thanks, recs, webpage, and some snark

Thanks first:

I had a nice birthday, thank you all! And all the well-wishing was absolutely great. I'm trying to answer everyone, so bear with me. Thanks to the wonderfulSlodwick and my darlingBethy for the birthday pictures (squee!), Lex Luthor's Guide to Defrocking Superheros by d_v_8, which was just adorable, Hallway by bexless (and MAN was this hot, oh DAMN), and the lovely isilya made me a cover for No Step Had Trodden Black. liviapenn, being generous, offered me one Torture Clark For Free entry, which after tonight? Shall totally use.

Watch for the cut tags later tonight, chica. *eg*

And issaro, being another one of those whizzes with graphics (SV has a LOT of those), also sent me an absolutely stunning cover for Standing in the Common Spaces. *amazed*



From isilya



From issaro



*breathless*



Recs:

Chloe: Year One by liviapenn She's a fic TEASE. A fascinating Alternate History Chloe in Gotham story, with so many damn POSSIBLITIES. TEASE, I tell you. An excellent story all around.

Scotch Gambit by rivkatIn which Rivka creeps me out and gives a terrible, fascinating story. Martha--huh. Originall recced as War Games in Rivka's Lj, it's up and posted. I suggest reading.

After by rageprufrock Okay, how I forgot to rec I have no idea, but this bit of post-Insurgence fic is just--right. Bitter, edgy, and--very real. *sighs*

Speak Loudly For Him by slodwick I love how Slodwick writes Chloe, and in this? Pitch perfect. Lovely an dsad and true to her character. And heartbreaking as hell.

Satisfying by sa. Um. Hot. With food. And kinks. *g*

Round One by rosenho Another hot one, with boxing. Lex and Helen, and seriously good.

Fortress of Dorkitude by mobiusklein *snickers* Um. I almost ruined a keyboard. Very funny bit of Clexness.

Webpage:

http://seperis.illuminatedtext.com is the new addy for my site. I've fixed more links, especially the Star Trek Voyager ones, but I'm still fixing the pointers to the stylesheets. Please report any broken links. I THINK I found them all and people have been very kind to email me to tell me when a link doesn't work. Very cool. Thanks for that, too.

Jennish Things:

I ended up rewriting my badfic rant in a fit of birthday snark (don't ask), and noted that if I replace 'meanness' with 'snark', I don't sound quite so vicious, but damn.

My love to pearl_o for my source of recent trauma. You. Are. Going. To. Hell. She's pretty much the pure indiluted inspiration, thanks to a cleverly given link with NO warning on what would be in store for me when I started reading.

rhiannonhero was talking a while back about guilty pleasure stories and why she reads them. I have a guilty pleasure FOLDER. I will admit I read these only in restricted chat with people I also can blackmail. It's quite a list.

There's--something deeply addictive about true badfic. And before anyone winces? Probably not about you. Trust me on this one.


That moment when you read a story and think, what the fuck? In a way reminiscent of being told that triangles actually equal 181. Mindbending.

Not JUST badfic, because that's common stuff--some creatively insane characterization here, some over the top h/c there, some Lionel-is-Satan-himself-and-likes-goats sprinkled on top, complete with grammar and spelling that make you wonder if the writers understand English. No, I'm talking the elite stuff, the stuff that takes effort, energy, a true to God complete and utter suspension of everything resembling both good taste and basic understanding of characterization, not to mention some schizophrenic disregard for the concept of clear storytelling. Badfic that just surpasses the very genre, actually creating a standard that all other stories have to aspire to and possibly never can. That's so bad it blows your mind, and you just find yourself trapped, reading with this kind of major-natural-disaster fascination or you know, like watching the medical channel when they're doing the caesarian section episodes. You stumble from sheer impossiblity to sheer impossiblity in all their terrifying glory, anatomical nightmares where you want action figures to figure out how the sex is working (I thought about using paper dolls at one point because, man, people seemed to be diembodied heads and limbs at one point), and you think, it CAN'T get weirder and worse and then it DOES and you just have to keep reading, because, man, this does not stop.

At this point, I feel inadequate for just making Clark insane in one fic. Man, I had no idea what license fanfic GIVES you with characterization, biology, anatomy, history, physics, grammar, and God help us all and save us, sexuality.

Oooh yes, I'm mean today. But seriously. There's the fun stuff where I can sort of go, okay, different strokes, their view is different from mine, and enjoy it on its own terms. I'm elitist, but only to a certain point--fanfiction is supposed to be fun first, and I can deal with that pretty easily. Vive la fun and all that. And despite my trauma, I'm really having a blast with this one. There's a point where you just stop trying to figure it out and just go with it.

Then there's the ones where my first actual question is, are these people sane? It's not just, are you watching Smallville, oh author, but rather, are you watching television at all? Have you SEEN a television? Because this stuff isn't even fanon-based, which I can find pretty interesting and can be wonderful. This is more like, once a long time ago, they skimmed TWoP briefly, forgot most of the information, and wrote a story based off a English to French to English translation of a fanfic story that wasn't that great to begin with.

Blows. My. Mind.

Okay, there's my badfic rant for the month, complete with absolutely not naming names or fic and snark. Hypocritical much? Yep. Snarky? Yep. But I only do it twice a year, so I think it works.

Huh. So I CAN rant in my LJ. Who knew? I think I tricked myself. Not that it's a rant. More like a cleansing. *G*

I shall think happy thoughts. I have the four disk LotR DVD (squee!) and chocolate cupcakes and generalized good moods going on. Not to mention a pound of candy. Mmmm. Candy.