![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Nov. 7th, 2005 12:29 amGod, the weirdest things trip my squick.
I mean, seriously, it's like my brain is deciding this shit completely at *random*.
Like, okay, I can read Constant Vigilance's Fidelius, which has the most graphically horrifying rape scene I've *ever* read (seriously, it's the only story I've ever consistently rec'd with a caveat), and I'm fine. And I read prufrock's double-dicking story a few days ago and loved, because it was awesome and quotable and really just well-done. Obviously, violence, sex, combinations thereof, no problem.
And Soraya's Crush just makes me giggle and wish it was about 1000 words longer, so I don't have an embarrassment squick or anything.
But I *cannot* finish, for example, The Atlantis Local Stitch'n'Bitch Chapter and I don't know *why*. I've tried at least five damn times, and what I've managed to read is good, but I just...it trips my squick. Something in my brain just clicks and says "No more." It makes me fucking *wince*. For no discernable reason (okay, other than the one weird spelling error, 'cause I'm a dork like that, but I didn't notice that 'til the fourth time through, so, not actually relevant).
I don't *like* having to give up on stories. It makes me feel like I've failed as a reader, especially when it's not for any good reason. I mean, I will stick with stories through some fucking awful developments. I stuck with Voracity's Family series, despite the OCs and the bad sex and the uneven characterization, through sixteen of the damn stories (maybe it would have been better if I was reading it with pauses, like a serial, but I took a couple hours and tried doing it all in one go, which just left me going "Willow's bad? Wait, Giles is abusive? But a minute ago...and now he's nice again? What the HELL is going on?").
I stuck with it because...it's a commitment. Maybe it's not a commitment anyone else can hold you to, or even one anyone else will know about, but it's a commitment, and it just seems wrong to me to give up on it without the author having given the reader the equivalent of the finger (you know those authors who just don't care enough to even bother *capitalizing* correctly).
It's *hard* to write, and even harder to show it to people, so people should damn well follow through and read the whole thing. Because you can't help forming an opinion about what you read, but you can't form a real opinion on a partial impression (unless, like I said, it's that whole "if they weren't going to try, why did they bother typing this?" thing, or I guess you could form the opinion that "this is really fucking weird", but that's what I thought about that Rodney/Carson/Ronon story that I ended up *really* liking, so maybe not. And maybe I should stop it with the parentheticals that are longer than the enclosing sentence.) and it's...*wrong* to try, to even think you can.
Anyway.
I miss my summer jobs. They were nice. Working for Kelly got me paid in books I never would have found anywhere else (dictionary of Australian slang! book of pickup lines in six languages! yay for used bookstores!). Working at Western Farmers got me hideously over-paid, especially after I finished everything they had for me and got to sit around and read all day (unprofessional, yes, but there was no work! I asked!).
I especially miss them because I must soon get another job. And it's highly unlikely that this string of incredible good fortune will continue. Woe.
God, I suck. I was gonna go to bed an hour ago. And I'm totally not going to bed now. Damn me and my inability to resist the siren-song of fanfiction.
Also I may type up some of my poetry backlog for fictionpress. Just for Alyssa. Because I love her. And she's apparently had a crappy day. And I feel bad, for I am a sucky, sucky best friend.
I mean, seriously, it's like my brain is deciding this shit completely at *random*.
Like, okay, I can read Constant Vigilance's Fidelius, which has the most graphically horrifying rape scene I've *ever* read (seriously, it's the only story I've ever consistently rec'd with a caveat), and I'm fine. And I read prufrock's double-dicking story a few days ago and loved, because it was awesome and quotable and really just well-done. Obviously, violence, sex, combinations thereof, no problem.
And Soraya's Crush just makes me giggle and wish it was about 1000 words longer, so I don't have an embarrassment squick or anything.
But I *cannot* finish, for example, The Atlantis Local Stitch'n'Bitch Chapter and I don't know *why*. I've tried at least five damn times, and what I've managed to read is good, but I just...it trips my squick. Something in my brain just clicks and says "No more." It makes me fucking *wince*. For no discernable reason (okay, other than the one weird spelling error, 'cause I'm a dork like that, but I didn't notice that 'til the fourth time through, so, not actually relevant).
I don't *like* having to give up on stories. It makes me feel like I've failed as a reader, especially when it's not for any good reason. I mean, I will stick with stories through some fucking awful developments. I stuck with Voracity's Family series, despite the OCs and the bad sex and the uneven characterization, through sixteen of the damn stories (maybe it would have been better if I was reading it with pauses, like a serial, but I took a couple hours and tried doing it all in one go, which just left me going "Willow's bad? Wait, Giles is abusive? But a minute ago...and now he's nice again? What the HELL is going on?").
I stuck with it because...it's a commitment. Maybe it's not a commitment anyone else can hold you to, or even one anyone else will know about, but it's a commitment, and it just seems wrong to me to give up on it without the author having given the reader the equivalent of the finger (you know those authors who just don't care enough to even bother *capitalizing* correctly).
It's *hard* to write, and even harder to show it to people, so people should damn well follow through and read the whole thing. Because you can't help forming an opinion about what you read, but you can't form a real opinion on a partial impression (unless, like I said, it's that whole "if they weren't going to try, why did they bother typing this?" thing, or I guess you could form the opinion that "this is really fucking weird", but that's what I thought about that Rodney/Carson/Ronon story that I ended up *really* liking, so maybe not. And maybe I should stop it with the parentheticals that are longer than the enclosing sentence.) and it's...*wrong* to try, to even think you can.
Anyway.
I miss my summer jobs. They were nice. Working for Kelly got me paid in books I never would have found anywhere else (dictionary of Australian slang! book of pickup lines in six languages! yay for used bookstores!). Working at Western Farmers got me hideously over-paid, especially after I finished everything they had for me and got to sit around and read all day (unprofessional, yes, but there was no work! I asked!).
I especially miss them because I must soon get another job. And it's highly unlikely that this string of incredible good fortune will continue. Woe.
God, I suck. I was gonna go to bed an hour ago. And I'm totally not going to bed now. Damn me and my inability to resist the siren-song of fanfiction.
Also I may type up some of my poetry backlog for fictionpress. Just for Alyssa. Because I love her. And she's apparently had a crappy day. And I feel bad, for I am a sucky, sucky best friend.
