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verushka70I'm in the middle of a slow burn, angst with a happy ending, explicit Scott/Kip fic. I'm 13K+ words in and about halfway through. It's basically S1E03 (and their parts in S1E05 and S1E06) but entirely from Scott's fucked up perspective.
I watched the series first - and then I began the books. I really hoped, after seeing the series, that Scott's history and backstory would be covered in depth in the one novel devoted to Scott and Kip. But they really weren't.
This was frustrating for me, mainly because Francois Arnaud's performance hints at so much, at depths of personal trauma and fucked-up-ness and internalized homophobia that he has to overcome before that joyous kiss on the ice in S1E05. I wanted to read those depths. But they are not in the book.
This is nothing against Rachel Reid. I am not a romance reader. When I read novels, they tend to be mystery, horror, fantasy/sci-fi, or literary novels. Detailed world-building, including of the characters' internal worlds, is necessary in these genres. I read Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh the summer between 8th grade and freshman year in high school. I read E. M. Forster's Maurice and Herman Hesse's Demian* in high school. These set a high bar for introspective, slashy fic - one that Romance, as a genre, doesn't meet (for me) because it often feels like there is only enough depth to the characters so that, whatever their current angst or problems are, they're typically solved/overcome (often rather easily) by the end of the book.
And I get that: it's all in service to the trope. I get that people enjoy that and that that is enough for many, maybe most, people. The Game Changers novels are clearly for those people. I simply happen not to be one of those people. The Scott Hunter I saw in the series simply wasn't the Scott Hunter on the page. I wanted more of Scott's inner world and personal history - it's sketched out in Game Changer, but only in broad strokes because Game Changer serves the romance, not Scott untangling his deep-seated fears and issues that led to his hyper-closeted existence. (The guy only has sex with men on other continents, never North America let alone New York, ffs! but in the book, these issues are solved by twue wuv.)
The same is true of most of the characters in the Game Changers series of books. (I'm on Book 5, Role Model, now.)
There just wasn't the depth or exploration of character and backstory in the novel, that seeing the series and the excellent acting had led me to expect and hope for.
So I decided to write it myself.
I tried the Scott/Kip Discord, briefly, to ask if anyone was interested in beta-ing. But I don't know anyone on it and I don't think anyone saw my request in the midst of the ongoing conversations flying by between people who clearly all knew each other.
So I thought I'd ask here.
If anyone would be interested in beta-ing, I can be reached at verushka70(at)Gmail(dot)com.
*Yes I know Demian doesn't explicitly posit a homoerotic relationship and that Herman Hesse was not gay and the different characters were largely projections of the main characters and psychoanalysis and Freud informed it all - I know. But his male characters and their relationships read as gay/slashy to me. And if Reddit and Tumblr are anything to go by, I am hardly the only one who thought that.
I watched the series first - and then I began the books. I really hoped, after seeing the series, that Scott's history and backstory would be covered in depth in the one novel devoted to Scott and Kip. But they really weren't.
This was frustrating for me, mainly because Francois Arnaud's performance hints at so much, at depths of personal trauma and fucked-up-ness and internalized homophobia that he has to overcome before that joyous kiss on the ice in S1E05. I wanted to read those depths. But they are not in the book.
This is nothing against Rachel Reid. I am not a romance reader. When I read novels, they tend to be mystery, horror, fantasy/sci-fi, or literary novels. Detailed world-building, including of the characters' internal worlds, is necessary in these genres. I read Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh the summer between 8th grade and freshman year in high school. I read E. M. Forster's Maurice and Herman Hesse's Demian* in high school. These set a high bar for introspective, slashy fic - one that Romance, as a genre, doesn't meet (for me) because it often feels like there is only enough depth to the characters so that, whatever their current angst or problems are, they're typically solved/overcome (often rather easily) by the end of the book.
And I get that: it's all in service to the trope. I get that people enjoy that and that that is enough for many, maybe most, people. The Game Changers novels are clearly for those people. I simply happen not to be one of those people. The Scott Hunter I saw in the series simply wasn't the Scott Hunter on the page. I wanted more of Scott's inner world and personal history - it's sketched out in Game Changer, but only in broad strokes because Game Changer serves the romance, not Scott untangling his deep-seated fears and issues that led to his hyper-closeted existence. (The guy only has sex with men on other continents, never North America let alone New York, ffs! but in the book, these issues are solved by twue wuv.)
The same is true of most of the characters in the Game Changers series of books. (I'm on Book 5, Role Model, now.)
There just wasn't the depth or exploration of character and backstory in the novel, that seeing the series and the excellent acting had led me to expect and hope for.
So I decided to write it myself.
I tried the Scott/Kip Discord, briefly, to ask if anyone was interested in beta-ing. But I don't know anyone on it and I don't think anyone saw my request in the midst of the ongoing conversations flying by between people who clearly all knew each other.
So I thought I'd ask here.
If anyone would be interested in beta-ing, I can be reached at verushka70(at)Gmail(dot)com.
*Yes I know Demian doesn't explicitly posit a homoerotic relationship and that Herman Hesse was not gay and the different characters were largely projections of the main characters and psychoanalysis and Freud informed it all - I know. But his male characters and their relationships read as gay/slashy to me. And if Reddit and Tumblr are anything to go by, I am hardly the only one who thought that.