Apparently Dreamwidth is all the rage now. And I've been pondering going back to posting on LJ (now that I have cable internet and my own house). Or now, apparently, Dreamwidth. The question is, who all will be going over there? (And who has an invite code I could use?) Also, what should I post about? RL, fandom, school, fic? All of the above?

Also, also I didn't do Yuletide last year due to GETTING MARRIED and MOVING and stuff. (Yeah, btw, I got married. Ha! It's awesome.) But I'd like to do it this year, which I think means I have to post a NYR story (must check rules). But it's been so long since I wrote fic! I'm all nervous.

Son of also, so I've fallen hard for Merlin fandom recently. There are insults, and magic, and secrets, and theywoulddieforeachother. Plus, it is so much crack. Merlin is Arthur's hot manservant! Giles is Uther! There's a slashdragon under the castle! Guinevere is Morgana's maid. It's like the best fandom for modern-day AUs ever! I caught myself imagining a hockey AU the other day at a game with friends (shut up! It was 0-0 for three periods and no fights; I had to do something to entertain myself.) where Arthur was the captain of the team and Merlin was their assistant manager and a klutz who they all teased, but then both their goalies were injured and they had to find someone to fill in so they padded up Merlin where he was a wizard at stopping pucks, and Arthur was amazed and said "There's something about you, Merlin." There could be double entendres about scoring! There could be fights! There could be other hockey stuff that I know nothing about!

*stares in horrified awe* I am reading Tsubasa badfic. There's so little fic out there for this fandom that you wouldn't think it would inspire a work of this level of badness yet, but somehow this exists. I don't know what to be scared of more, the Ashura/Kurogane "bitchslap extravaganza," the gratuitious Star Wars quote, or the premise that Fai left Ashura sleeping in his watery coffin as a way of dumping him.

Also, I apparently need to add more people to my AIM buddy list. Nobody is on.

So I went on a bit of a mini-CLAMP fic marathon the other day, thanks to poking around the tomomichi blog. XXXholic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. *squee* And funny X fic, like the one where Sorata wakes up and realizes that everyone around him is GAY. (Actually...I think Seiichiro is straight. Which means that my mind immediately leaps to wondering who I could pair him with and how I could make it work. Because I am insane like that.)

But, oh! New chapters of TRC to read. *loves all over them* And there was a period of several months in which the group was separated, and Fye and Kurogane didn't have Mokona to translate for them, and only Kurogane spoke the natives' language. And yes, I did read a very nice fic set during this time where Fye was injured and Kurogane had to bandage him up and they had this little wordless conversation because of how well they know each other by now (even if Kurogane would never admit it), but... I want fic from that period of Kurogane trying to teach Fye the language. Wouldn't it be awesome? Wouldn't it hit my linguistics kink buttons? Wouldn't you like to write it? Huh, huh?

Somebody should totally write a crossover where Captain Jack Sparrow meets Drusilla.

I'm just sayin'.

The Olympics are now officially over for another four years. (Well, okay,
two for the Winter Olympics.) And I think some of you know just how sad
this makes me. Wah! No more pr0n swimming. No more diving!
No more gymnastics catfights! (Also? Seriously, pyro, what was I doing four
years ago that I wasn't watching the Olympics? Thorpe! Hoogie! Younger,
cuter Hamm twins! Oh, that's right, I was off at college recruiting
freshmen and buying cases of duct tape (and wow, does that sound bad when I
put it like that, but I swear we didn't do anything to the freshmen with the
duct tape! That was strictly reserved for the upperclassmen---and
guh, sudden inspiration, I will pay good money to anyone who could give me
Ian Thorpe in duct tape. Mmmmm..... Uh, 'scuse me, where was I? Oh,
yes...)) Olympics. Over. V.v. sad.

Also, Koko wa Greenwood dvd comes out tomorrow. *hypnotic fingers*
Buuuuuuuu~y it. You know you waaaaaa~nt it. Old skool bishoooooooo~unen.
Wacky hiiiiiiiiii~jinks. And soon there will be maaaaaaa~nga.*hypnotic
fingers*

Works-In-Progress Meme

Not that I've been progressing much lately. But hopefully, eventually,
these will make it to the finished state:

( WIPs: )

I finally got around to watching the commentaries to Pirates of the
Caribbean this weekend. Yay for obsessiveness! Now I've got an actual
timeline to work with for helping to fix that untitled St. Patrick's Day
fic. And I also now know why Norrington is so popular--Jack Davenport is
immensely fun to listen to.

Also watched Johnny English which was low-key and rather low-brow but
exceeded my rather low expectations because of Bough. Yes, Bough, he of the
cheekbones and comeptency and complete loyalty. (How did he happen to get
to Pascal's headquarters in time to rescue Johnny? Did he follow them
there? Was he too investigating Sauvage on his own? Do he and Johnny have
a secret telepathic link? (My personal money is on a tracking device,
probably planted in Johnny's wristwatch. Bough loves his gadgets.)) I can
feel the urge to fic calling for me.

I'm also re-reading all of the Nero Wolfe mysteries I have. I don't have
them all--yet--but I do have most of them. I'm not reading them in any
particular order, just novels first, then novellas and short stories, and
finally Death of a Doxy and A Family Affair. I figured it'd be fitting to
read those two back-to-back. I'll see if I can find some of the ones I'm
missing tomorrow, or even, if possible, Nero Wolfe of West 35th
Street which was the first piece of fanwork I ever read, back when I
didn't know what fandom was, just that I wanted to be cool enough to study
all about my favorite detective and write down all these cool theories about
him/them and then get it published. I've only seen a few of the A&E
episodes, but I'm tempted to see if I can rent them after I finish my orgy
of reading. I like their Archie. Mmmm....this weekend was positively
covered with dashing men of action. Too bad none of them were real. ^__~

Also, also, tomorrow I'm going shopping. And while I won't be anywhere near
a B&N (where is the nearest one I wonder? Is there one in
Alexandria, or would it be all the way in Lafayette?), there will be a
Waldenbooks. So while I'll hit the usual suspects (fantasy, scifi, mystery,
manga), also have comics--regular issues and TPBs. I've been nibbling
around the edges of the comics fandom recently, so I'm thinking of getting a
few issues. Anything in particular anyone would recommend? I know Joss
Whedon has an X-Men series out right now and there's also that Batman: True
Brit thing because I am a sucker for Monty Python. (Of course I shall look
for Captain Drew first, and if they don't stock it, I shall demand loudly
that they place an order for a hundred copies. Each issue. ^__^)

Also, I am happy because I got a review on my Croup/Vandemar story at ff.net
today. It used the word macabre, which has always been one of my favorite
words.

#1--Re-read stuff you've written before. The really old stuff. The "this is my very first fanfic ever so please be gentle" stuff.

Ouch.

It sucks mightily.

But I did find a few tidbits that still amuse me, so here they are (behind cut tags to protect those of you who prefer to read, oh, say, GOOD stuff)

( Musings on what the American releases of some series *might* have turned out like. You know, maybe Knight Hunters isn't quite so bad of a title after all. )

( A short, short, short GW fairy tale complete with beautiful princess, er, prince, er, whatever. )

( Things I Would Do If I Were an Anime Villain. Yes, yes, I know, boring and trite, and it's all been done a thousand times better in the Evil Overlord List. I still like numbers three and twenty, though. )

Reading all these surveys about fandoms, got me to think about my own fangirl-ness. If you'd asked me before this weekend, what was the first fandom I ever wrote for, I'd have said Gundam Wing. Not a doubt. First fanfic and first fanart I ever did. Turned it in for my Comedy class final project and got an A. Sure, looking back on it, the pic was horrible (edited photo, not hand-drawn) and the fic was fairly crappy, but it was the first time I'd ever created a story for an already partially-explored world.

Or so I thought until this weekend.

Which was when I read "The Lark and the Wren" by Mercedes Lackey and remembered back to junior high. And remembered my real first fanfic. It was for Andre Norton's "Witch World" series. I hadn't read many of them, but I loved fantasy and adventure, and I'd re-read "Songsmith" (which was the only title they had at the public library) about five or six times.

And we were doing some project or another in my G/T class. And so I decided to write a story. A story about a girl. Kind of pretty but not unusually so. Not a bard, or a soldier, or a mage, or a princess. A scholar. Who is on her way back from the library and get caught in a magical trap along with a prince (who is also a mage) by a strange old woman who wants to suck out his magic for herself. And so she helps him escape, and they discover that she has some magical powers too (just a little) and that she is, in fact, related to the evil old woman and must stop her.

Very derivative, you say. It's all been done. Ho-hum, don't even bother to hide the yawn, so why are you bringing this up?

Because there is one part of that story that gets to me. The heroine's occupation. She's a scholar. Think about that. Think about how rarely you see scholars in any fantasy books. Think about how many of those few are women. Think about how many fantasy books you've read in which women are treated as second-class citizens, at least in the smaller towns and villages, so that they are forced to run away from home so that they can become mages and bards and fighters and rangers. Now think about what it must be like for one girl, who loves reading and writing and theorizing and debating and calculating and experimenting and really thinking about how the world works. And who is told that instead she must marry and have children and run the farm and the house and maybe if she is lucky her husband will be willing to let her read the three books that he owns. And who decides to take a chance on finding the life that she wants.

That is the story I wish to write.