Last verse, same as the first. Plus FICRECS.

[pauraque_bk]

Yet again, I've started shuffling my friends list. That means adding some journals and taking off others (hopefully more of the latter). It's nothing personal!


In propitiation, have some recs:

Inheritance (NC-17, Snape/Dumbledore, warnings for incest) by atdelphi
I beta'd this, but there honestly wasn't much to do by the time I got my hooks in it. It made me clap my hands in sinful glee. Severus is exactly this ambitious, and Dumbledore is exactly this... well. I don't want to spoil it for you. Just read.

Lunching with the Antichrist (R, Tom Riddle/Morfin Gaunt) by bookofjude
No one else writes like Jude, do they? I have a hard time dealing with Tom/Voldemort as a character in fic -- when you're doing psychological realism, it gets too scary -- but this short piece lets you get close to him, his humanity and his total loss of it, in a way that really worked for me.

Icon (NC-17, Harry/Snape) by rantipole_
Author was new to me, and what an interesting fic! This isn't usually my pairing; I don't think you have to be a Snarryist to get something out of it. It's much more about layers of mood and folklore and -- my favorite -- commentary on the text. By which I mean that feeling you get that a fic could not be written in any other fandom, because it's so firmly rooted in the source, and the deeper meanings of that source.


Here's another thing: Do you guys ever get people commenting on your fics and then deleting the comment, so that you get the notice, but then when you go to reply it's gone? Today I got a notice of someone replying to The Set with the single word "heartbreaking.", and they'd deleted it. Did they want me to get the message without having their name permanently attached to the opinion? Or did they merely change their mind?

Comments

[exbentley]

So it was only momentaraly heartbrekaing?

And thanks for the recs. *bookmarks*

[pauraque]

Perhaps they thought it was heartbreaking for a second, but then realized they'd just had too much chili. That fic sucked! Get me some Prilosec!

[http://users.livejournal.com/rantipole_/]

Woke up this morning to find loads of people I've never met commenting in my journal ... Wheee! (What a nice surprise!)

And can I just say? I really enjoyed your review -- (and yes, not as long as a fic, but I made up for that by reading it over several times to make it last longer)(!)
I'm glad you saw layers in there -- because I put together the basic structure just by what felt right, by the images. But then when I actually went through and wrote it, I did try to spell out the layers that I saw in it. Like analyzing my own fic while I was writing it. (And yeah, that's the true and secret reason I love Harry Potter -- because, God, so many layers of myth and folklore in there; Freud and Jung and urban legend et cetera, just out the wazoo, you know?)

[pauraque]

Yeah, HP's great for that. There are a lot of subtextual possibilities that people rarely make use of, so it's great to see them well-exploited!

[ook.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you just want to leave a comment for the author's eyes only. I think that people figure you'll automatically get an email notify which will show who posted the comment. You could always leave a response in their own LJ, if you wanted to thank them.

[pauraque]

I think most people use comment notices, so it's probably safe to assume it would work, but I have known people who didn't have their notices turned on.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Sunday reading! Thanks for the recs.

"...a fic could not be written in any other fandom, because it's so firmly rooted in the source, and the deeper meanings of that source."

This is one of those concepts that should have been obvious to me about all the stories that resonate most with me, but my feeble brain has never put into words. Thanks for naming it for me.

As for commenting and then deleting, the only time I ever do it is if I make a grievous typo. Could that have been it? Otherwise, I like the "too much chili" theory. ;D
D

[pauraque]

This is one of those concepts that should have been obvious to me about all the stories that resonate most with me, but my feeble brain has never put into words. Thanks for naming it for me.

Something that I think is present in most good fanfiction -- and certainly in rantipole_'s -- is this process of literalization, often in the form of sexualization. It takes something that we as readers notice in the subtext, and makes it text. I think it's what people are talking about when they complain about "Any Two Guys" syndrome in fic -- not just that the characterization is bad, but that it could easily be written in any fandom, or none.

[atrata.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that my chan stories get quite a few comments that are posted and then deleted before I have a chance to reply. Often they're along the lines of, "I really should NOT have found this so hot," or something that indicates they're uncomfortable with liking chan. I usually just assume they don't want other people to know.

[pauraque]

When I write something a little, uh, "questionable" along those lines, I find that at least a few people either email or IM me with the general message that they liked it, but they're embarrassed to say so in public. And that's fine -- in my last fandom, it was considered rather gauche to give public feedback at all, though personally I like it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if some people have a general policy of wanting their feedback to go just to the author and not be a public thing?

Oh, and I wanted to give you a link to this because I thought you might have some good insight. It's a question about Peter.

[pauraque]

As I was saying to atrata, there have been fandoms -- and perhaps fandom eras -- where it was a no-no to give public feedback. This was when things were conducted on MLs, so if you sent an "omgsogood" message to the list, everyone would get it in their inboxes, so private email was the way to go. Of course, LJ doesn't have that problem, but if you're coming from ML culture, it can feel uncomfortable to leave public FB.