Pilgrims gave me flu!

[blamebrampton]

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!
 

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. For my part I spent my young adult years as a chronic sleeper in other people's beds but often just so that I wasn't sleeping alone, with no shagging involved, so that seemed perfectly natural to me. But I was raised partially hippie, so things that seem normal to me often aren't! (Though if I think someone is odd, they're probably writing for The Times about shagging their brother, and are therefore quite odd indeed!)

But I do think that Ginny's role in the second half of the story was very much trying to become worthy of Harry. It was easy to lose track of that, though, because it was so much off camera. I think we can agree that the characterisation and dialogue were both very fine all the way through!

[beatnikspinster.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that we can agree on easily. :)

RE: touching, senual and non
Now see, I was raised hillbilly. That means no one touches, ever, unless they're fucking their sibling. ;D But seriously, it's not that far from the truth. I still have a hard time with anything outside a brief handshake.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

There were times when, surrounded by massaging hippies and patchouli oil, I'd have traded places with you in an instant!