While I agree with the point that this story made "I'm not gay, I just want you." work, I cannot agree with neth_dugan's statement concerning the character of Hypathia:
Oh, and the kid? Screams Mary Sue, but I Really Don't Care. I mean, she can do this, can do that, can do absolutely everything (though, she isn't to great at interacting with others. ie cousins and Disney World). But, it completely works, and just seems natural. She's the daughter of Rodney-the-genius and John-the-closet-geek-rejected-mensa-bloke-with-strong-ATA-gene. Of course she's gonna be damned special, damned clever and damned talented. It completely slots in with everything else.
I finished the story feeling like I had missed a lot of scenes that would have made her an actual person.
I think we have all developed a healthy fear of Mary Sue kid stories and try to avoid them as much as MPREG fiction because only very rarely are the results something worth reading (if you're not into badfic or humor, that is).
Kid stories usually either mention the kid only in passing, or concentrate on it to an extend that makes us scramble for the insulin injector.
This story felt like the author has done her utmost to avoid any of the obvious, clichéd traps rife in MPREG and kid stories, and in doing so, gone into the other direction - too far, too fast. "A Beautiful Lifetime Event" is the ultimate anti-kid fic.
Yes, it has a child as one of the main characters, but that child seems strangely devoid of a character, of personal traits of her own, of opinions, or interactions with her parents beyond the most basic ones. She has no hair color, no eye color, no personal preferences. In the whole 29,581 words, the girl remains as nebulous as the mist in "Home" (apart from sometimes being a mini-Rodney or a mini-John).
She never thinks or acts beyond the scenes in which she clearly has a plot point to support, e.g. being the catalyst to John's realization that his family is more important than his love interest, or addressing the problem of John's lack of closeness to his parents (or, at first, Rodney's towards Hypathia until he solved it with technology).
Which would bring about an interesting tangent on its own, but that's not my point here.
I loved the scene between John and Rodney after the first had come to his senses and confronted Rodney about the ever-widening chasm between them after Katie. I loved a whole lot of scenes, plus the basic idea.
All in all, I thought the story had tremendous potential -- which it never utilized.
So no, I don't like "A Beautiful Lifetime Event" very much. It left me with an overpowering feeling of dissatisfaction.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2005-08-28 07:37 pm (UTC)Oh, and the kid? Screams Mary Sue, but I Really Don't Care. I mean, she can do this, can do that, can do absolutely everything (though, she isn't to great at interacting with others. ie cousins and Disney World). But, it completely works, and just seems natural. She's the daughter of Rodney-the-genius and John-the-closet-geek-rejected-mensa-bloke-with-strong-ATA-gene. Of course she's gonna be damned special, damned clever and damned talented. It completely slots in with everything else.
I finished the story feeling like I had missed a lot of scenes that would have made her an actual person.
I think we have all developed a healthy fear of Mary Sue kid stories and try to avoid them as much as MPREG fiction because only very rarely are the results something worth reading (if you're not into badfic or humor, that is).
Kid stories usually either mention the kid only in passing, or concentrate on it to an extend that makes us scramble for the insulin injector.
This story felt like the author has done her utmost to avoid any of the obvious, clichéd traps rife in MPREG and kid stories, and in doing so, gone into the other direction - too far, too fast. "A Beautiful Lifetime Event" is the ultimate anti-kid fic.
Yes, it has a child as one of the main characters, but that child seems strangely devoid of a character, of personal traits of her own, of opinions, or interactions with her parents beyond the most basic ones. She has no hair color, no eye color, no personal preferences. In the whole 29,581 words, the girl remains as nebulous as the mist in "Home" (apart from sometimes being a mini-Rodney or a mini-John).
She never thinks or acts beyond the scenes in which she clearly has a plot point to support, e.g. being the catalyst to John's realization that his family is more important than his love interest, or addressing the problem of John's lack of closeness to his parents (or, at first, Rodney's towards Hypathia until he solved it with technology).
Which would bring about an interesting tangent on its own, but that's not my point here.
I loved the scene between John and Rodney after the first had come to his senses and confronted Rodney about the ever-widening chasm between them after Katie. I loved a whole lot of scenes, plus the basic idea.
All in all, I thought the story had tremendous potential -- which it never utilized.
So no, I don't like "A Beautiful Lifetime Event" very much. It left me with an overpowering feeling of dissatisfaction.