Top 10 best things evar.
Feb. 1st, 2005 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ranalore: We're all familiar with those infamous "things I never want to see in a fanfic story again" lists. Sure, we all have mental lists of things that drive us crazy: bits of fanon that don't jive with our ideas about canon, overused words, improbably scenarios, bad characterizations, etc. But what about the opposite? What are the things you want to see more of? (Even if other people think it's overdone!)
1. Storms. Big, dramatic thunderstorms, where the noise rocks the walls of the building and the light flashes electric-bright into every darkened corner. Or blizzards, snow so thick you can't see more than a foot away, and the wind howls like a scream. Mmmmmm.
2. Rough sex. Not noncon, but needy, desperate, hungry, up-against-the-wall sex. I weep that my OTP makes this nearly impossible.
3. AUs. Yes, yes, yes. I never get tired of these. Also, stories far, far outside of the canon time-line, when the characters are just children or very elderly. Why is there no YnM fic set in 2500AD, for instance? They could still be around!
4. Stories where the characters have to fight like hell against the universe and fate and luck to have just one good thing, but they don't give up. Especially if there's that one moment when s/he realizes that s/he has no chance, and will most likely lose and end up even worse off, but s/he tries anyway, because... because when you want something, that's what you do. *swoons*
5. Curtains!fic. I know these are supposed to be boring and are often bad writing, but I have a deep and abiding love for seeing heroes/vampires/shingami having to deal with laundry and grocery shopping.
6. Saying things without ever actually saying them. When "Wanna have dinner?" really means I love you or Thank you or I'm sorry, and everyone knows it, but never expresses it out loud. Also, little moments that symbolize so much more. The brush of fingertips over the back of the hand that's more of a climax than sex could ever be.
7. Elegant writing. I may be shallow, but I'll forgive nearly anything for some pretty words or images. Form over content, baby.
8. Hips. Oh my god. Hips. Hands on hips, and hands holding hips, and curling a finger into a beltloop to pull them close, and hips barely peeking out of pants...
9. Stories that break the characters into shatters, till s/he's as low as they can go, rock-bottom. But s/he refuses to accept defeat, and gets up and keeps going, no matter how much it hurts, and is stronger at the broken places. That moment when the character faces the universe and says "There's nothing you can do to me that I can't take" always makes my heart soar.
10. Established!relationship fics. The vast majority of fics are first times, and that makes sense, given that most ships aren't canon. You've got to find a way to get them together first. But, oh, how I love those few stories where the characters already know each other so well, all of each other's little quirks and habits and preferences, and they fit together like puzzle pieces without any of the angst of does he/doesn't he feel the same? Especially if there's a conflict from outside, and the couple goes from being relaxed and bickering and comfortable to standing together against the rest of the world, back to back and dangerous with loyalty and competence and absolute trust, fiercely defensive of one another. Oh, yes. Why are there not more fics like this? Why?
ranalore: We're all familiar with those infamous "things I never want to see in a fanfic story again" lists. Sure, we all have mental lists of things that drive us crazy: bits of fanon that don't jive with our ideas about canon, overused words, improbably scenarios, bad characterizations, etc. But what about the opposite? What are the things you want to see more of? (Even if other people think it's overdone!)1. Storms. Big, dramatic thunderstorms, where the noise rocks the walls of the building and the light flashes electric-bright into every darkened corner. Or blizzards, snow so thick you can't see more than a foot away, and the wind howls like a scream. Mmmmmm.
2. Rough sex. Not noncon, but needy, desperate, hungry, up-against-the-wall sex. I weep that my OTP makes this nearly impossible.
3. AUs. Yes, yes, yes. I never get tired of these. Also, stories far, far outside of the canon time-line, when the characters are just children or very elderly. Why is there no YnM fic set in 2500AD, for instance? They could still be around!
4. Stories where the characters have to fight like hell against the universe and fate and luck to have just one good thing, but they don't give up. Especially if there's that one moment when s/he realizes that s/he has no chance, and will most likely lose and end up even worse off, but s/he tries anyway, because... because when you want something, that's what you do. *swoons*
5. Curtains!fic. I know these are supposed to be boring and are often bad writing, but I have a deep and abiding love for seeing heroes/vampires/shingami having to deal with laundry and grocery shopping.
6. Saying things without ever actually saying them. When "Wanna have dinner?" really means I love you or Thank you or I'm sorry, and everyone knows it, but never expresses it out loud. Also, little moments that symbolize so much more. The brush of fingertips over the back of the hand that's more of a climax than sex could ever be.
7. Elegant writing. I may be shallow, but I'll forgive nearly anything for some pretty words or images. Form over content, baby.
8. Hips. Oh my god. Hips. Hands on hips, and hands holding hips, and curling a finger into a beltloop to pull them close, and hips barely peeking out of pants...
9. Stories that break the characters into shatters, till s/he's as low as they can go, rock-bottom. But s/he refuses to accept defeat, and gets up and keeps going, no matter how much it hurts, and is stronger at the broken places. That moment when the character faces the universe and says "There's nothing you can do to me that I can't take" always makes my heart soar.
10. Established!relationship fics. The vast majority of fics are first times, and that makes sense, given that most ships aren't canon. You've got to find a way to get them together first. But, oh, how I love those few stories where the characters already know each other so well, all of each other's little quirks and habits and preferences, and they fit together like puzzle pieces without any of the angst of does he/doesn't he feel the same? Especially if there's a conflict from outside, and the couple goes from being relaxed and bickering and comfortable to standing together against the rest of the world, back to back and dangerous with loyalty and competence and absolute trust, fiercely defensive of one another. Oh, yes. Why are there not more fics like this? Why?
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-02 05:02 am (UTC)Also, 5 can be positively heartbreaking when done right, because...these characters we love, they're just not normal, you know? And yet how many of them have a staple of wanting to be normal, of trying to be when given half an opportunity? How many of them would think a Saturday spent shopping for bedding and having lunch with their best friend in a quiet cafe would be the best thing ever? How many of them are likely to ever get that kind of day?
Dude, so tempted to issue some kind of Bed, Bath & Beyond challenge now.
Mmm, hips. One of my favorite things about the animanga fandoms, they give good guy hip. Guy hips are so unappreciated.
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Date: 2005-02-02 09:06 pm (UTC)Absolutely. I think curtain!fic has a bad rep from live action fandoms set in the real world. We generally do not have that problem. XD
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Date: 2005-02-02 11:34 pm (UTC)Oh, I didn't think of it in those terms! But you're right- there's a big difference from reading about Jim & Blair going for milk and Tsuzuki & Hisoka doing the same thing.
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Date: 2005-02-03 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 02:24 am (UTC)Someone needs to write that.
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Date: 2005-02-04 10:34 pm (UTC)I love her SO MUCH.
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Date: 2005-02-05 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-06 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-07 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-06 08:27 pm (UTC)Not so huge as you'd think. One taciturn, hypersensitive partner with problems with large crowds. One deliberately cheerful partner with deeply protective instincts and an ability to talk the other partner down when it gets to be too much. All of them "not normal" in their own special way....
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Date: 2005-02-06 11:19 pm (UTC)Not that that's really a bad thing. *grins*
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Date: 2005-02-10 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-06 08:23 pm (UTC)Well, actually it gets its rep from the bad characterization it often entails. I mean, in live action fandoms you have superheroes and Jedi and secret agents and international assassins and Sentinels and Immortals. These people do not lead lives like ours. Yet so much curtainfic and domesticfic has taken these characters and transformed them into happy homemakers with aspirations to be Martha Stewart or Wolfgang Puck. And even that would not be so bad, if the basic conflict between such a desire and the kinds of lives these characters lead were really acknowledged and dealt with in the story.
The best domesticfic, in my estimation, is the broadly comedic or the subtly angsty. The gems that combine both tend to be amazing. Like Julad's grocery store stories.
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Date: 2005-02-07 03:01 am (UTC)Mmm. Good point.
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Date: 2005-02-02 11:31 pm (UTC)I think you've hit on a big part of the appeal of 5 to me. It's very much something that not only do we not see on the shows/books, but it's something likely to be actually very rare in the character's lives. In that way, it's almost the same as 6- little things that mean so much more to the people they happen to. I love that.
Hips are lovely, lovely things. I need a hip icon.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 01:32 am (UTC)So it would appear. *G* And yeah, Tsuzuki/Hisoka has too much baggage and too much history for spontaneous rough sex of the happy, fun kind. Any rough sex would be engaged in deliberately, and couldn't help but involve some heavy thinking and exorcising of demons.
I think you've hit on a big part of the appeal of 5 to me. It's very much something that not only do we not see on the shows/books, but it's something likely to be actually very rare in the character's lives. In that way, it's almost the same as 6- little things that mean so much more to the people they happen to. I love that.
That's it exactly. Both concepts hinge on what's going on at the sub-levels, and of course that gets us as fans and as slashers. We're used to working on the sub-levels for a lot of our emotional satisfaction, so stories that make use of that...sensitivity, if you will, are going to prove popular. But again, it's got to be done right, or it doesn't plug into that collective expectation and we resent the failure all the more for what it could have been.
Hips are lovely, lovely things. I need a hip icon.
One of my favorite things about both Saiyuki and YnM. Lovely hips, of which we get to see a fair amount.