Unread postby VoiceoftheNephilim » April 19th, 2008, 9:22 pm
If Viridian gets to repost introductions from other sites, then so do I :)
Reposted from the DLP forums.
Greetings. The moniker is Voice of the Nephilim, if you hadn’t already deduced that by looking at the top left-hand corner of this post.
I stumbled upon this forum when reading Jbern’s “To Fight the Coming Darkness”. I had been enjoying his author notes when they began to diminish in length, and began to point towards this board. I resisted for a while, but eventually checked it out, and all the treasures that reside within.
My excursions into fan-fiction began a few months before Deathly Hallows had been released, and I was looking for information. One link brought me to a supposed leak of book seven, which while I was certainly not ignorant enough to believe was the real thing, decided to read anyway for lack of anything better to do at the time. This fiction was Melindadeo’s “The Seventh Horcrux”. While I definitely hated the angst and quite perplexingly detailed analysis’ of Ron’s chest, I did find some of the ideas interesting. The version I read was at PhoenixSong, so I checkout out their top ten and started reading. Read “The Awakening Power”, which I found to be even more angsty, and thus worse. Also, the story only seemed to include two wizard fights, with the rest being against goblins on flying desks. Not exactly breathtaking material, in my estimation. I then tried Viridian’s “Nightmares of Future Past”, which I thought was absolutely fantastic, and still follow to this day. I traveled to Viridian’s message board, where someone name-dropped JBern's “To Fight the Coming Darkness”. I sought it out, and was shocked and amazed by it, as this was the first fiction I’ve ever read that actually felt like war, and reinforced this by brutal violence and common character death by the dozen.
I’ve read quite a bit since then, almost exclusively from recommendations from the library. I’m not very picky in what I read, as I typically go by the ratings in the library, and read most fictions above a 4 star rating that are rated as M. I don’t have much of an interest in stories outside an M rating, aside from the occasional divergence. I do tend to like stories regarding time-travel, and canon events thus unfurling in a different manner. I assume this is because I am relatively new to fan-fiction, and have not seen it done a great number of times. I’m also fond of great action sequences, which means that Jbern is my favorite active author. His “The Lie I’ve Lived” is my current favorite story.
Other favorites of mine include IP82’s two main longer stories, NoFP, Dakaath (though I was disappointed to find the smut cut when I read it), HP and the Hero’s Path, HP and the Litany of Blood, Resistance of Azkaban, In the Clockface (just started, but I already like it that much), What Would Slytherin Harry Do?, and a few others.
I honestly couldn’t care less about the pairing, just as long as it’s not gay (I think this is what the term “slash” refers to), or him screwing the entirety of the female wizarding populace. I have no problem with smut, and think that sometimes it’s entirely appropriate (the missing scenes in Dakaath come to mind, considering the rest of the content). I will admit I’m quite fond of Susan Bones and fem!Blaise however. There seems to be a great deal of Ginny hate on the DLP forums, which I am rather ambivalent towards, as I don’t really care.
I’m not a huge fan of where Dumbledore is made to be an evil, conniving person. Unless explained in a fantastic fashion, as in IP82’s “Potter’s Resistance”. I view him as a shining beacon of light for the wizarding world, whose decisions may sometimes be bad, but always had the welfare of others at the foremost in his mind. It seems to me that too often Dumbledore is painted as someone to be hated without real justification.
I find Snape is almost always more interesting when portrayed evil in some fashion. I care not to his true allegiances, just as long as he is not stripped of the obvious power he displays in canon. I don’t care what an author does with any of the rest of the characters, just as long as it’s well written and suitably explained or justified in the fiction.
I prefer fiction to be violent in nature. I don’t really mind if Harry is light or dark, just as long as he doesn’t have kids gloves on.
I’m pulling together ideas for my own fiction. I may not ever write anything, but I’m certainly going to give it a shot once I cement my ideas a bit more.
As for the person who lies outside the bounds of fan-fiction:
24 year old male, living on the Northeast coast of Massachusetts, with his loving fiancé. Almost finished with my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, only three credits shy of graduation. That is currently on hold, as I have found a good job as a power plant technician that provides overtime, usually for a total of anywhere from 40 – 90 hours a week, with 50 being the mode.
I’m a fairly large reader outside of fiction, currently reading Mark Danielewski’s “House of Leaves”, Chuck Palahniuk’s “Invisible Monsters”, and Philip K. Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly”. Those are my favorite authors, along with Stephen King. I play a fair bit of video games, most recently Bioshock, Guitar Hero 3, and Madden 08.
My interest is music, with myself owning around 500 CD’s. My name is taken from 80’s goth rock band Fields of the Nephilim, whom I believe the to be without peer. However, that is rather an anomaly, seeing as my main taste is Black Metal. I play bass for a currently on-hiatus Black Metal band, although most of my contributions are of a thematic and lyrical kind, as I completely suck as bass.
I am almost unhealthily obsessed with the TV show "Lost". As a great many people can attest to.
I think that about covers it.