Dusty
- Tribute by @lovelybrutal -
It's sunny-warm for November, and I'm sitting on my porch steps, making circles on the ground with the toe of one corduroy low-top, while my two young kids pull grass and chase bugs in the yard.
I want to do it. You know I want to, I Twitter DM yellowglue on my Galaxy S, the one where the keyboard slides out. I just don't want to mess anything up. I'm flattered to be asked, but I've never been a beta for a regularly updating story before, and this one promised to be big. Sex, drugs, innocence, debauchery, teenage rebellion, capital-A angst on a long timeline. True love, truly fucked up. My own personal brand of heroin. But can I keep up? Am I ready for this?
She reassures: You just 'get it' better than anyone else I can think of.
Summoning up all my courage, I type out three words that will literally change my life forever.
She replies: It's going to be a good thing.
Back in 2011, I don't think either of the authors, yellowglue and TeamSmella23, writing together under the name YellowBella, could have known just how good a thing Dusty was going to be.
Looking back six years later, it's hard to pick out what made Dusty so unforgettable. It worked on the same levels that most Twific does but went deeper into them. It explored the ache of the teenage years but started farther back, digging into issues of identity, friendship, and the bewildering magic of growing up. Stephenie Meyer's inspiration led many fic Edwards to desert Bella. Instead of once, Dusty does it to Bliss again and again, and we're never sure if he'll come back, or when, or in what state. We're never sure what he did while he was gone.
Canon Edwards are well-known for their brooding self-loathing, but Dusty's manifests into more than the standard guilt and self-denial we're used to. Blown pupils, paranoia, helpless fits of rage, and an apparent indifference to the destruction of his own life are the bitter fruits of addiction, a taste many of us know all too well. Plenty of fics bring in memorable OCs, but Dusty's had a twist. She wasn't actually a person. Cocaine was a character all her own, with lines between the lines. Blow was the side bitch we all loved to hate, whispering persuasion too sickly-sweet to ignore. Dusty's infidelities with actual girls paled in comparison to his betrayals with white powder.
Fandom clichés can be fun, but the authors had way more fun smashing them. Ally wouldn't go clothes shopping if you paid her, Esme was definitely not the perfect mom, babies couldn't have been farther from Rosalie's mind, and Renee was not only present, but deeply invested in her role as a parent. Edward traded in blazing green eyes for sky-beautiful blue, and Bella's chestnut waves were infamously strawberry blonde. These seemingly small details gave them extra latitude to be themselves, allowing Dusty and Bliss to become so much more than cookie-cutter characters to us, as well.
As captivating as their tear-jerking, heart-rending, boundary-pushing love is, the real star of Dusty could well be the friendships. Petey and Dusty were there for each other through everything, from baseball practice, to car crashes, to blackout after blackout after blackout. Whether smoking a joint in the '64 or taking care of the ones who should have taken care of them, these two boys can say more to each other in a look than they could with words. Bliss and Ally's relationship, similarly, was better than the best of friends. We watched them share everything, from banana popsicles to clothes and shoes, weekend-long sleepovers to dreams for their future. They spent more time together than apart, complemented each other's style, and knew all each other's secrets … mostly.
The seemingly simple contrast between Innocents and Delinquents, between sugar-sweet Bliss and reckless bad-boy Dusty, reverses as their story unfolds. Princess-baby is a liar too, and Trouble has the best heart. The Sluts weren't all bad, and the families weren't all good. This theme of duality, the double-sidedness in everything, was echoed in the readers' responses to it. The fandom was firmly in one camp or another: you either loved Dusty with wild devotion or you wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Many of us would fervently anticipate each update but then send out a breathless, flailing, all-caps string of tweets about being too scared to read it.
With details rich enough to revel in, Dusty's depth came in unexpected places. From black hoodie cotton to brand new dresses, from “Love is what we make it,” to “Lie. Lie. Lie.”, baseball cleats to snow boots, bonfires at the beach to busted headlights, from “Do you want me to get my mom for you?” to “Did you bring your fucking crayons?”, Dusty was more absorbing, more engaging, more real, because even while it dealt with big issues, it was the little details that added up to a world. Figure in the gorgeous visuals and banners contributed by so many talented friends, and the song lyrics that lit up each chapter like fireflies, and it's no wonder we needed a support group. The ending, highly anticipated as it was, was still tough to be ready for. We white-knuckled together through the fist-fight and held our breaths through heaving sobs on the lawn. Their tears were our tears, their broken hearts broke ours, and when “Hello” finally came, all of our lungs tightened in fear, hope, and uncertainty. We were all on Team Love.
Try as I might, there's no way to sum up the reasons why Dusty earned this Fandom Achievement Award. Swag and Sway have meant far too much to far too many of us to reduce their impact to just a few lines. Maybe it's because some of us had a Dusty. Maybe it's because some of us were Dusty. Maybe consuming, co-dependent love just captures our imagination like fireworks on a summer night. It has been a visceral, transformative experience to be so closely connected to their story, and I can never adequately express my gratitude to the authors for trusting me to beta their incredible work and to all of you for reading it and sharing in this amazing, emotional experience together. Fandoms change, relationships fall apart, but Dusty remains, at home on FFN in its original form, here for you when you need it, full of a love unashamed to be exactly what it is.
Fucked up, real, and beautiful.
