My first (and only) attempt at Blossom/Boomer leaves a lot to be desired.

A couple entries back I mentioned finding a super old Blossom/Boomer fic I wrote. I'm pretty sure I wrote this at the time to break the color-matching habit most of the PpG/RrB fans have/fall into; unfortunately, it is most definitely not great. I'm not going to go through it line by line with a red font tag (it's nine pages typed, which is eight more than I was actually willing to type today for a tfr post), but if I were to give notes now to my then-self, here are some general ones:

• Don't break up your paragraphs so often
• But always break when new dialogue starts
• The characters talk too much
• Too many adverbs
• Too much description
• Too wordy in general; pacing is uneven and the story drags at many points
• Characterization isn't strong enough; why do they keep talking to each other? Specifically, why does she keep talking to him?
• The "turning point" in the relationship comes too fast, does not feel organic
• Blossom at least has some personality, but Boomer is severely lacking; save for a couple of interesting points that are nicely alluded to he feels too much a stock Smarmy Romance Lead Male
• For the love of God write out your numbers!
• Don't use a five dollar word when a single will do the trick
• Blossom talks too much to herself
• Kill every "pet name" Boomer calls her
• This story is drowning in ellipses! Get rid of some, if not most!
• UIL is only a TX thing; find a generic national alternative

Oddly enough, I do like the general conceit (kissing booth, $1 kisses vs. $3 kisses). I mean, I tend to roll my eyes at things like kissing booths being the excuse that gets characters to mash lips (see also: Tunnel of Love) and definitely did it here when I started typing it up, but then I was kinda surprised at how the whole differentiation between a $1 and $3 worked for me. And the actual makeout scene, believe it or not. I thought, 'Okay self, this is actually competently written. Well done.' It's too bad the rest - characterization, primarily, followed by pacing and narrative - wasn't executed as nicely.

Going back over this dredged up some of the resentment I felt at the time towards fans who kept bitching about how unoriginal PpG/RrB was, how writers rarely mixed up the characters, how uncreative we were, etc., etc.. I feel like this tfr!fic is kind of indicative of how writing an "original pairing" (which in this fandom used to translate to anything except color-matched PpG/RrB) isn't going to fucking work if you can't even write the characters believably in the first place. But if your only stipulation for what made a good fic was "not color-coded PpG/RrB," then I guess strong characterization was a non-issue. Congrats! You truly earned your Elitist FanDouche card. /BOFQ /get offa my lawn /does this even count if it was 8 years ago /what's wrong with me

But hey. ( Here's my totally fucking rejected attempt at Blossom/Boomer, from over eight years ago. )