I thought a bit about whether I should reread Golden Bands to Bind Them and discover if my liking for it was wildly off, my discernment impaired by the novelty of a first-time read, but I don't think it was. I leave a story pretty quickly if I don't find it worthwhile--I have a low threshold for boredom these days. I mean, it may not be obvious because I don't usually (a) take the time to read a bad story and then (b) rip it to shreds, but I really am a pretty finicky reader. So, it wasn't a perfect story, but it was fun. It's disconcerting though to discover that the authorial moves that make me sit up and go ooh (like watching a little foot snap from a gymnast) can actually throw someone else out of a story. I sometimes wonder if writers read differently than non-writers--not that I'm leaping to any conclusions, but I wonder if, like a painter having a painter's eye, a writer has a writer's eye. Probably the answer is: yes and no. There is probably as much difference within any group of writers as there is between readers and writers.

Anyway. I've been reading recs over at Sandy's Fannish Butterfly page. And I've realized I'm behind enough in my reading that many of the stories are new to me even though the page was, I think, last updated in November. And there was a story by koimistress! Smallville, A Nice, Friendly Game. And I had a nice, sexy read. And then some. I love writers who show off Lex's fantastically shiny brain--and Clark's too--and get at the game-playing that you know is inevitable between them. Fated.

Also, kassrachel wrote a Snape/Harry story, Clay, that I had somehow missed! It's like finding Christmas presents in the closet six months later! Either that or I've forgotten that I read it, and so it is as if new--which wouldn't be an insult to the story, by the way, but merely indication of how dim my brain is most days. I've just started reading the story, but I know that it will be good. Because, duh, Kass.

I also read a, um, Snape/Hagrid story that kind of got me worked up. Except...disturbed, too. I mean. Um. I'll just let you go to Sandy's page and find that for yourself if you're so inclined. I feel dubious about the characterization but it didn't bother me so much as the strangely manly and straightforward depiction of sex. I thought I liked that. Well, I *did* like that. But I still feel vaguely unsettled by it. I can't say why. I think it's the effect of voyeurism the story has. Reading the sex scenes, I felt a bit like I was actually witnessing something private and unvarnished--matter of fact and unpretty--that disrupted my usual expectations about erotic fan-fiction. Not so much a puncturing of any romantic fuzziness, because I read unromantic stuff, but almost a thwarting of a more subtle effect--the prism of of the female gaze.

Either that or it was just a stylistic thing somewhat off, out of synch with my own preferences.

I make no sense. But really, did I mention the story got me worked up? I do have a weakness for that whole size thing. I *am* a size queen. One of my bulletproof kinks, I guess.

Oh, and Betty Plotnick's story? Was bitchin'!

::ducks and runs::