Start and Tremble (Felicity/Pippa)
Title: Start and Tremble
Pairing: Felicity/Pippa
Spoilers: post-A Great & Terrible Beauty; could fit in pretty much anywhere in Rebel Angels or The Sweet Far Thing
Word Count: 2,564
Rating: PG-13
Summary: My dust would hear her and beat, had I lain for a century dead. Felicity ponders many things, but mostly Pippa.
Author's Note: GOD, WRITING FEELS ( Read more... )
Pairing: Felicity/Pippa
Spoilers: post-A Great & Terrible Beauty; could fit in pretty much anywhere in Rebel Angels or The Sweet Far Thing
Word Count: 2,564
Rating: PG-13
Summary: My dust would hear her and beat, had I lain for a century dead. Felicity ponders many things, but mostly Pippa.
Author's Note: GOD, WRITING FEELS ( Read more... )
There is a part of Felicity that wants to poke fun at her because of it. ‘Come now, Ann, you take up more room than the rest of us. Claim what’s yours, won’t you?’
I can actually picture these words coming out of Felicity's mouth, that is how perfect they are. The slight is just on this side of too sharp and carries the slightly acidic sting of boredom and needless cruelty that Felicity has the market on.
Surely the guests would titter admiringly; oh, Admiral Worthington, what a clever man, how smart of him to get what use he could out of his headstrong little whore of a daughter who surely will never be good for much else, who curtseys well but would rather be wearing trousers and you can spot such oddities around the edges, and where’s the place for a woman like her in a world like ours.
This bit is so nauseatingly creepy, not only because of the things it brings up (rape, the worth of women, homophobia, repression) but because I can actually sort of see that happening. And - most of all - I think a large part of Felicity can see that happening. Mad props, Hannah J.
“It must be so horrible, mustn’t it?” Pippa asked, giggling madly. “Like big nasty slugs at battle! Oh, I can’t even imagine!”
Oh my Lord, you have AGATB Pippa down so good! We see Pippa through Gemma's eyes, so she sometimes comes out tragic but mostly just ridiculous and somewhat deluded. And here, she really isn't. You see her as this sad, romantic girl who would rather live in fantasy than face reality because of her stifling, terrible fear, as someone lovely and naive, prone to fits of petulance, but utterly devoted to her best friend. And the very best thing about it is that you've changed almost nothing. Pippa's dialogue, the giggling, I can see it coming right from Libba Bray's pen, what you've changed is the minute details that change the lens that views her from Gemma to Felicity. A lot of time I feel that characters who are generally supposed to be foolish or just on this side of unlikeable have their personalities slightly warped by authors so that it's easier for the reader to root for them, but you didn't do that for Felicity OR Pippa. Their slightly ugly sides aren't hidden or erased, they're highlighted. The things that make you love them, like Pip's loyalty and Felicity's fierce determination, come out through the prose. And while we're on this topic, I love love love that you didn't make Felicity beautiful. One of the things that always annoys me about HP fic about Slytherins (for Slytherins are pretty much the only sector of the HP crew I read extensively about, YAY SNAKES) is that authors tend to make Pansy Parkinson miraculously beautiful, with model-esque legs and a perfect nose, even though Pansy Parkinson is NEVER GOING TO BE PRETTY. And then there are some who make her desirable through her attitude, because of the fact that she acts like a Pretty Girl even when she isn't. I think that's what you've done with Felicity, I've always imagined her as this sharp-featured girl who's just slightly too prickly to be considered lovely, but manages to enthrall men despite the fact. Well done.
JESUS CHRIST, I'VE RUN OUT OF SPACE AGAIN. I APOLOGIZE FOR MY EPIC TL;DR, HANNAH J.
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I love what you had to say about the subtle difference in the characters re: how things would look from Gemma's perspective versus how they'd look from Felicity's, because I had so much fun examining that, even though I think I must have been doing it unconsciously because I didn't really realize it 'til you mentioned it here! I know that right away I found myself in Fee headspace, and it was really neat and unexpected, because I don't think I quite realized 'til now that I have this many thoughts about her character, and they were all suddenly just pouring out like a crazy thought rampage! What was weird about writing this was that I could not get Gemma. Like, that was odd, especially when you've had like 2,000 pages from her point of view. It's sort of like, back when I wrote Harry Potter fic, I would always have the damndest time with Harry; maybe when that character is your lens to see the world through, it's hard to get an individual sense of them?
Also, true story, I started that sentence with something like "Felicity is beautiful," and then I had to stop, think about it, and delete it, because really, Felicity is attractive, and I think part of the reason why is that she isn't technically beautiful, and that's part of what makes her appeal so powerful. And that inspired lots more fun rambling, so yay for not Pansy-Parkinson-ing her, high five, my brain! (Seriously, people get beautiful out of her? Doesn't she canonically have, like, a pug face? Oh, fanfic.)
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