No, seriously! Months after their orange backpacks left the Emerald City, Sydney is still feeling the impact of the WYD pilgrims' sharing natures. THEY LEFT US THIS FLU! Bastards! And look, even the Catholic News says it's true! Well, likely at any rate. Apparently the three-week-plus flu that turns to bronchitis is knocking people out across the city, and has been since July, so I am not alone in my feebleness.

Honestly, it was bad enough when it was just nuns trying to plough me to the ground.

Bryoney opined that I have been talking too much sport and not enough fandom lately, so three links to make her feel loved. The first is to a very interesting question posed by

bewarethesmirk in her post here. She asks what it is about some styles of writing that immediately succeeds in drawing the reader in. I've blathered on at length in a comment, as have several others, and I think that we're edging towards the total picture, but I am sure that more brains, particularly brains as big as you lot have, will get to the actual answer. Alas, it's flocked, but if you're not on her flist, feel free to chat here.

My dear

jadzialove wrote a story recently in which Weasley brothers engaged in activities of an adult nature only suitable for readers over 18. With each other. We both squealed in a frightened fashion, she even while writing. However, that was nothing compared to this story from The Times. To quote their head and standfirst:

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty

A woman slept with her sibling for years and has good memories. Not many people understand their relationship, she says

I can't say I'm surprised to hear that.

For maximum bemusement, you have to read the comments.

Thirdly, Maya has posted the last chapter of Quality of Mercy, and

there have been many posts along the lines of OMG, it's not H/D! To which I have to say, der! There was never any pairing specified, Harry and Ginny's relationship has been written as genuine and developing the whole way through, Harry has been protective and fraternal in his relationship with Draco and Draco has been someone desperately trying to forge actual relationships in his world, rather than just getting what he wants. Why would a writer ditch all of that worldbuilding for a ship in which she has only written some of her fics?

I sometimes wonder if people actually read fics as actual creative works or just go through them ticking off their internal preference list. "Yay, there's a cool one-liner, there's an insight into canon, there's a good spot of fanon, excellent UST, and ... and ... THAT'S IT? NO SMEX? YOU SUCK!" On bad days, I suspect the latter.

Oh well. A happy fandom aside: 2500 words of Darkfest written, 1700 of them even consecutive!

And, my final Paralympics moment, Australia lost to the US in the rugby, but Kurt Fearnley won the marathon! YAY!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I've read all the comments on this and feel really guilty, but I was disappointed and emailed a friend who only reads completed works to warn her. Some of us actually want to know how it ends, whether or not it puts us off the story, so we can read it for the construction, not just the result.

Which is a fancy defensive way of saying, I can get all the arguments and it's in many ways a fine story, but not set up for anything BUT H/D in closure. I was admiring all the way through how Sarah, using no more words than JKR did, pinpointed her characters so much better. Ginny didn't have any more "on screen" time than in the books, but she was so much more real and well-rounded. same with the others. Especially Harry -- the guilt he has about Nagini, for example. And Ron and Zachariah's friendship -- amazing. Mostly offstage, and completely believable.

BUT I agree that UST was carrying almost all the tension -- the beating Voldemort really took second place.The ending really felt as though she'd gotten rather tired with the story and had to finish it quickly. I dreaded her doing that to DDG -- scrambling at an end can ruin the whole work retroactively, and I don't plan to read QOM again except as a study -- even more than I dread the lack of resolution. A general rule of thumb (I just made up) for stories is that what gets covered at the closure needs to be roughly equal to the attention it got paid in the rest of the story. so if 95% of the story is about H and D, I expect the climax to reflect that -- and NOT have to pick among the ashes looking for an ending.

Good rule.

I agree with you about the efficiency and nuance of her characterization. That's something I was taking for granted, and shouldn't have. Her humor and dialog are also amazing.

Don't feel guilty! If we all thought exactly alike on everything it would be very boring after a while! And I can see the argument that you make. I don't agree wholeheartedly with that reading, but I do think it's a valid reading.

I DO wholeheartedly agree that Sarah constructed better relationships between all the characters. My great disappointment in DH (and J's, too, when he read it) was that there was never any resolution with the Slytherins. That felt so unbalanced to me, and threw the last third of the book off on both my first and second reads. Sarah's interpretation was SO much more satisfying on that note!

And I agree that the ending felt a bit rushed and scrabbled. I think it was just the standard too many plates in the air problem that besets many writers. DDG has only a small tea service, not an entire dinner setting, so it should be fine ;-)

I think that is a BRILLIANT rule of thumb, BTW.

Pilgrims gave me flu!

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty

A woman slept with her sibling for years and has good memories. Not many people understand their relationship, she says

I'm with you on this

Re: I'm with you on this

Re: I'm with you on this