fic: I Wondered When Your Countenance Would Change (From Sunshine and Vanilla to the Raven Tones of

[adellyna]

So I wrote this, like, forever ago. At least a month, but I never posted it because I thought it was kind of self-indulgent and, in general, I don't really feel like I have a valuable contribution to make to the angstscape, so it's just been lurking in my gmail account, waiting to rear its ugly head and call me names

Comments

[channonyarrow]

I am having a hard time not saying that "sometimes this is how it should be portrayed in fandom" because that's not the point. But it kind of is, to me. I mean, sunshine, roses, Bob Bryar fixing unicorns - but it's a female world and we, as a gender, like happy endings, particularly to romances. This is not merely me being sexist, you know I work as an editor and I have lots that I can say on the nature of "girl" books versus "boy" books, but I'm throwing that in as a "I am a professional" disclaimer in case anyone reads this comment.

That drive shows up a lot in fanfic, for obvious reasons, but we do write in a fantasy world - sometimes to the wrong ends: however much I love fanfic, I don't like when stories include real, canonical elements such as using the name of Mikey and Alicia's real pets in a story that's got Mikey off with someone else entirely - and I do like it when people take off the soft edges because those edges are the things that say that we are most living in a fantasy - life is not perfect, not for these people that we admire and like and adore and not for us either. So you may have written and posted this to get rid of your own anger and frustration and emo, but that doesn't mean that you should apologise for writing it.

I like the story very much, and not just because it's taking off the nice fantasy edges. I hope your stuff gets better soon.

And of course I saw this as I posted...

[channonyarrow]

By "stuff" I don't mean "writing". I was going to say "I hope your emo gets better soon" but that seemed excessively like you were making shit up or something. Then I was going to say "I hope your life gets better soon", but that sounded like I was saying you were somehow doing something wrong. So by "stuff" I mean "whatever made you angry and need to post this and to apologise for posting it" needs to get better soon.

[adellyna]

Like, there's a lot of fic that treats things pretty realistically! I assume, anyway. I try not to read it, because it makes me sad.

Thanks so much for reading it! It's just. Like, it's just shameless misery, and I know it.