Comments | veryspecial0ne: Ode to Optophobia (5A)

veryspecial0ne

Ode to Optophobia (5A)

Jul 15, 2011 03:42

Title: Ode to Optophobia, or: Ten Men That Loved Annie Edison (9/19)
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe.
Word count: ~2300 for this installment, ~25,000 for the series thus far.
Disclaimer: I have now been tweeted by both Dan Harmon and Alison Brie. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever come to ( Read more... )

fanfiction, community, ode to optophobia

Comments 32

wallows July 21 2011, 11:12:50 UTC

Awwwww...Vaughn is such a sweetheart. I really loved this chapter, just Vaughn and Annie seem perfect for each other because he's easygoing and she's anything but. But, well, perfect on paper. They're certainly sweet enough and Vaughn takes care of her, BUT that's not always enough. I also loved how you filled in the events leading to Pascal's.

veryspecial0ne July 21 2011, 19:52:30 UTC

Something always strikes me about Annie and Vaughn. In Romantic Expressionism, what gets everyone to stop fighting (besides the song) is that Annie declares that he likes her "for who she is." And I think that's really true, or at least that he liked her for the person he saw her as. I think he probably knows about her addiction and rehab and all that, but he can't quite understand it. So no matter how much you care about someone, if you have an image of them in your head that glosses over the shadows, it's really not going to be enough.

Thanks so much for the review!

petrichor_fizz July 21 2011, 11:15:20 UTC

I really appreciated the way that you lent depth here to a character who can often come across as one note, both in the show itself and in fanfic. I also thought you did well in fleshing out Annie's story in the finale - I feel like it was left intentionally blank, as it were, to make the last scene more 'surprising', but I think Annie's character kind of got short shrift by that decision, and it may even have been more effective if hers had been the subplot, and then we would have had the A and B stories coming together at the end in a satisfyingly Seinfeldian way. Anyway, I digress - the point is I think you filled in the blanks in a really convincing and satisfying way here.

veryspecial0ne July 21 2011, 19:54:13 UTC

Thank you! I was really nervous about writing Vaughn. So many of the characters in this show are so outrageous that it's really tough to keep the balance between making them fleshed out and keeping them consistent with the heightened behavior we see on screen. I'm glad it worked for you.

fangirl_101 July 21 2011, 12:46:13 UTC

This is always how I had pictured this happening. With Annie making the rash decision to go with Vaughn without really thinking it through because she was trying to be impulsive and spontaneous and, basically, not her. Then, she freaks out over little details (like the dentist and NA meetings you give, which are just so perfect and exactly the things Annie would worry about) and realizes she's not the kind of person that can make a life-altering decision on such short notice.

Vaughn was always just meh for me. I don't hate him; I don't like him. He and Annie always seemed like a bad fit, because it seemed to me like Annie was changing herself to be someone he wanted to date. But, I do feel for him here. You made me feel bad for Vaughn, and that's pretty impressive. So yeah, well done!

veryspecial0ne July 21 2011, 20:01:48 UTC

Thanks! I think Vaughn legitimately is an impulsive guy, and that works for some people. I'm actually really impulsive. I consider some of the best decisions in my life to be ones I made on the spur of the moment. And Annie's just not like that, though the fact that she wanted to date someone like that and maybe become like that a little bit herself makes total sense when you consider what her habit for over-planning and stressing out about every detail did to her in high school. So I guess what I'm saying is that the Vaughn/Annie relationship, to me, is about seeing something in the other person that you think you're supposed to be looking for to make yourself better. I think it's a part of what Jeff once saw in Britta. And yet Jeff and Annie have always brought out the best in each other without even trying and sometimes without realizing it ( ... )

fangirl_101 July 21 2011, 20:17:58 UTC

"So I guess what I'm saying is that the Vaughn/Annie relationship, to me, is about seeing something in the other person that you think you're supposed to be looking for to make yourself better."

This makes such complete sense. Well stated.

"And yet Jeff and Annie have always brought out the best in each other without even trying and sometimes without realizing it."

Exactly. It's just effortless for them.

"I totally haven't forgotten about your prompt from the last Ficcy Friday!"

LOL which one was it? Was it the dating show one? I've submitted so many prompts lately I can't even remember! And I have some more to prompt tomorrow based on some recent personal experiences!

veryspecial0ne July 21 2011, 21:08:43 UTC

Yeah, it was the Newlywed Game one! (Or "Know Your Boo," which is actually what I named the document where I'm keeping the story...) I have a beginning to it and some middle stuff, and if I can manage to keep myself concise I think I could have it done before the middle of next week.

Okay, weirdly, in between writing the above paragraph and posting it, I opened the story and started adding stuff. I have no focus at all.

Thread 9

musicandhistory November 21 2011, 03:48:34 UTC

This started out really funny (I don't think you intended it to be, but Vaughn always makes me laugh), but then it became really poignant and sad. I really like the implication that Annie was going to go with Vaughn because of her feelings for Jeff. It really explains the kiss at the end of season 1 (which always seemed kind of random to me. The only explanation seemed to be that the writers wanted a cliff-hanger ending). I like your explanation a lot.
Man, I wish I could write these characters as well as you. They seem deceptively simple until you try to write them yourself. I guess that just proves that Dan Harmon is a genius!

veryspecial0ne November 21 2011, 07:11:25 UTC

Aw, thank you. I think Jeff had something to do with it, yeah. There's definitely significance to the fact that she chose him to break the news of her transfer to, and it wasn't just because he's the study group's leader or whatever. But I think he was part of a whole mess of stuff that was going on inside Annie's head that she didn't know how to sort and file and code. And she ended up kind of throwing herself into all kinds of situations that she didn't fully understand, like trying to move across the damn country and making out with Jeff ( ... )