Pilgrims gave me flu!

[blamebrampton]

No, seriously! Months after their orange backpacks left the Emerald City, Sydney is still feeling the impact of the WYD pilgrims' sharing natures. THEY LEFT US THIS FLU! Bastards! And look, even the Catholic News says it's true! Well, likely at any rate.  Apparently the three-week-plus flu that turns to bronchitis is knocking people out across the city, and has been since July, so I am not alone in my feebleness.

Honestly, it was bad enough when it was just nuns trying to plough me to the ground.
 
Bryoney opined that I have been talking too much sport and not enough fandom lately, so three links to make her feel loved. The first is to a very interesting question posed by bewarethesmirk  in her post here. She asks what it is about some styles of writing that immediately succeeds in drawing the reader in. I've blathered on at length in a comment, as have several others, and I think that we're edging towards the total picture, but I am sure that more brains, particularly brains as big as you lot have, will get to the actual answer. Alas, it's flocked, but if you're not on her flist, feel free to chat here.

My dear jadzialove  wrote a story recently in which Weasley brothers engaged in activities of an adult nature only suitable for readers over 18. With each other. We both squealed in a frightened fashion, she even while writing. However, that was nothing compared to this story from The Times. To quote their head and standfirst:

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty

A woman slept with her sibling for years and has good memories. Not many people understand their relationship, she says

I can't say I'm surprised to hear that.

For maximum bemusement, you have to read the comments.

Thirdly, Maya has posted the last chapter of Quality of Mercy, and 

there have been many posts along the lines of OMG, it's not H/D! To which I have to say, der! There was never any pairing specified, Harry and Ginny's relationship has been written as genuine and developing the whole way through, Harry has been protective and fraternal in his relationship with Draco and Draco has been someone desperately trying to forge actual relationships in his world, rather than just getting what he wants. Why would a writer ditch all of that worldbuilding for a ship in which she has only written some of her fics? 

I sometimes wonder if people actually read fics as actual creative works or just go through them ticking off their internal preference list. "Yay, there's a cool one-liner, there's an insight into canon, there's a good spot of fanon, excellent UST, and ... and ... THAT'S IT? NO SMEX? YOU SUCK!" On bad days, I suspect the latter.

Oh well. A happy fandom aside: 2500 words of Darkfest written, 1700 of them even consecutive!

And, my final Paralympics moment, Australia lost to the US in the rugby, but Kurt Fearnley won the marathon! YAY!
 

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

but the H/D was played up equally if not far more than H/G.

I can see that reading, but it's not the one that my brain came up with.

I think both readings are probably right, there's certainly textual support for them, and it comes from your starting point. I started thinking she was a fairly het/gen writer because the story I'd read before was Draco Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing Rat, which is DM/HG.

For me there was such a strong emphasis on Harry finally having a family, and wanting to provide that for Draco, too. And the guilt he felt when he realised he was jealous of Charlie was the guilt of someone fancying someone wholly inappropriate. So I was all set up for Harry doing the 'honourable thing', especially after his lovely speech in the penultimate chapter. I wasn't in the least surprised when he did!

But now I am wondering, is the idea that a story needs to end H/D the major reason to read for some people? That hadn't occurred to me, because I am crap at fandom ;-)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I think your point about what your read last of Maya's affects how you interpreted QoM. I read Underwater Light first. Actually I didn't realized QoM didn't have a pairing specified until chapter 15.

[as an aside: Here's a poll on ddg_and_sundry months ago that you might think interesting]

So, obviously I thought it would be H/D and Maya's writing is all about interpreting characters' intentions/feelings by the slightest clues. So in order to figure out what is happening readers HAVE to make some guesses.

I don't mind Gen fics (though I rarely read them - I've got a soft spot for romance) so if this fic was listed as Gen I honestly might have passed it over. That said, it was the UST in the fic that I loved the most. The slashtastic scene's of Harry and Draco putting each other back together when there was no one else. That stuff MADE the fic for me. However there were NO scene's when Harry did the same for Ginny (or vice versa.) As a Gen fic it had too much focus on H/D, as a H/G fic it had too little H/G.

In the end, I agree entirely with heathen_ursiadae that it felt like a bait and switch. Which isn't a terrible thing, but I don't think anyone should be surprised that there is disappointment about no H/D ending.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

That all makes sense. I think I decided early on that the central theme of this one was family, the way the central theme of DDG is love and the central theme of Underwater Light was redemption (I am not really sure what the central theme of Amazing Bouncing Rat was ... comfort with your inner rodent?)

So when they were putting each other back together, I was reading it as a family thing. Ginny had a whole big family that could do that for her (and Malfoy), while Harry and Draco only had each other. In some ways I read that as an intimacy that went far beyond desire.