(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

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

In defense of ATBT, I don't think anyone *is* trying to sell you on the style. We're saying no more or less than it's a good story.

If you'll read my rec and Isiscolo's (specifically ours because we were her beta's) you'll noticed we emphasized plot and characterization. I'm really sorry you didn't make it through the first chapter because I think it's a really good story, drawing on a lot of other classic really good stories--it remained as engrossing a read for me all three times that I read it during the beta process.

I would never say that Viki's style is fully mature or that anybody's style is fully mature, but that wouldn't keep me from reading a good story. I liked the story behind her first fic The Waters of March, I thought it was inventive even though I thought it was a flawed fic.

I have to say, you throw me off in your post when you first say you want things to be real, then turn around and praise Audrey for her 'implausibility.' This is all implausible; the tones of certain fics tend to be more surreal than others, A Brief Interval definitely among their number; but everything we read here is dwelling on fantasy to some extent. If you found ATBT to be indulgent, what makes it more so for what it was trying to achieve than, say, "Still Life" by Amalin or anything by Silvia or Maya?

I have no idea what MSASness, but I think that if you're concerned about the aspects of the fic telling-not-showing (inasmuch as you only got past chapter one), those are concerns to consider addressing directly to the author. She takes criticism well.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

what MSASness is, rather.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Mostly... I haven't put an Z on ATBT or anything-- I finished the first chapter & am willing to read more, 'cause while her Draco pains me, I do want to make a reasoned opinion, and as you said, I can't do it right now. I mean, I wasn't actually critiquing the fic in this post at all-- I only mentioned my issues in passing in a comment to malafede, y'know? I was actually -trying- not to say anything about it since I haven't read all of it. All I said was that I could "take it or leave it", which isn't a review.

MSAS = Mature Self-Aware Sensitive Draco; basically fanon!Draco, but I dislike "fanon" since it's such a blanket sweeping term, really. You yourself didn't dispute that he's fanon, right? Well, as I've said, that sort of trips me up a lot more than it used to. In fact, it's -painful- for me to read a Draco that is "slightly irritated" by Potter (though I can't tell if it deals with OoTP yet or not, that doesn't even matter-- I don't think Draco was "slightly irritated" even in first year). I mean, not to mention the difficulty I have seeing the amount of reasonableness and thoughtfulness (apparently, Draco likes to think things through), that he's displayed in this first chapter. I mean, I dunno, does this characterization change significantly? That's why I asked you :>

It was unclear what issue I had with the fic from this post 'cause I consciously -didn't- talk about the fic-- 'cause I haven't read all of it. So... yes, my issue was simply Draco. No plot or style or anything is as important to me as a main (pov) character I can empathize with or believe in. Same thing happened to me reading OoTP, for example. I -appreciated- all the plotty non-Harry stuff, but it was basically take-it-or-leave-it. I'm there for Harry (because he's the pov character), and that's what makes or breaks the books for me. So it's a question of what I'm reading for.

I suppose I did generalize and say I read for "emotion", but it's my impression Draco's emotional make-up that bothered me. Or rather, the fact that he seemed more rationally than emotionally based (at that turning point when he was 16 or whatever, which is such a central time to get right).

When I say "realism", I mean emotional realism. The level of actual plot realism doesn't matter, and I do like fantasy best. With Maya and Silvia, my judgements are different because they write humorfic and play up the camp & the absurd-- UL isn't really full-on drama, and neither is most of the stuff Silvia wrote. Even so, I find UL to retain that central core of passionate!Draco (or passionate!Harry, since he's the all-important pov character mostly) that I latch on to.

I didn't mean "fully mature", I just meant what malafede said-- more mature than "normal", thus it gets some attention for that (besides being plotty & finished). If someone who writes on a higher level (like Resonant) writes H/D, there's a lot of response, it seems to me, merely because a more controlled voice actually wrote this pairing and this fandom, or something. Slightly bitter, don't mind me :>

I want things to be emotionally real, and what I like about Audrey is that she doesn't try to over-explain the attraction, the very nature of their emotions. To me, things are more "real" if they're more... insane & unexplainable, especially when it comes to H/D. GeovIki kept on explaining Draco's thought-processes, showing how B follows A and C follows B, and so on, thus giving me the mental opportunity to sit there and argue with her conclusions. Audrey never posited any theories about the nature of Harry or Draco's psyches that I remember, so I just swallowed things whole and depended on their chemistry & emotions to guide my responses.

So it wasn't that it was indulgent, really, just that it was overly rational & clean for Draco (not to mention reasonably-evil!Lucius) :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...er... put an X on ATBT ^^;