Rants and Recs

[ishtar79]

-You know, I can't even work up any surprise at lj screwing up anymore, much less indignation. I do feel for everyone who's active in kink memes, anon coms, and any other place made essentially unusable after the “inspired” changes to how comments work.

-In more “and the Internets were made of FAIL” news, I wasn't thrilled with delicious' new design to begin with, and I just discovered I've lost the ability to edit my links. Oh, I can add them to a bundle, privatise them, delete them, but when it comes to editing the title or correcting any other mistake, forget it. Great jobs, guys! *ironic thumbs up*

On a less ranty note, some hd_holidays recs:


Humbug (A Christmas Tale) by Anon I'm not even much of a fan of holiday-themed fic, and A Christmas Carol has got to be one of the most heavily-adapted stories, but I was so utterly charmed by this fic, I just had to rec it. While the plot doesn't hold a lot of surprises, the interactions between the characters makes it all worth it, and the humour prevents it from becoming cloying. And Snape as Marley is kind of inspired.

In Plain Sight by Anon One of my favourite tropes post-DH is proudly EWE, 8th year fic, and this one certainly delivers. This one was original in a lot of ways, from the premise of the Board Of Governors deciding to dissolve Slytherin house is one I've never encountered before, to a less-than-typical reaction of Ron and Hermione to the H/D. A fun read all-around.

The Business of Shagging Harry by Anon Draco as an elite wizard pornographer intent of making Harry the star of one of his productions sounds like the summary of a crack fic, but oddly enough, I was buying every single minute of this story, though admittedly the humour and hot sex significantly helped with that.


The Cottage with the Purple Door, A Non-Linear Love Story by Anon As the title implies, this is told in a non-linear style, but so skillfully it never once confused me or pulled me out of the tale. Lovely snippets of the story of Harry and Draco, interspersed with cool details like Draco's profession post-Hogwards, Harry and Draco's most unexpected choices of drinking buddies, and truly adorable takes on Albus Severus and Scorpius.

At Your Service by Anon Another 8th year fic, and my personal favourite. At 96,000 words, its length can be intimidating, but it's totally worth every minute spent reading it. As cliché as that phrase has become, it really does read like the books. With a brilliant mystery, a Harry voice that's about as canon as you can get (and often hilarious in that unaware way that Harry can be), and a truly brilliant and rounded cast of characters. I really cannot recommend this one enough.

Comments

[miranda_skye]

It is actually quite amusing now how badly LJ are screwing it up. The latest news post is ridiculous.

I moved to Pinboard when Delicious started messing around and I highly recommend it

[ishtar79]

I am starting to see the funny side of LJ's screwups.

I've heard good things about Pinboard, but isn't it a paid service?

[miranda_skye]

It's $10, which is not a huge amount and it was worth it to me. It's just so useful and the developer is very communicative with users and open to feedback

[ninamalfoy]

Ugh, delicious. *facepalms* And wtf, no editing feature anymore? o.O Yeah, good thing I switched to Pinboard when the first failboat was on the horizon... *snorts*

Oh my God, Humbug, In Plain Sight and At Your Service were awesome - I especially agree with you about the last rec! So, so awesome. ♥ ♥ ♥ Thank you for the other two, I'll put them on my reading list for sure! ^-^

[ishtar79]

It turns out they did have an editing option, it was just hidden. But yeah, I'm Not Happy with the redesign.

And isn't At Your Service AMAZING? I'm tempted to reread it, massive length and all.

[ninamalfoy]

Ugh, yes. Though, didn't they re-install most of the features they ditched? Still, talk about knowing your userbase... *snorts*

Oh, yes. I'm thinking of doing so, too, preferably with a cup of tea and cookies... yum. It's great that there are still so many awesome fics being written in such a huge fandom as HP - there really is no limit to creativity, eh? ;-)

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

Delicious: There's a little pencil icon in the top right corner of the 'box' for each entry. The edit function is hiding in there.

Recs: YAY RECS.

xxx

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

OMG, I LOVE YOU!!!!!! Thank you for the tip, it was driving me CRAZY!

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

Delicious are sorting themselves out. Save your rage for LJ. http://livejournal.design.ru/main-page/

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

Is it OK to rec this post in my soon-to-be Links Recs' Post? The stories seem to be interesting.

I haven't written in lj for a while, so am only NOW experiencing the differences. The disappearance of the subject line is annoying and I don't see the possibility to check spelling mistakes in my comment. The worst thing is that those Russian guys make those changes for no reason that I can see and could care less what users think. Imo, in the future it'll only become worse and that moving to other platforms, US platforms is the best long term solution. :(

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

That's fine, you don't need to ask permission to link an unlocked post! :)

Personally, I'm a fan of Dreamwidth, but I'll keep posting on lj while people on my flist are still here.

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recs! It's been years since I've been a serious fic reader, but with the right recs, I'll totally come out of hibernation. "The Business of Shagging Harry" was priceless!

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed them! It's been a while since I read HP fic too.