FIC: was Re: [LMB] Re: Slash (was OT) now Bujold Romance/Slash Meta

[quietann]

I've taken this into the FIC: heading because I give some specific examples
of Vorkosiverse fic below.

On 1/3/07, CatMtn at aol.com <CatMtn at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >  > There are readers for whom reading the derivative works, of any
> >  > sort, actively damages the book-in-their-head, in ways they
> > >  then can't get rid of.  Where the original work is especially
> >  > beloved, I suspect the damage will be most keenly felt.
>
> M:
>
> This happens for me--I quit reading some fanfic because of  it, even
> though
> the original books are not especially favorites  of mine.  I refuse to
> read any
> Bujold-based fanfic because I think I'd get  really hostile with anyone
> who
> messed with my ideas of _those_ characters!
>
> Mary


>From what I've seen poking around LJ, this is a very common reaction WRT
fanfic based on Bujold's books.  Or people will be very critical of anyone
who does not capture "Bujold style" in their works.

OTOH, a great deal of Bujold fanfic looks back in time and fills in missing
pieces of canon.  There is rather a lot of fascinating Barrayaran history
that is hinted at in the books. The Russians, in particular, have some very
good stuff from the pre-Cordelia era, Yuri's time, and so forth.  Or people
try to figure out why a particular canon character turned out the way they
did, to get into that character's head when s/he was much younger (a great
deal of what I write and enjoy reading is in this vein.)  Some examples:
Duv Galeni at the point when he realized he could not be on his father's
side of the Komarr revolt anymore, a hypothesized chain of events leading up
to Lady Donna's decision to become Lord Dono, Cordelia's arrival in Vorbarr
Sultana for the first time, the small intimate conversations between Simon
and Alys when they finally were *allowed* to be in love with each other,
early Ges/Aral, Ezar/Xav/Piotr plotting to overthrow Yuri, etc.

There is actually not a huge amount of Vorkosiverse slash, with a few rather
notable exceptions (e.g. Gregor/Miles, which just seemed wrong to a lot of
people, but was done *so* well that it became quite believable; By/Ivan,
which can be too hilarious for words; Simon/Aral which has several
interesting permutations)  The relationships in the books are as they are,
and it's not terribly easy to put them aside.  In fact there are quite a few
people who try writing Vorkosiverse fic *once* and decide it's too hard.

All that can be summarized as, "It's not for everyone."  And that is just
fine, so long as the people for whom it's not don't try to squelch the
others.

-- 
quietann at gmail.com

aka "The Accidental Jewess"