sort of fic review

[silvia_elisa]

Happy Valentine's Day, awesome people who are reading this!

On the subject of romance, I was listening to this episode of Spellcast, and they read a story featuring Rose and Scorpius.

*SPOILER ALERT*

A Fresh Start, by Magnolia Mama.Just in case you wanted to read the thing before I spilled the beans in here

Comments

[silvia_elisa]

Ahah! I gathered she didn't ship D/Hr, which is just another reason why I disagreed with that description. I loved her style, as I said, and I was really looking forward to hearing the hosts' ideas on the story... I'm a little disappointed that the conversation dealt only with the ship. I know it's supposed to be in the Astronomy Tower at FA, but...

I don't know, I'm still undecided on the shipping part of Next Gen... I like vague better atm, I still see the characters a bit frozen in their children selves and general fics also tend to analyse stuff that would otherwise be discarded in a ship-centric fic.

Ah, I slept on it, but I'm not any closer to having made up my mind. It's really strange to listen to a review instead of reading it...

[dracodew17]

I know a lot of people see Scorpius/Rose as Draco/Hermione without all the prejudice and the war to get in the way, but honestly, I don't understand the fascination some people have with the next-gen kids. They're basically blank slates because we don't know anything about their characters. You can say, "but we know tons about their parents" however, not everyone develops the same traits as their parents. I am nothing like either one of my parents and I actually look almost exactly like my grandmother when she was my age

[silvia_elisa]

I actually look almost exactly like my grandmother when she was my age.

You know, me too. And the thought scares me because she's a very jealous woman, which I never pegged myself as!

On to the fandom stuff.

I'm not overly fascinated by the next generation, as in I'm not ready to move past Harry's generation yet, I don't feel like I've thoroughly explored that pack of characters yet. That being said, the very reason why I subscribed to the podcast was to broaden my fanfiction horizons instead of focusing just on what I like.

A while back I confessed I cheat on Draco and Hermione with Draco/Asteria fics from time to time. I have no idea why I started, but I think it was because my mind went like 'JKR gave Draco someone other than Pansy? Why the heck would she do that? She doesn't even like him! This girl must be something special...' :) (yes, I talk to myself). And she's a complete and utter blank slate too. Well, of course she is! But as I tried to show in the essay I wrote for my class, we really don't know much about the Malfoys

[strawberrimelon]

(This is going to be a little muse rant here. I'm just going to get this out of my system. Don't read if you don't want to! XD)

I read the comments here and the one above says how Next Gen characters are basically written in OOC fics.

I don't want to start an epic battle or anything, but I disagree with this. The entire magical world and all the characters of JKR are the essence of Next Gen fics. They need to be there to give a setting. Children do resemble their parents and we see that in the DH epilogue. The fact that they are almost blank slates gives us the chance to interpret them and write a cocky!Scorpius or a shy!Scorpius. It's fun and not so out-there. No, they're not their parents, but from what we know of them, authors use their imagination and create more rounded personalities

[strawberrimelon]

Hahahaa, and Happy Valentine's Day to you too! <3
(^^I thought I had typed this at the beginning. XD)

[silvia_elisa]

Good morning, Mia, and happy Valentine's Day! ♥

This replies will be slow, because I'm still confused/on the fence about the subject at hand. Anyway, here we go.

Yes, please, let's not start an epic battle, not on this lovely day.
- I said I resemble my grandmother, but I also resemble my mother a lot. In the town where I live, nobody questions who I am, they take one look at me and 'Oh, you must be Laura's daughter!' :) and there are some things, at least according to Mum, that I do exactly the way my father would have done... and he's not here to influence my personality, so it must be genetics.
- Scorose?! Who came up with that? :D And here I thought Dramionaise sounded funny...
- I think we should differentiate between the Mary-Sue issue and the OOC one. We write fanfiction, so although we have read 7 books on the subject, none of the characters are as well developed in our minds as they are in JKR's, hence the slight OOC-ness you talked about. What we can avoid is under-characterising the characters and slipping a perfect

[strawberrimelon]

Happy <3 Day to you too, dear. :D

- I think nature (genetics) and nurture (environment, society) both play a role in shaping a person. So fanfic writers just use that.
- Lol, Scorose. I'd like to think I came up with it, but I'm not sure. There's only so much you can do with a name like Scorpius. XD
- What you said was absolutely correct. JKR's mind is filled with so much more than the books and we can't even hope to achieve such detail in the characters, so...we write little branches of thoughts that stem from the books. :]

I'm so glad! I really didn't want to offend you in any way. Hearing people's opinions are a great way to broaden one's perspective, I think. So it's all nice. I sometimes read D/H, but only the not-so-intense kind. And pupil/teacher wears me out as well.

Another time I'll be waiting for, that is. :)

[leopion]

Honestly, I've never read Next Gen fic. Motsly because a part of me agree with dracodew17's arguement, or maybe I agree with a part of her arguement. I mean, I always love to see how characters are developed from different angles, in diverse ways, and building up a next-gen character from the knowledge about his/her parents can be considered one of those too. I agree, we're not the copies of our parents, but we're influenced by them genetically and in our everyday life if we happen to spend enough time together. Seeing how a parent's personality can affect their children and how a child can develop a totally different trait from their parents is kinda fascinating to me, too; but it just seems too vague compared to seeing how the characters, the actions that we've already 'known' are interpreted. That's said, I'd prefer exploring the personalities of characters in Harry's generation as their actions are seen (though just in Harry's view so it still leaves plenty of room for imagination). No offence but these characters are just so potential

[silvia_elisa]

I wanted to quote every line of your comment! There's definitely a whole wide world of possibilities with just the characters of Harry's generation! Next Gen to me is a bit like the Marauders' Era, it's nice to read a small snippet every once in a while, if it's well-written, but that's it. I don't go looking for those fics.

That being said, I have a tendency to underdevelop my secondary characters; I just thrown them in there and leave them to fend for themselves. Hence the reason I subscribed to Spellcast, HPFF and MNFF's podcasts, because general fanfiction is a great help in making me know those characters I have standing on the sidelines. On that account, we need more Draco-centric gen fics! I had a hard time researching for my essay because he always seems to be paired up with someone, and I ended up getting distracted by the dramione goodness out there. :P

Yes, this post seems to have ignited the 'long-comment' mode in all of us. *g*

[silvia_elisa]

Noooooo! I had just replied to this and something happened! Stupid LJ....

I basically wanted to quote your entire comment, because every line, I agreed. Next Gen to me is a bit like the Marauders' Era fanfiction... it's cute and nice to read if I stumble upon it, if it's well written and most importantly, if it's gen. I am not too good at developing my secondary characters, which is why I started listening to various podcasts about fanfiction; gen fics are exactly what I need to understand the characters I throw on the sidelines more. On that account, there aren't enough Draco-centric gen fics! I was going crazy when I was writing my paper Hamlet/Draco because he always seems to be paired up, and I would get distracted whenever I found a D/Hr fic... :P

Mmm...... I don't remember what else I had written apart from saying that this post seems to have ignited the 'long comment' mode in all of us!

[leopion]

LJ seemed to have done it again :P
Anyway, I think I have to start listening to those podcasts now. They're definitely interesting, and I won't have to read my eyes out in the process (My mum is always complaining that at this rate I'll probably be blind by 30, lol)

[terrayn]

I'm not too crazy about nextgen for the reasons you mentioned, usually they're mini-Draco and mini-Rose, except the romance is less omg!forbidden! And then there's the problem that every nextgen story is just a story populated by OCs. I read fanfiction for the characters I love. But there was this one Al/Scorpius story that was brilliant. Haha, it's funny but I'm more lax about reading nextgen or slight OOCness in slash than in het or gen. Hmm...

What is this er...spellcast thing?

[silvia_elisa]

I read fanfiction for the characters I love.

Too true! :) It was nice to see the kids in the Epilogue, and I'm glad we have names to avoid coming across out-of-this-world names in fanfiction when the characters have children, but that's about it.

Ahah! Okay, so, Spellcast is Fiction Alley's fanfiction podcast. It's on hiatus since Azkatraz, but what they do is they basically choose a fanfic one of the hosts liked, their amazing reader brings it to life with her voice, and then they discuss it. It's like a book club, for HP fanfiction. And it's nice to listen to the fic instead of reading it for once, I enjoy it more and Gwendolyn Grace (the reader) does such a good job with accents!

[terrayn]

Wow. An audiobook then! That sounds really interesting. I'm one of those impatient people who like reading at the speed of light to know what happens next so I've always found audiobooks too slow. But I will be sure to check it out!

[silvia_elisa]

*facepalm* Audiobook! Of course!

I'm like that too, which is partly the reason why I went looking for this kind of thing in the first place. :P I'm too lazy to slow down on my own.