It's always weird when someone recs something without having commented on it. To me, anyway. Hmm, I never really thought of it that way. I have to say I am guilty of this. But, I also see it as if I am commenting on it by either directing others to the story or else putting it in my alerts list. I don't always comment on a story, but I think an author will know how I feel about their story if I go to the trouble of putting it on alert.

It's always weird when someone recs something without having commented on it. To me, anyway. Sorry, I do it all the time; I do try to remember to comment & actually tell folks where I'm recing, but I have no brain at times, particularly when I'm either too excited & want to share, or I rec as an afterthought.

**waves to Vita** I was just wondering if you knew about this place, and thinking I should email you a link, and then up you turn! Speaking of recing/alerting/meming without commenting, I just noticed recently that there are tons of people who've friended me who have never, as far as I can tell, commented on anything I wrote. That seems weird to me, too. While I prefer, "That was great!" comments to no comments at all, I do like it if people say a little more: my favorite part was X, y reminded me of Z, I wonder wht would happen if..., and things like that. When I comment myself I ususally fall back on, "I especially liked..." and then name a couple of things. I find that having a formula makes it easy to come up with something to say, and it's not like the authors are following me from one journal to the next and noticing that I always say basically the same thing--And even if they did, so what? I like getting, "my favorite part was..." comments, so I egocentrically assume other people do too.

I have a question for all you established slash writers out there. How important is portraying safe sex for you in your fics? As I'm pretty new to all this I haven't given it a lot of thought, but a comment I got on a fic I wrote (that unprotected sex was v risky behaviour) has made me pause - both in moral terms (is it right to portray unsafe sex?) and in character terms (is it OOC for two doctors?) BTW on the comment front, I love every comment I've ever had - however short - because each one shows someone felt strongly enough to give me a minute of their time. And as was said upthread, concrit ones are especially valuable because otherwise I will never know what to try & improve.

How important is portraying safe sex for you in your fics? To me, very important. House isn't an idiot, and we all remember the lectures he was giving to clinic patients in One Day, One Room.. I don't think House for a second would sleep with either Cuddy or Wilson without a condom (because according to him, they get around), and he's already said he'd use a condom when sleeping with Cameron. ETA: Writing on the Internet is a bit like public speaking. It's a scary thing. Sheep, the love I feel for you is VAST. Watch out for random acts of hugging.

I think sometimes it might be just as hard and scary for a reader to write a review as it is for the writer to write a story. Do I say what I feel; do I think I am in a position to advise; do I say that I thought scene 24 was a bit off; oh god - I can't even put a sentence together. I can't write for buggery. If I leave a review they will think I'm a total moron. Writing on the Internet is a bit like public speaking. It's a scary thing.

How important is portraying safe sex for you in your fics? Pretty much what Asynca said. Though, I think House and Wilson going bareback can be done if it's justified - for example, a strongly established relationship. I don't for a second see House going bareback in a situation where he and Wilson are in a casual sex or first-time sex situation. And Wilson seems way too concerned with hygiene to likely ever go bareback in those situations, too. I mean, he flushes the toilet with his elbow - that's anal. (No pun intended.)

Hi everyone, I've finally got two seconds to myself to hop on board here. After reading through all 28 or so pages of this topic, I have a comment ... well, several, but I'll keep it short for now. I've noticed that very few fic writers go into much detail in describing the characters. There's House's pianist's hands and lanky build, Wilson's hair and "doe eyes," etc. But real description is often ignored. I'm guilty of glossing over descriptions too, to an extent, but I'm trying to do better. As ticcy might say, we all know what they look like, but it's not so much how the writer sees Wilson or House or Cuddy. It's how the characters see each other. Cameron's take on Foreman would be very different from Chase's, for example. I'd love to see a contest somewhere challenging writers to describe the characters, in one paragraph each. Features, style, posture, taste in clothes, how they move ... from another character's point of view.

Mer said: Just out of curiosity, do others notice a difference between the number of comments they get at the pit vs. LJ? In either direction? Personally, I know that I get more comments on LJ from people who read fics on both sites -- just because there's a better back-and-forth between readers and writers, but then most of my fics don't get a lot of reviews on the pit anyway, so maybe I'm biased. It's my general observation that the fics on the pit that get a ton of reviews are the ones that ramp up the emotion and angst, whereas the fics that get attention on LJ are more ... literate and character driven. Not that there's not literate people reading and writing on the pit, and emotion junkies on LJ, but I think that's reflective of the large number of younger readers on ff.net.

I think safe sex is something that would jar me out of a story if I didn't see it. I didn't bother so much when I wrote girlslash pretty much exclusively, but with het or boyslash I think it's necessary. And it's not that difficult to do--it's the same as any other act during a sex scene. You have to be careful how you block it, to make sure everyone's in a realistic position; you have to try and write it believably, possibly with some dialogue; and you can make it incredibly hot if you do it right. Sometimes in House/Cuddy fics I have them discuss whether Cuddy wants him to use a condom. House is a gentleman and always offers, but depending on the story and how Cuddy's feeling about babies that day, she might say yes or no. Condoms are also important on toys--saves clean-up, makes sharing that much less squicky, and no one has to worry about a loss of sensation there. It took as much practice, for me, to write about condoms as it did to write sex in general. It's so easy for it to become an embarrassing or verboten topic. For me it's like lube, something that I always want to include, whether it's in passing or it's something sensuous that I want to draw out. But either way, very important.

It throws me more for the author to fail to reference lube than a condom. I generally prefer no reference if the condom is not used, ie, no bareback discussion. Like Dee, I realize that I didn't have House wear a condom during oral, but I also wanted Wilson to have the horrible experience of unexpected release in the back of his throat. I was pretty mean to Wilson, now that I think about it. He'll insist on it next time. :)