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!