The Blog

 Merry-Go-Round...

This story needs to be read by everyone who loved both Wall-E and Battlestar Galactica (the new one).

Don't ask about the thesis. Maybe next week.

Labels: fandom, fanfiction, linking all over the place, yuletide

Loose Postings...

Some miscellaneous bits and bobs that were cut from the previous blog entry:

WHY MUST THIS MAN BE SO AWESOME (and creepy)?! I wish to live in his library (note: it's the downstairs one), or just apprentice myself to him and be his slave for the next thirty years. I don't really care which. (Actually, the first two paragraphs of this blog post also makes me happy, because it reminds me of me. And of my mum, who shares a birthday (but for a year) with his Neilship.)

Two Applegeeks comics that make me smile.

Some amazing Powerpuff Girls cosplay, which makes me jealous. I wish I had the time and money to cosplay properly (oh, and that I wasn't too old for it).

One fanfiction review, because it couldn't be resisted, from Discworld: The Uninvited Guest by akamarykate - Granny Weatherwax goes to Susan's christening in place of her grandfather. It's lovely and perfect.

No, wait, one more, because this post has taken an extra day to write, from BSG(2003): This Is the Role of Angels Who Have Begun to Defy God by Nicole Anell - a nicely introspective Caprica Six piece. She's my second-favourite Six, I must admit (Head!Six being number one, naturally), and this is just great. It's about as dark as the show itself.

And one more again, because it's a week later and I still suck. Harry Potter: PUSH - a conservative evangelical Christian goes to Hogwarts. Set post-series, very friendly and gentle, with original characters who will break your heart.

Fight Club: I am Jack's Christmas Tree by J Crew Guy - So much love for this story. It's perfectly in tone and character and it's a Christmas story set in the middle of Fight Club! Yes, please!

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles: A Jack Knifed Juggernaut (I am born again) by AreNotValid - Cameron, on being a terminator, and why she doesn't want to be a cylon. No really, it's awesome: "Terminators are not capable of believing that they are human. They are not capable of being sleeper agents. They are not like cylons."

Labels: comics, fanfiction, I am a fanfic whore, linking all over the place, Neil is our god, yuletide

Owning Up...

So, I'm at home today, enjoying my last real day off uni and wondering where the hell everyone else has gone to. I'm still sickly, but am working on it by spending all day in my pyjamas and otherwise lazing around. I suppose I ought to update everyone at this point by linking to all the fanfiction I've written in the last month, just in case you want to keep up with that:

• Yuletide: Spilling Milk and Falling Stars (Tokyo Babylon) - written for Kenshinzen's request for a Supernatural crossover. I haven't seen more than a few episodes of SPN, so I couldn't write that as the primary story as requested, but I did my best at sneaking the boys into the background of the story for them. No word back from Kenshinzen, but I'm sure they'll eventually tell me they loved the gift I worked for so many days on. Anyway, this is a fairly basic Tokyo Babylon fic about Subaru, Hokuto and Seishirou as a family, going for lunch and fortune-telling.
• Yuletide treat: Roly-Poly Boxbot (Gunnerkrigg Court) - written for Iseult Variante's throwaway line about a Boxbot story in her request. It's terrible, but then so's Boxbot. I wrote this one while Tony was napping before James' mum's Christmas party, but it was just too much fun.
• PHYS2512: Suddenly Silenced (Star Wars) - written for Sarah, who didn't have particulars in her requests. I'm not sure why, out of a list of many fandoms and with all the freedom in the world, all I could finish was Alderaan blows up fanfic, but that's how it works sometimes. I really love this story, it's probably the best-written story I've done this month, and I wrote it all in longhand before typing it up.
• PHYS2512: The Early Flamingo Catches The—What Do Flamingoes Eat Anyway? (The West Wing) - CJ's morning routine, written for Kat. I couldn't quite decide on a particular period of the show to write in, other than pre-series 6, and my American politics is sketchy at the best of times, but I love CJ, and something about this voice appealed to me. I'm surprised at how well it all came together.
• PHYS2512 bonus: Hermione's Revolution (Harry Potter) - written for Sarah, since no one deserves nothing but a depressing story for Christmas, and I'd started this one first. For some reason I had trouble finding the rest of this story, basically everything after she gets into Dumbledore's office, but with a little bit of help from Rinkle I got it done only a little bit late. :)

Phew, that's a surprising number of words, all of them for fandoms I haven't really written before (I know I've done SW, but never the OT for some reason. I tend to write in the Old Republic, for better or worse). Now all I have to do is get myself back to writing in the past tense.

I found this snippet of what I had called Tachikoma Diaries when I was deleting the old draft blog posts. I ought to write more of this, as it's cute and I want a pet tachikoma. I think it was a vague idea for last year's yuletide fic.

"Monday: v. v. unhappy. Batou gave natural oil to noisiest of Tachikoma thinking it was me again. I know our memories are synchronised every night but how he can believe that thing when it says its his favourite is beyond me. Lonely and miserable and wishing noisiest of Tachikoma be blown up in next action."

I think I need to read Bridget Jones before going on with that though. *grins*

Labels: 1000 words, damn you CLAMP, fanfiction, Gunnerkrigg Court, Harry Potter, I am a fanfic whore, I don't want to live on the moon, star wars, tachikoma, the west wing, Tokyo Babylon, writing, yuletide

Post-Christmas Roundup of things that are nifty...

I'm back at home now, no more house-sitting. But I've sadly caught a cold somehow and feel like death warmed up.

I think I'm in love with the "proofreader" function in Pages. Calling me on using the word "Headmaster" because it's gender-specific? Rock on, proofreader, rock on!

Going through the yuletide archive and picking out my favourites for future reference. I love all of these, and if you know the fandom you probably will enjoy them too.

• xkcd: The Amazing Adventures of Hat Guy and the Girl Who Stole His Hat
  OMG VELOCIRAPTORS!
• Portal: Pre-test Diagnostic Log #045216/F/4
• Pern: The Free of Pern

In other stuff I've found around the internet, we've apparently discovered that people who skip breakfast are likely to have sex at an earlier age than those who don't. I skip breakfast all the time, but I guess I'm doing it wrong or something.

Labels: cake, fanfiction, I am a fanfic whore, iCatherine, yuletide

 Yay!...

All the stories for the mini fanfiction exchange I was running with the kids at uni are now online! It only took all day, oops. But still, fun stories, go read! There's something for everyone, provided you like the West Wing or fandoms that start with "S"... We're going to announce the writers on New Year's Day, or you can guess in the comments if you feel you know my style well enough to guess which I'm responsible for.

In other news, Merry Christmas! Hope you're all having a wonderful time, filled with nice people and wonderful gifts, and religion if that's your thing too!

ETA: Yuletide's up!!!!! I got a Battle Royale fic!!! It's called Plenty of Paper and anyone who has seen the movie or read the book should read it because it's awesome and sad and the characters are so real it hurts and I'm crying.

Labels: battle royale, christmas, fanfiction, hoofball, physics, writing, yuletide

Fanfiction Update...

Since the reveal happened over at x2009, I can finally link to the story I wrote. I'm told that it's readable even if you don't know X (X/1999) since I was my usual vague self in not giving character names or really explaining what's going on.

Title: From Whence We Have Fallen
Rating: PG

Characters/Pairing: Subaru Sumeragi

Warnings: Descriptions of the nuclear blast at Hiroshima and recollections of canon violence.

Author's note: Thanks to Drew for betaing this.
Summary: The Japanese built to withstand earthquakes. Subaru reflects on those things that remain.

( And in Babylon was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth. )

Labels: damn you CLAMP, fanfiction, from whence we have fallen, japan, Tokyo, writing, X

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

Labels: fanfiction, magic, yuletide

Labels: Devron Zal, fanfiction, writing