feel the goddamned love, fandom or otherwise.

[constance]

I got my new laptop over the weekend. I'd originally thought, when my older laptop got kind of electrocuted, that I'd just buy a reasonable facsimile to it through auction and not spend the money on a newer, sexier one. And yet. Here I am with my new computer, which I've named Harriet. I won't bore you with the specs, and you can thank me for that later, but I will say this: Harriet is, as Big Star would say, a mover. She is, as The Commodores would say, a brick house. She is mighty, mighty.

Over the past couple of days, I've been installing applications and restoring backups, and I've got back some of the nice little applications that I've missed, and I was just thinking tonight as I browsed around, setting bookmarks and the like, how much I had missed, missed, missed my Opera browser, with its tidy little tabs and its superior download manager and its popup blockers, when I very coincidentally happened to run across this article.

Now, I have loved opera long time. It's been my preferred browser for ages, and I happen to agree with all the nice things that Paul Boutin has to say about it. But if I didn't, I would still be in love with the idea of being able to voice-command my browser to read Harry/Snape porn to me in a computer-voice deadpan. I would love it for that alone, even if it were otherwise the worst browser in the whole world.

And speaking of fanfiction. Even before I took a break from the fandom, I had long since stopped reading fanfic except on specific, very strong recommendation. I mean, it's kind of hard to find the time to just jump in and read, in a fandom as huge as HP, or at least it always has been for me, and that was true even before I got all burnt out. But, you know, I guess my break did me some good, because using cursive's and dahlia_777's recent reviews as a jumping-off start, I've been wading around knee-deep in archives and fics whenever I get a chance, and having an absolute blast. I can't remember the last time I read a fic with anything approaching the near-uncritical delight I'm feeling for all sorts of stories, right now. I can't remember the last time I stayed up scrolling until 3 a.m. because I couldn't bear to go to sleep without knowing how the story ended. I can't remember a time since maybe the first few months I joined fandom--God, was it really over three years ago?--when I was this excited, finding new stories I liked.

It feels absolutely wonderful. It feels so wonderful that maybe this time around I'll leave feedback, but I feel I shouldn't make reckless promises.

Comments

re: the entry wherein c and j share a brain

[font.livejournal.com]

re: newly rediscovered fannish love: Oh, this is so exciting to read! Me too, me too! I'm just so head over heels in love with HP right now anyway, but I've been devouring stories lately, making lists upon lists of stories I love. My last go-round in Harry Potter, I think there were maybe 5 stories I would admit to loving. I have sitting on my desktop right now a very incomplete list that is clocking in at somewhere around 175, and I am nowhere near the end. You should tell us what you're finding.

re: Opera: Having just had a near-fatal accident with Firefox involving a non-functional theme, I finally redownloaded Opera this afternoon, and lordy, have I missed it, too. I haven't gotten the voice features working yet, but I did spend a happy quarter hour viewing my friends page on each of the different user mode styles.

re: possible fictive offerings from you: Are you still writing your story? How is it coming? Is it better not to poke and ask? I am really hoping that you will show us.

Hey, quit hogging!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, it seems that I've already answered most of this, so for now I'll just say that I'll probably post some sort of writing-type thing eventually, when I feel that I have something worth reading. So far, something worth reading has failed to materialize, but that may change. I hope it will.

Also, :D!

Okay, then.