Major Rant : Angst

[Alelou]

P.S. Are you feeling any better???

[WarpGirl]

Well once again I'm wierd. I don't give either of them more leeway. I believe they BOTH made serious mistakes, and I believe they BOTH made wonderful decisions in their relationship. No "good guy" no "bad guy" just two flawed people who loved each other, and had complications caused by life. I think it's pretty realistic. PS. In case anyone Didn't know I'm a chick.

[Kotik]

Hi Kotik,

First of all, by all means stay away from all Samantha Quinn's TnT fanfic. I remember I couldn't sleep for two days after reading one particular story of hers. Her stories were/are the definition of angst... (Although there are some great ones in there.)

Being an irrational human, I of course disregarded your advice and read one. In fact I read "Consequences" over at HoT. Son-of-a-bitch did I pay for it

I can't help the feeling that the whole purpose of the thing is to blast the angst-per-chapter record to the end of next week Somewhere starting chapter 20 I had to force myself to get to the end of it. That must have been the first story that I could only finish under the influence

I don't know how she did it, but in the end she twisted a sort of bittersweet happy end out of it, but generally it is exactly the sort of story I would have stopped reading not even half way into it. From my point of view that's not only angst, that's character torture

[Asso]

... From my point of view that's not only angst, that's character torture

Right!

[honeybee]

Okay, I'm female, but I'm going with the I sympathize with both characters. Now, I don't agree with how a lot of the 4th season played out on screen, especially after what we find out about the bond in Bound- but I actually think there was just a slew of cultural misunderstandings between the two of them.

She is culturally prohibited from expressing feelings. He's always wanting to talk about them like a human would. She has no cultural context for this, aside from perhaps watching movies. She's dealing with feelings that she isn't supposed to have. She expresses them non verbally (Harbinger) or with great subtlety (Zero Hour), but she also pulls back. To me, her just inviting him to Vulcan in Home was huge. But he's human, and the human on the show who often represents the emotional nature of humans, so he doesn't recognize how unusual her behavior is. It's a situation ripe for pain and angst. And they actually handle all of that pretty well for the most part.

So, in sum, their relationship is a mess, which is probably why its so interesting.

As for angst in fic, I tend to write them together but dealing with pain & angst & cultural misunderstandings because, well, I think of that as a challenge. I've never read a story that I thought was too angsty - but I might check out that fic over at HoT out of sheer curiosity. Although, I confess that I prefer angst to gooey, happy family fics. People are free to have fun writing them, but I think they would be always struggling to deal with their cultural differences and I think that's more interesting. But the great thing about working outside of canon - is that you can do what you want. It's glorious freedom.

[Pitseleh]

Hi Kotik,

First of all, by all means stay away from all Samantha Quinn's TnT fanfic. I remember I couldn't sleep for two days after reading one particular story of hers. Her stories were/are the definition of angst... (Although there are some great ones in there.)

Being an irrational human, I of course disregarded your advice and read one. In fact I read "Consequences" over at HoT. Son-of-a-bitch did I pay for it

Hehehe, I should have known that was going to happen. It's the Human condition. Some days ago a friend told me, "Whatever you do, do NOT watch this episode." And I, of course, went ahead and have into my curiosity. I believe me, I paid. And ranted about it for around two days...

Would you believe me if I said Consequences isn't even the worst one?

[WarpGirl]

I like what Ms. Honeybee had to say. I also see it from both sides. You know the challenges TnT face aren't any different from any other relationship. They're exaggerated, and blown to bigger than life proportions, but they are very normal. And I know it's considered blasphemy to sugguest this to some people, but neither Trip or T'Pol were written as perfect people. Why? Because there is no living being on this planet today that is perfect. As hard as we try we can't understand true perfection. Let's face it, even the BORG are imperfect. So why villianize either of these characters in fiction? People get so mad at T'Pol for merely being a Vulcan woman, or mad at Trip for not standing up for himself "like a man". Really, none of it makes any sense to me. I'd love these discussions a whole lot more if just one entertained the idea that there was no "good guy" or "bad guy" causing all of the conflict we saw in their relationship. To me, everything I saw was just an over-dramatized reflection of life. Which is what TV is no matter what it's genera.

What I don't understand is the rabid need of many fanfic writers to have one character's behavior responsible for the other's behavior. And to do that they start pouring on so much angst that you need to cut through it with a chainsaw to get to their theme. If the situations they face enhance an actual theme, I think angst can be wonderful. If it's just there for drama I get bored fast.

[Kotik]

Hehehe, I should have known that was going to happen. It's the Human condition. Some days ago a friend told me, "Whatever you do, do NOT watch this episode." And I, of course, went ahead and have into my curiosity. I believe me, I paid. And ranted about it for around two days...

Would you believe me if I said Consequences isn't even the worst one?

This time I will take your word for it. Angstier than Consequences is no-go area for me. I have a particular gripe with these angst-fest stories. Both characters walk through hell and back and in the last paragraph both blurt out "I love you" and they live happily ever after. It's just not my cup of tea.

[WarpGirl]

You're not alone, especially when writers make one or both characters cruel to each other. Then we hit the realm of OOC, and that makes me insane. Well... More-so than I already am.

[honeybee]

Both characters walk through hell and back and in the last paragraph both blurt out "I love you" and they live happily ever after. It's just not my cup of tea.

I know that is a fantasy that often occurs in fiction, but it drives me crazy. Heck, I know Harry Potter is a kid's book - but the hero of a thousand faces ends up broken at the end - that's the deal (See Frodo, Luke). Harry living happily ever after felt - well, wrong to me. But you can't end a beloved kid's book with "And Harry spent the rest of his life in therapy dealing with the fact that the most evil person ever tried to kill him over and over all through his formative years." And that wasn't even a romance.

I'm actually interested in the idea of how two people would move beyond & deal with the angst and pain they caused each other. I sometimes play with that theme in my fics (such as Family Secrets). I don't buy that all the pain would just go away with an "I love you" at the end - so I don't write it that way. Other people might be fine with it, but it feels empty to me. I also get very irked when I read OOC stuff, because the whole tension in TnT is the fundamental differences in their characters.

When you think about it, even before their relationship started both Trip & T'Pol had been through their share of traumas. They are both damaged people, which again makes them interesting and makes you want them to find happiness.

And while I often sympathize with T'Pol, I do tend to believe she should have recognized her bond with Trip earlier and tried to explain to him what it meant - so he would have all the facts. I actually think the T'Pol from the first 2.5 seasons of the show would have done that. Something about that drug addiction made her off. She also should have recognized that as a human, he would be expecting more expressions from her. On the other hand, he should have recognized how un-Vulcan her behavior was and known something was off with her - because he knew from season one all about Vulcan mating rituals. So, he had the information that she was stepping over serious boundaries and might have had a clue that she might be unraveling somehow.

[WarpGirl]

Read The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. Here's a hint... Queen chops off thief's hand, Theif kidnapps Queen forces her to mary him, and they only fall in love at the end, and according to the latest book in the series they're mad for each other but they work HARD to overcome stuff together. I can't wait for the next one out in March. Really, it's AWESOME! The absolute BEST series I've ever read.

And honestly I take that approach with TnT, neither of them is a bad guy. Circumstances and imperfection caused problems, but they can deal with them if they work at it. Oh and everything else you said was PERFECT!

[Alelou]

Harry living happily ever after felt - well, wrong to me. But you can't end a beloved kid's book with "And Harry spent the rest of his life in therapy dealing with the fact that the most evil person ever tried to kill him over and over all through his formative years."

LOL. I agree with you on this one, but I also just love that sentence!

I struggled along suffering through Consequences, if it's the one I think it is, but to me that loooooong story was really about the author punishing a character (Archer) in the Worst Way Imaginable. And that just made it feel icky.

[WarpGirl]

Hey I hate the man, and all I could think was "Boy not even I would do this to him" quite frankly I wouldn't do much to him at all. Anyway what really got me about that sstory and others, is that nobody communicates with anyone, they just go through all of that and not really say anything true to deal with it until the last paragraph. That gets me.

Over at kotorfanmedia (which appearently died from a malicious hacking) I got labled as the sunshine and flower girl. Because I truly believed the most angst filled Sci-fi couple on record could have a happy ending. Well I do, I think that almost any couple can get through almost any problem with hard work and honesty. Is it easy? NOPE. But where a lot of people lose me is when they spend so much time on the problems and little or no time on working through them. And to work through problems such as the ones TnT deal with, you need a positive attitude, from both characters. Something that I feel is in short supply.

[honeybee]

I also just love that sentence

I think JK Rowling would have written that sentence, if she could have. This is a woman who was going to kill off Ron, and the publisher stopped her - or so goes the rumor. Instead, she created Cedric. If only Paramount had done the same thing to B&B over *the_abomination*.

I read a lot of Archer hating TnT stories, but I always think its more interesting to watch him suck it up his crush on T'Pol like a grown up. Don't get me wrong, Archer's crush on T'Pol creeps me out. In my stories, he's always crushing on her and she's just not interested. Ever. She's totally "I see you as a friend" and all. I once challenged myself to write an Archer/T'Pol story and it turned into the most intense TnT story imaginable. And Trip never even appears in it. Now, that's an angst-filled story that came from my sick little mind that I wouldn't subject anyone to.

And to work through problems such as the ones TnT deal with, you need a positive attitude, from both characters.

I agree, totally.

[WarpGirl]

I'd TOTALLY read that story!!!!!!! See I'm right here. Really it's not that I would torture Archer because he's got a slightly peverted crush, and I call it peverted because he still doesn't even like her much in *the_abomination*. But I think it's absolutely hysterical to watch him squirm when he finds out about TnT. It just makes me laugh so hard.