Snippets on crack
Oct. 29th, 2013 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
donnaimmaculataDear fanfic writers,
Do you ever stumble across a piece of writing in your draft folder that you had completely forgotten and that amuses you when you discover it after all those years? I saw the other day that, back in 2006, I had written a Slobodan Milosevic*/Harry Potter crossover:
"Whatever happened to Slobodan Milosevic? Mystery crack
Milosevic is dead and on his way to larger-than-life martyrdom. There's nothing like being a criminal - alleged or convicted - and dying under mysterious circumstances to become a martyr. Rumour will have it that he's been poisoned by corrupt Dutch authorities. According to my latest information (radio, half an hour ago), his death was caused by anti-leprosy and anti-tuberculosis drugs which counteracted the effects of his heart medication. However, considering all facts, I can't help but see some parallels and notice some evidence that points firmly into a different direction. South-Eastern Europe? Connection to Kosovo-Albanians? A mother's untimely death? High-security prison? Where have I read all this before?
Let's have a look at this letter exchange:
July 1995
Dear Master-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,
Contrary to all the rumours that might reach you, I have not resigned my strategic position by the side of H. P. because of the threats uttered against me by the escaped convict Black. I have resigned it, because rumours of much more worrying matter has finally made it to Hogwarts: apparently, the region in which you are currently residing is under attack. A maniac who thinks himself fit to challenge the Greatest Wizard of All Times (yourself, Master) is on the war path and attempts to destroy all and everything around him. Including yourself.
I know of course that such rumours are greatly exaggerated, but I have nevertheless decided that I would be of more use at your side than skulking around the Weasley boy's bed. I have therefore set off and am on my way.
Sincerely,
P. Pettigrew
PS. I'm not sending this letter by owl but by wren, as in your present condition an owl might accidentally eat you.
a gust 1995
to: fithfl sssservnt in spe, baartmussss cruoch
havnig hard of ur latst misfortunessss, i hve deciedd to grant u the graet honor of freeng u frmo teh unwrthy cnditoin u hav ben ssssufffring undr. 4 furthr detials rfer to my obdinte sssrvant p.pttetigrw
ur master (exsss & in sssspe)
Lrd vald e mart
ps. plz x-cuse spell.work, hloding qill wehn disssmbodeid fuking hard. LOL!!!11
November 1995
Dear Barty,
I have received the order to inform you that your father is cracking under the strain put upon him by our beloved Master. He spends his evening hours sitting in what I have come to understand was your mother's favourite chair and reliving the story of your escape from Azkaban over and over again. Did you know your mother got the idea of impersonating you from an old school friend from Durmstrang? Apparently, that Mrs. Miloshevich (sp?) faked her own death by hanging, and spent the last 30 years alternately impersonating her son and whispering advice in his ear. It was she who infused him with such hatred against our Master. He has now sent out troops which roam the South-Easter-European forests and kill everything and everyone who looks "foreign" to them. How that Squib could have learned about our Master's whereabouts remains a mystery to me. But at least his trail is now cold. Mua ha ha!
Anyway, we decided it's for the best if your father took it easy from now on and are keeping him locked up in the basement.
Your friend and well-wisher,
Pete"
*Serbian dictator and war criminal responsible for the Bosnian genocide during the Balkan war
I also drafted an idea for an obscure crossover challenge where I brought Emma Woodhouse and Eminem together. (Unsurprisingly, Eminem was introduced to Emma by Mr Frank Churchill. Mr Knightley was not pleased):
"Mr Knightley chose that inopportune moment to appear in the doorway, and Emma found herself on the verge of swooning when his brow furrowed and his features darkened at such ungentlemanlike behaviour. She executed all her presence of mind and performed the necessary introductions, and then proceeded to sit down and talk about the weather, determined to keep the peace for the duration of that gentleman's visit.
Mr Mathers soon became the talk of Highbury, and Emma found herself in his company more often than she would have wished for. Despite herself her interest in him and his eccentricities grew. He was a young man of about five-and-twenty, who had been born and raised in the New World and had only recently come to England. His manners were not equal to any of the gentlemen's to whose company she was accustomed; he was frank, bordering on the uncivil, and he used expressions that she had never heard before and found almost impossible to understand. After a week's acquaintance, she had not as yet been able to ascertain his occupation. The Church was most likely to be his profession, as he occasionally mentioned a Doctor Dray, whom she assumed to be the vicar of his parish. She could see what it was that made him an attractive companion for Frank; she, too, found that strangeness of his character appealing, and she could not but be titillated by the extravagance of his attire. Unlike any other man she knew, he never wore a cravat. Most often, he would walk about in shirtsleeves, which her father regarded as scandalous negligence. Poor Mr Woodhouse, who had taken kindly to the young man, often lamented that his propensity for the déshabillé would result in his catching the flu or pneumonia. His breeches were long and so loose that they hung about his person like a lady's petticoat, but Emma liked the many pockets, from which he would fish a mysterious-looking object every now and then shake it vigorously and then put it away again, muttering nonsensical execrations directed against semaphore flags ("No signal!") or the jurisprudential profession ("No bars!")."
So, do you have any weird ficlets lying around that will never see the light of day? Do share!
Do you ever stumble across a piece of writing in your draft folder that you had completely forgotten and that amuses you when you discover it after all those years? I saw the other day that, back in 2006, I had written a Slobodan Milosevic*/Harry Potter crossover:
"Whatever happened to Slobodan Milosevic? Mystery crack
Milosevic is dead and on his way to larger-than-life martyrdom. There's nothing like being a criminal - alleged or convicted - and dying under mysterious circumstances to become a martyr. Rumour will have it that he's been poisoned by corrupt Dutch authorities. According to my latest information (radio, half an hour ago), his death was caused by anti-leprosy and anti-tuberculosis drugs which counteracted the effects of his heart medication. However, considering all facts, I can't help but see some parallels and notice some evidence that points firmly into a different direction. South-Eastern Europe? Connection to Kosovo-Albanians? A mother's untimely death? High-security prison? Where have I read all this before?
Let's have a look at this letter exchange:
July 1995
Dear Master-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,
Contrary to all the rumours that might reach you, I have not resigned my strategic position by the side of H. P. because of the threats uttered against me by the escaped convict Black. I have resigned it, because rumours of much more worrying matter has finally made it to Hogwarts: apparently, the region in which you are currently residing is under attack. A maniac who thinks himself fit to challenge the Greatest Wizard of All Times (yourself, Master) is on the war path and attempts to destroy all and everything around him. Including yourself.
I know of course that such rumours are greatly exaggerated, but I have nevertheless decided that I would be of more use at your side than skulking around the Weasley boy's bed. I have therefore set off and am on my way.
Sincerely,
P. Pettigrew
PS. I'm not sending this letter by owl but by wren, as in your present condition an owl might accidentally eat you.
a gust 1995
to: fithfl sssservnt in spe, baartmussss cruoch
havnig hard of ur latst misfortunessss, i hve deciedd to grant u the graet honor of freeng u frmo teh unwrthy cnditoin u hav ben ssssufffring undr. 4 furthr detials rfer to my obdinte sssrvant p.pttetigrw
ur master (exsss & in sssspe)
Lrd vald e mart
ps. plz x-cuse spell.work, hloding qill wehn disssmbodeid fuking hard. LOL!!!11
November 1995
Dear Barty,
I have received the order to inform you that your father is cracking under the strain put upon him by our beloved Master. He spends his evening hours sitting in what I have come to understand was your mother's favourite chair and reliving the story of your escape from Azkaban over and over again. Did you know your mother got the idea of impersonating you from an old school friend from Durmstrang? Apparently, that Mrs. Miloshevich (sp?) faked her own death by hanging, and spent the last 30 years alternately impersonating her son and whispering advice in his ear. It was she who infused him with such hatred against our Master. He has now sent out troops which roam the South-Easter-European forests and kill everything and everyone who looks "foreign" to them. How that Squib could have learned about our Master's whereabouts remains a mystery to me. But at least his trail is now cold. Mua ha ha!
Anyway, we decided it's for the best if your father took it easy from now on and are keeping him locked up in the basement.
Your friend and well-wisher,
Pete"
*Serbian dictator and war criminal responsible for the Bosnian genocide during the Balkan war
I also drafted an idea for an obscure crossover challenge where I brought Emma Woodhouse and Eminem together. (Unsurprisingly, Eminem was introduced to Emma by Mr Frank Churchill. Mr Knightley was not pleased):
"Mr Knightley chose that inopportune moment to appear in the doorway, and Emma found herself on the verge of swooning when his brow furrowed and his features darkened at such ungentlemanlike behaviour. She executed all her presence of mind and performed the necessary introductions, and then proceeded to sit down and talk about the weather, determined to keep the peace for the duration of that gentleman's visit.
Mr Mathers soon became the talk of Highbury, and Emma found herself in his company more often than she would have wished for. Despite herself her interest in him and his eccentricities grew. He was a young man of about five-and-twenty, who had been born and raised in the New World and had only recently come to England. His manners were not equal to any of the gentlemen's to whose company she was accustomed; he was frank, bordering on the uncivil, and he used expressions that she had never heard before and found almost impossible to understand. After a week's acquaintance, she had not as yet been able to ascertain his occupation. The Church was most likely to be his profession, as he occasionally mentioned a Doctor Dray, whom she assumed to be the vicar of his parish. She could see what it was that made him an attractive companion for Frank; she, too, found that strangeness of his character appealing, and she could not but be titillated by the extravagance of his attire. Unlike any other man she knew, he never wore a cravat. Most often, he would walk about in shirtsleeves, which her father regarded as scandalous negligence. Poor Mr Woodhouse, who had taken kindly to the young man, often lamented that his propensity for the déshabillé would result in his catching the flu or pneumonia. His breeches were long and so loose that they hung about his person like a lady's petticoat, but Emma liked the many pockets, from which he would fish a mysterious-looking object every now and then shake it vigorously and then put it away again, muttering nonsensical execrations directed against semaphore flags ("No signal!") or the jurisprudential profession ("No bars!")."
So, do you have any weird ficlets lying around that will never see the light of day? Do share!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-10-30 08:37 am (UTC)There was a discussion about AO3's "underaged" tag on
no subject
Date: 2013-10-30 09:14 am (UTC)So have I! I am currently writing a Snape/Lupin fic as answer to a prompt that specifies the NC-17 rating, and I am struggling with it.
My policy is that as long as the characters' ages are known, the "underage" warning is obsolete. If the readers know how old the characters are, they will know whether they are underage in a way that bothers them. Also, to me, 16-17 is not underage in the sense used in the warnings. I grew up in a country where it was perfectly legal to have sex at 16 - at 14, if you asked the parents for permission. (A friend of mine from a rather conservative home (her father was a pastor) fell in love at the age of 14 with a man of 23; they got together when she was 15. He was fully accepted by her parents, he even went on family holidays with them.)
I've almost forgotten about the whole chan debate, and you're right, chan now hardly exists anywhere. Even though I've never been into chan, I do think that it was an important element of fannish culture. The point is that writing (pornographic) fanfiction is a fabulous way of pushing boundaries. A few weeks ago I made a post about how I miss the porn, but it is not the porn as such that I miss, but the opportunity to venture outside one's comfort zone by writing about issues that make us uncomfortable, to experiment with darkness, corruption and violence within a controlled environment.