blatant and necessary pimping

[phineasjones]

the fics i read yesterday were so good, i feel like i should just hang it up now. i mean, will there ever be another day with as much goodness to read? i am doubtful. first there was that lovely little dom/billy that i mentioned yesterday.

then. cimorene111's karggo. if you haven't read it yet, you've been wasting your time. no matter what else you've been doing. god, it's just so incredibly good. it's... light. reading it felt like sitting in a big empty room with white walls and wood floors with sun streaming in the windows. or possibly eating a meal that's filling but not overly so - healthful yet satisfying and flavorful. karl in that story is now one of my all time favorite characters of fanfic. real, sympathetic, interesting. the story is a sweet story and it's told perfectly. yes. read it. please. you non-lotrips people? read this one.

then. camillafarfalla kindly sent me the latest chapter of ivyblossom's series in an e-mail at work. it's a very good thing i was the only one there as i would have had a hard time explaining the teariness to C. especially with the inability to speak and all. ivy writing darkness seems to lead to some brilliant chiaroscuro effect. the beautiful parts are just that much more beautiful when highlighted like this. and even though this story has turned toward the h/d part... i'm dying to know what's going on with ginny and with that last little bit there at the end of the chapter. i'm curious... do all of you who read ivy's fic want to marry her and have her babies? or is that just me?

i really doubt it gets any better than this.

Comments

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

*rubs noses*

Hmmmm, a June wedding, or shall we be creative and go for September or October? I January wedding could be lovely, we could all where wool robes...

Heehehehehehee and oh yes there is important Ginny stuff coming up next, no fear. I considered skipping this part because of it, but I thought I might get into trouble with my beta for not writing enough H/D. She's a smut bunny like that.

*smooches*

Thanks for those extremely kind words, you've really made my day.

[wildgreentide.livejournal.com]

please. you non-lotrips people? read this one.

Well, when you ask all nice like that, it's hard to refuse...

I liked it. I really liked it. She's a very talented writer, and I thought that setting the story in Japan worked surprisingly well. The characters were nicely realized, too. But that's where I get bogged down in RPF, because I can't comfortably make that leap from "real person" to "character in a story." At best I find it distracting; at worst, it gives me a real ooky feeling. This one didn't make me feel ooky, but that's probably because there's not much smut in it. [shrug] Just my taste. But I agree, it's a lovely story.

Re:

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

isn't lovely? i'm glad you read it. i know i lot of people have the problem making that leap. i just don't. :) and the trip and setting and all were based on real events... there are some gorgeous pictures... and adorable ones of the two of them photographing each other in the temple and all.

hmm... i'm contemplating the rps thing some more. i almost have less trouble with rps characterization than fps once. you're really less constrained... i mean, none of us know anything about what these people are really like. there's no style we need to stick to (like ugh, tolkien slash). all we really know are physcial attributes, vague timelines and what we can guess at from interviews and such. there's so much room to play... so much room to really write, when it's done right, like cimorene does it.

the great RPS debate

[wildgreentide.livejournal.com]

But a lot of what I like about fictional, um, fic is that there is a story to stick to, or at least to work with. There are characters that I already know and love, so the writer is able to build on the relationships already present in the book/movie/tv show/whatever. If nothing else, the fact of the preexisting story gives another dimension to the fic's story. And it is hard to get the voice right--to get inside the characters' heads in a way that rings true--but it can, of course, be done, and there are lots of writers I admire who are really good at that. (I'd recommend pretty much anything by pandarus to illustrate this point.) Not to mention the practically unlimited possibilities of AU fic. And I'd disagree that FPS writers have to stick to a certain prose or narrative style any more than RPS writers do.

Don't get me wrong, I think I understand the appeal of RPS, especially in the LOTR fandom; I mean, there are all these gorgeous talented sexy people in this movie that we adore, and from all the interviews and things I've seen, they seem to all be good friends and they act so cute together, and furthermore, Middle-Earth seems to be a pretty sexless (if fantastically slashy) place, so when people want to write stories about these pretty people sleeping with each other, they go for the media characters instead of the film characters. Well, that's my theory, anyway. Am I completely off base?

I guess the other thing of it for me is that I can't help seeing RPF as an invasion of privacy, to some extent. I mean, I've never even really enjoyed reading interviews with actors; I buy the magazines for the pretty pictures, and I read the interviews, and I'm usually left wishing that they'd answered the questions in character rather than as themselves. I don't really care all that much about their private lives, and I'm sympathetic to people who really try hard to keep their personal lives out of the media, as impossible as it may be. It's possible I'm a bit oversensitive on this point.

there's so much room to play... so much room to really write

See, that's actually what I love about Smallville slash. The show is so sloppy and, well, bad, that we have almost no idea of the characters' inner lives, and so many avenues are left open to the writers, in terms of plot holes as well as hot gay alien sex. Plus, there's the sense of Doomed!Tragic!Love (in the case of Clark/Lex, at least), and I'm a total sucker for that. I don't get the same epic feel from the RPS I've read.

I hope you don't feel like I'm slamming RPS; I'm really interested as to why some people really like it and some people don't, and I'd love to continue to debate this with you!

Re: the great RPS debate

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

auahgauhg!!!!! i just wrote a really long response to this and now it's gone! gone! ::cries:: ah well. maybe i'll try again later. :(