I don't know if anyone here used to read XF MSR, but Brandon Ray, who was one of the Big Names in MSR back in the day, died in his sleep the other night. He leaves behind a wife and son.

Somewhat sobering.

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Suela, I'd heard about that from his SiL. His poor family.

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Yeah, it's very sad. Do we know how old he was?

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And what I'm getting out of it is that fandom is like High School.

Snacky's Law.

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Well, the thing is that, despite having written a big-ass HP novel about a popular HP pairing, I haven't stored it in any of the popular archives, or posted it to any of the mailing lists (I assume they exist) or, you know, engaged with HP fandom at all. Um. Because I am odd. But I haven't read much HP fic, actually, and I'm squicked by a lot of the HP stuff because - dude. They're kids.

...I do realise that this sounds foamingly insane.

It doesn't sound insane to me. It's a squick issue for me, too.

HP fic with a sexual aspect (even with the kids all grown, and that's just a note on my tastes, not a moral judgement) is just never going to be for me. I also didn't love the books enough (I liked them) to chase extra-canonical stories, so HP gen doesn't draw me, either. Plus, there are still volumes of canon I've yet to read.

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Oh, is that Snacky's Law? Huh. 'Kay.

Oooh, you really should get up to speed with The Half-Blood Prince, if you're at all inclined. I was really pleased with a lot of what she did in that. And it's cleverly constructed - there are at least two completely different and canonically-grounded interpretations of What Actually Happens, and we'll only find out which interpretation is correct with the final book. I spent the last 3 chapters sobbing, on the basis that my own interpretation was big with the tragedy. YMMV.

For me, JKR's 'verse is sufficiently familiar as a composite of countless fairy tales and children's books (fantastical and non) that the gen stuff can tickle my fancy; I particularly enjoy the wordplay and the wee details that round out her 'verse. As to Sex in the HP 'verse - well, the stories I've happily read (& written) deal plausibly with people of Buffyish age or considerably older. And I'm good with that. But I still wince at the prospect of trawling for fic, because I feel perfectly certain that the vast bulk of the stuff out there is stuff I'd really NOT be good with.

(And, man, if you think SGA has a lot of crack, HP is way freakier and infinitely more worrying.)

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Oooh, you really should get up to speed with The Half-Blood Prince, if you're at all inclined. I was really pleased with a lot of what she did in that. And it's cleverly constructed - there are at least two completely different and canonically-grounded interpretations of What Actually Happens, and we'll only find out which interpretation is correct with the final book.

I'm inclined, just lazily. I liked the books I read (the first three, I think) but after a while, it felt too much like the same story to me, which I knew meant I had to lay off them for a while. That happens to me whenever I read too much of one author's work, too closely together.

I believe I was spoiled on the HPB development you're referencing above. That it's open to interpretation makes it more intriguing to me.

As to Sex in the HP 'verse - well, the stories I've happily read (& written) deal plausibly with people of Buffyish age or considerably older. And I'm good with that.

I'm good from a that's-okay-to-do stance, but it's just a [something] for me.

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I'm sorry to hear that, about Brandon. Was there an announcement somewhere?

(I never particularly was friends with him, but we were reasonably friendy.)

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I'm good from a that's-okay-to-do stance, but it's just a [something] for me.

It squicks me often, too. I think we are not alone, even amongst big fandom fans - I imagine that's part of why a good portion of fandom writes fic about the generation before: Sirius, Remus, James, Snape, Peter, Lily, Narcissa, et cetera. Even when the fic about the older people takes place when they were 17 or so, they feel older than the Main Kids because 1) canon doesn't focus on them in school and 2) our visual representations of them from the movies is older.

A friend of mine was really into Snape/Hermione for many years, and that squicks me big. I've only read one that I could handle, and it was written by Yahtzee, who does NOT suck, and set so far in the future that it bypassed the "eww."

If you haven't made it past The Prisoner of Azkaban, then it is my humble opinion that you definitely should. I can see what you mean about the stories all being the same, but they take on new tones starting in the third book and develop into something almost entirely new, though related, starting in the fourth. The fandom really became enormous after the publication of the Goblet of Fire, I believe - partly beacuse that's about when the first movie came out, but I definitely think the changed nature of the book had a lot to do with it as well.

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I devour Harry/Draco (and Cassandra Claire's work is stunningly good, so I don't care about kerfuffles). Part of me keeps thinking I should care about the "but they're only kids" but it never happens.

I quite liked AJ Hall's stuff at first, but her original characters grated on me so much that I deleted nearly all the OC scenes in the versions I saved as text files--I got tired of scrolling past them--and I got tired of everyone having such dysfunctional families. Though anything with Draco and Neville is always fun to read. There's an author on ff.net called Lightning on the Wave who's doing a massively A.U. version of the books that's fascinating and gruelling and intricate and really neat and will absolutely not be the cup of tea of lots of people. But I like it.

My major squick is torture/humiliation willingly performed by a "good" guy who never feels it was an inadvisable thing to do. Plus torture/humiliation scenes written with what I feel is a bit too loving detail. Followed by daddy!kink. Sorry.

Anyway, Fay's story is a thing of beauty and shall live on my hard drive as long as I have a means to read it and electrons hold out.

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