very blurry in lit-crit of any sort, it seems to me. I can only say what I think (and even that fluctuates in levels of coherency), whatever the source. If I can't dig it, that's all I know-- not whether I have a -right- to feel this way if I were to project it through some hypothetical objectivity filter, if that even exists.

I seem to upset some people with the confident way I proclaim my opinions, but I don't write in a premeditated manner-- I say it as it comes to me. By default, nothing I say should be taken as "truth", anyway. If I pass judgement, it remains in every case to be "for my purposes only". I can't control people's reactions to my thoughts and I can't control my thoughts-- all I -can- control is their transmission. And I'm too lazy and ultimately self-enclosed to even remember I -have- an audience half the time (the other half, I just wibble because mostly it's silent).

So. Blanket disclaimer-- nothing I say about fic, mine or yours or anyone's, should be taken as truth or as relevant to anyone but me. I ultimately don't -mean- anything as far as actions. I am just writing it to express myself, unless it's a recommendation, in which case I'm trying to give a head's up to people who've found they have similar pre-existing tastes to mine. And yes, I do believe I'm usually right, but that's a human failing that's both rather common and hard to overcome. So bear with me.

I've just bothered several people recently with opinions on fic, and here goes another one, so I had to make sure it's got a proper context this time.
~~

A list of my positive biases in HP fanfic (to the best of my knowledge) would be as follows:


- 1) Lyricism-- coupled with simplicity in prose-- highly imagistic is preferred.

- 2) Authenticity of Voice-- i.e., does this intuitively sound like the POV character. This will make or break an increasing number of fanfics for me. I don't care what they do as much as I care how they think about/through what they do.

    This is bumped up to (1) in importance if yuck-button in characterization is pushed.

    2a) Characterization biases (this makes me think of spare_change's idea of `emotional territory', because there are definitely repeating themes-- I like the kids snarky, angry, deranged, obsessed, in lust-love and awkward. Hmmmm... projecting much, Reena? Oh yeah, prolly, heh.)

- Harry & Draco biases: obsessive!Draco (a variant being obsessed-with-Harry!Draco); angry!Harry; brattish immature!Draco; unreasonable!Harry; insane!Draco (or Harry, sometimes); forceful!Harry; loser!Draco; hateful-but-loving!Harry; hateful!Draco; snarky!Draco; snarkier!Harry; doofus!Harry (or Draco); clueless-moron!Harry (or Draco); emotionally repressed!Harry; out of control!Harry (and Draco); virgin!Harry; happily nasty!Draco; passionate yet asexual!Harry (and/or Draco, hee).

- Ron biases: doofus!Ron; loyal!Ron; silly!Ron; jaded!Ron; snarky!Ron; put-upon!Ron; crazed!Ron (you'll see I like 'em all that way); smitten!Ron.

- Hermione biases: sensible!Hermione; smirky!Hermione; overwhelmed!Hermione; loyal!Hermione; ingenious-obsessive-planner!Hermione; same old!Hermione, basically. Er, but she has a crush on Ron in my head. Not Harry. At all. In any universe (in my head!).

- Various character biases: Nasty-evil-pompous-insufferable-deluded doofus!Lucius ('nuff said-- I don't like 'im); wise yet human!Dumbledore.

- Snape biases: Bitter and ugly!Snape; really can't let go!Snape; asexual!Snape; greasy bastard!Snape; amoral yet cautious!Snape; not in lust with Lucius or anyone, okay!Snape. Possibly, masturbates-with-snake-stick!Snape (I'm open to possibilities, yeah?) Or possibly a-huge-repressed-pervert-who-watches-boys-nekkid!Snape is okay. Mind the repressed, and the severely-in-denial and the severely-fucked-up, there. For reference, read Rube's `Garish', heh. 'Tis my idea of what Snape's sex-drive would be like, eheheheh. If he had one. I suppose he does, sad little man that he is. (Hey, I like 'im, I do. No, really.)

Also, in no place in my head is there room in Snape's heart for Harry, though I can see a sort of wary (re?)conciliation after which point both would move on & not talk to each other much. Harry does not, cannot, will not ever-ever-ever consider him sexy "just like that". I'd bet even his lovers didn't think he was sexy (and if they said it, he'd have thought they were lying-- his self-esteem doesn't seem to be the best). In my head, he only fucks in the dark. I picture him as masochistic and a really forceful bottom if he ever had gay sex (or any sex! heeeee!) which he doesn't (in my head). In fact, one of my issues with H/S, come to think of it, is that Snape nearly always tops in fic. I mean, yeah, he wouldn't let Harry top him, but that just means he wouldn't fuck Harry in the first place, heh. In my head(!!)

- 3) Various scenario biases-- lumped together last.
    romanticism, passion, creative magic-use, adventure/suspense plot, setting (Hogwarts or pre-Hogwarts, AU, whatever), kink.
    3a) Sexual kink biases in HP fic are: [highlight below if you really want to know]
...
wanking, voyeurism, angry sex, first-time, frottage, telepathic/magically-enhanced sex, rough quickies, up-against-a-wall, shower sex (hmm, also rain), helpless-bottom fic, public handjobs/blowjobs/etc, bad sex, light wrist-restraint maybe., spontaneous orgasms.

    3b) Current scenario biases are: in Hogwarts, 6th year, post-OoTP, smutty romantic-but-dark-with-humor. Heh.
~~

That said.

On to the fic I wanted to mention (finally!!)

    cupiscent's `Surface' isn't working for me. I mean, the writing (my number one kink, so to speak) is brilliant, but no. It's almost like a textbook case of a fic tailor-made not to do it for me, even though it was all unsentimental and well-told and yet.

It pushed not one but two-- a double-whammy of my multiplying yuck-buttons. For one, the Draco is extremely emotionally distant, of the icy breed. Harry is the one who's supposed to want him, which -totally- doesn't work for me, especially when combined with #2: the too-aware voice. Draco doesn't know -everything-, yes, but he knows all sorts of things he shouldn't-- and he acts on them. He's so manipulative that he puts fanon!Lucius to shame, contrasted with a Harry who basically has no chance against him, almost completely within Draco's power. (Will-less!Harry-- another pet peeve.) This could never work for me, ever. I don't care if you're a genius writer, I won't buy it, not in Hogwarts sixth or seventh year.

    One of the things I really dig in a fic above all else is a voice that stays true to being limited to its intended range of awareness. This is what JKR does so well in the books, almost too well, one might say-- Harry perceives, but with a slant. He is not wise or extremely reliable in his perceptiveness. He is bound up by his emotions. He is often -wrong-, most importantly. And it's not a matter of miscalculation, like with this Draco. It's a matter of complete inability to see outside his blinders unless forced to. And I -like- that about him, thankyouverymuch.


And I realized that in general, I have a huge bias towards these not-so-perceptive narrators. They feel real-- they feel -human- to me. I myself always perceive on a somewhat higher-than-average level as far as I can tell, and as a writer and ultimately the narrator, I am very conscious of the risk of filtering my own voice through the characters too blatantly. I'm just very sensitized to that.

I also happen to think that this high level of perceptiveness is hugely OOC for Draco (or Harry for that matter). It is possibly among my top 3 yuck-buttons in his characterization, somewhat related to the others because of their strong too-good-to-be-true feel (I never like fics that lie to me, which is what a too-good-to-be-true characterization fantasy basically is. I suppose this might be related to my issue with forced-feeling smutfic. Like, if you had to force it to happen, plot-wise or smut-wise or characterization-wise, most likely it'll translate as fake-sounding to me anyway. But what do I know. Which is why I dislike the idea of inscribing my own kinks onto characters that don't support them easily-- like writing sophisticated kinky sex for 16 year-old boys is a no-thank-you because if I can't see it happening, I don't find it hot. This is a problem in fanfic 'cause I just don't -care- about the sex-life of anyone outside my OTPs, and Sirius/Remus is only hot in `Drawing Down the Moon'. Thus I remain mired in fumbling angry handjobs. But hey, I dig it)

The other 2 huge yuck-buttons for me with Draco are emotional sensitivity (I think he -is-, but not in an empathic, emotionally-intelligent way) and ice-princehood, which is basically that certain sort of fanon which proclaims Draco is Spock Jr. for no apparent archetypally-based reason I can extrapolate instinctively (though I know there are reasons for these characterizations-- all of them).
    Regardless, combining sexually-savvy ice-prince!Draco and coldly-perceptive-thinker!Draco in one fic like with `Surface' is just the knell of doom, basically. I think all in all, it was actually a good show for a certain sort of fanon!Draco, but much as I love a few of his fanon incarnations (heeee *cuddles baby UL!Draco-kins*)... ahem... I hate the rest of them. Or rather, they leave me cold. I mean, why -should- I care? He's so sadly... boring. And perfectly doomed. And angstily boring. Why the bloody fuck does Harry want him, again?

So yeah, a Draco who's basically -right- about Harry rings so false to me as to be a deafening bell of wrongness. Only Hermione or Dumbledore or Remus would be so perceptive, and each would also have very strong slants to their vision of him. To have Draco simply wake up and be an adult who transcends petty tantrums "just like that" enough to see Harry in a revelatory light in a complete yuck-button to me. -And- I believe it's just plain OOC in a way I can't abide with. This over-perceptiveness is a very, very common lapse in many writers' characterizations of many characters, but that doesn't make it hurt my sensibilities less-- it just sensitizes me, actually.

I -want- characters to be wrong. It's... fun. I creates dramatic suspense. It's true-to-life. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, it will make for a better story as far as I can tell, no matter how intrinsic it seems to the whole structure of the plot as it stands. (And in `Surface', Draco's cold-calculatingness is pretty damn intrinsic).
    And while `Surface' has that lyrical spare style I adore, and I recced and loved cupiscent's other, post-Hogwarts story, this doesn't work for me at all-- not if it's set in Hogwarts. Not with no intervening experiences to allow Draco to grow up, basically. No amount of angst or H/D or good writing is enough for me to believe in this Draco anymore, and I'm not sad at all. I'm glad.

My unreasoning infatuation with H/D fic (not equivalent to H/D) may be dimming, but this is basically just me being true to myself, biases and all. There's a wide world out there, beyond fanfic, after all, and mere addiction to H/D porn isn't going to keep me away from it forever. So yeah. NaNoWriMo, man.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm impressed, you're more fickle and quick to judge than I am. Though I admit I stumbled over that line too ^^;
Dude. Depends on the fic, I guess. I've read one Highlander fic which took forever to get to the slash, but hey, it had enough plot to give birth to several hippos, so it was okay. Sort of.
Sort of, you know, ambling along for all those chapters just ain't gonna cut it for me. A lot of -books- aren't much more than 25 chapters. And I'm not into the "only kissed at the end"-- that's why I don't read Harlequin romances, man >