Eight Days of Happiness: Metafic
It's the last day of happiness! Not that I don't plan to be happy tomorrow, but I probably won't be posting about it. The meme is done.
Here's what I learned: man, I don't have time to post every day. If you posted this week, I almost certainly missed it, because it was all I could do to get these up and reply to a few comments. (I will honestly try to get to the rest very soon. But posting had to come first! Well, after the earthling, I mean.) I miss you folks! I miss your lives and wit and wisdom and random posts about cats! You're pretty much my entire social life that doesn't involve a charming but pre-verbal baby. In the future, I will cling to you much harder. There will be squeezing involved. Some of you may pop. Sorry.
But, on the other hand, this was tons of fun. I got to post things not in sets, things I couldn't fit in sets, sets that were too small or too weird or whatever. I posted things that were not polished and things that maybe made no sense, and I did not feel bad. And, most of all, I got to express my love for fandom, which makes me so very very happy.
I love you all! You bring me joy! And the eight days are up. Maybe next year I'll try for fourteen, but until then, I'm going back to once in a blue moon posting. But first: metafic.
The One That Hurts and Heals. And Notice I Did Not Type That "Heels." General Wrongness in the Hub, by travels-in-time. Torchwood.
The sad part is that every single time I read this, I have this moment where I flinch away from the screen and try to remember why I bookmarked something that's so horribly, horribly - oh, right. It's metafic, and it's supposed to be that way! And then I return to reading a much happier person.
No. The really sad part is that I've seen every mistake in this story made so many times that I have some kind of post-grammatic stress syndrome going on in my head that makes me twitch convulsively each time I read this. Because, see, the author is not exaggerating at all here, and that's the true tragedy.
But also the source of the humor, of course. And it's awesome to be reminded that all these errors can be corrected! The universe can be saved!
Relatedly: hug your betas, people. And then hug other people's betas. They save us from so very much humiliation and agony.
The One Where We Learn That Fandom Has a Big Black Cock. I Can't Say I'm Totally Shocked. Making up Is Hard to Do, by china_shop. Fandom/LJ.
Haven't we all, at one point or another, snapped, "Oh, suck my cock, LJ" at the computer screen? Or, if we haven't, maybe we should. I mean, I never knew I wanted to see Fandom topping LJ, but clearly -
Oh, god. There's no way to write this rec, because it goes well past the familiar if occasionally awkward fields of double entendre and all the way to the somewhat less familiar climes of meta-within-a-recommendation-of-a-meta-piece. There's too much meta on my screen right now! My fingers cannae take much more o' this, captain! (Trek fans: did I, uh, do that right? I'm not fluent in your in jokes, but I'm trying.)
Anyway. This is surprisingly hot, considering it's, you know, Fandom/LJ, and it's also surprisingly compelling - I care about the characters an awful lot, given that they are not exactly my usual sort. And it's totally appropriate to the time when it was written (two years ago). But I do wonder, when I read it now, how a story like this would look now. I am guessing Fandom would be negotiating a polyamorous relationship with LJ and IJ and her new sweetheart, DW. (But part of her would want to stay monogamous and cleave only unto LJ! And part of her would want to leave his skanky ass for good! She'd be torn, is my point. Poor, poor Fandom. Thank god for feeds.)
The One in Which Burton Guster Gets Outed. No, Not Like That. Worse. Gus Goes for the Gold Star, by liviapenn. Psych.
It's a Yuletide story about Yuletide. It had to happen, and it's just totally brilliant that it happened with Burton Guster. (Side note: am I the only person who desperately wants to see a crossover between Leverage and Psych? I just think Hardison and Gus would like each other. Unless they got into a vicious argument over Horde v. Alliance, I mean. And although I don't know either fandom well, I sort of suspect that Parker is Shawn's kryptonite.)
Gus, in this story, out-nerds me with ease - I have no idea who Ben Sisko is. Also, of course, I've never won a gold star in Yuletide. (I try! I do! But there are extenuating circumstances. Yes, every single year. Yuletide is hard.) And he does it with such style. The man has special lucky writing socks. Maybe if I had special lucky writing socks, I too could get a gold star.
Or not. But Gus can. And I generally cringe at fandom-within-fan-fiction - it often just does not work all that well, and usually I prefer that the characters stay in their world and out of mine. But Gus just seems to fit right in with the Yuletide madness.
And he deserves a gold star, damn it.
Here's what I learned: man, I don't have time to post every day. If you posted this week, I almost certainly missed it, because it was all I could do to get these up and reply to a few comments. (I will honestly try to get to the rest very soon. But posting had to come first! Well, after the earthling, I mean.) I miss you folks! I miss your lives and wit and wisdom and random posts about cats! You're pretty much my entire social life that doesn't involve a charming but pre-verbal baby. In the future, I will cling to you much harder. There will be squeezing involved. Some of you may pop. Sorry.
But, on the other hand, this was tons of fun. I got to post things not in sets, things I couldn't fit in sets, sets that were too small or too weird or whatever. I posted things that were not polished and things that maybe made no sense, and I did not feel bad. And, most of all, I got to express my love for fandom, which makes me so very very happy.
I love you all! You bring me joy! And the eight days are up. Maybe next year I'll try for fourteen, but until then, I'm going back to once in a blue moon posting. But first: metafic.
The One That Hurts and Heals. And Notice I Did Not Type That "Heels." General Wrongness in the Hub, by travels-in-time. Torchwood.
The sad part is that every single time I read this, I have this moment where I flinch away from the screen and try to remember why I bookmarked something that's so horribly, horribly - oh, right. It's metafic, and it's supposed to be that way! And then I return to reading a much happier person.
No. The really sad part is that I've seen every mistake in this story made so many times that I have some kind of post-grammatic stress syndrome going on in my head that makes me twitch convulsively each time I read this. Because, see, the author is not exaggerating at all here, and that's the true tragedy.
But also the source of the humor, of course. And it's awesome to be reminded that all these errors can be corrected! The universe can be saved!
Relatedly: hug your betas, people. And then hug other people's betas. They save us from so very much humiliation and agony.
The One Where We Learn That Fandom Has a Big Black Cock. I Can't Say I'm Totally Shocked. Making up Is Hard to Do, by china_shop. Fandom/LJ.
Haven't we all, at one point or another, snapped, "Oh, suck my cock, LJ" at the computer screen? Or, if we haven't, maybe we should. I mean, I never knew I wanted to see Fandom topping LJ, but clearly -
Oh, god. There's no way to write this rec, because it goes well past the familiar if occasionally awkward fields of double entendre and all the way to the somewhat less familiar climes of meta-within-a-recommendation-of-a-meta-piece. There's too much meta on my screen right now! My fingers cannae take much more o' this, captain! (Trek fans: did I, uh, do that right? I'm not fluent in your in jokes, but I'm trying.)
Anyway. This is surprisingly hot, considering it's, you know, Fandom/LJ, and it's also surprisingly compelling - I care about the characters an awful lot, given that they are not exactly my usual sort. And it's totally appropriate to the time when it was written (two years ago). But I do wonder, when I read it now, how a story like this would look now. I am guessing Fandom would be negotiating a polyamorous relationship with LJ and IJ and her new sweetheart, DW. (But part of her would want to stay monogamous and cleave only unto LJ! And part of her would want to leave his skanky ass for good! She'd be torn, is my point. Poor, poor Fandom. Thank god for feeds.)
The One in Which Burton Guster Gets Outed. No, Not Like That. Worse. Gus Goes for the Gold Star, by liviapenn. Psych.
It's a Yuletide story about Yuletide. It had to happen, and it's just totally brilliant that it happened with Burton Guster. (Side note: am I the only person who desperately wants to see a crossover between Leverage and Psych? I just think Hardison and Gus would like each other. Unless they got into a vicious argument over Horde v. Alliance, I mean. And although I don't know either fandom well, I sort of suspect that Parker is Shawn's kryptonite.)
Gus, in this story, out-nerds me with ease - I have no idea who Ben Sisko is. Also, of course, I've never won a gold star in Yuletide. (I try! I do! But there are extenuating circumstances. Yes, every single year. Yuletide is hard.) And he does it with such style. The man has special lucky writing socks. Maybe if I had special lucky writing socks, I too could get a gold star.
Or not. But Gus can. And I generally cringe at fandom-within-fan-fiction - it often just does not work all that well, and usually I prefer that the characters stay in their world and out of mine. But Gus just seems to fit right in with the Yuletide madness.
And he deserves a gold star, damn it.