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May. 27th, 2004 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaIf 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.
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.
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Date: 2004-05-27 04:43 pm (UTC)*opens mouth*
*closes mouth again*
*walks away confused.*
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Date: 2004-05-28 07:44 am (UTC)Why? Have you not read Transfigurations? That's exactly what happens in it.
>:D<
I love Resonant's writing generally, and stylistically and plotwise, it's hard to find a flaw in Transfigurations, but I honestly remain dumbfounded at the liberties she took with characterization, and the way people seem to just adore a story that seems so uncanonical to me. Gah. Don't get me started.
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Date: 2004-05-28 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 10:07 am (UTC)This is why some days I wonder why I bother writing fanfic because I just feel so out of step with what people like. Especially because in addition to the characterization issues I have with the story, I have what I guess could be called moral/philosophical ones as well, since every person who has died before the story begins is still present in the story as a ghost or a statue and thus still interacts with the characters, gives them advice, etc. So there is no attempt to come to grips with actual loss at all.
I find that really disturbing. I don't think that fits with JKR's universe, and ... well ... it certainly doesn't fit with mine. I find that as freakish and upsetting as other people find chan, actually. (I had a similar reaction to Tiranog's "A Nick In Time," and that author is someone who constantly preaches to other people about morality and "senseless dark torture wallow fests," so there you go.)
Also, the magic works as -- as I think idlerat put it -- "computerfic." But I realize this is the sort of elaboration that a lot of folks actually enjoy in fanfic ... whereas Geoviki's version seemed more in line with canon to me.
I actually had a different set of issues with Geoviki's fic, but I think a lot of them came down to likes/dislikes. I mean, it's easy for me to make fun of a story that has Draco working as a male model. But then I realized that as somebody whose biggest kink is prostitute!Draco, I really wasn't one to talk. :D
diving off topic.
Date: 2004-05-28 10:47 am (UTC)You've hit the nail on the head for me here, S, which is that I think different fics call for acceptance on different terms. If I think a fic is worthy of respect because it's written well and has an imaginative plot and well-thought-out characterization, then I can accept it on its own terms, whether that fic is Viki's alternate-view of male model Draco, or whether it's the surreality of a fic like A Brief Interval or Rach's Contrition.
For me Transfiguration didn't work because it set up terms I couldn't accept: it worked as a fic stylistically, and plot-wise it was fine; but it was asking me to accept it as a post-canon depiction of canon characters; and I just couldn't do that. It was too much of a stretch.
Also, for the same reasons that I can't accept the terms of Frances' Resolution as it has developed, I don't feel that I can criticize Frances' story as it has developed; because I feel like she's simply and unapologetically writing a different story than the one I want to read. I could view it as a certain kind of fic that is very very flawed--or as a certain other kind of fic that is quite good. I think that Resolution is the latter kind of fic, but I refuse to accept the terms of that particular kind of fic; so obviously I'm not about to criticize something whose terms I haven't accepted.
A fic like Transfigurations, however, asks more of me in many respects than a fic like Resolution does; and when I've done the work on my end as a reader and met the author halfway, but it still can't convince me that its universe is real, then I view it as a flawed fic.
It seems to me that Reena has chosen not to accept the terms of Viki's fic as you did and as I did as we were reading it. That's fine; but I honestly don't think that if she only got through a chapter of it that she has gained the position or perspective to critique it, or to decide what kind of fic it is. Failure to accept a fic on its terms means you have exerted a very subjective preliminary judgment on the fic as a whole without bothering to delve into it fully to see how much merit your judgments have. And I know that whenever I, personally, do that, I stand in no position to critique the author of the fic or the fic itself. And I don't try.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 01:28 pm (UTC)I think it's that rentboy!Draco is more of a characterization thing (like, he's a desperate, slutty bottom-boy or whatever), whereas all the modeling implies is that he's vain (but not necessarily desperate or bottomy). So it's like, not as convincing. Anything that involves desperate-bottom!Draco is well... convincing :D
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Date: 2004-05-29 01:58 am (UTC)Nothing laughable there, man. You are very correct.
*is slave of own kinks*
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Date: 2004-05-28 01:39 pm (UTC)So it's not that it's SO BAD this is out there, but that's strange having it be so famous and considered, like, standard.
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Date: 2004-05-29 02:00 am (UTC)Ahahah, I think I'm still high from yesterday. Yes, I know, TMI.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 01:57 am (UTC)Right there with you! Actually, rentboy Draco is very canonical! >:O Nothing to apologize for.