The Fairy Tale Never Ends, Damnit! a.k.a. Why Pren Doesn't Like Deathfics

15/10/08 01:03
slyprentice: (Default)
[personal profile] slyprentice
I have to admit that I've come to the very painful, very real conclusion that I am one of those jump-to-the-end-to-find-out-what-happens readers. Which is, strangely, something that is slightly depressing (to my mind) to admit. Mostly because what says boring-old-shoe better than being someone who doesn't like surprises? - which, surprise surprise, I don't much. Sometimes. 

Anyway.

The reason for this not important admission is because I stumbled across a story I read, quite literally, years ago that to-this-very-day still depresses the ever living shit out of me. I'm talking just thinking about it makes me want a stiff drink, which is better than right after I read it because I'd cry. No lie. Tears would be streaming down my face and I'd look like an absolute fucking freak, crying in front of my computer screen, snotting up my keyboard. Not an image I want to cultivate, seriously. 

I'll spare you all the fun details of the story but needless to say it was in my boy band days (*shifty eyes*) and involved, vaguely, a boy band. The main character of the story (male) ends up falling in love with a OMC (short version) and you get forty - count them, forty! - chapters of relationship and future building that was, honestly, so breathtakingly real that I was completely and utterly emotionally invested in the characters. I wanted them to make it. I wanted them to face the quibbles and heartbreak of being in a male/male relationship (I'm sorry, 'homosexual relationship' just sounds way too clinical to me, always has) while one of them was under an international microscope - where anything he does can totally screw the other guys in his band - and the other is dealing with the pressure of not only his lover's fame (which is growing exponentially every day) but the band manager trying to destroy their relationship for the good of the band. And, yeah, okay, I know it sounds flamingly dramatic, but it was written in a way that totally sold the drama. Now, okay, you're asking yourself 'why is that depressing?'. Well, I'll tell you why!

The OMC is killed at the end. Beaten to death by homophobic assholes. In front of his lover. In June. 

All right. Okay. So, yeah, this isn't Brokeback Mountain (point of interest, this story was written and finished about a year before Brokeback came out in the New Yorker) and no one warned me about this being a fucking deathfic! And, you know, I have a big fucking problem with that. 

Why? 

Because this happy cookie doesn't read deathfics! 

Ever. At all. Anywhere. 

I want the 'And So They Lived Happily Ever After Even Though That's Really Not Realistic But Fuck Reality It's Too Depressing' ending. It makes me happy. It improves my day. It makes me not want to throw in the towel and say 'you know what world? Suck it!' because that's the kind of happy person I am. I mean, really, is it too much to ask to have the person live? Real life is so depressing as it is that nearly the entirely world is on Ritalin (or, for me, chocolate) because of it. 

Don't get me wrong. I love angst. Angst and me are like this: *crosses fingers* and that's me on bottom because me and angst? We're secrets lovers. But c'mon! Give us readers a break and warn us. I don't need to be traumatized by my reading material! I live in the same state as Bush for godsake, I'm traumatized enough! 

*shakes head*

I'm not an overly emotional person - I swear I'm not - but deathfics make me want to grind my teeth. Especially since, and this is just a generalization, every writer I've ever spoken to about their deathfic says the same thing: "I wanted it to be as realistic as possible". 

So, what you're saying is, in real life there are no happy endings? (*squints* please don't drag me into a philosophical debate on the subject)

Because, let me tell you, there are. Maybe not many, maybe not always, but there are happy endings. Somewhere. Some place. Quite possibly in your next door neighbors fan fiction BUT! It's there, ready and waiting. So write it, for god's sake, before I have to take an upper just to get through reading in my fandom(s).

Which, coincidentally, means that I'll have a righteous drug addiction and when, years from now, I'm on an episode of Intervention, I'll blame it all on fan fiction.


P.s. - Don't get me wrong, death does not necessarily equal unhappy (I've seen Somewhere In Time, yo), but fannish wise? It always, always does. I long for the days that happy endings were actually cool.


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15/10/08 21:24 (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] yendrie.livejournal.com
I know what you mean about death fics. I admit I've read a few ones that are really, really good. And while they make me cry like a Banshee, they're so good that it's kind of worth it. But... I also hear what you say. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a hopeless optimist in that aspect. That somehow I want all the stories I read to have a happy ending because while unrealistic as that is, I can't escape this need to have the characters be happy.

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15/10/08 22:33 (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] slyprentice.livejournal.com
I wish I could say I was a hopeless optimist but, on the whole, I don't think I am. I'm not a pessimist, mind you, but just someone in between the two. My problem is that it seems a lot of writers (both professional and fan fiction) seem to revel in death and the pain it brings the characters to the point that readers are left with little to no hope at the end of the story.

I don't want that. I want hope, even if it's a muted hope, and death fics don't tend to lend themselves to that. Even though, I'll admit, there are some death fics that have a hopeful ending despite the loss. They're just really hard to find.
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