New F&F fic

[gwyn]

I've posted the new Fast and the Furious story, On Beds of Sorrow at my web site. Yes, this is the death story, but... see rant below, because to me, it's a lot more than just that, and I hate labels and this is why. It's a bit over 12,000 words. The title comes from a William Blake poem (And men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: Restless they turn on beds of sorrow;) that I paraphrased in the story. The blurb for the story is on my main page, but even then it doesn't say much more than "features character death."

Why am I such a meanie? Well, because. I just am. (ETA: I just wanted to add that the reason I am ranting about labels isn't to passively-aggressively pick on anyone I know personally. It's just all about something that comes up every time I write something Sad with a capital S, and I like Sad, so I get it all the time. It's not nothin' personal to my peeps, 'cause they're my peeps, yo.) I hate labels, warnings, keywords, disclaimers, all of that craptastic nonsense that really got going with fandom on the web and quickly spread out of control. I'll spare you my rant against the uselessness of disclaimers and the stupidity of the other things, but the reason I hate labels like "deathfic" and like that is that it's so monumentally reductive and insulting to have a carefully crafted piece of fiction dismissed as one thing because it features that one theme or topic in it. Yes, I know, most people are not as talented as we might wish and do not have multiple layers in a story, or many people find labels helpful so they can avoid things they don't like, such as male pregnancy -- and yes, I know that with the thousands of people "writing" fanfic, labels might help people choose. I get that, I do. But they also dismiss and degrade the work, I believe, especially when there's much more to a story than just death or angst or non-con or whatever. A label just reduces fiction to its lowest common denominator, and I hate that. This story has so much more than just character death -- it's got a great Brian/Dom reunion full of lovey-dovey stuff, smut (69 smut!), a road trip (my favorite thing in the world), reVENge, Warpath!Dom, and postcards. Postcards! And lizards! (Not as many lizards as I'd hoped for, but it ended up not fitting as much, but still -- lizards!) But a label doesn't encompass those things, and that is why I hate them. So there. (I also find it weird that the people who often scream the loudest for reductive labels on fic are often the people who whine and moan if you "spoil" things even by something as simple as saying you liked it. I do not get why it's okay to spoil the story, but they'll scream bloody murder if you say anything about the show.) Death is the only thing I put a warning on, and that's only on the main page with the story blurbs -- and the only reason I do it is because my friends whine, and sometimes I even like my friends, so I defer to their phobias. Otherwise, you're on your own. ;-)

Comments

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I thought it was beautiful (and I was grateful for the warning). This kind of story, in this retrospective mode..not the kind of story that disturbs me...argh. I want to talk about the story but I'll do it privately beasue I really did like it. But this is...stories about grief don't bother me in the same ways that stories about death bother me, if that makes sense.

I thought you did an amazing job with this and I'm glad you posted it.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I sent you private mail back, but just wanted to say thanks here, too. It's funny, maybe I don't know what exactly constitutes death any more -- maybe the Balkanization of fandom has included all the definitions too! It never occurred to me that this wouldn't be just death, but could be something else. I do like the grief aspect -- I'm not interested in the physical death myself, as much, because I've been through it enough, but it might be more that the grief part is what I'm into the most. Never really thought much about it before!