(no subject)

[reenka]

If you'd asked maybe a year ago, I'd have said my favorite H/D fic was `Brief Interval before the Resumption of Play' by Audrey. It is lyrical, focused, and... really hot. It also broke my heart into a million tiny pieces by the end when I first read it; and besides, it wasn't a WIP.

H/D was always about the raw, unleashed passion for me. I suppose I really don't care about the "plot" or even the characterization, as long as the intensity is there, and the angst (etc) is well-written. And most people... don't deliver. To me, the pairing doesn't quite work if it's not... somewhat insane, all-consuming, ragged and always on the verge of collapse. I don't care what clever rationalization the fic comes up with for -why- Draco is now "worthy" of Harry (or vice versa!) It turns me off, if anything. Everyone wants to -explain- somehow, and that's just so fruitless. You can never explain these insane sorts of things. You can't show how Draco's "better" now, thus Harry would want him. Doesn't work that way.

I think I read mostly for emotion. Nothing feels -real- to me unless the emotional index is high, and the sense of emotional urgency is there. I think I'm like some sort of emotional high junkie or something, but with H/D it doesn't -work- any other way. Draco doesn't -work- for me if he's not burning alive inside, if it's not a humorfic.

I'm trying to read `A Thousand Beautiful Things', and honestly... eh. I could take it or leave it, and I haven't even finished the first chapter. Everyone goes on about the nice mature style & plottiness of the recent finished H/D novels, but who cares about mature style? I can always read published authors if I wanted to. I read fanfic because of my emotional investment, I guess, and it doesn't get fulfilled by reasonable characterizations and plausible conclusions.

Audrey's fic is great 'cause it celebrates the implausible. It's like a lovepoem, the whole way through, except... not. I want that burning bittersweet ephemeral thing. That kick. That sense of hopeless yearning. What's a love story if it doesn't rip you open?

So what should I read? I haven't read `Tissue of Silver' or `Transfigurations' or `Invisible to See'. I'm painfully tired of seeing Draco described as "noble" or having it be Post-Hogwarts so we don't have to deal with messy nastiness or underage wizards or whatever. I want messy nastiness, dammit. Wah.

Comments

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

My love for Audrey is pure and true -- she was my first friend in fandom, btw! -- so when I say that I don't think the structure in A Brief Interval is very strong, I don't mean this as an insult. Because I don't think it was meant to be.

The fic was written and posted as a WIP, and I don't think it was planned start to finish. It was written in Audrey's first burst of love for H/D, out of the sheer enjoyment of fanfic (which we'd all just discovered) and H/D and of writing again (since Audrey is one of the few trained writers amongst us). The entire thing was written and posted very quickly ... as I think she wrote in one of her author's notes, she was getting up hours before work just because she was so excited to get those words on the page. And she never went back and reworked it -- she just moved on to Speak, Desire.

Which similarly was written simply for the pleasure of it, and when Audrey lost that pleasure (for RL reasons), she never returned to the fic.

So what I like about it are the details (like Audrey's descriptions of Quidditch, hahaha *<3s baseball slash*), and her voice, and the characterizations, and of course the incredible writing. I don't look to it to follow a strong narrative thread or to be well-paced on a macro-level (the individual scenes are well-paced, though), because I don't think that was something she was even really thinking about all that much -- she was just taking pleasure in the writing and the words, and well the H/D ANGEST & PANE, which we all are a sucker for.

I try to read fics in context. (Note: I try. I didn't say I always succeed. Or even very often.) Even IP, which I have a low opinion of because of the characterizations and the style ... at that point, there was a lot of purple prose in fandom, and it's not fair to read fics written at that time the same way we do now, because writers weren't holding each other to the same standards.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I totally get that, 'cause I've written so much fic in the beginning that I didn't bother ever even reading over later, just because I couldn't -not- write H/D. I -had- to. A lot. heheh And I read `Brief Interval' within that period, too, and... mmm, I could -feel- "the vibe". Y'know? That -vibe-. I can always tell when it's there, when a writer really -gets- the emotional -thing-, eheheh. That's what I really always want. I think the writer's passion translates pretty well into the characters' own emotional intensity.

I think I've become a bit too jaded in the stuff I look for. Like, I -say- I just want the feeling, but... I've spent so long meta-analyzing everything, heh. I can still enjoy most things I enjoyed before 'cause I do remember the context pretty clearly-- that's why I still enjoy remembering IP, 'cause I always have the memory of staying up all night for the first time, completely and utterly spell-bound. It was my first H/D Angest & Pane fic (Ivy's & Erin's were like, the only fics I'd read before IP). I remember my t00by woe. I remeber being on the edge of my seat, realizing how much I -need- them to be together. Why oh why art thou so cruel, Draco?!?!

Hee.

I like mentioning IP 'cause like... no one mentions it anymore, ahahah. I have this perverse need to beat a dead horse, or something >:D

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

IP is the slashfic that made me bleed. (stayed at home too long reading a long-awaited chapter, in a hurry to get to my concert fell off my bike and ended up having to have the girl next to me turn the pages on my score because I'd just get blood all over it.) I feel it's appropriate given the Angest and Pane. ;)