One jump ahead of the slowpokes, One skip ahead of my doom ...

[swatkat]

HP recs for msgenevieve (and anyone else who wants to read *g*)


by parkergray
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Rating: NC-17

That's right. It's H/Hr, it's smut (or a 'smutlet', as the author calls it *g*), and it's good. What I enjoyed about the writing is the intensity, and the author's brilliant use of repetitions. Go read.

This is how it happens.

They’ve been sleeping together for years, off and on, ever since the war. More off than on, he thinks, and sometimes tries to figure out why. But most of the time he doesn’t.

Wane by lupercali
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: R
Summary: Of gaining and giving and gone, a fairytale for Remus. (OotP spoilers)

Yes, the pairing is Sirius/Remus, but the story isn't about Sirius and Remus at all, and the relationship is only touched upon. This is Remus' story – beautiful, beautiful story that makes me feel all sad and warm (why yes, I do love Remus). The writing is beautiful, especially the lovely fairytale-like way in which she tells the story:

It was due to his upbringing that Remus remained a constant -- people needed anchors, Remus thought, and his was made of many volumes.

Even the First Night, there was only gain, the gore and blood and silvered-white teeth of the wolf as Remus ran through the dense woods behind his grandmother's cottage. How quaint, he'd reflect later, sipping willowbark tea and listening to Sirius' prattle; how very much the twisted fairytale.

And even in his worst moments his mind refused to court "loss" to the moon.

So is the characterisation – just in these three short paragraphs she manages to explain what Remus is.



~

I've been enjoying the slash discussion on the FFMB. It was nice to see opinions from other sides. There was a time I wouldn't read anything but Michael/Nikita – I had no idea what I was missing. *g* And I might as well confess, I don't agree with 'Michael would never do that' or 'would never want to do that'. There's more than one way of characterisation.

~

And now, for the thought of the day – I've been reading some of the stories in the archives lately, and a large number of them touch upon Michael's early days in Section. The general fannish opinion about Michael's training and early period in Section is that he was treated brutally by Operations and Madeline (and Jurgen, at times) and that's the reason why he is the 'broken' man he is today.

I don't buy this theory well.


I don't agree that Operations and Madeline personally insisted on treating Michael 'brutally' because they wanted to break him and mould him into a machine. He himself became one, because it was a survival mechanism for him (he would have been that way even if he were a lesser operative). That, and his ability to handle the pressure in Section made him advance so fast. He may have hated his killer persona. But IMHO a part of him also enjoyed accepting the challenges and was proud of the fact that he was capable of achieving this. Section put him through hoops, because he was capable of going through them, and also because he stood up to the challenges that they threw at him. Not everyone who has potential lives up to it. Michael didn't need special treatment from Madeline to become the perfect operative – it was there in him.

I don't see Michael being abused in Section as well, sexually or otherwise. Michael is not a harmless sheep – he takes his own decisions and knows how to hit back. Whatever he did, he did it out of his own choice (I'm not talking missions here).

Just thinking.

Comments

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

That 'broken' word was a direct quote from the stories, actually. *eg*

The thing about Nestra's story - my reaction to it was very different actually. I didn't have Paul's background in my mind, so the fraternizing with the ranks part didn't strike me as odd at that time. But I didn't see her Michael as particularly passive hoping for Paul to return either. I thought the ending a bit ambigous, but I interpreted it in a different way. I guess this just shows how POVs can vary, lol!

Because I saw you mention Betsy's Love,Honour,and Betray on SB2...

I've thought the same thing about her Michael at times - clairvoyant and omnipotent. She has this way of almost never writing in Michael's POV, but just letting others observe him and wonder what's going on inside that head of his which adds to that effect of knowing everything. The only Michael POVs she writes are when he's thinking of Nikita, or when he's already decided what is to be done and is just executing the plan.

Her stories also contain some of the things that I hate in fanon, but I suspect that she was the one who came up with them first. And that said, I still love her stories very much. I've often tried to figure out why she gets away doing the same things while others don't, but I simply can't.

Swatkat

[nell65.livejournal.com]

Well - as I remember the story more clearly, the thing that irked me most, early on, has alot to do with my RL world. She described Michael's training with a line like "and that was the last question he asked for two years." And, as a teacher, I went - uh uh. No way anyone promoted someone early who NEVER asked a question. That alone would be a disqualifying factor in my mind for even graduation from section's training, much less early graduation. So that's the passivity I saw in that particular characterization of Michael that had me shaking my OOC head from practically the begining of hte story.

I saw canon Michael as a challenging, question asking kind of guy - my guess is that he was a demanding, pain in the ass student who challenged his teachers and trainers to keep up with him, which is why he was promoted early. The whole, Michael retreats into silence during training scenario has not rung true to me for several years now, moving as I did find some of those stories the first time I read them.