Trying this again

Should've answered more comments in the evening or - better! - gone to bed, as my eyes have given out on me again and I cannot actually see or anything, but this was DRIVING ME INSANE. I had to rewrite it. Better to have claimed that I was desperate at all times for betas, someone might've told me how to fix my drabble then. >_< Is it too late to recant?

In case anyone thinks to ask: Lu Xun. I've always been convinced of this, and I don't know why.

( Viewfinder shortfic requested by Chrissie, take two, written directly into Semagic. I will look at it again tomorrow morning GWAR )

***

As the Tylenol kicks in, I begin to abuse 'XD'

Unlocked yesterday's meta post in case anyone wanted to, yanno, refute me publically or something. XD Although I was talking to worldserpent afterward and it made me think that I didn't manage to properly state my thesis. I have a headache so this is going to come out sounding more irritated than it should, but: it is not so much people who criticise and/or exhaustively analyze and/or make fun of and/or negatively review other people's fic who get my goat (I have my doubts regarding motivation in some instances but it serves me not a whit to be cynical, especially as a generalisation). It is the fact that writers are routinely called whiners for daring not to like it that gets my goat. Most writers are not going to like it, in the amateur or professional arena. If one is to judge them on how well they bite their tongues one may as well judge their readers on how well they bite their tongues. I do judge, to a degree: the ability to bite one's tongue is a sign of maturity and civility. But it's both sides or none.

(Charmian and I part ways on this issue like no other, because in the age-long war between critic and writer her allegiances are entirely with the former and mine with the latter. XD She would rather read a meta-dissection of a fic than the fic itself, and I would rather a hundred badfics be praised uncritically to the skies than one goodfic go unposted because the - admittedly wussypants - writer was intimidated by the tenor of discourse in her fandom. As fannish attitudes run both are fairly extreme, I think.

I have had people tell me they can't imagine what my and Charmian's MSN conversations are like. XDDDDD)

As for the rest I was just trying to explain what a freak I am personally. ^^;v dipping_sauce linked me to isiscolo's entries on the beta process, which I found highly illuminating (well, all this stuff may well be obvious to someone else XD). In fact it goes some way to explaining why I keep rewriting other people's fic when I beta - I do all this stuff for myself, when I say "I'm going to post this and look at it again" or "I'm going to wait until tomorrow morning and look at it again", and I'm so used to doing it for myself that I never saw identifying the problem and fixing the problem as two separate steps. "Here's the issue; now you take care of it." It must be so... different... not to be a control freak. XD;;;

In other news: what do you mean, Russian LoGH fans aren't all male and yaoi-friendly? XDXDXDXD

In other-other news: WHY AM I NOT IN SINGAPORE.