I'm a bit miffed at maychorian for posting that Coming Down on a Sunny Day is complete, but only posting a fan mix that she says she does when she's halfway through a project. My inference is that she's done the first draft and is now editing. So frustrating, I was very excited to see the word "complete" and have it not mean what I thought it should mean. Evil mean tease.

In the past month I've seen at least two stories I follow "complete" with "I'm not finishing this, I hate this, it makes me feel worthless, what I really want to do is delete this." chapters.

Ah, I almost prefer abandonment.

Shit, man, after a couple stories with spoilery author's notes (I know, it's not spoilery if it's the story, but still...) I missed the author's notes that said "I am Cas, Balthazar is my ex, and Dean is this guy I knew that I slept with but was seeing someone else. Clearly the pregnancy thing had to be changed up because Cas can't get pregnant, but my ex beat me so badly I mis..." The rest isn't important. Rest assured, that was not an SPN story, not in any rational meaning of any of those words. I did start skimming when Dean pulled his truck into an illegal parking spot and wasn't concerned if it would be towed, but still...

The breadth of choices people make fascinates me only in the abstract, it turns out.

And now I having a serious issue with characterization. The next time I read a fic in which I see John Reese of Person of Interest portrayed as a possessive, large and in charge, stereotypical "Alpha Male" I'm gonna leave a review asking what the author has ever seen on screen that makes 'em think that is a reasonable theory of character for him.

The next time I read a fic in which I see John Reese of Person of Interest portrayed as a possessive, large and in charge, stereotypical "Alpha Male" I'm gonna leave a review asking what the author has ever seen on screen that makes 'em think that is a reasonable theory of character for him.

HA. HA.

John Reese is a character who is desperate to be owned and given purpose and told what to do so that he can give his undying loyalty. At best you still could consider him possessive, but possessive only of his Squishy (aka reclusive billionaire). And that's not really possessiveness so much as devotion.

If an author didn't know they were killing one of the leads until they posted that chapter, I find I'm just as disinclined to read more of their stuff as if they were sitting on a Major Character Death to avoid scaring away readers. It seemed pissy to comment negatively (someone before me commented that it was a new tag, but they liked it), but FUCK. You know why we're here. You're not that special.

When I am up for Major Character Death I'll know it, and read appropriately.

Dirty pool, author, dirty pool.

Dirty pool, author, dirty pool.

John Reese is a character who is desperate to be owned and given purpose and told what to do so that he can give his undying loyalty.

I suppose it says far more about the writer than it does about the character, when someone cannot grok that a person can be both highly skilled at ass-kicking and also have a certain amount of sexual attractiveness while displaying very little drive to assert any more authority than it takes to get his or her job done.

I suppose it says far more about the writer than it does about the character

Sometimes I can agree to disagree on characterization, and sometimes the text just remains unexamined, man.

Well, yeah. There are times when I read some fic with a view i disagree with of some character, that I can see the reasoning behind it. Perhaps the author is exaggerating the importance of some minor moment, or glomming on to a possible motivation that I disagree with. If it is really jarring, but I can see the logic behind it, I don't question the writer's competence. But there have been times when I did enquire of the writer as to what on screen occurrance brought about their interpretation of the character. Most of the time they don't bother to answer me. But then again, I do take care in how I phrase things so as not to be nasty. Some of the time when I write what I consider a scathing review, the response is gratitude for taking their work seriously enough to offer suggestions for making it better.

This year's Narnia Fic Exchange is doing pretty well, the standard assortment of quality stories to not-so-good, and then there's the amazingly classic Mary Sue story, in which three Calormene children named Arabella, Brione, and Cedric come to visit Cair Paravel. That's all that happens: they visit, they go home.

... it's kind of adorable?

But I really really hope the writer is thirteen.

I do a lot of hoping that childlike exuberance and lack of exposure explains the flaws in various stories.

The ability to see tags that people use when they reblog pictures in tumblr is many things. It's a bit OCD to go look, fine, but that's what extensions are for. And no one comments on the reblog itself, so that's where the responses are.

The idea that strangers would say my picture makes them want to cry makes me want to cry. Legit for me, even if theirs were hyperbole.