April 28th, 2009

children of dune - leto 1

my angst is a very fangirl class angst

To take a break from current plotting about our post-non-kosher-hotdog flu lives in a technopunk universe (again, internet, no running water--save your engineers for the love of God), I hit again the fact that no matter how much you love an author, or love a story you read by them, reading all their fic will never, ever end well. It has nothing to do with quality--it has to do with quirks, and this holds true with professionals as well as fanfic writers. Which is why I restrict myself on reading pros and never, ever making the mistake of ordering or reading more than two books by a single author a year unless they are in vastly different genres (and that does not work with Stephen King at all).

[Exceptions for series, but even then, do them all at once fast. No delay.]

It's the quirk thing.

Every author has them. In fanfic, where we stay in fandom and have certain key subjects we like to gnaw on, it can be (but not always) much, much worse. It's more than view of a character, or plot, or whatever. It can be actual sentence construction. One author, and I don't remember, who, had this horrible habit of never splitting her infinitives. I know that's theoretically proper grammar (or Latin applied to English, whatever), but it reads awkward when applied to too much dialogue. Reading as part of many authors work is better, as it spreads out the concentration. But say, and I mean this, I flinch when I think of anyone newly discovering Smallville and trying to hit all ninety-something stories I wrote in the fandom, because I get irritated with my quirks on re-reading and that has to grate. Heck, even limiting to 2002 work where I was really grooving in exercising a change in style and that's like, grounds for shooting me.

Remixes were the time I first realized I could (temporarily) hate an author forever because I had to read all their work to find something to remix, but I've been in the middle of a moody spell of moodiness and ran back to Harry Potter and hit an author who was really good. Then I read half her published work and kind of wnat to kill Draco over a slow fire. It's not pretty.

This is a long way to ask, and I know I am taking my life in my hands, if anyone has any recs for Harry/Draco written by someone who doesn't hate Harry? For variety's sake. I don't mind him turning evil or anything. I mind him spending more than five paragraphs angsting how he has destroyed Draco's fragile soul by not loving him enough. Or something.

(In other words, I'm stuck on this Merlin fic and I can't read anything Merlin until I'm unstuck or I'll accidentally pick up something from someone else and not even notice. Or stop writing it. This is physically painful. I hate not being able to read in my own damn fandom.)

Conversely, any Merlin RPS would be appreciated as well. I think it's safe to read that.
children of dune - leto 1

okay, really, this has become disturbing

I didn't think anything could preempt in my heart the one hundred cases! of hotdog flu that were announced, but lo.

Specter Bats For the Other Team! which is a euphemistically filthy way of speaking of a Republican converting to the Democrats.

...okay, granted, this is not technically on the Apocalypse To Do List. I'm just saying, maybe it should have been.

Anyone seen any--say, rapturing? Just run and check around your offices, please. Just to make sure. I'll wait.