Comments | obsession_inc: Nothing Better

obsession_inc

Nothing Better

Sep 12, 2006 06:55

title: Nothing Better
author: obsession_inc
characters/pairing: Jim/Pam, Pam/Roy, Pam/Katy
rating: PG-13
length: 11,500 words
summary: She just wishes this was enough. She doesn't know why it isn't.

Sequel to Gut Remodel. Much thanks to annakovsky, kyrafic, and honey_wheeler for beta, encouragement, and entirely too much meta discussion ( Read more... )

jim and roy, fic, jim/pam, the office, pam/roy

Comments 47

(The comment has been removed)

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 14:36:18 UTC

This has made my morning. Thank you!

cleversimon September 12 2006, 14:34:10 UTC

I've only just started this-expect a longer, more flustered comment in fifteen minutes or so-but YOU SAID ZERBERT. <3 <3 <3 <3

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 14:37:14 UTC

Doesn't everybody? ::g::

cleversimon September 12 2006, 15:14:57 UTC

I actually don't have that much more to say, but I'm going to try, because this was so good it deserves something.

Pam's dissatisfaction with her life, she just breathes it. Every single detail from her POV is something wrong, something askew, something inferior, not-quite-right. I feel bad for her at the same time I want to smack her in the head and remind her she can fix it.

I really liked Roy here. I would hang out and watch UFC with Roy. It's not his fault that he doesn't understand, and she shouldn't punish him for that. There wouldn't be any point to it, so she just lets it go.-That sums up Roy, who's sweet but kind of dumb as far as women go, and Pam, who's dumb as far as her own life goes. It's the mantra of we Roy-apologists that he's not a bad guy, just not right for Pam. I think canon backs that up, and this fic nails that canonical imbalance.

That one, and this one: Jim and Pam? Not actually that perfect for each other, either. They're both great people, and Jim is a better match for her than Roy, but he's not perfect ( ... )

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 15:35:11 UTC

My ex-boyfriends' ears are not burning, but I won't say the same for those of a number of my friends.

Thank you so much for this! I'm delighted to hear that the themes behind it came through, although I'm very surprised that the Pam/Katy tension ended up taking a flirty turn. You may have something there.

Oh, Jim, Pam and Roy. None of them perfect, none of them inhumanly gorgeous, they're just all people and I love them all so much. There's no perfect answer, which is what makes the triangle so difficult; it's hard to contemplate leaving one imperfect relationship when you can't believe that another one would turn out much better.

Thank you again. This kind of feedback makes me hop up and down and do the happy dance!

agate September 12 2006, 17:30:57 UTC

Okay I haven't had a chance to read the shiny sparkly final version yet (STUPID WORK KICKING MY ASS SDSFFJKJHASD) but I just wanted to pop in and say yay, it's posted! Woo hoo!

::does a cheer for you::

Real feedback forthcoming.

agate September 12 2006, 20:32:39 UTC

Real feedback this time and let me just start by saying YOU WIN AT OFFICE FIC. Truly truly. This is just so entirely marvelous, there's not a false move anywhere with the characters, the setting, the pacing, the prose, it just all hangs together so beautifully and says so much about these people. And then of course the little details like Katy's teeth-showing mouth-open smile (which, yes, Amy Adams, exactly), and Roy shaking his brother by the neck, and of course you already know how I feel about the bathrobe belt simile and the LITTLE PIECE OF ONION. And the transition into Pam and Katy's conversation is handled with such incredible delicacy--do you know what I would give for your sense of pacing? Man. Anyway, it rocks--you win--love love--and you are never allowed to stop writing office fic, the end.

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 20:54:02 UTC

::dies happy::

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Oh, man, this is awesome feedback. I am all aflutter. ::hugs::

agate September 12 2006, 21:17:23 UTC

::squeezes::

Also, I have a rec for your rec page: THIS!!!

Thread 5

zarahemla September 12 2006, 18:32:22 UTC

I have to say this is about the best office fic I have ever read. I honestly can't think of one better right now. You made everyone so genuine, so real, that the coil Pam's gotten herself into hits the reader really really hard ( ... )

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 19:39:55 UTC

Wow. WOW. Thank you! (Bonus points for "cromulence!") This was an excellent thing to come back to after lunch. Wow. I'm so glad you liked it!

The GI Joes came courtesy of my husband, when I asked him why a little boy would dig a hole in the yard. He can still rattle off the names of all his Joes and talk endlessly about which of them were cool and which weren't.

The guys in this fic were actually more fun to write than Pam and Katy, in a way, because there's some sort of unspoken guy communication going on between Jim and Roy and Darryl about Jim having to prove that he's there to hang out with them, not with Pam. I love guys being guys, as frustrating as they are; there's just so much goofy artlessness about them, even the best of them.

So, so glad you liked it. Thanks for the great feedback!

zarahemla September 13 2006, 02:43:19 UTC

I think your husband and my husband should really get together :D

obsession_inc September 13 2006, 03:39:01 UTC

Dear God, no. I have enough on my plate already, kthnx.

greenfish September 12 2006, 21:30:22 UTC

This was definitely all kinds of fantastic and made my afternoon go so much faster here. I am a huge fan of details and this did not disappoint. Jim & the food on the counter --? WOW. I was so waiting for that part of the story so we could hear stuff like that. You know it's so true, too. You end up with someone thinking they're just "it" and it's so happy for a while and then ... oh, and then, the quirks. The little things about them that drive you up a wall. It's just reality...

And Roy, I liked Roy in this story. He was very real and not a bad guy, just not really intune to what's going on with Pam. I couldn't believe how caustic Pam was in the beginning, too, I was really getting mad at her, I wanted to tell her just to chill out, relax, open up. I understand Roy being who he is, and I respect that; I think Pam having to have her separate lives is cowardly in a sense, and that is definitely a part of Pam.

Excellent work... I'd love to read more stories (related or unrelated) in this "universe," so to speak.

obsession_inc September 12 2006, 23:06:08 UTC

Thank you so much! I know I tend more towards Pam's side of the privacy spectrum than Roy's, so knowing that the story still worked for folks on the other side of the spectrum is just fantastic.

Anything else in this 'verse will have to wait, I'm afraid; I've been tagged for some of the stories in the Warning Labels series that honey_wheeler started, so that'll be where I'll be hanging out for a while. Hope you'll like those, too!