Accomplishment!

[lassarina]

I totally accomplished all but one of the things on my to-do list tonight, and it was the one I didn't really expect to get to, anyway. So I'm shiny!

omg, being a grown-up is hard :( responsibility! do not want! I mean, hell, I barely remember to take care of my cat, who in the heck thought I could take care of myself? A person is totally

Comments

[venefica_aura]

Writing for video game scripts and educational content has pretty much changed my entire outlook on reading and probably made me even less likeable as far as writing goes. XD And I started out in poetry (in fact, that's what I actually wanted to get published in for the longest time until I realized that the artform has really lost a lot of it's seriousness and people can print garbage without so much as a thought to it).

So, I guess I'm trying to preface the fact that I don't write with the typical plot structure in mind. Really, most of my stories are epic poems gone wrong with prose phrasing. XD Only a couple people have noticed.

I mean, I love books, but I've got such a huge backlog on good books that I missed out on while being an engineering major as opposed to some kind of arts major like all my friends (not poking at any of you, but it's true, when you're in engineering school it's very hard to invest in too much long term, fandom is risky enough) that when I want to sit down and read, I'm less likely to do so for fanfic.

Not that fanfic isn't serious... but it's hit or miss? I'm past that starry-eyed "oh, they have my OTP!" stage that had me reading long long long stories without much substance. I'm more in the genfic, human nature things. Because I really want to understand people (and not through the characters, necessarily, but how the author portrays them... you can learn a shit ton from that alone).

I also shamefully admit that I tend to write a lot of not so genfic, but more for the fact it creates wonderful character conflicts. XD

I do, however, love love love it when chapters are more like serials. Self-contained to a point. Or if someone writes an arc of short stories. Oh... it's wonderful. I wish serials were more in vogue these days.

I've also become rather impatient with, well, what have become sort of the staples of a lot of longfic. Namely, throwaway scenes that don't further the plot. Sure, I love witty banter, but I guess what I want to know, right in the intro, what the story is working towards. What's the point of it. I don't like wasted words, wasted situations.

This is probably obvious considering my LJ entries. XD

This is also coming from someone that can get through (and loves!) Virginia Woolf's rambly phrases. She's subtle, but she presents the point very clearly if you look, you know? (In the middle of reading Orlando, whenever I have time for it, so that's why I mentioned that)

Also, I ah, don't read porn. Unless a friend wrote it or they link me to it. Really, and it kind of embarrasses me to think I still have a sort of puritanical viewpoint on it (and I think all of the times I've come close have involved intoxication. XD)

Oh, and much much much sympathy with the annoyance at something porny (or in my case, fluffy, god I am glad I'm never getting married again, that naive sort of giddiness made me write crap) getting all the attention. Though, I really don't feel like a review whore anymore. If I make one good connection with someone on it? I usually feel fantastic. It's the only reason I leave all of my old stuff up. I adore that two years after I wrote it review that says, "you made me think differently about this."

But I'm weird and prolly rambled a bit much. I need to sleep. XD

~Cendri

[lassarina]

I am amused that your comment is probably longer than your last 3 LJ entries put together!

Yeah, I'm very impatient with fanfic these days. An author has, on average, three paragraphs to keep my attention. I'll click on anything with a coherently-spelled title and/or summary that has characters or pairings I like, but after that, you get about 300 words and if I'm not interested, I'm gone.

There's a flip side to this, as well, which is that there are some authors I read who I will read anything they've written, regardless of whether I know the fandom (and some of those people have dragged me into fandoms I would never have touched! *glares at KH*) and for whose sake I am willing to give [x pairing I never thought of] a chance. Usually it works out well.

I try really hard to make my chapters reasonably self-contained. They can't stand alone, of course, but they can be read in different sittings. Like "A Summoner's Faith," my Yuna fic, which is basically five connected scenes of a summoner's journey. Each one could probably stand alone, but taken together, I like them better :)

[venefica_aura]

No no, they can't all be completely stand alone, oh, I know that. But self-contained is wonderful. I think that's the story of yours I keep meaning to read, as I know it won't be dumb Yunafic (that's kind of my pet peeve in FFX/2 fandom, it's always about Yuna/Tidus or Yuna/[insert person who replaces Tidus], I rarely see much that is about Yuna or Yuna-involved gen).

And that comment was deceptively long, as I make crazy paragraphs that contain one or two sentences all the time. XD

There's a flip side to this, as well, which is that there are some authors I read who I will read anything they've written, regardless of whether I know the fandom (and some of those people have dragged me into fandoms I would never have touched! *glares at KH*) and for whose sake I am willing to give [x pairing I never thought of] a chance. Usually it works out well.

Yes, I have that problem with rabbitprint, he's wonderful and actually knows a couple of my small anime fandoms (RahXephon, which is a large fandom but has very little fanfic, and Last Exile which has my favorite villainess of all time). I mean, he got me to read Kill Bill fanfic, and I thought that movie was dumb dumb dumb (no offense if you like, it, but Quentin Tarantino and I do not get along well). Then again, it was about Go Go, who I thought was cute in the way that baby predators are cute.

To be honest, I don't really browse for fic much anymore. I wait for ff_press to pop up with something different (the five billion Cloud/Sephiroth/Zack/Aeris/Your Mom fics are pretty much always a guaranteed fail, but if I see a Kimahri/Rikku under PG-13, I kind of jump on it to see what it's about or anytime I see femmeslash ever).

I'm actually a little afraid to read about my favorites sometimes, because they're often my favorites for less obvious reasons that tend to clash with the popular interpretation? (Like Cid Highwind is more intelligent than he looks, Aeris is catty which is wonderful, Seifer bottoms, Auron doesn't need to be paired with anyone, I actually LIKE Lulu/Wakka, Edea and Cid Kramer are wonderful misguided people... etc)

Ha... long again! This is what happens when I check my email first thing in the morning.

~Cendri

P.S. I see your Yuna icon and raise you an Amano!Yuna one. XD

[lassarina]

omg, pretty icon!

I'm a lazy thing, and so I've set up my LJ friends list to bring me the maximum amount of fic with a minimum amount of effort. All of the FF Just-In sections of FFNet stream to my F-list, which means I get to see the few good fics that pop up and can skip right past the bad ones. I read ff_press although I confess I click on very little from it, and I read a zillionty comms (I was around 125 last I checked, I'm sure it's higher now.)

I totally agree that Seifer bottoms. I think I have some slightly odd interpretations of characters, as well.

[venefica_aura]

Yeah, but odd interpretations are the fun ones! XD

Damns, I should really finish that very meta-fic about FFX and marriage and how they handle it... Sev's fault. How I made that logic leap confuses even me.

It's always the ones that try too hard to be manly that take it. Honest. This is fact. XD

And I really need to play with the new RSS features on FF.net. I live and die by RSS, which helps me waste time efficiently.

~Cendri

P.S. I have no more Yuna icons on this journal. Failure! Hmm, if I move into the lounge at work they won't notice I'm making icons... I mean, I don't really have much to do today.

[lassarina]

You can steal all the RSS feeds from my profile :)

[venefica_aura]

Sweet. Since I get the RSS directly (as I don't actually check my f-list through LJ... sounds complicated, but it allows me to read only what I want to read and not hurt feelings...) I'll prolly play around with it. XD

~Cendri