I am a literary omnivore. I consume great quantities of text of all genres, filling much of my day with reading.

That's why I'm here.

Since I speed-read, I ran out of dead-tree books a few years back, and now read fanfiction to keep myself sane.

If I'm not reading, I'm gaming. If I'm not doing either of those things, I'm sleeping, eating, or working. That's my life.

Well, aside from the online communities.

You may have seen me on the Drunkard's Walk Forums or in Billy vs. SNAKEMAN- I'm the same Bluemage that's on both of those sites.

Favorite series to watch:

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Code Geass

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

Slayers

Big O

Robotech

Hunter X Hunter

Read or Die

(many others omitted for brevity)

Favorite fandoms:

Ranma 1/2

Naruto

Harry Potter

BtVS

Stargate

Given that I've read tens of thousands of pages of fiction in the last few years, I've gotten fairly decent at telling good writing from bad. I've since started to write my own fanfiction for Billy vs. SNAKEMAN, the only online game I play. Will beta if asked nicely.

I have only a handful of rules/qualifiers/suggestions, both for what I beta and what I read.

1. One elephant per room. (Never introduce more than one departure from the established norm at a time. Try to throw too much oddness at the readers at once, and you instead throw suspension of disbelief out the window. Give people time to adjust before you add something new, and as long as you don't contradict yourself without justifications, you'll be fine.)

2. Avoid the porn. (Sex scenes tend to be more difficult to get right than anything else out there. Get it wrong, and the reader just tries to skip it, which breaks the flow of the story. I don't generally bother reading them, since 99% of them tend to be bad, but I will beta if requested. Just be prepared to get either very little commentary, or a lot of RAEG.)

3. Sexuality is never sudden. (Romance should not just jump into sex. Straight characters should not just suddenly become gay, nor should gay characters suddenly become straight. Take things slow, build up to what you're trying to make happen, and the result will be better in the end. You can do a lot in a story, as long as the plot justifies it, so FORESHADOW and do things GRADUALLY.)

4. Immersion is everything. (Don't jump out of the flow of the story. Sometimes, the plot demands that you change points of view, flash back, or otherwise complicate the flow of events. Keep this to a minimum, try not to do it in mid-scene, and make it clear what's going on. Above all, DON'T PUT AUTHOR'S NOTES IN MID-FIC! Nothing breaks immersion like the dreaded "A/N:". Using it is like pointing and yelling "LOOK! A THREE-HEADED MONKEY!!!11!1" in the middle of a persuasive speech. Once everybody looks, you have to get their attention all over again.