de arte recommendationis

[meretricula]

I just reread part of the Georgics, I am feeling nostalgic for Latin.



I make recs for myself as much as for the people they're ostensibly aimed at. it's a form of filing: once I rec something, I know how to find it again. so when I rec something, it's because there is some possibility, however remote, that I'll want to read it again and need to be able to find it. I've got a pretty good memory for how I got to places, but after one late night spent trying to remember where the hell that Paris/Chakotay fic was (and why the hell you were reading Voyager fanfic in the first place) you start documenting your steps. in most fandoms I just bookmark the author and leave it at that. (I've got huge bookmark folders from my forays into Big Slash Fandom. in the unlikely event that you are new to SGA or want some recs from SPN before Castiel showed and made everything less incestuous, drop me a line!) but honestly, in most fandoms it is not that hard to find something to read. there are recs, there are hundreds of saved links on delicious, there are serious BNFs. there's no challenge.

so now I'm more into smaller fandoms where it genuinely can be hard to find something to read (yeah, footie fans: you may not like to acknowledge it, but compared with Big Slash Fandom? you are small, small fry) and it's also kinda sorta maybe actually possible to go through the entire fandom. technically this urge started with Merlin, but that exploded pretty fast into Big Slash Fandom itself, and I somehow wound up in sports RPF. tennis, to be specific, and I think I spent a week reading every fic in the fedal_slash memories only to be confronted with the fact that no, seriously, there is no more fic. so then I put together of all the halfway-decent Fedal slash in an attempt to convert a friend, and then I kept adding to it out of an obsessive sense of completionism, and I still do, even though I don't like that pairing anymore, since we're talking about two fics a year anyway and it's not much of a burden really. that's the only fandom I've kept reccing in once I got out, but again: two fics a year, not so much to ask.

Big Slash Fandom was too big, tennis was too small, but much like Goldilocks, I have happily settled into footie, which is just right for me! plenty to read but not an impracticable amount to rec. I don't want to be misleading - I got into reccing footie at a period in my life when I had a lot of free time and I was very bored; the "down payment" of effort to get settled in and set up now would probably be too much for me, but at this stage I have everything arranged the way I like it and it's not too much work by comparison.

where do I find the fic? well, almost all the new fic in football rpf goes through the footballslash comm, which is a huge help. I do at least glance at every fic posted there. I used to read everything posted to footballkink2, but frankly after the treatment I had to deal with over there I decided it wasn't worth the headache. (if you are still reading over there, feel free to bring anything worth reading to my attention. I'm happy to see it, but I won't go looking anymore; my life is a lot happier now that I don't have to deal with anonymous bitchery on a regular basis.) I read all the comment threads on touchline. I glance through the new fics when Not Just A Game updates, although it's pretty rare that there's something there that wasn't on footballslash. I keep an eye on several people who save footie fic on delicious: hr_instd, rondaview, shsharktango, cupcakepony, rosykate and awkward_sorta; there used to be several others that were very helpful when I was just starting out, but I think they were deleted in the delicious migration, sadly. those are usually better for finding old fic than anything new, but old fic that I haven't read yet is still new to me, and often to other people as well! I've gone through cornerflag and mountainpeople and Tangible Schizophrenia and every once in a while the spirit will move me to go back and look at older fic/authors to see if now that my knowledge of football has increased (if your knowledge of a subject isn't increasing the longer you pay attention to it, btw, you're doing it wrong; I don't care how much you know already, you can always know more) I might be able to appreciate something that I couldn't understand on the first read-through. and I do follow a couple of authors that I think are particularly good, so if they post something small to their journal and don't cross-post it I might rec that, but that doesn't happen much; I really don't like reccing drabbles.

why do I rec a particular fic? I thought it was good enough that I might want to read it again someday. I might not have liked it especially, although I usually do; I can appreciate that something is good even if I don't like it.

why don't I rec a particular fic? all kinds of reasons. is it under 1000 words? probably wouldn't bother; might not even bother to read it. is it part of a WIP? definitely wouldn't bother, and I definitely wouldn't bother to read it. (I have broken this rule once, yes. and I do read/rec WIPs so long as all the parts are standalones. but I hate abandoned WIPs with a burning passion, and I think unplanned WIPs are a trainwreck not worth watching.) are there grammatical and spelling errors? borderline; if it's just a couple things and they don't detract too much from the effect of the story I might rec with the caveat "needs a beta" but generally speaking errors do significantly detract from the effect of the story for me, and then I won't rec it. is the characterization bad? backspace me out of here! I haven't, thank god, seen much fic that was racist or overtly discriminatory in any other way. I have, however, read fic that I thought was misogynistic, and if that was the only reason I hesitated I might rec it with a warning, because what I think is sexist may not strike another reader in the same way. I do try to be good about warnings in general. is it locked? life is too short to bother asking to be added. if it is accessible to me then it's fair game to be recced but I can't rec what I can't see. I was less strict about this when I started out, but I also had more free time then. is it written with deliberate disregard for the rules of style (all in lower-case, lack of punctuation, excess of punctuation, fragmentary, lack of line breaks, etc)? look, I don't do that experimental shit. is it incoherent, or lacking compelling characters, or just plain boring? well then it's not very good, is it.

the longer I'm in any fandom, the more personal canon I develop; I don't think it's possible to avoid that. fic that contradicts my personal canon does rub me very much the wrong way, but I try as much as I can to separate out "not my canon" from "bad characterization". I don't have to agree but I have to believe while I'm reading; that's what good characterization does. and of course the longer I'm in a fandom the more I have favorites among the characters. I figure my willingness to read anything, even dreck, about my favorites is at least balanced out by my poor reaction to my favorites being written poorly. oh well. nobody is completely impartial, but I try.

long story short: if I read it and I think it's good and it's in a category that I do recs for, I'll rec it.

on a related note, I went back to my first-ever recs list to find something for aramley to read in LotR that wasn't horrific dubcon mpreg. wowwwww. first of all, I have been doing recs for seven years now. seven years!!! and secondly, I liked a lot of terrible stuff in high school. I mean, not horrific dubcon mpreg terrible. but up there. (all my rec lists are here, if looking at the awful stuff I thought was great half a decade ago and laughing at my teenage self appeals to you. and it's not all terrible, to be fair. even on the LotR list, there's some damn solid fic.)

so that's that! any questions? ;)

Comments

[justkisa.livejournal.com]

this was really quite interesting to read through so thank you for sharing!

I'm especially excited to see delicious bookmarks to look through--I've never been able to find people who collected football/footballslash related bookmarks--I looked (okay, granted, maybe I didn't look terribly hard) because that's how I had gotten used to finding stories (and other material) when I was reading in bandom/popslash but never really found anyone who did it extensively so yeah, looking forward to looking around a bit there!

also this - the longer I'm in any fandom, the more personal canon I develop; I don't think it's possible to avoid that. fic that contradicts my personal canon does rub me very much the wrong way, - so very, very true - I'm not really successful at getting away from my own personal canon, I just, I don't know - I get too attached to it I guess--can't ever really leave it behind when I read.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

haha, I'm glad at least one person read it!

yeah, once you find one person you can usually follow the web of connections, but if you're starting from scratch it's tough. oh, also awkward_sorta (http://www.delicious.com/awkward_sorta/footballfic), I forgot to include her!

because our personal canon is right and people who don't recognize that are just not well-enough versed in canon to know it!!! XDD

[luxover.livejournal.com]

REC MY FIC!!! IT'S A 589 WORD WIP DRABBLE THAT WASN'T BETA'D AND IS FRIENDS ONLY BUT I REALLY THINK YOULL LUV IT, EVEN THO IT'S KINDA EXPRIMENTAL-- ALL LOWERCASE AND MINIMAL PUNCTUATION-- HOLLA TO MY BOY ee cummings NAH MEAN???

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

word to ur mom

[kitty69lover.livejournal.com]

i simply don't understand lj folk's attitude to WIPs.

it's true that some of them start with nothing but a start and sometimes without the fainest of plans, but i think it's unfair to the author that ultimately has a story to tell - and it might be a damn good one - to be overlooked from the start.

i can understand readers' lack of patience or commitment to a fic that who knows when it might be updated. but on the other hand, there are fics that progress a certain way due to comments and feedback.

but at the same time, you cannot demand long fics to be all written out before posting. sometimes it's not possible.

there's only one thing i hate about WIPs, which is WIPS without a summary in the header. no thanks, i'd rather know what i'm getting into.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

well, what do you want from a fic? because I want a story, of whatever length, that has a starting point and an ending point that enclose a coherent whole. it could be a thousand words or a hundred thousand, but if it doesn't end in a way that makes sense to the beginning, and begin in a way that makes sense to the ending, it's not a coherent story. everyone writes piecemeal, of course; you can't sit down and come up with a hundred thousand words in one sitting. most of the time I can't even come up with a thousand words in one sitting! but if you post them scene by scene you're not editing the earlier parts, and the longer the fic is, the more likely it is that you need to change some of the beginning to match the end. there's no reason why someone has to post a fic before they finish writing it. finish it, make it as good and polished as it can be, and then you post something you're really proud of, rather than something you know still needs work.

I'm happy to read a fic when it is done and cleaned up and made fit for posting, but the person who reads an unfinished fic and helps the author figure out where it should go is the beta, not the general public. and I really dislike the whole "pander to your readers by asking them what should happen next" maneuver. it's not a goddamn choose your own adventure novel. if you don't have a vision for what you want to happen in your own story why are you writing it? everybody gets stuck sometimes, but ask a beta you trust to see what's best for the story, not whoever happens to be passing by.

the potential for abandonment is another issue, and that's pretty self-explanatory. someone who doesn't know where the story is going is less likely to be able to finish it. some people do know where it's going and just don't write it all out at once, which is a slightly different issue, but as a reader, I'd rather not risk it. I'm still bitter over two year old unfinished WIPs from wintergames. I don't like being left hanging.

I am not telling anyone to do anything or demanding anything from them! people will continue to write WIPs, and to read them, and to enjoy them. that's fine, but I don't. end of story.

[dreamofthem.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, do you read fic at footiefic? I ask because I know that footballslash specifically does not allow gen fic and so gen fic always gets posted elsewhere.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

not really, tbh. it's so much smaller than the main comm - but I'm also not a member, so if there's a lot of stuff there I should check out, let me know!

but anyway, people do still post gen to fbslash, just not often. I think you're better off poking through old issues of cornerflag or checking out the tiny handful of authors who do write it, tbh.

[yukimeru.livejournal.com]

That was an interesting read! I've been thinking about football slash lately, and even discussed with a friend the kind of fic that bothers me, clichés the fandom goes through in a regular basis, etc.

It's nice to know we think similarly, maybe that's why I liked your fics so much, because we seem to think in a similar way.

I seriously need to start bookmarking or making rec posts. I read so many fics, sometimes (if they are on livejournal) I put them on my memories, but in 98% of the time I forget to do it. And after some months I think "I'd like to re-read that certain fic" just to realize I didn't bookmark and can't, for the life of me, remember how to get back to it. My life :(

May I ask what happened that you stopped reading/posting to footballkink?
I've being following the kink meme for some time - mainly the new one, the old already had too many things when I found out about it - and I haven't seen many problems there.
Just once, when a Madrid fan wanted a cirque du soleil AU and a Barça fan filled the prompt, and then Madrid fan proceeded to complain about how Barça fan was being disrespectful. I was really sad to see that (the reaction of the original prompter), I think the author (the Barça fan) abandoned the fic after the complaints.
I know rivalry can be a pain always sometimes, but this was ridiculous :/ Specially since the kinkmeme is a prompting comm, and not a fic requesting comm.

I forgot half of what I wanted to say, oh well.
I'll be off to stalk your rec list!

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

I feel like there are good cliches - you know, first kiss fic, one of them thinks the other hates him, hookerfic, whatever - and also really terrible ones. like the "evil slutty cheating wife". =/ in general I like cliche fic! though there are some really awful sets of established "characterizations" in footie at times, if that's what you're talking about. if I never see another weepy David Silva fic it will still be too soon. XD

do you have a delicious account? I use mine for articles rather than fic, but it's definitely a great tool for keeping track of things. (if you're looking for a specific football fic, let me know! I'm usually pretty good at remembering, if I've read it.)

oh, it was a very stupid blow-up, someone started making comments on the chat post about how annoying a friend of mine and I were, the mod sided with the person making the comments and let other people keep piling on instead of shutting it down, and I decided it wasn't worth putting up with that type of shit when I have touchline in my life. I'd had a run-in with the mod before, and it was kind of the last straw. there are a ton of wonderful people on that meme and I wish it were better modded, because it's always just a couple of people ruining it for everybody else. but I also don't like anon-memes in general, I think they bring out the absolute worst in people, so I wasn't too broken up inside about giving it up.

haha, well, if it comes to you, you can always come back! and I hope you find something you enjoy!

[the-beanster.livejournal.com]

I totally am in agreement with just about everything (I'll read WIPs but I'm incredibly hesitant to do so bc I've come across one too many abandoned fics but one of my have fics in footie fandom right now would have to be a WIP).

And yeah, this fandom is small :/

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

still bitter over all the amazing abandoned WIPs on the skating kinkmeme. STILL BITTER. I will not be jerked around like that again!!! XD

[distira.livejournal.com]

i (unsurprisingly) agree with a lot of what you have here.

personal canon is so hard to get past. or even well-established characterization from another fic, i find. but yeah, i saw some like, dominant, non-awkward javi fic pop up a while back and definitely side-eyed it, entirely because of personal canon.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

I mean, I feel particularly strongly about this because I research my personal canon, you know? like, Javi is ACTUALLY SUPER AWKWARD AND INCOMPETENT WITH LADIES. that's not something we made up! even the really cracked-out stuff like Thiago pining whenever he's away from Rafa is based on actual fact. so I majorly side-eye people whose dedication to research is not equal to my own. XDDD

[louis-quatorze.livejournal.com]

also Germans. :D (you know how I appreciate the work you do, of course.)

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

lolololol I am not even sure in regard to what the Germans have appeared but sure, why not! XD

[aramley.livejournal.com]

two fics a year
That many? ;)

I read through a couple of the stories on your LotR rec list and, idk, I think it's just a personal taste thing in that I can't get into faux-epic writing (a problem I also have with a lot of The Eagle fic). Personal taste is weird. Even with the horrific dubcon mpreg fic, like, from a purely technical nuts-and-bolts perspective I realise that it was actually very well-written, and if dubcon and endearments and detailed anatomical descriptions of male pregnancy are your thing, then that is the fic for you! (BUT I MAY NEVER RECOVER)

But anyway, I think what you do is awesome and, though I'm not actually in footie fandom, I think it represents the things that I love best about fandom in general, you know, people sharng things they love with each other. So basically ilu and you are awesome? :D

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

you know, I was thinking about LotR fic the other day and I genuinely don't think I've ever read any that I would say transcended its genre. faux-epic's a pretty good description, haha. but I kind of wonder if that fic even exists in Tolkien fandom. especially since unless it was a modern AU, I wouldn't feel right about using less formal language (although a lot of fic is wayyyyyy too purple prose). same with Temeraire, I think. never even noticed about The Eagle fic, tbh.

ilu2 and you are awesomer! ♥

[ladytelemachus.livejournal.com]

Oh arse, I meant to comment on this last night and then LJ was having another hissy fit. Everyone already said pretty much everything I think, esp with regard to personal canon. Weepy David Silva can gtfo, thanks. And also appreciating love of obsessive, detailed research!

Argh, I should really get in on the touchline action! Would it be cheeky to crash the partay? It looks ace and also a bit of a haven for people with an unfortunate sideline in fawning over all of City.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

like, where do people get the idea that he's some sort of wilting flower? PART WIZARD BUT MOSTLY WEASEL. got it from the horse's mouth! sighhhh. see also: people who think Cesc Fabregas is still seventeen years old.

COME HANG OUT WITH US, YOU DON'T NEED AN INVITATION!!! make it look less like Kisa and I are these crazy people ranting at each other while everyone else in the room side-eyes us and backs away slowly!

[justkisa.livejournal.com]

just butting in here to say - YES, YES, PLEASE COME PLAY WITH US!

ahem, right.

really, though, you should totally join it's loads of fun!

[ladytelemachus.livejournal.com]

Also, I really wish dorkorific would update that District fic. I guess I now know the pain of being burned by a WiP :(

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

THISSSSSSS

even though I am also genuinely bitter about how wrong she gets some of the Barça characters w/e w/e I know I'm irrational but MY LOVE FOR VICTOR VALDES SURPASSES RATIONAL THOUGHT, SERIOUSLY.

[yukimeru.livejournal.com]

OMG THIS :(
I was trying to forget about that District fic because it was never updated anymore. But now I remembered. And I'm sad again.

[sanzina89.livejournal.com]

Amazing reading, thank you! ♥

the longer I'm in any fandom, the more personal canon I develop; I don't think it's possible to avoid that. fic that contradicts my personal canon does rub me very much the wrong way, but I try as much as I can to separate out "not my canon" from "bad characterization".
OMG THIS! I read anyway if it's well-written but, god, it's hard! XD

Another problem of mine is... I don't find a lot of well-written footie fics anymore. I don't know if I started preteding too much ;_; but I check footballslash every day and not every day I read fics... :(

You did good when you left that place. Fandom should always be fun! ♥

(Can I add you to my f-list? :) )

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

aww, thank you!

I feel you, bro. =/ but it does make finding an awesome footie fic a really special experience! I totally never get that excited over a new fic in Big Slash Fandom. right now I think a lot of people are working hard on Big Bang and the fbslash christmas exchange and cornerflag, so fingers crossed we'll have a veritable cornucopia of fabulous fic in the next month or so. ;)

(of course, you don't need to ask! you're matricons, aren't you? welcome!)