I read a story today and it hurt me...
/Crossposted to Fanficrants/
Two days ago I found the story on my beloved OTP, a quite rare pairing to start with, and now even more rare, as both of them are canonically dead.
"Wheee, I love you, author," I thought.
I discovered that it had a logical and creative plot, was as canon compliant as possible (with the understandable difference of my OTP being alive), and the erotica was brilliant. Did I mention that the fic was deliciously long? Over 100 thousand words, mind you.
"Wheee, I love you, author," I thought again.
Well... And then, after several wonderful chapters, the author decided that she'd like her puppets better if she turned one of them into an angsty, tortured, self-hating whipping boy and all the other characters into emotionally unstable abusive idiots, not able to remember their own motivations and opinions from mere days ago. Her aim? To make us love the poor misunderstood and despised woobie even more.
More specifically:
- He didn't have to be whipped by an abusive teacher at school.
- He needn't have been humiliated and shouted at in each and every chapter, by both sides of the war.
- The sexual abuse scene wasn't just unnecessary, it was out of character for both of them.
- Eating disorder? Puh-lease...
- His slight death wish might have been canonical, but the author took a personality trait and turned it into a pathetic tear-jerker.
And so on and on...
I felt cheated, you know? Character and relationship development does not equal OOC-ness and piling on improbable amounts of really pointless angst.
By the way, why so many authors forget that bisexual people in fact exist, huh?
If the character was decidedly heterosexual in canon (and he was!), I would suppose it'd be easier and more plausible to make them bi instead of homosexual. The fact that he once loved a woman does not diminish the value of his current relationship with a man, honestly!
Jeez, and the fic started as a really wonderful, creative idea. Not to mention that new fics with my beloved pairing are disappointingly rare now. Grrr.
And you know what? Despite all those drawbacks I couldn't stop reading. I raged at the psychological improbabilities, I sneered at the idiocies and still I read.
If the story had been a complete waste of time, I'd have left it unfinished, but in fact what made the whole experience that painful were its undeniable good parts.
Not to mention that no amount of beta would've fixed it, 'cause the angst *was* in fact the plot propeller. Ugh.
I like my Snack bitter and dark and slightly filthy but not without humour. I like it clever, plot-driven, adult and (I know, hardly possible) mostly canon compliant. I just ask for the impossible, don't I?
Two days ago I found the story on my beloved OTP, a quite rare pairing to start with, and now even more rare, as both of them are canonically dead.
"Wheee, I love you, author," I thought.
I discovered that it had a logical and creative plot, was as canon compliant as possible (with the understandable difference of my OTP being alive), and the erotica was brilliant. Did I mention that the fic was deliciously long? Over 100 thousand words, mind you.
"Wheee, I love you, author," I thought again.
Well... And then, after several wonderful chapters, the author decided that she'd like her puppets better if she turned one of them into an angsty, tortured, self-hating whipping boy and all the other characters into emotionally unstable abusive idiots, not able to remember their own motivations and opinions from mere days ago. Her aim? To make us love the poor misunderstood and despised woobie even more.
More specifically:
- He didn't have to be whipped by an abusive teacher at school.
- He needn't have been humiliated and shouted at in each and every chapter, by both sides of the war.
- The sexual abuse scene wasn't just unnecessary, it was out of character for both of them.
- Eating disorder? Puh-lease...
- His slight death wish might have been canonical, but the author took a personality trait and turned it into a pathetic tear-jerker.
And so on and on...
I felt cheated, you know? Character and relationship development does not equal OOC-ness and piling on improbable amounts of really pointless angst.
By the way, why so many authors forget that bisexual people in fact exist, huh?
If the character was decidedly heterosexual in canon (and he was!), I would suppose it'd be easier and more plausible to make them bi instead of homosexual. The fact that he once loved a woman does not diminish the value of his current relationship with a man, honestly!
Jeez, and the fic started as a really wonderful, creative idea. Not to mention that new fics with my beloved pairing are disappointingly rare now. Grrr.
And you know what? Despite all those drawbacks I couldn't stop reading. I raged at the psychological improbabilities, I sneered at the idiocies and still I read.
If the story had been a complete waste of time, I'd have left it unfinished, but in fact what made the whole experience that painful were its undeniable good parts.
Not to mention that no amount of beta would've fixed it, 'cause the angst *was* in fact the plot propeller. Ugh.
I like my Snack bitter and dark and slightly filthy but not without humour. I like it clever, plot-driven, adult and (I know, hardly possible) mostly canon compliant. I just ask for the impossible, don't I?