I have tried to read tumor!fic many, many times. Can't do it...it's too long and too boring and too repetitive. I've had people suggest that I start with a certain POV (can't even remember whose) so that I'll get "sucked in." Never happened...

Actually, now that I think about it, skipping around and *trying* to read it, I've probably read more than I think I have! But I don't like it...at all.

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Aww, too bad. I admit to skimming the first half of Justin's part because it was too repetitive (it was the 4th in the story), but everything else sucked me in.

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It's ok...there are so many other wonderful stories out there that I don't feel like I'm missing a thing! I've been in fandom for over two years now and I never lack for reading material!!

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I love coming into this fandom "late" just for that reason.

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So true...you could keep busy for years and never run out of "new" things to read!

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Me too, same exact thing.

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Ah yes, Myrna's fandom classic. I LOVE this fic! Where some people think it's too repetitive I actually think it's totally brilliant to write the events from 4 different points of view.

*snuggles tumor!fic*

:D

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I enjoyed the different perspectives too.

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:-D
It's the exception to our *soulmate" status. You love it, I don't! But I'll always love you. <3

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We are totally soul mates except for when it comes to fic. I know you love teacher!fic and I hated it. But that's the joy of fanfic....what doesn't appeal to one will appeal to another, so all writers will have an audience. &hearts

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The idea of teacher!fic scares me, though I can see that that the real B and J aren't that far off. What is so great about it? (If that is even a possible question to answer without just telling me to read the fic.)

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The love of teacher!fic is as a huge mystery to me. It turns me off.

It's very well-written, but it's one of those things where you go, hey, great story, great characterization, well written, but Brian and Justin? Nowhere. It's very good original fiction.

Although to tell you the truth, the idea of a teacher having an affair with his teenaged student squicks me bad. But setting that aside, it's certainly an excellent story. I just see not the slightest glimmer of Brian and Justin from the show in the characterizations.

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I am squicked by the idea of teacher/student fic too. In general, I have a problem with AUs for QAF. I have been branching out into "what ifs" which is a big step for me. Since BJ have a wealth of canon-related material from which to draw, AUs seem superfluous (and wrong), unlike other shows where the slashy relationship is merely subtext. In those cases, I don't mind crazy AU stories.

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Surprisingly Xie, you have more good things to say about teacher!fic than I do. While I was reading it I kept thinking I was going to get to *the good part* soon, and then it was over! It was so unmemorable for me that I remember no specifics about the story other than Justin was Brian's teacher.

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Justin was the teacher?

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Yup, you heard me right. I personally don't like fics where their ages are reversed.

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I can see why someone would write it, but it just doesn't sound like my thing. I am even kind of scared to read the surgeon fic, so making another major change probably wouldn't sit well with me.

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Which one is the surgeon fic? Do you mean Xie's Pulse Point?

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Yes, that is the one. I didn't know it was by Xie which might honestly make me read it now.

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Everything by Xie is worth reading. Even though this is an AU it's totally IC and a fantastic story. You can't go wrong with this one!

Another really good AU is vamphile's Blue Ecstasy. Brian & Justin are cops in this one. Great writing and great story.

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LOL, thank you! I just came back to answer something else and saw this after I posted... you made my night!

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Pulse Point is GREAT@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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*grin*

I knew you would like it. I've only read it once and I'm thinking a re-read is in order soon.

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You know? I think I might do a reread, too. I also have only read it once. :D <3

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For ME...and I don't expect you'll feel the same way about it all, there are several reasons.

1. I *love* pre-series Brian and young Brian is just about as good.

2. Justin is sort of the opposite of his actual canon character, yet I still feel that he's Justin...that the core of him is the same, he just chose a life that wasn't the right life and Brian helps him figure that out.

3. I am a HUGE fan of AU's. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I have written HUNDREDS of drabbles and quite a few short fics of my own and I have my own canon universe for Justin and Brian and frankly...I prefer *my* 'verse to most any other. I don't mean that in a self-centered way, that's just where I spend most of my "thinking" time and that's what I prefer. AU's don't take place in *my* B/J world, so I don't find any fault with them.

4. Teacher!fic's author has a very stark, almost minimal writing style that's full of angst. I *love* angst, I love stark writing...sort of that "less is more" feeling.

5. I love the sex. It's hot and sweet and beautiful.

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Teacher!fic's author has a very stark, almost minimal writing style that's full of angst. I *love* angst, I love stark writing...sort of that "less is more" feeling.

I agree that her writing is exceptional. And I love spare writing as well. The story doesn't do it for me, but she's a stunning writer.

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I adore the first 2 sections. I actually think Michael's is my favorite. I like Brian's, but I really don't like Justin's all that much. I think it is because of the final medical crisis she threw in which felt like overkill to me. I really like how she wrote Brian and Justin dealing with his illness because I lot of that rang true based on my own experience.

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I am really impressed with the feelings and reactions surrounding Justin's illness. Either someone did a heck of a lot of research or had personal experience with it.

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I enjoy this fic enormously. I read it every few months. And I really like the four POV structure -- she's a very, very skilled writer.

But Brian and Justin are extremely OOC, and not just because it's a story that was written while the show was still airing. Their voices are really wrong.

Also, it's very much a wish fulfillment fic about how those of us who love Justin wish Brian might have finally and utterly come to love Justin the way we think he deserves to be loved. I like to have my wishes come true as much as anyone, but I have to be brought to BELIEVE it or it doesn't work for me, and she doesn't do anything to make me believe it. She just makes it so.

So it's very satisfying in a "eat the whole carton of ice cream after being dumped" kind of way, but not in a "nutritious meal on which one could live forever" kind of way. If you know what I mean. ;)

Plus she hates Jennifer, which I cannot understand at all. It makes me horribly sad.

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I don't know if I would agree that the voices are wrong. Their beliefs seem wrong, but not necessarily how they act and talk about those beliefs. Is that splitting hairs?

I definitely saw some Lindsay-hate, but didn't see any Jennifer-hate in this fic.

There was definite wish fulfillment going on. I love when Michael gets taken down a peg or two. :)

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Their VOICES, the words they use and the way they speak, the rymthm of their dialogue. It's just not Brian and Justin. Her stories could not be scripts for the show.

This is a ragingly "out of voice" example:

I watched Justin move half-heartedly from the kitchen to the living room, picking up a book here and a CD there, then setting them down again. He finally looked at me with a helpless shrug and sank down onto the couch.

"I'm sorry," I said, the words sounding ridiculous. No wonder I rarely say them to anyone.

"Yeah, me too," Justin said absently.

He obviously didn't understand that I was actually apologizing. "No, I mean, I'm sorry. *I'm* sorry."

He gave me a confused look. "What are you talking about? You shit on me all the time, and you're going to apologize for *this*?"

I spared him an annoyed glance. "What if it's me, huh? What if this is happening because of me? Shouldn't I be sorry for that?"

Justin snorted. "Brian, as aggravating as you are, even you can't give someone a brain tumor. I mean, an ulcer? Absolutely. Herpes, gonorrhea, hell, any number of STD's, it's a wonder it hasn't happened before. But I really don't think you gave me a brain tumor."

"You don't get it," I said dismissively. "There's a fucking pattern here, all right? Crap follows me. Hell, it comes *looking* for me. Only now, you're standing close enough that it's going to find you too."

"You do not really believe that, do you?"

"Look at my history here. We're probably fucking lucky it's not fire and pestilence. Maybe there's a price to pay when anything you want can actually be yours, you know?"

Justin snickered, then out and out laughed. Like, doubled-over-at-the-hilarity-of it laughed. "Would you listen to yourself? You think the world begins and ends with you."

"You mean it doesn't?"

"No, it doesn't!" he said, suddenly irritable. "Sometimes shitty things happen. And you don't cause 'em, and you can't fix 'em. All you can do is fucking survive 'em!"

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Oh, I get it. I don't really have an opinion about that, except that obviously canon-Brian and Justin never said that much in a single conversation. It's hard to make a comparison when such a fundamental change occurs.

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I definitely saw some Lindsay-hate, but didn't see any Jennifer-hate in this fic.

Really? It's pretty bad. The way Brian rants about how useless Jennifer is in a crisis and how terrible she is at Justin's bedside and how he has to stop her from talking to the doctor... it does on and on. And not just in this fic. Myrna LOATHED Jen. :(

There was definite wish fulfillment going on. I love when Michael gets taken down a peg or two. :)

The thing is, I don't ENJOY wish fullfillment if someone can't make me believe it by rooting it in canon. I mean, I have things I want to see happen (although taking Michael down a peg or two isn't among them for me, LOL), but if I read a story in which they happen, but there's no journey from canon to that event that makes me believe it could really have happened in the show, it just doesn't work for me. I don't mean I judge it; I mean I don't ENJOY seeing my wish fulfilled.

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I see what you mean. I didn't take it as Jennifer-hate as much as just taking canon and emphasizing it. Jennifer does not come off well after the bashing, imo, and she doesn't come off well in this fic either.

I find what you say about wish fulfillment enjoyment interesting. It seems like things you'd want to see are already rooted in canon, or you wouldn't want to see it. Like you wouldn't just come up with the idea that it would be neat if Justin became a taxidermy specialist. Though I guess throwing the characters into crazy situations just to see how they would react could be one type of wish fulfillment not rooted in canon. Interesting.

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I'd have to agree it's extremely OOC.

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I can't follow this...it totally confused me. If it's unbelievable and OCC, why would you read it every few months? How is that satisfying?

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LOL... the same way ice cream is hideously bad for you but it's yummy. The same way I love blindfolded!escort!Justin, which is a thousand times more OOC and not even well-written. It's just a big glorious orgy of hurt/comfort overload and crazy drama queen speeches and OMG EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU THINK YOU CAN DRAW A BREATH SHE SKEWERS JUSTIN AGAIN! AND THEN BRIAN CRACKS INTO A THOUSAND PIECES! And we have Michael and Ethan, the jilted lovers, as witnesses and us-surrogates, to tell us all about the GREAT UNDYING LOVE OF BRIAN AND JUSTIN, and I don't know... I love the fuck out of this fic.

But I don't see it as a serious exploration of how the canon characters or situations could have progressed.

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Are you beginning to see why I almost never discuss fic, LOL? Sometimes it seems that nothing pleases me, even the greatest fics in our fandom!

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Being particular about what you like isn't a bad thing. :)

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I love it when you discuss fic.

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