Well, I used to be interested, though. It's just in the past five or six months that I've started feeling the desperate urge to jump up and down saying "fandom is not your thesis!" (Which is, of course, often incorrect.)

Tastes get conflated with beliefs too often for my comfort in meta discussion, so I'm down with a firm "whatev" at the moment.

I do guiltily enjoy the "critique, good or bad" meta flamewars, because both sides generally end up looking foolish.

I don't know, I tend to enjoy them. Although then again, I'm mostly reading people whose opinions I respect and, let's face it, already agree with. And I like seeing people put stuff into words nicely. But that's when I'm on a meta upswing. At other times I'm all "stupid fricking navel-gazing, if you don't like it don't freaking read it!" Mind you, the next day I'll be all, "You know what I really dislike about this story, and what I think it tells us about the faults of society at large and the eventual doom of the universe? Let me tell you..." I'm fickle. Or else I'm Walt Whitman.

But I'm starting to think it's the Jupiter Return or something (anyone here read Dykes to Watch Out For and wanna remind me of the phrase?). At least for me. The things I've been irritated with recently would fill a Bag of Holding.

In other news, I'm thinking of writing Harry Potter angst. What, I can't completely contradict myself?

Dark, sad, and utterly brilliant Buffy/Giles story here. August is so amazing.

Consider, please, that this rec is from someone who doesn't actually like Buffy/Giles. And read it anyway.

Consider, please, that this rec is from someone who doesn't actually like Buffy/Giles. And read it anyway.

Just now read it and was coming in to rec it myself -- and I read it in spite of the fact that I haven't had any urge to read BtVS fic since early in s7.

Fabulous rec, Suela. That was a great story.

Though -- if I'm going to nitpick (which is really all one can do with a story that good) -- I do think the device of the unnamed lover doesn't work. It distracted me because I was waiting for the reveal, when there was none to come. Call her Jill or Susan or Meg and get it over with.

I was reading a very nice long Xander/Spike story and saw a note saying that an expanded version was available in zine format only. I clicked on the link and discovered I could have my very own copy for $31. Yes, it's a long story, a couple of hundred pages, but that price seems steep. And I didn't see any notice saying that the price was just to cover shipping or production. Is this typical in the zine world? Don't copyright issues come into play?

You're not supposed to make money off zines. 1, as you noted, it's a no-no in terms of copyright. 2, you're not supposed to milk other fans. I'm trying to think of what I've paid for zines. It could be legit if there are color copies and the person is basically doing copies on request, instead of getting any kind of bulk discount. It still seems high to me, and I wonder how many copies they're managing to sell at $31.

Is there a zine publisher associated with it, or is it just the author?

The website handles several different fandoms, and the different Buffy/Angel stories were listed by "press" or "publisher" instead of author.

Do you mind posting the link so I can go look? I'm curious.