[ SECRET POST #6077 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6077 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 39 secrets from Secret Submission Post #869.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I have no particular opinion on Astolat other than that she gets away with her fanfic being OOC because her writing style is very good and she hit like two fandoms were the one relationship dynamic she likes to write was in character. Which resulted in excellent fic for those particular fandoms but then the fandom hivemind decided she's amazing in general and breezed past her iffy characterisation in other fandoms.

On the AO3 part of the secret, I just completely disagree. I've been reading fic for over two decades, on various platforms all across the internet. AO3 is the best for me, both as a writer and a reader.

[meadowphoenix]

ooh which two fandoms? hp and spn?

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

I was thinking Person of Interest and Smallville!

HP is actually one of the fandoms where I really don't jive with her characterisation.

I'm not sure if I read her SPN stuff. I know I read the HP/SPN crossover she did and wasn't impressed so I might have just given a pass to the rest of her SPN fics. Is her SPN stuff good?

[(Anonymous)]

DA I'm into PoI and I absolutely hate her characterisation! But I've accepted that she's just going to write her own version of characters which is often very different to what I like, so I only read her stuff if I'm not too attached to the canon.

[(Anonymous)]

NA

Another person into PoI here, and I've found that most of my favorite fics (not just by Astolat) will have a bunch of detractors calling them OOC. It kind of makes me wonder what they consider IC, honestly.

To be fair, I did stop watching the show when they killed off Carter, so I've only watched about half the episodes. Perhaps what I consider IC wouldn't look that way to me any more if I'd finished the show?

But on the other hand, a lot of my favorite fics were written during the first two seasons of the show, so if any of those detractors are judging them based on the characterization choices in later seasons, they're being absurdly unfair.

[(Anonymous)]

Astolat's POI fic is very firmly set somewhere in the first three seasons, IMO. I think she stopped writing POI before season four? Which might explain why someone who watched it to the end and then looked for fic might find it more OOC than I do (I didn't watch the last season).

[meadowphoenix]

her spn stuff is what i call fanon ic pre-s4. most of her fic is s3 trying to deal with dean's demon deal, and a lot of people wrote sam and dean the exact same way, so it was familiar if not ic and very close to the tone of the show so it almost didn't matter.

[(Anonymous)]

I loathe her Clark and Lex characterizations, honestly. To be fair, I don't necessarily think they're any more OOC than my preferred characterizations--they just lean in the polar opposite direction with the characters to the one I enjoy.

Which is basically how I'd summarize all of her writing, both fanfic and original: the writing can be counted on to begin with a fascinating premise, deliver some engaging exposition, and then make a buttload of narrative choices that I find, at best, boring, and at worst, actively off-putting.

[(Anonymous)]

DA - Honestly, this ties into the major issue I have with her original fiction. Her writing is good, but what she finds interesting about her stories tends to veer in the opposite direction of what I find interesting about them. So, as the story progresses, I'm left unsatisfied at best and wishing I'd called it quits back when I still actually liked all the characters I was supposed to like at worst.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the show couldn't even settle on Clark and Lex's characterizations. I think just about any is canon from that shitshow.

[(Anonymous)]

Firmly seconding almost all of this. AO3 is rad. It's miles better than the next best option, and a lot of the flaws people claim it has are heavily overstated, IMO.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way about astolat's fanfic.

I think the most fascinating thing about astolat's fics, to me, is just how blatant the power fantasy aspect of them usually is. In most of her fics, it feels like everything is in service of it. I'm always left with the distinct impression that the narrative doesn't actually care about any other characters beyond how they can serve the underlying agenda of highlighting the awesomeness of the author's chosen fave. Even the other half of the central pairing often only seems to matter as a means for validating and admiring the power-fantasy character.

And like, there's nothing wrong with that, but it does always give me the distinct impression that I'm reading the really, really sophisticated version of some tween's fervid self-insert ID-fic or something.

[(Anonymous)]

I really only remember her Merlin fic, which I enjoyed. I know I read some of her Smallville fic back in the day, but I can’t remember any of it right now.

[(Anonymous)]

Re: astolat her "cold genius nerd dom/sub mindless slavering love slave muscle man" thing that she applies to every single pairing? lol ugh. She is a good writer but yeah too self-indulgent with that kink.

I volunteered for OTW and I know just how difficult a feat the org pulls off by support millions of AO3 users so IMHO OPs secret is BS.

Ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

"cold genius nerd dom/sub mindless slavering love slave muscle man"

That's the perfect way to describe it! I very much share this kink, so in the fandoms where I see this dynamic as well her fic is often some of my favourites. But it just doesn't work for all characters, no matter how good a writer she is in general.

[(Anonymous)]

her "cold genius nerd dom/sub mindless slavering love slave muscle man" thing that she applies to every single pairing?

Oh my god, this description is absolute perfection, I love it. Unfortunately, I can't stand this dynamic, so almost all of her fic is a hard pass for me. I do love one of her fics, but that's mainly due to the fact that the focal character spends at least half of the fic by themselves, and therefore the amount of time they spend being a smug, self-superior asshole who is so much smarter and cooler and more capable than everybody else is limited.

Personally I love highly competent characters; unless their competence is at the expense of all the other characters--then I kind of hate them.