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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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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.