The Blog - The Archive

  Oh my...

My High School just invited me to come in and speak as a female scientist at their end of year awards ceremony.

Now I feel old.

Labels: birrong, high school, public speaking makes me ill, snacky's law, surprises

Dear Santa...

Hey non-fandom peeps, skip this post, as it will just confuzzle you. This means you, mum.

So, my dear yuletide writer, you've been allocated me as your recipient. I'm so sorry. I know my choices of fandom are esoteric, and that you've likely just matched one of my fandoms. But you can rest assured that I will love whatever you write. Thank you for writing for me.

Actually, I'm kinda lazy, so I will simply point you to SophiaP's yuletide letter, since I agree with everything she says. I mean it, you know, I'm a fanfic whore and I don't care if you ignore the specifics of my requests (actually, I tried not to be too specific because I was terrified of getting a request I couldn't manage to write and I didn't want to inflict that on anyone else).

I really just want to see fic for these fandoms.

So, just quickly going over the fandoms again (new details in italics):

Stephen R Donaldson - Mordant's Need (Any)

This is probably my favourite pair of books. I love the characters, I love the world, I love the journey. I believe that Geraden and Terisa are made for each other, but I'm open to all pairings. And the more I think about this, the more any pairing sounds like it would be fun to explore (Terisa / Lebbick could be angsty fun). Or one could write a gen story. I'd particularly love to know more about what happened when Havelock infiltrated Vagel's coven all those years ago, or how the happily ever after worked out for all the characters. Do more women become Imagers now that the crusty old men realise that girls can be powerful too? Suffice to say I'm a fanfic whore and will love whatever you write. :)

One of the things I noticed while writing the requests is that I would love to see any of these ideas explored. Why isn't there a fandom for these books? Especially with all the potential pairings (Elega/Terisa, anyone?)

I read a rant a few days ago about the sexism in the books and how it makes them hard to read for the rantee, but I can't quite see it myself. Yes, Terisa starts out a passive character, and the Princesses don't truly participate until the second book (preferring to sit around and complain about being women in a world of men), but by the end of the story they're all strong characters who have taken control of their own destinies and while each of them has been paired off with a man (save Torrent), that feels more a gesture towards the "happily ever after means marriage" fairytale trope than any particular act of "keeping the womenfolk down". And I do believe that in general Mordant has become a better place to be a girl by the end of the books.

Isobelle Carmody - The Legendsong (Any)

I think I would like best a story with Ember meeting the Unykorn, drawing out the parallels with Shenavyre. But I'm very happy to receive any story, from something slashy with the Myrmidons/Soulweavers to a segue back on earth. Glynn and Chaos would go well together, or maybe something much more original talking about the visionweavers and whether their weavings have the ability to manipulate fate.

This was an unfilled request from last year, the only one I really wanted to keep. The few times I have ventured into the lands of Carmody-fanfiction I've been disappointed, and I'm not sure why. I suspect it may just be that she attracts many younger fans, but I love her more adult series, and hope some day that the fanfiction will be equal to the original.

Mina de Malfois (Any)

Mina! Arc! Joshen! Xena! Fandom! Hmm. that's not exactly a request, is it? I would love a story from the point of view of one of the other characters, about fandom drama, and Mina and how she gets out of a scrape. As slashy or not as you like it.

Suffice to say that I've read everything in the fandom, and want to see something new. If you've said you're going to write Mina you probably love all the same things about it as I do, because you're a fan, and you see aspects of yourself in all the characters... Now that I think about it, I'm surprised there isn't more self-insert Minafic. I suppose it would be sacrilegious.

Battle Royale (Any)

How the program changes us all into monsters. Hints of bittersweet longing for the past and friendships lost. Would slightly prefer something about one of the more minor characters than the leads, but am happy with whatever. Based on the book preferred, though the movie was a good adaption. I've only read volume one of the translated manga and hated the reality tv setting.

Oh my did I hate the reality tv setting. I seem to recall too that they had to do some rather horrible rewriting in the later volumes because whoever it was that had that bright idea had never even read the ending. So let's just agree that the manga should be avoided.

This one's my token movie request, because I wanted to be sure that there was something for you to fall back on if you were a book requestee and needed an emergency change of fandoms. And there's so much room for writing any genre of fanfic here. Violent deathfic, hatesex, quiet sadness before the dawn, sweet romance in the face of adversity, pretty much everything is up for grabs. And I will read it all.

I guess that's it (and it ended up much more longwinded than I was expecting (which I should have expected after last year's letter)). I just want to say "thank you" again for using some of your precious spare time to write for me. I'm looking forward to reading it. *grins*

Labels: fanfiction, I am a fanfic whore, writing, yuletide

Yuletide, woo!...

What does it say about me that the fandoms I requested were Mordant's Need (Stephen Donaldson), the Legendsong (Isobelle Carmody), Mina de Malfois and Battle Royale? Worse, that Princess Tutu was only cut at the last minute because I realised that it was overrepresented in the requests and that I could probably find the fiction I wanted elsewhere on the internet?

Clearly I'm a crazy fantasy fan who is into meta and also loves laughing at fandom. When I'm not trying to kill everyone.

Anyway, anyone reading this who is a fan of something but believes that no one else on the internet is into it should totally go to the Yuletide site and sign up for the fiction exchange. It's great fun and you meet all sorts of interesting peoples. And get fanfiction out of it.

Labels: books, childrens literature, yuletide