On Fest Virginity and Dark Marks
Jan. 2nd, 2008 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonFest virginity is, apparently, quite like the standard type. I was tempted when I saw hd_holidays mooted about. It looked attractive, smart, witty, and kind of cool. People I really liked, liked this fest. So I dipped a toe in the water on the comments pages. Met anthimaeria, which was worth the price of admission alone, and in the end I decided I wasn't ready. I wanted to fool around in fandom a bit longer before taking the plunge.
A few months later my dear Canadian friend rang me. "Have you signed up for Yuletide?" she asked. "God no!" I replied. "You have to! Quick, it closes in an hour." "No." "Yes!" "No!" "Yes!" "No!" "No!!" "Yes!!" "So you'll do it? GREAT! Go and sign up now!" "No … what? Hang on, did you just trick me using kindergarten trickery?" "Maybe …" "Dammit!"
Erm … you don't want to know how well this analogy holds up …
I've not made any real headway into reading Yuletide, but my absolute favourite of the few I sampled is a Thursday Next tale, featuring Sauron; The Eagle Conspiracy was so magnificently Ffordian, and funny! and smart! and full of lovely fandom jokes that I had a solid grin on my face the whole way through.
At about the same time as I was panicking over Yuletide, I received an email from the wonderfulnqdonne , hd_holidays mod, saying "Hey, you remember that you said that you could pinch hit if I needed it? I need it."
And we're back to the virginity analogy here, because I said "Sure! Fests seem great fun! The more the merrier!" (Er, re that analogy, you may have been less strumpetty as a lass or lad.) To which she replied: "Fabulous, I need it in 13 days here's your prompts."
Which would have all been fine if I'd thought to plan for the fact that included six travelling days and four booked-out days. Again, fic is v much like sex – I just did without sleep in the end. Ironically, sleep wasn't all I did without for those days. But it was fun!!! And the recipient liked it, even though I actually forgot to write one of the scenes I had planned for the first third, so I danced happily in a groggy circle before falling down in a coma for 48 hours. And I think I'll probably revisit it at some point with more than 13 days of half-arsedry.
So, all in all, losing my fic virginity was highly entertaining, and mostly for the right reasons. I'm leaving that analogy over there in the corner now.
During this very scattered month of not enough reading I managed to catchmalachic's wonderful essay on Harry/Draco, where she talks about the textual possibilities for H/Dshippers, and the textual impetus to H/D. I loved this essay, but was confused by one thing, which may be an artefact of me being an idiot (if a possible answer to any Brampton question is 'because your brain manufactures its own crack', then that is also always the most likely answer.) She speaks about Draco's Dark Mark as a proven fact, but I had always thought it was left up in the air by JKR. As I read it, the curse blocking the way to the Astronomy Tower to those without a Dark Mark is clearly set AFTER Draco is already on the roof, and it obviously lets people through from the other direction because Harry comes through it.
I'm not saying that it's in any way certain that he isn't marked, thought given the fuss that is made about the Malfoys being on the outer and the Mark being an especial sign of favour, I come down on the side of not, but am I missing something obvious? Comments, chapter directions, opinions all welcome!
anthimaeria, which was worth the price of admission alone, and in the end I decided I wasn't ready. I wanted to fool around in fandom a bit longer before taking the plunge.A few months later my dear Canadian friend rang me. "Have you signed up for Yuletide?" she asked. "God no!" I replied. "You have to! Quick, it closes in an hour." "No." "Yes!" "No!" "Yes!" "No!" "No!!" "Yes!!" "So you'll do it? GREAT! Go and sign up now!" "No … what? Hang on, did you just trick me using kindergarten trickery?" "Maybe …" "Dammit!"
Erm … you don't want to know how well this analogy holds up …
So I signed up, and asked for fics from the Thursday Next fandom (because I love Fforde), or for Young Riders (which is the one hugely dodgy American show I ever loved, it's a long, embarrassing story), or, in a pinch, the BBC Robin Hood universe.
I offered to write Thursday Next, Sherlock Holmes, Blackadder, Diana Wynne Jones, Gaiman, Austen, Shakespeare (I would have died happy if I'd been assigned a Titus Andronicus prompt), or, in a pinch, the BBC Robin Hood universe.
Guess which fandom I received as a gift fic and was given to write? On the upside, my gifts were lovely (I received two! Yay nice people!). Clever (my official gift) is a beautifully observed scene between Robin and Marian that captures their voices perfectly.arllama did a really wonderful job on this, despite my deranged prompts. Then a certain slightly guilty Canadian wrote me another Robin/Marian scene: Not Always Everything, which hits the clear emotional honesty of all her writing (I am trying to lure her to HP after her gales of tears at the finale of BBC's Robin Hood).
I was given a really fun prompt for a Djaq/Alan A Dale story, for which I wrote A Man of Middling Morals. As usual I left it to the last minute and was only saved from my own terrible typing by the genius that isjadzialove. Still, it was something different, even if I don't feel I really did the recipient justice (if I do Yuletide again, I am sticking to things I really know and love).
I offered to write Thursday Next, Sherlock Holmes, Blackadder, Diana Wynne Jones, Gaiman, Austen, Shakespeare (I would have died happy if I'd been assigned a Titus Andronicus prompt), or, in a pinch, the BBC Robin Hood universe.
Guess which fandom I received as a gift fic and was given to write? On the upside, my gifts were lovely (I received two! Yay nice people!). Clever (my official gift) is a beautifully observed scene between Robin and Marian that captures their voices perfectly.
arllama did a really wonderful job on this, despite my deranged prompts. Then a certain slightly guilty Canadian wrote me another Robin/Marian scene: Not Always Everything, which hits the clear emotional honesty of all her writing (I am trying to lure her to HP after her gales of tears at the finale of BBC's Robin Hood).I was given a really fun prompt for a Djaq/Alan A Dale story, for which I wrote A Man of Middling Morals. As usual I left it to the last minute and was only saved from my own terrible typing by the genius that is
jadzialove. Still, it was something different, even if I don't feel I really did the recipient justice (if I do Yuletide again, I am sticking to things I really know and love).I've not made any real headway into reading Yuletide, but my absolute favourite of the few I sampled is a Thursday Next tale, featuring Sauron; The Eagle Conspiracy was so magnificently Ffordian, and funny! and smart! and full of lovely fandom jokes that I had a solid grin on my face the whole way through.
At about the same time as I was panicking over Yuletide, I received an email from the wonderful
nqdonne , hd_holidays mod, saying "Hey, you remember that you said that you could pinch hit if I needed it? I need it." And we're back to the virginity analogy here, because I said "Sure! Fests seem great fun! The more the merrier!" (Er, re that analogy, you may have been less strumpetty as a lass or lad.) To which she replied: "Fabulous, I need it in 13 days here's your prompts."
Which would have all been fine if I'd thought to plan for the fact that included six travelling days and four booked-out days. Again, fic is v much like sex – I just did without sleep in the end. Ironically, sleep wasn't all I did without for those days. But it was fun!!! And the recipient liked it, even though I actually forgot to write one of the scenes I had planned for the first third, so I danced happily in a groggy circle before falling down in a coma for 48 hours. And I think I'll probably revisit it at some point with more than 13 days of half-arsedry.
So, all in all, losing my fic virginity was highly entertaining, and mostly for the right reasons. I'm leaving that analogy over there in the corner now.
During this very scattered month of not enough reading I managed to catch
malachic's wonderful essay on Harry/Draco, where she talks about the textual possibilities for H/Dshippers, and the textual impetus to H/D. I loved this essay, but was confused by one thing, which may be an artefact of me being an idiot (if a possible answer to any Brampton question is 'because your brain manufactures its own crack', then that is also always the most likely answer.) She speaks about Draco's Dark Mark as a proven fact, but I had always thought it was left up in the air by JKR. As I read it, the curse blocking the way to the Astronomy Tower to those without a Dark Mark is clearly set AFTER Draco is already on the roof, and it obviously lets people through from the other direction because Harry comes through it. I'm not saying that it's in any way certain that he isn't marked, thought given the fuss that is made about the Malfoys being on the outer and the Mark being an especial sign of favour, I come down on the side of not, but am I missing something obvious? Comments, chapter directions, opinions all welcome!
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 12:50 pm (UTC)The Eagle Conspiracy was so good. I was sad when it ended, man.
(And hi--I came to your journal for Sins of the Fathers and I added you because your posts are interesting!)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 01:02 pm (UTC)I could have done with more Eagle Conspiracy, too. I checked out her profile and she is apparently 23-years-old and Polish. [Cries.]
I think there will be fic fests for a while yet, DH seems to have created more story lines than it closed down ... So there is still time, if you ever have RL time!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 11:13 pm (UTC)I'm basically the most free I'll ever be for the foreseeable future and yet I'm still hesitant about taking part in fic fests. I'm just a fic-coward. But I'm keeping tabs on things like hd_worldcup so we'll see!
Also I see you're kind of in the RH fandom as well--what did you think of the last episode?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 01:03 pm (UTC)I may regret losing my fic virginity, but I think I will just become the world's worst commenter if the current downward rate is any guide.
Wouldn't really say I'm in RH fandom, though I will probably write one for my friend who LOVES it (my fault, I showed it to her so that she could laugh at the costuming (and fancy the boys) and she fell in love).
She rang me after watching the last one (I am MILES behind) and literally wept. I have to say that I'm not dead keen on the idea; it sounds like a fabulous Guy episode, but a but of a waste of a character, and a really useful character at that! Do you know if they were planning on an third season? Because it will be v different!!