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Ahhhh! It’s been seven years since I had to write a conclusion to a chaptered story. WTF I have no idea what to do with this conclusion lol. Now I’m all excited and proud and nervous and frustrated all at once, so I’m just gonna scream again, kay? AHHHH!

But we all do kinda want to hear about the Christmas party where they got really drunk, mind. I can’t believe how old it is now. Another five years and AFF’ll have users who weren’t born when it was created.

I looked this comic up and read it which was a howling cackling good time. Now this is a great strip. Thanks for sharing the entry link with the rest of us.

Tell me about it. I can always tell when someone is fashion enslaved by their writing out that much overkill about clothes, shoes, makeup and hair. Puts me to sleep because I don’t read fashion mags, and I prefer my characters to be dressed in under 3 paragraphs and on the move to tackle whatever little crisis is plaguing them myself. ROFL.

I went through a number of attempts myself, before I settled on the one I did write. Some even had more naughty priests than this one did.

Thanks, Clover! Maybe that’s my problem: I was never subtle with my sex scenes until this story. And the reason why Jamila is the way she is will be explained later because my plunnies decided that this wasn’t enough at 10k… I’m so glad you found Tu’Van hot because I thought that I could do a bit more with him… story and description-wise.

I’m pretty much into elf slash, and I’ve written my favourites. So those would be (in no particular order): Sauron/Maglor Elrond/The Mirkwood Three (and combinations thereof), which is to say Oropher, Thranduil and Legolas Elrond/Young!Thranduil Acutally, Elrond/pretty much anyone, including Celebrian Thranduil/Legolas (with Tafkab) Erestor/Twins (with Tafkab) Glorfindel/Erestor (I lost a lot of chapters when I got rid of a duplicate story in the archives, and I never really got over that) Glorfindel/Gildor (with BronxWench) Legolas/Gimli I’m sure there are more. I was starting to enjoy writing little bits of Celeborn/Thranduil and Galion/Legolas when I kind of lost my muse. I was also getting to know Curufin/Celegorm, and I’d just begun advancing the S/M into Melkor/Sauron territory. Maybe it will come back. I hope so. I mean, The Teacher is kind of like my life’s work of the past 10+ years, and I’d like to finish it someday.

@Desiderius Price I kind of know what you mean about feeling cheated. My first introduction to Tolkien was in 1973 as a reading assignment for my literature class. We were all supposed to read 'The Hobbit' and write a review. I absolutely loved it! Unfortunately though after graduation I joined the Army and for a long time, I didn’t really have much time for reading of any kind much less fantasy worlds. Around the mid 1980’s I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and have built up a rather large collection from different authors. As far as the movies, for me I think it was like spending years watching old black and white silent movies, then all of the sudden someone hands me this awesome widescreen color version of those old worn out B/W’s! Yes, there a lot of deviations from the books, but I think they helped add a degree of depth to certain characters, even though I still pick apart the movies.

I felt a bit cheated, with the movies, I mean, with the Hobbit at three, then certainly the LoTR could’ve been six, or even nine! Imagine, the scouring of the shire, a nice little short story by itself, could’ve made it in.

I realize this may be an ‘older’ forum thread, but I’m still new and weaving my way through this site. I’m loving what I find though! I don't think I actually had a favorite, I loved all the elves! I read a lot of different author works that take place in their specific fantasy realms much like Tolkien does with Middle-Earth. However, once the movies were released I was first infatuated with Legolas. Then came the Hobbit movies and I absolutely and completely fell in love with Thranduil! Of the stories I’ve read so far, the pairings I like most are: Thranduil/Legolas and Glorfindel/Erestor I think I need to read a few more!

Hmmm… maybe we ought to start up a Mary Sue fan club, lure them into a trap….

Thanks, I like putting spins onto classics at times. And this is about the limit I put onto clothing description: “A man wearing black leather pants, a black leather jacket, with a natural leather button up shirt and a red leather tie.” In this case, I’m trying to portray the image of a man not to be trifled with. I haven’t ran across many Mary Sues, but I’ve heard enough to get a feel of what to avoid in my own stories. Even in original fiction, the same things hint at an underdeveloped/under thought character – for a main character.

You have an interesting context offered which means it would be far more entertaining than the by rote nit picked nuances of how many ruffles or darts are in the skirt someone is putting on that I was talking about from my own side of the debate. Not saying that a section on clothing can’t be entertaining to read if it is showcased through actions, and the obvious desire to not get dressed as you are describing here. Still, my experience is that if the actions, and motivations are not there, and the clothing is so focused upon and detailed that I for one want to puke long before the descriptions end, it is time to find a new story to read. Too much detail is as mind numbing as too little detail in many cases. Blank space and over defined alike tend to force the reader into a numb state of destroyed mental image production. When that happens, the reading can become as unpleasant and tedious as looking through a government written how to manual for doing your tax returns for crying out loud.

I kinda prefer my characters to be undressed… but that’s me. And, if it takes multiple paragraphs, that’s fine I did write one scene, though, where it was a couple doing a reverse strip tease, getting dressed from nakedness, but that was more about how they didn’t really want to get dressed.

That was completely brilliant, actually.

I’m not entirely sure if that’s a twilight reference or something else entirely

Agreed. I’ve seen too many of those 2 full page descriptions of every tiny detail of clothing and even the makeup process in depth and over baked on steroids. I cannot get through that kind of boring to save my life and always go back and find something else to read when I get one of those stories in front of me. It’s one thing to have 2 sentences of the active dressing stage because you know it’s a blue skirt and white top thanks to the arms motions and the like, but a detailed makeup tutorial and extremely detailed clothing is a snooze waiting to happen. At AO3 you will find people who insert fashion links to the outfits in the middle of the sentences which is yet another marker of Sue/Stu at times. They try to hide their Sue/Stu by avoiding the blatant markers in hopes of getting more readers, so you have to rely on the obscenely perfected other issues at times. I’d say in original fiction, the Sue and Stu line is ignored because there is no actual preconceived measuring stick to hold up to the writer’s work which is the biggest reason for the Sue and Stu downside. I’d have to agree that the Anakin to Vader story line can be seen as a Gary Stu to end all Stu’s since he is the paragon of virtues and light that becomes one of the darkest and hateful anti-heroes of all time. His children have to save him from his own rage and the like. Still, his place as an original character means that only those who write fanfiction will ever feel the bite of nasty comments for not staying true to Vader/Anakin instead of the man who dreamed up that particular archetype enhanced characterization. I’ve seen a few harsh comments about an OC on various sites, but the worst of the hatred seems to have died down a bit in the last 2 years for several reasons. It seems to be getting better, and is more about how poor a job the characterization is of late. Again, it comes down to the telling the readers that the character is awesome without giving any active proof and that implies that a generation of readers have begun to shift their focus from the direct hate and into trying to get writers to show things instead of give us massive paragraphs of no reason to believe it brand of how great their OC is overall I think. A stronger focus on show me the character acting out their greatness has become more of the variety of critical commentary these days. So it is being worded as a need for genuine exposition instead of cop outs, or we see the offending story being ignored and getting no reviews and comments as a whole it seems.