i wanna toast tonight

[terabient]

i am postponing the Animu Boston: Chinese Porno Cartoon Tragedy writeup for a few days, mostly because my brain is still a pile of slush swimming in beer and liquor, and also i forgot my camera so i am hoping other people will upload pictures of some of the fab things i saw/did over the weekend.

I BET YOU ARE ALL TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED.

so i am going to shower you all with sparkles and confetti and cupcakes!!! fanfic praise with this meme taken from bri_ecrit:

We can all feel a little sucky about our writing ability sometimes. So this is the meme to try and deal with that. Comment here and I'll give you detailed love for as many of your fics as I can. Afterwards, post this in your own LJ and spread the love.

I EXPECT MANY COMMENTS FROM MY MORE WRITER-LY EL-JAY FRIENDS. EVEN IF YOU'VE ALREADY RESPONDED TO SOMEONE ELSE'S. EVEN IF YOU ONLY HAVE ONE FIC TO YOUR NAME. THERE IS LOVE AND TENTACLE HUGS TO BE HAD AND YOU CANNOT ESCAPE!!!

Comments

[terabient]

awww :( well this is a bit late for the 14th, unfortunately...

there are so many things I love about your writing, but what stands out most strongly (for me, anyway) is how defined your character's voices are - not just in dialog, though you write some of the sharpest conversation I've read in fic - but in internal thoughts as well. It's most clear when you write from Raphael's point of view, where you routinely capture not just his unique blend of logic and madness, love and hatred, but the eloquence and refinement one would expect with his background. In works like A Generous Love and Dark of Night, there's this...quality in the sheer structure, the word choice and the way you word sentences, that make me think: Yes, that is Raphael. It's distinct from Cassandra's voice, who's bright and forceful , and Kilik, who you write with so much suppressed longing and understated gentleness I could scream while reading him.

Also, what first struck me with your writing is the skill in which you subvert reader expectations. Sometimes, it's just a simple, devastating choice of words - She still suffered a deep, abiding love for her family from A Generous Love comes to mind - and sometimes, in fic like Nature, Nurture and Balance, the ending is the rarest and most satisfying kind - surprising but inevitable. You're one of the few authors where I am willing to read a trope I normally hate because time and again you have proven that you write for characters, not to fulfill plot conventions.

tl;dr: you have some of the best characterization I've read in fic, and you make the OC CHILDREN PLOX work. that's KIND OF AMAZING, NGL.

[bri-ecrit.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, the day picked up considerably after I posted this. :)

And you are far, far too kind—I worry about my characterizations liek whoa, so hearing that they don't totally suck is a huge pick-me-up (especially in terms of Raph—my GOD, is he a pain in the ass. Although I just wrote Siegfried for the first time and he's infinitely worse, at least for me).

And subverting tropes is just way, way too much fun; I blame my obsession with The Twilight Zone and horror fiction twist endings. If I can successfully pull it off, all the better. :)

(OC children are such a gamble; I barely even consider my work in the same category because TBH I could care less about the kid in "Nature, Nurture". I actually got a review asking what the kid's name was, and I was like, "...dude, I have no idea. I just popped a quarter into the chain of babies at the supermarket and this was the first one that came out.")