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There's a conversation floating around LJ, begun with, I think, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rahirah here and continued by swetawaybayou and glossing (on dark, and also what I like about my stuff). I'm jumping in just because the subject is more in line with what I enjoy in fic and also my tendencies when writing.
As usual with this kind of thing, I feel the need to attach some sort of preface. Although I enjoy fic analysis, by the author or a third party, I avoid it with my own fic because I'm never sure if anyone else is going to be interested and there is nothing more painful in LJ-land than a deep, meaningful post that gets no replies. Flops hurt, ya'll.
Anywho.
Dark!fic for me is bottom of the barrel. It is hopelessness. Pushing the characters as far as you can make them go, breaking them down and leaving them there. I'll add that building them back up is optional, but for me, that's not something likely to happen. I do tend to abandon them down in the abyss.
Superb dark for me, as everyone above stated, doesn't necessarily concern sex. It's a feeling of dedicated chaos, of deliberate malice. It is being lost and confused. Self-punishment, self-loathing. Angelus to me is not really dark. He is evil, but he is also just being Angelus. Dark, for me, is acting outside of the normal parameters of one's behavior. Grey!Angel is dark. Buffy in Weight of the World and The Gift, threatening to kill anyone who harms Dawn, is dark. Giles smothering Ben is dark, Buffy sleeping with Spike is dark. Mal shooting a man in the head after abandoning him to Reavers is dark. Tess mindwarping Alex to death and then mindwarping Kyle into carrying the body to her car is dark.
I can't say that I know what my appellation among readers is or would be. I border between angst and darkness, but I don't know that I am specifically known as a dark!fic writer. I know that I have great difficulty with happily ever after, and that the one time I very deliberately made the attempt (not including this valentine's day), the fic (Deep and Shining) was still commented upon as being melancholy.
Mostly that's because I want to see how bad can it get and remain realistic or true to the character. How bad can it get?!
Off the very top of my head, things like: What the Scarecrow Saw, Apnea, Asystole, Story Endings O.Henry Didn't Use, Ursula, Black (Ghosts) are dark fic.
Asrahirah said, "it's got a lot to do with the character's attitude towards what they're doing than with what they do." Self-destructive behavior is dark. Sex and torture are not necessarily dark in and of themselves. Someone who wouldn't usually enjoy torture or hating themselves while doing it, well that's a different story. Buffy having sex with Spike and hating herself AND him for it. That's darkness.
If I had to identify my own fic as dark, I would choose:
Have You Seen the Wind?
Hemorrhage
and if you should have a future (section three: Ophelia)
Concerning Flight and Landing On the Moon: A Coda
eyes like the summer, all beauty and truth
A Pivot for the Sun
Yours, Eternally
Eternal Return
Secrets Not Long Buried
Not such a long list, considering.
Regardless, what I would love for everyone to take away from this little meander is WRITE MORE DARK FIC!! Don't be afraid to go there, to take it there. To stretch the characters past the limits of what you think they can endure.
Dark fic. Write more dark!fic and then go write gorgeous and lovely things likekormantic's Ice House and annakovsky's One Thing That Happened (Grey's Anatomy). Stuff to make us all smile and go aaww! After you break me heart, please, give me a happy. I'm endeavoring to learn that particular trick.
Really, I am.
rahirah here and continued by swetawaybayou and glossing (on dark, and also what I like about my stuff). I'm jumping in just because the subject is more in line with what I enjoy in fic and also my tendencies when writing. As usual with this kind of thing, I feel the need to attach some sort of preface. Although I enjoy fic analysis, by the author or a third party, I avoid it with my own fic because I'm never sure if anyone else is going to be interested and there is nothing more painful in LJ-land than a deep, meaningful post that gets no replies. Flops hurt, ya'll.
Anywho.
Dark!fic for me is bottom of the barrel. It is hopelessness. Pushing the characters as far as you can make them go, breaking them down and leaving them there. I'll add that building them back up is optional, but for me, that's not something likely to happen. I do tend to abandon them down in the abyss.
Superb dark for me, as everyone above stated, doesn't necessarily concern sex. It's a feeling of dedicated chaos, of deliberate malice. It is being lost and confused. Self-punishment, self-loathing. Angelus to me is not really dark. He is evil, but he is also just being Angelus. Dark, for me, is acting outside of the normal parameters of one's behavior. Grey!Angel is dark. Buffy in Weight of the World and The Gift, threatening to kill anyone who harms Dawn, is dark. Giles smothering Ben is dark, Buffy sleeping with Spike is dark. Mal shooting a man in the head after abandoning him to Reavers is dark. Tess mindwarping Alex to death and then mindwarping Kyle into carrying the body to her car is dark.
I can't say that I know what my appellation among readers is or would be. I border between angst and darkness, but I don't know that I am specifically known as a dark!fic writer. I know that I have great difficulty with happily ever after, and that the one time I very deliberately made the attempt (not including this valentine's day), the fic (Deep and Shining) was still commented upon as being melancholy.
Mostly that's because I want to see how bad can it get and remain realistic or true to the character. How bad can it get?!
Off the very top of my head, things like: What the Scarecrow Saw, Apnea, Asystole, Story Endings O.Henry Didn't Use, Ursula, Black (Ghosts) are dark fic.
As
rahirah said, "it's got a lot to do with the character's attitude towards what they're doing than with what they do." Self-destructive behavior is dark. Sex and torture are not necessarily dark in and of themselves. Someone who wouldn't usually enjoy torture or hating themselves while doing it, well that's a different story. Buffy having sex with Spike and hating herself AND him for it. That's darkness.If I had to identify my own fic as dark, I would choose:
Have You Seen the Wind?
Hemorrhage
and if you should have a future (section three: Ophelia)
Concerning Flight and Landing On the Moon: A Coda
eyes like the summer, all beauty and truth
A Pivot for the Sun
Yours, Eternally
Eternal Return
Secrets Not Long Buried
Not such a long list, considering.
Regardless, what I would love for everyone to take away from this little meander is WRITE MORE DARK FIC!! Don't be afraid to go there, to take it there. To stretch the characters past the limits of what you think they can endure.
Dark fic. Write more dark!fic and then go write gorgeous and lovely things like
kormantic's Ice House and annakovsky's One Thing That Happened (Grey's Anatomy). Stuff to make us all smile and go aaww! After you break me heart, please, give me a happy. I'm endeavoring to learn that particular trick.Really, I am.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 04:20 pm (UTC)From:Superb dark for me, as everyone above stated, doesn't necessarily concern sex. It's a feeling of dedicated chaos, of deliberate malice. It is being lost and confused. Self-punishment, self-loathing.
Perfect! Yes!
Although I tend to think that Angelus is dark, but for the same reasons that you stated. He is dark. I don't like him in my head. I will write him, but there will not be erotic sex. Not even with other vampires. He is pain and death and torture and rape. He does not love, he does not sympathize and he sure as hell does.not.care. for anyone, with the exception of himself.
:)
I admire people that can write fluff and humor and schmoop. Although I don't always read it, I tend to wallow in conflict and hurt, I envy them for the ability to write it. I consider, as with acting, writing comedy to be head and shoulders harder than drama/angst ... but that might just be me.
*waves*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 05:54 pm (UTC)From:I tend to think that Angelus is dark, but for the same reasons that you stated. He is dark. I don't like him in my head. I will write him, but there will not be erotic sex. Not even with other vampires. He is pain and death and torture and rape. He does not love, he does not sympathize and he sure as hell does.not.care. for anyone, with the exception of himself.
I should amend that thought. Angelus is dark, of course he is. But, for me, the severity of his darkness is actually dependent upon his exact actions and the circumstances under which he 'performs'. He can so much be the kid in the candy store, malevolently gleeful but with a strangely pure joyfulness that I get a kick out of him. However, there are things that he's done that totally creep me out and I think, damn, dude!. Sketching Buffy while she was sleeping is a big one for me. Her vulnerability in that moment and the deliberateness with which he sat there, drew her and then left the drawing? Just to fuck with her mind. That bothered me. Driving Dru crazy, not so much because he did it (we expect that sort of behavior), but the process through which he accomplished it. Watching Dru huddled and insane in the corner while he fucked Darla in front of her, just to twist the knife a little more! That is dark Angelus for me!
I envy them for the ability to write it. I consider, as with acting, writing comedy to be head and shoulders harder than drama/angst
Dude!! Word. Totally. Totally. :D