This stuff just MAKES me want to write deathfic.

[timepiececlock]

I got a review for my fic Rain saying "Ahh, *hearts in eyes* so fluffy, so awesome!"

::bangs head against wall::


It's not fluffy! The closest any part of it comes to fluff is some sappiness when Charater A realizes he's in love with Character B so much that he is able to forgive Character B for totally using him and abusing his trust. It wasn't fluffy. It was ANGSTY and SOMEWHAT SENTIMENTAL.

Every time someone tells me an agst-ridden fic of mine is "fluffy" when the reviewer and I clearly have different ideas of what "fluff" is, it makes me realize once again that, clearly, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE DIED IN THIS FIC.

I don't know why this bugs me so much, but it does. I write fluff quite often. But when I'm writing something angsty, I don't want someone to say "so fluffy". If it's reallly oh so fluffy then clearly I totally FAIL at any sort of dramatic tension. Basically the review is telling me "Your idea of angst or drama is giving me warm and fuzzy feelings." I don't want to give the reader warm and fuzzy feelings. I don't want it to be cute.

When I write cute, I want the reader to see it as cute. When I write dramatic, I want the reader to see it as dramatic.

If what I think is drama they think is cute, clearly something's wrong here. And thinking it might be me who's confused is really, really depressing.


Clearly, not enough people died in this fic.

Comments

[beckingham.livejournal.com]

Personally, I always make sure there's a good amount of boarder-line abuse/blood in my angst to get the point across, but her manipulation of Zuko is a pretty obvious cue that the story is not fluffy.

Maybe she was responding to the whole "we're fated to be together" thing--as well as the fact that they kiss at the end? She could be selectively reading.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

It makes me feel better to hear that. I was reading it and thinking "Dude, girl-person, did you totally miss my paragraph where she abused his trust as the means to an end? Did ff.net delete that paragraph or something?!"


Maybe she was responding to the whole "we're fated to be together" thing--as well as the fact that they kiss at the end? She could be selectively reading.

Maybe. The ficlet does have a significant sap & sentimentality quotient. Maybe she meant sappy and not fluffy? Because to me fluff is very distinctly absent of angst. Fluff is almost always sappy but sentimentalism or sappyness is certainly not always fluffy. When I think of fluff I think funny, cute, adorable, makes you want to smell the roses or hug a puppy or something.

[beckingham.livejournal.com]

No, I think you made it pretty clear that this relationship was all doomed with its dysfunction... wait, has dysfunction become such a norm in fandom that one can just shrug it off and pay attention solely to the "sweet" parts? I worry for the state of the masses. Hopefully what they think of fic doesn't leak over into reality.

When I think of fluff I think funny, cute, adorable, makes you want to smell the roses or hug a puppy or something.
I don't think I've ever written fluff in my life. Stating that sounds surprisingly like a challenge to myself. Oh shit.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

wait, has dysfunction become such a norm in fandom that one can just shrug it off and pay attention solely to the "sweet" parts? I worry for the state of the masses.

Sadly, I've seen that before on ff.net a lot. You write a fucked up badfic where someone's abusing someone else in the relationship and the reviewers are like "Aww, it's so romantic!" and I just want to punch them in the head. Metaphorically.

I bet you could write fluff if you tried. Most of my humorous stuff is fluffy Culture Clash is, like, the fluffiest thing this side of my FF.net page. I even had a drabble that was entirely in poetic verse. ...Well, fluffy with a side of satire.

[beckingham.livejournal.com]

You write a fucked up badfic where someone's abusing someone else in the relationship and the reviewers are like "Aww, it's so romantic!" and I just want to punch them in the head.
This worries me. Maybe I shouldn't write that torture!fic I've been planning. I don't want to feel the urge to throw up if someone comments like that. Then again, the desire to kill my readers could get me into the proper mindset to write this guy's character, so maybe their skewed views of reality will actually benefit someone. ;D

I bet you could write fluff if you tried.
Oh, I'm sure I could. I just wouldn't be happy doing it. I'm afraid it might come out awkward and more pseudo-fluffy than anything. I see enough cute in my everyday life that what I want when I read and write is a little morbidity.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Wrie your torturefic. The keyword in my reply was "badfic". Sometimes those stories I was talking about don't even recognize taht they're writing an abusive relationship and the authors themselves think its romantic. From what I remember of your Z/K sentences, if you write a torturefic and you treat it with appropriate seriousness, I'm sure no one will confuse it with fluff.

[beckingham.livejournal.com]

I really can't not write it at this point, as it's managed to latch onto my mind completely, but I do think I should warn everyone from the get go in the author's notes that this is not a romance and if you ever see someone in even a slightly similar situation then you should get them help. Not that anyone will mind me, but it'll make me feel better about putting it out there.

Thank you for your faith in me that I would be appropriate about it. XD

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

it makes me realize once again that, clearly, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE DIED IN THIS FIC.


You made me spit tea! [choke] Gods, that so sounded like something my roommate would say :)

Seriously though, if I got a similar comment on one of my dark and broody fics, I'd be a little put out too. [sigh] Like the time someone told me I was perky. Me? Perky!??!?! [shakes head] Nuh uh.

[jakia.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I thought it was dark and angsty. It's what inspired me. :)

And no, not enough people died. But they will. We just have to...I dunno, prod some people into it.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

::glomps:: Thanks. It does make me feel better. Yours was dark too. Heck, yours had me worrying that Zuko was doomed to die young, a super-depressing thought.


We could say Iroh died. I believe I do have a line in there about her being present at the scene when everything goes wrong for him, or something. That could be Iroh dying. I love Iroh, but I've killed him off for plot reasons before and I'm not afraid to do it again.

[jakia.livejournal.com]

Heck, yours had me worrying that Zuko was doomed to die young, a super-depressing thought.

::whistles:: I don't know what your talking about.

And I have a love/hate relationship with Iroh dying. A part of me loves the idea, while another part of me wants to whack someone (including myself) every time it's used. It's unnerving because I can't make my mind up on whether I like the idea or not.

I almost want to start a C2 community just for Avatar fics that are based on fanart. Any ideas? (because I would not know how to run something liket that.) It would be one way to keep all of our fics based on Irrel's people's fanart.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

That would be cool. But I recently discovered you can only start one c2 comm per person, so you wouldn't be able to start any others.

[jakia.livejournal.com]

That sucks. Why did they do something like that?

Also, this is completely and utterly OT, but what program do you use to make your icons? I like the font and everything, as you tend to be able to read it no matter what the background, and I was wondering what program/font you used (and where I can get it).

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Still, if you feel like starting one, I'd be a subscriber!

I use Adobe Photoshop to make the icons, and Adobe ImageReady to turn the .psd files into animated icons. Each frame or slide is made in Photoshop though, which is where I do cropping, text, etc. I've downloaded several miniature fonts to use for icons, and I always am very careful about picking font color and placement. I hate icons with unreadable font. There's a few basic things you can always remember, though: the font should be against an opposite-colored background. Light against dark, dark against light. I often use contrasting or complimentary colors from within the icon image itself, because I want the font to match the icon. Stuff like red-on-brown is always a bad idea, as is red-on-green or green-on-blue, unless one of the colors is very light green and the other very dark blue. You need contrast. If you have a multi-shaded background with lots of dark or light right next to each other (meaning no solid-color space), then I usually say pick a bright color and outline it in black or very dark drop-shadow, like I do with this icon.

(is one really cheap bastard)

[jakia.livejournal.com]

Mind sharing photoshop? I had it on my computer originally, but then we reformated it, and now it's all gone. :(

Re: (is one really cheap bastard)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I can, yeah, but it'll have to be later in the week.

Re: (is one really cheap bastard)

[jakia.livejournal.com]

::glomps:: Thank you!

[crzysheelf.livejournal.com]

I know I hate when crap like that happens, well I don't really have much angst stuff posted, but I have reviews where all peeps do is complain, but its not flame, just complaining... GAH!!!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'll take complaints. What bugged me here is that she was pleased about it being fluffy. I'm like "Wha?"

[mswyrr]

To me, fluff is a light, insubstantial bit of material -- a milkweed seed aloft in the sky, riding an air current. Or the soft fuzz of a baby bird. Your story doesn't feel like that. It has weight, shape and volume in the mind. It's substantial.

Your reviewer is just an idiot who never bothered to consider the word or take ten seconds to look it up in an online dictionary, thats all.

[easytodistract.livejournal.com]

First, I haven't read your fic or Jakia's yet (only read Retad's because it's a compulsion for me to read Retad's stories), so I can't judge yet on whether your story was (for me) fluffy or dark.

I decided not to read the fics written for Irrel's Rain piece because I don't want to be influenced while writing my art-fic trade story. (is easily distracted/influenced)

Second, you'll probably going to hate me for this, but for now - Zutara is the Fluffy pairing for me, not Kataang.

Note - it's just fluffy to me. I didn't say it should be fluffy for all. (just making sure there is no misunderstanding)

Right now, I'm on my seventh attempt the get canon age Katara and Zuko together; I've written:

- Katara almost gets raped (HATED IT even though she really really fought well)
- Zuko finds Katara wandering around the wilderness (needed a rogue twister, still hated it)
- during a welcoming party for the Avatar, the major's son hits on Katara and Blue Spirit!Zuko steps in (still no go).
- took a plot bunny from Retad's story and made during a during the war storyline (still not happy)

Have doodled more than 5000 words and I still couldn't get them together without me feeling it was all forced or unnatural. Fluffy (apart from meaning soft and warm) also means light and 'frivolous' and. All seven of my efforts really felt like frivolous attempts on my part to get these two characters together eventhough I -really- tried hard.

I am not a happy AtLA fic writer. I really -really- didn't expect it would be this hard to get them together, especially since I've already gotten them together before.

I'm blaming that wonderful Zuko Alone ep. Ever since that ep, I've been having a really hard time seeing Zuko as the aggressor in any relationship.