that is the reason I haven’t posted any knitting stuff in a while. I have ripped out almost every project I have knit on in the last few months, or at least had to rip back as much as I have knit forward. Its a little depressing and I just have to wait it out . . . bleah – it wouldn’t suck so much but I have a ton of knitting deadlines looming over my head and they are getting nowhere fast.

I suspect that part of it is cursed yarn – I have rolled the “sock yarn of un-knitting” up and put it away for another less cursed day.  I am now knitting my sockapalooza pal’s socks in yarn I KNOW I can knit with successfully  – so at least if I am having trouble, it isn’t the yarn.

okay – end of whine . . . bleah – be back when I have something to show for all my effort.

I have been reading Fan Fic for a fairly long time now, I read it dedicatedly through my Buffy addiction, and now read tons of QAF fic. I can’t seem to get much into Angel fan fiction. I have pretty much stopped reading Buffy Fic, although there are a few authors like who I would come back for.

I do get fairly OTP bent when I read fic. To me the alternate pairings don’t seem like they make sense, or are out of character. I had some tolerance for B/A fics, but mostly I thought that Angel was a big dork relationship wise and treated Buffy like an parent or mentor and not like a partner. Whereas B/S – Spike has some serious issues, but not only do I see more active growth personality wise in him, but also he was much closer to approaching Buffy as a strong woman or equal (even when he was in worship mode). I like being seen as a strong woman, and I hate being treated like a child – so projection gets me B/S as my OTP. As a side note I am enjoying seeing Spike learn a bit about standing on his own this season on Angel.

Similarly I think Mikey is a weenie, and I really have a hard time with people like that. To me I think it is ones responsibility as a friend/lover to not be an enabler, but a catalyst for growth. In general I see Justin as a very strong character (with occasional lapses into *shock* teenager like silliness), but also someone who doesn’t just accept things and insists on both his own growth and growth in people around him. Brian is strong in a completely different way, and I really like the growth arc (not all that dissimilar to Spike – learning to have a soul/heart) that they are giving him. I think that he has an integrity that I really appreciate. And as someone who frequently gets told that being more polite might be useful, I like seeing other people/characters that aren’t about feeding B-shit to their friends.

I think I have odd tastes in fic. I am not much into “slashfic” – how *I* define it. (chars doing it with people that it would be outside their character to do it with) So QAF BJ fic isn’t in my head slash fic, they are the “standard” for each other, if it was Justin and Lindsay fic now that would feel all wrong! Same deal for Buffy fic, I have read a bit of Xander/Spike and a few other off pairings, but it doesn’t feel “in character” for me.

I hate overly victim fic. I don’t want to see people use trauma as a crutch to catalyze growth all the time. Sometimes it can be done gracefully – has an interesting Blind Justin fic which gives us some good character insight and doesn’t do it in a AngST! TRauMA! sort of way. I hate seeing Justin be victim over and over and over and over again, Drugged, abused, suicidal, defeated, amnesiac, etc. Does this sound like the Justin we see in the show. Outside of the bashing, where he mostly takes a licking and keeps on ticking, Justin has always been a fighter, Sap, Brian, St. James (for examples) – knows what he wants and goes after it, and can take care of himself when he gets in over his head.

I do like angst when it is internally driven, characters being driven to overcome their inner demons, because they have to, to get to the next place in life.

I mean most regular everyday people need to learn and grow just through their regular every day experiences. And thank goddess don’t have giant death/trauma/accident/sickness to spur us into personal growth.

I hate fic where most of the dialog is right from the transcript of the show. If I wanted to read the transcript I would. And if the actors/writing are so bad that I can’t figure out the underlying emotional content of a scene, then I shouldn’t be watching the show. I do like gap fillers that really do add content, or give us a dirty little look at the world they don’t show us – either because its too boring to show the little domestic stuff, or because Hey! can’t show Dick on screen.

AU fic almost always turns me off. Just write an original fic and give the chars new names. If its good I’ll still read it. Especially if its steamy. Brian and Justin as pre-Celts, detectives, secret agents, therapist and client (now that is just creepy to me – yuck), same age, all of these things would radically change the characters.

Similarly if B/J are doing something so Out of Character that it isn’t believable it might as well be AU. Got married, had 4 kids, running a daycare center together, while living in happy bliss in the same house with 1/2 of their social family – COME ON!! *sigh* That being said, one of my favorite QAF fics has the characters doing almost everything I hate in a way that I just love to death and find reasonably believable,

I know that part of the reason that I read fan fic is for my romance novel fix, I want a happy ending, or at least a hopeful one most of the time. I like sex, raunchy, steamy, sweet, tender, whatever – to me its a normal part of adult life and part of the communication between couples.

I do love steamy, hot – I love quiet and simple. I like drive by ficlets – snippets of “real” life. I really like them long involved and pages and days worth of reading. I like it when it is clear that the author is writing with plan, and that we are going somewhere.

I am amazed by the amount of time an effort that many authors put towards their fans, their fandom, and their fic and wish I was able to give more comprehensive feed back and had time to give more to the community that to just read the fic.

*sigh* more to say and work to do ……… I think I’ll go get paid for a little while … if you are still here reading at the end thanks and I hope that this wasn’t incredibly dreary.

So –
Thankyou everyone who responded so supportively to my recent post about S and I breaking up. It means a lot to me. *hugs*

p.s. just noticed my “current music” and it wasn’t supposed to be some angst ridden or meaning laden thing – just co-incidence – its on my standard playlist and has been for a few months.

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is energetic.

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huh? and I thought I was angst puppy