Yay for bad fanfiction?

[tenlittlebullets]

Visa interview did not go well due to an incident of "Um you have the wrong document, you were supposed to print the other confirmation message," and then the site containing the message was having some sort of server trouble and wouldn't load. So I have to wait for it to go back up again and make another appointment. I could recite the details of the three hours of utter frustration and fury, but honestly after everything that's gone pear-shaped in the past two weeks I just don't have the energy.

Anyway. I went back and read all my old fanfiction this evening. I kind of want to shake my eighteen-year-old self now, because even then I was annoyed with the trend of vague, aimless fic that won't come right out and say what it's about, and makes the reader work far too hard to figure it out instead of leaving clear textual cues. And yet somehow I still wrote a bunch of fic where the point was buried somewhere in all the hinting and beating around the bush, and so I ended up with a bunch of reviews either accusing me of writing stereotypical Enjolras/Grantaire fic or squealing about how adorable E/R is.

So, because my eighteen-year-old self apparently couldn't get the point across, I am going to come back three years later and do it for her. Warning: self-indulgent rambling about my own fic ahead.

Stains: Reads like a stereotypical E/R fic, but even then I was trying to riff off the usual tropes. In this case, Enjolras is repressed and disgusted and wary of Grantaire because he has some unspecified incident of sexual abuse in his past and thinks R is trying to pull the same shit on him, not because he's a prude who needs to get the stick out of his arse.

Geständnis: Pretty direct for the most part, but I wish I'd found some way to get across that not only is it about human justice vs. divine justice, it's about how the entire reason I find Gestapo!Javert such a fascinating idea is because the law/justice rift we see in 1830 isn't so much a rift now as it is a HUGE GAPING CHASM.

Bedfellows: I have nothing to say except "LOL, even in 2005 I was playing with the 'Enjolras: top or bottom?' debate."

Fulfilment: I... think it should speak for itself, but apparently it doesn't, because it has a load of E/R squee in the reviews. Grantaire admires Enjolras for being everything he isn't. Enjolras has a hackneyed-fanfic-trope moment of weakness and samples all of Grantaire's vices. Grantaire no longer admires Enjolras. How could anyone mistake this for happy fun "yay R gets to kiss Enjy!" shippy fic?

Sons of Earth: "All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers." The dream imagery isn't actually random rambling, it's cooked up from a horrid brain stew of Antaeus, Jacob wrestling the angel, and Luke Skywalker in the cave on Dagobah. I would've been happy if one person had picked out one of these elements, but apparently not.

Comments

[mmebahorel.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm going to knock on your 18 year old self.

Sons of Earth is of course Antaeus - but what's the point? No, seriously, what's the point? Is Combeferre utterly creeped out? Does he keep thinking about it? Does he push it aside? Is it really bloody obvious to him, too, and so he just sighs and goes "even a fortuneteller could analyse that one" and go one with his day or his death?

I think this is why I never really did drabbles except for gleamswhichpass. It has to be a very precise vignette, and I think in novels.

But did people really squee over Fulfillment? I mean, it's really obvious, and thus obviously depressing.

Of course, if you ever feel a need to make your eyes bleed, read any of my old fic. Many of the sins of the fandom, plus bad writing. (Les Amis is really really bad. I couldn't keep skimming it the other day because it was just so bad.)

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

Re: Sons of Earth, I don't know. *g* It was for a flashfic prompt and I hacked it out in ten minutes or so, which is why it has no context, just me sitting there thinking "goddamn I hate fanon pacifist Combeferres, but this is exactly the kind of crap his subconscious would dredge up." I suppose it could work as a prelude to the artillery sergeant incident.

And yes, people squeed over Fulfilment. Apparently it was not obvious enough. Either that or everyone has been so conditioned to "Enjolras breaks down after a bad day" as an excuse for E/R snuggling that anything even resembling that premise will be selectively read to make it shippy.

Which... kind of sucks, because as a premise it only goes so far--as emotional porn it's pretty, but it doesn't really engage with their Issues, and will eventually either turn OOC or run up against the brick wall of "Grantaire's thing for Enjolras is mostly founded on admiration, and a debauched Enjolras loses most of the qualities R admires."

I usually think in one-shots but I have a couple novel-length ideas floating around. Or at least multi-chapter. One of which involves the comparatively-simple but never-written idea that Enjolras and Grantaire were in fact romantically involved back when both of them were too young and stupid and infatuated to get to know each other as people, and it ended when Enjolras figured out that Grantaire was a hopeless degenerate and Grantaire found out that Enjolras cared more about politics. Someone's probably used it as backstory (and it would make a shockingly good explanation for the tone of their interactions in canon), but I have this niggling urge to see it fleshed out right up to the moment where R crawls into bed drunk off his ass and begs Enjolras to pay off his gambling debts and Enjolras decides this is over. XD

(Sorry for the rambling, am slightly tipsy. Which does not happen as often as our trips to Wisdom might suggest, but dammit I've had a crappy day.)

[josiana.livejournal.com]

D: Sorry about your interview.

And um, I think perhaps sometimes are people are grateful for E!/R, in any form and don't make that clear.

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

But... some of the reviews are disturbing! D: Like "the plot is hardly cliche, enjy's got to break some time, and when he does, Grantaire will be there." Which... no, no he doesn't, and Grantaire will probably be there going "O_O what closet have you stuffed the real Enjolras into?"

[josiana.livejournal.com]

That's true. :( I was trying to be optimistic, though.