Lately I am so delighted when i see your new video shown on my homepage. :) After watching this rec video, I read Dawn + Decay, which I really enjoyed, but I cant believe how much I got attached to the Manor in this fanfic! D: I was heartbroken because of her!
One of my favorite things about the fanfiction world is accessibility of the superstars and potential for participation. It’s kind of like a fantasy trip to a taffy-making shop (you’ve seen the videos of how they make it, right?) where you not only get to taste the different flavors and read the pamphlet about the origin story of the shop, etc., but you actually get to chat with the proprietor and put on a hairnet and immerse for a day visit to the floor of the shop and get your hands in the process. For me, it’s so thrilling to get to make comments on a WIP and then see some of your ideas folded into the batter in future chapters-like whaaaaaat? That’s such a cool experience! And even just to get feedback from authors to your comments. Actually, it’s even cool to read the author’s published comments (author’s notes) in each chapter to get a little peek into their RL, their inspirations and obstacles, their false starts and struggles, their appreciations/acknowledgements to authors/works they admire and to contributors who have come alongside them to polish and encourage their work. I just find that really cool, those aspects of being invited and welcomed down onto the factory floor to see, touch, experience, interact with the making/process. All that to say: being mentioned in this video was like that for me, like a treasured comment from a favorite author or creator-thank you. As to the darkwood wand, I’ll put my two cents in to a tribute of this work. Funny, you mentioned appreciation for the ensemble of characters but thankfulness that the spotlight didn’t detract from our lovebirds. For me, it was a little bit different. It was almost like ho-hum, yeah, yeah, D&H fall in love 8th year, which is nice/appreciated (yawn), but . . . the stage! The set! The lighting! Music! Costumes! All the accoutrements swirling in, around, and through the story was really what I fell in love with. Here’s a sample of some of what grabbed my heart in this fic: -harlequin wand-a wand as a character in and of itself, the cheeky trickster, absolutely loved it. And that the wand came from D’s ancestry/heritage gave a sense that D’s recent generation or two of darkness, doom, gloom, ingrained hatred and prejudice was just that, the most recent of a couple misguided generations layered over what could promise/glimmer to be a more interesting, varied, colorful, vibrant, genuine, loveliness in some of the past generations. It gives Malfoy a possibility of uncovering, redeeming, and restoring some of those recently-lost characteristics from his family’s past. -rogue sentient muffins-truly the star of the show in my opinion. Although I can’t shake it out of my mind that I thought they had come from Innocent Monsters (itscometothis). I’m gonna have to re-read IM before I believe that the rogue muffins weren’t in that story, too. Although, actually, the two stories remind me of each other quite a bit in general. -rogue unchecked ravenclaws with clipboards-this aspect of the story just had me all in, just too fascinating and funny. One of my favorite characters is Luna, and this story was kind of a tribute to L in showing the whole house of ravenclaw quite a bit like her (rather that seeming that L is an anomaly/bizzare outsider within ravenclaw). I just loved the celebration of curiosity, inquisitiveness, open-mindedness/suspension of judgement, pursuit of knowledge and learning not for grades or accolades but just for sheer simple satisfaction. -crookshanks-a lot of stories use the trope of crookshanks marking hermione’s love interest as his own territory before H has even admitted her interest, so it’s not unique to this story, but I like it -ginny-THE BEST EVER version of ginny-she is just an outlandish commitment by the author to the theme and vision of the story and I am absolutely on board with the way she is portrayed. -Harry & past-I am 100% behind the backstory of Harry and Hermione’s past/backstory. I love that there is something sacred/precious about their romantic interlude that nobody can or will be permitted to tarnish or infringe on. They are frank and unapologetic about the significance of this interlude in contributing to their foundations of who they have each become and they are caring with each other in preserving the sanctity of what they offered to each other in those fleeting moments. I love that, and it’s so unique, especially in a story where that is well in the past (as opposed to a harmony story). Unrelated: -I join you in a heart-pat tribute to Maggie Smith -I appreciate how you understand and frame your view of fanfiction through the lens of the authors. You seem to deeply know and respect the intricacies of various authors in a way that I lack and want to emulate.
These recommendations are top tier 👌 Finally, reading The Darkwood Wand and it’s so great! Immediately, adding the 4 I haven't read yet to the top of my list.
