RobinM

Ah, 2009, the year I fell off the crack wagon and onto my head. First this happened, then this. I don't even know.

Murphy Brown/Pundit RPF
Holding Pattern [AO3] Murphy Brown/Rachel Maddow, Teen. Began 03/04/09; finished 05/12/09; posted 05/12/09. 1,622 words.
Love Is Like a Bottle of Scotch [AO3] Murphy Brown/Linda Ellerbee, Teen. Began 03/26/09; finished 05/26/09; posted 05/26/09. 540 words.
Peanuts and Cracker Jacks [AO3] Rachel Maddow/Murphy Brown, General Audiences. Began 05/12/09; finished 07/02/09; posted 07/02/09. 1,306 words.
The Good Life [AO3] Murphy Brown/Rachel Maddow, Teen. Began 07/02/09; finished 07/08/09; posted 07/08/09. 1,295 words.

This all started when bessemerprocess prompted Rachel is out, but Murphy may never be for lgbtfest. I may write one more story in this universe: I have a fragment of Rachel talking to Corky at nerdprom, and that setting would also allow Murphy and Ana to interact.

Babylon 5/Pundit RPF
Seven Things About Susan [AO3] Susan Ivanova & Rachel Maddow, General Audiences. Written and posted 07/13/09. 959 words.

Yeah, this was also at bessemerprocess's instigation.

Xena: Warrior Princess
The Architecture of Our Time [AO3] Melinda Pappas/Janice Covington, Explicit. Began 01/26/09; finished 07/23/09; posted 07/23/09. 5,443 words.

This is the longest thing I've written, and I don't think I got it quite right, but I don't think I got it all wrong, either.

Disney RPF
Showtime [AO3] Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato, General Audiences. Began 11/10/09; finished 12/21/09; posted 12/12/09. 1,337 words.
Domestic Rites, Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato, Teen. Began 12/05/09; finished 12/21/09; posted 12/25/09. 1,945 words.
Kiss & Tell, Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato, General Audiences. Began 12/24/09; finished 12/25/09; posted 12/26/09. 324 words.

I cannot even. I think I started following pirateygoodness after she wrote the Bleighton spy!AU, and then she posted about these Disney people and I ignored it because what do I care about that? And then...and then I did start to care and offered it for yuletide and, well, here we are.

According to AO3, that's 14,771 words all together, every last one written within the year, which is an all-time fucking high for me. Thank you, crack. Except, it's not so crack-y because almost all of these stories are about the crushing psychic violence exerted by the closet. Which, um. Do I have residual closet issues I am not aware of? Something to ponder.

... but not quite yet. Today is my last full day in Iowa, and snow is blowing around like crazy. I don't even know how much is coming down and how much the wind is kicking up. We usually get a good deal of snow here, but there's been snow on the ground for WEEKS in a row now. It's astounding. And the temperatures, ugh, don't get me started - even without wind chill, I've woken up to minus zero temperatures. The highest high recently was 16, yesterday, which meant there was JUST enough moisture in the air for it to freeze and tumble from the sky. Well, at least I got to look at some very pretty snowflakes. Who else likes doing that, looking at tiny snowflakes on your gloves and coat and windows??

Then tomorrow I'm getting up at o'dark thirty to fly to Orlando (which will be warmer than here, yay, but way less warm than I was hoping, boo) where sweetie is running his second marathon. He is crazed. I'll be missing the first day of class, which is probably a good thing because we have an assignment for Monday from the book, which I do not have.

Soo... leaving Iowa again. I did stop by the memorial garden at our church where Amie's ashes are, but the walk was too snowy to actually go up there. I meant to go visit Adrian's gravesite also, but yesterday afternoon worked out differently from what I had planned, so I was relieved of my borrowed vehicle before I could. It's really too bad, but sweetie and I are planning to come back here in June so he can run Dam to Dam. If I trained for it, I could run it too; it's only (ha, "only") 20K, a little less than a half marathon. Hmph. We'll see. I'll be happy to get back to NYC, where I don't need a car to go anywhere and where I can walk to places and where I have friends I don't have to go through the drudgery of, like, CALLING and DRIVING to see. I am SO bad at arranging to see my high school friends when I'm here. It's terrible. At least I saw some of them at my friend's baby shower - OMG that was an estrogen overload. It made me want to hammer something afterward or go drive a pick-up truck or something. It's funny - most of the NaNo crowd is female, but I've never had an estrogen overload feeling like that. Obviously the conversation is a *wee* bit different.

But I'll be sad to leave my parents, my mother's house, trees, and stretches of pretty snow (I should say, seeing stretches of snow from the inside - I won't miss being outside in it). I really enjoy spending time with my parents, which is part of the reason I don't call people (especially now that people are all on facebook). I also enjoy the unlimited access to pop, which is what I call it when I'm here!, and fancier cooking supplies and equipment than I have at home. Also, tamales on Christmas. ZOMG. Theoretically I know how to make them now. Hmmmm. I like all the room in this house, especially the loveseat where all my stuff is gathered. I like being able to walk aimlessly around the house, though I won't miss my freezing bedroom downstairs. I spent a little time in Amie's bedrooms at both houses, partly just to be in there and partly to see if there's anything else I want to take. I feel so weird doing the latter, but I know that not only would she want that, but I would want the same! I would haunt people and say, "Doooooon't spend moneeeeeeey! Uuuuuuuuse my thiiiiiiiings!"

It was a pretty uneventful break overall! Oooh, but I DID get a bunch of classy new clothes with my mother. I had a pile of stuff I liked, and when my mom said that we could just get all of it (instead of sorting out what I really wanted), the saleslady looked pretty surprised. Awesome. Now THAT'S an accomplishment! I received so many assorted little things from my stepmother and stepsister that I felt guilty about not spending more on them (especially compared to other people, ha), but I'm sure they understand that I am but a heavily indebted student - and if they don't, they can bite me.

I did less writing than I meant to because I'm always lazy on break, but I did outline three major writing goals for myself, and I am absolutely determined to finish both my outstanding fanfics. I wrote a chapter of each of them, which isn't quite nothing. Hooray! I also knitted baby things, which were adorable, and got a big ball of this pale yellow yarn. I love getting new yarn! I'm looking forward to being a classy, productive dame once I get back to NYC. But first, I should make sure I have EVERYTHING packed for tomorrow. Away I go!

Oh, and I saw the End of Time parts 1 & 2. I loved them!! The Who finales and specials like that always leave me giddy, instead of sad like some people, partly because they usually affirm my conviction that Rose is the Doctor's One Twoo Wub. Even if they never mention it again, and I don't expect them too, this is my firm belief. WTF Eleven is like my age!! I do approve of his giant hair.

I missed the opportunity to post the last of my recs before the reveal. Oops?

people come and go so quickly here (Wicked, Elphaba/Glinda)
Glinda doesn't remember very much of her school days.
Painful, but so gorgeous you don't mind.

Mnemonic Devices to Help You Remember How to Spell 'Mnemonic Devices' (The Wizards of Waverly Place, Justin/Alex)
She finds sticky notes in four different books, folded pages in two, and even notes scrawled in the margins of something she thinks must have been one of their dad's old magic books.
This is tagged incest, but it doesn't read any more incestual to me than the actual show, which, yeah. The important thing is, this fic is subtle and sweet, and everyone's characterization is spot on.

And as for me? I wrote Domestic Rites, a Demi/Selena story (with bonus Swifty) about finding your ~home. I tried to keep this story toeing but not crossing the diabetic-coma line, and it seems like I succeeded, so, yay. Then, on Christmas Eve, I woke up with an idea about first kisses, which became the Madness story Kiss & Tell. You know the meme that asks, "What did you not anticipate writing this year?" Uh, yeah. This time last year, I didn't know who these girls were. Now I have well and truly fallen off the crack wagon.

Yeah, I have no idea wtf SVU was about. I actually TRIED to make sense of it, but it didn't work. On the Alex front, she did have a fair amount of screen time, but her hair was really flat for the first bit of it, which hampered my enjoyment. Her hair improves a bit towards the end and she wears a low-cut shirt, so I was pleased. Evidently it's the norm now for her to look tired, annoyed, and like she hates her life and especially the DA's office. Probably because she knows MISCHA BARTON is going to be on the show soon.



( here there be screencaps )

Interesting points to note:

- There was a judge that appeared for the first time and she is TOTALLY A COUGAR. Or Alex's mom. Seriously, I bet that one has had threesomes with Donnelly and Petrovsky and then came home and admired A.J.'s macaroni project.
- If you're an A/O shipper, you'll probably notice many "meaningful glances" Alex gives Olivia while Olivia's talking, but if you look closely, it's totally because SM is anticipating the next line and who says it. Watch the group scenes if you don't believe me. Oh, SM.

My paid account expires in two weeks, I think, which means I'll be downgrading to a basic, which means I only get six icons. Thus from now the ICON CAGED STEEL MATCH begins! Which icons get to stay? Which get discarded like pieces of last night's hooker after I squeezed my hands around her neck a teeny bit too hard when I came and so I had to bring out the chainsaw? THOSE ARE THE QUESTIONS, GUYS.

(I'm leaving this entry public because because I think the TRUE FANS of SVU would enjoy my dismembered hooker bit.) (Please note the hooker does not have a penis.)

Tanabata

The idea of a secret santa-style story exchange is hardly new, and we don't claim credit for coming up with the idea. But inspired by Yuletide, we wanted to create such a ficathon that takes place during the summer and centers specifically on small/obscure East Asian fandoms — any kind of literature, movies, manga, anime, TV shows, and video games originally created in Japanese, Korean, or Chinese and then translated into English (whether officially or by fans) which are not already the subject of mainstream fandom following. We aim to spread our love for these lesser-known media by encouraging our participants to create fanfiction, and to build a community of people diverse in fandoms but united by their interest in East Asian culture.

I wasn't planning to participate--although I'll certainly be following the challenge--but. . . Mulan fic!

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/364216.html.

Anyone interested in--or confused by--wrangling might want to check out this (image heavy) step-by-step guide to wrangling by dizmo.

Ticky boxes! Spreadsheets! You know you want in on that. *g*

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/363961.html.

There's been some casting stuff for True Blood which has made me happy. In my pants. No, really, I can't wait for the next season because we're going to get [redacted] and [redacted] and those are some of my favorite parts of the books. UNF.

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I'm having trouble with the two non-fic projects I'm supposed to be writing today, so I thought I'd warm up by writing a mini-fic for catalinay, as her prize for guessing three of the fics I wrote for Yuletide.

1100 words later, the first section of five is done. *facepalm* Short and sweet! This was supposed to be short and sweet!

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I am going to try to go to the doctor today, to the free clinic. We'll see if I can get in. You have to wait outside for it to open, because they don't open the doors until 5 and it's on a first come, first served basis, and I just don't know if I can handle a) being outside and b) being around so many people. If I don't go, though, my dad is going to kill me, so there's that.

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It is so cold in J's house. Well, in this state in general, which is wrong. Last night I went to get dinner (because he didn't come home from work until after 9:30 p.m. [he went to work at 7:30 a.m.] and neither of us wanted to cook). I was outside for maybe ten minutes, tops, in the car and running into and out of Subway, probably more like seven minutes if that, and by the time I got back inside, my hands were numb. I was wearing multiple long-sleeved shirts, jeans, heavy socks, shoes, a ski jacket, a scarf, fingerless gloves, and leather gloves on top of them and my hands got so cold when I pulled a soda out of the fridge, it felt warm. I expect this shit in Michigan, but not here.

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J and I were talking about Hawaii (where his mom lives) and I told him we should have gone there for the holidays. If it's good enough for Obama, I said, it's good enough for us. We were in public at the time and he looks around and tells me not to say that so loud, I'll get jumped here. I told him I feared no conservative. Oh, small town Missouri.

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I really have to get to work on non-fic stuff now.

I was going to write a long post full of emo, but told myself not to be any stupider than I need to be.

Consider this my gloomy birthday post instead.

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astolat has an AO3 wishlist post; there are some pretty good suggestions in the comments.

inkstone has smart things to say about this latest round of OTW-related wank.

If you're interested in helping out with the AO3, volunteers are always welcomed! It would be especially helpful to have people who are part of non-American and British fandoms; there are a fair number of manga and anime fans among the tag wranglers, but less people with knowledge of various forms of Korean entertainment, for instance. And I don't think there's anyone keeping an eye on the Bollywood stuff.

We're aiming for cultural diversity, and it helps to have people with different points of interest participating in the discussion.

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/363649.html.

I'm up to episode three of City Hall, and while I'm not ready to call love, I'm certainly enjoying it. There's still a few scenes that I had to watch from behind my hands, but Mi Rae's reaction to otherwise humiliating scenes makes them bearable.

I love how the scene at the beauty pageant played out in episode three. Mi Rae makes a big production about her relationship with Jo Guk, and drags him into staging something of a love drama for the girls participating in the pageant. Later, when they're alone in his hotel room, Mi Rae freaks Jo Guk out by propositioning him. . . only to say: "I can act even loonier than this." She was totally playing to his negative impressions of her, which I loved. The banter between Mi Rae and Jo Guk was all around fun this episode. Oh! And the running joke where Jo Guk calls for some service--wallpapering, boat rental, etc.--only to have Mi Rae, standing right next to him, pick up his call. "You should be used to this by now," she tells him. ♥

ETA: Episode 4. OMG, OMG, I love how bowled over Jo Guk looks by Mi Rae. He's like, "omg, I can't believe this crazy woman!" For a super icy politician, Mi Rae throws him off his game easily and often, which I'm really enjoying. The scene at the restaurant And his face when Mi Rae rubs his hand all over her leg was hysterical.

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/363423.html.

I am having trouble writing today. Frustrating! I think I might have just figured out what this particular chapter needs to do, though, so I will try again.

In the meantime, femslash_today has a post where they are collecting links to Yuletide stories with girl slash: Yuletide Femslash. So if you're looking for girl slash to read, or you can add links to girl slash in Yuletide, there you go.

I realized when making my comment that most of my stories this year had some sort of girl slash aspect to them. Awesome.

I just updated my user info with the new fandoms I wrote for Yuletide and (depending on how you count them) I've now hit 40 fandoms in the 10 years I've been posting fic online.

Fandoms (more or less in the order I started writing and posting in them):
(1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel (2) The Lost Boys (3) The Mighty Ducks (4) X-Men movieverse (5) Harry Potter movieverse and bookverse (6) Ultimate X-Men (7) The Fast and the Furious series (8) Pitch Black/The Chronicles of Riddick (9) Mean Girls (10) Bend It Like Beckham
(11) Lost (12) Firefly/Serenity (13) Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (14) Supernatural
(15) Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic (16) Dog Soldiers (17) Dead Witch Walking
(18) The Baby-Sitters Club/California Diaries (19) Full House (20) Blue Crush (21) Girlfight (22) Resident Evil (23) Dawson's Creek (24) Bring It On (25) The Breed (26) Making Out
(27) Lilo & Stitch (28) Stick It (29) She's the Man (30) One Tree Hill (31) Pirates of the Caribbean (32) Twilight (33) Jurassic Park (34) Southern Vampire series (35) Roseanne
(36) Sons of Anarchy (37) Never Cry Werewolf (38) Scooby Doo Where Are You?/Scooby Doo on Zombie Island (39) Practical Magic (40) fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White).

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I've been meaning to link this for awhile now, but failed. cidercupcakes and I were talking about how awesome Buffy crossovers are (I believe you know my feelings on crossovers in general and how frequently I make characters Vampire Slayers), and how we'd like to do a ficathon, but really we each have enough fics to be a ficathon ourselves.

Then cidercupcakes had the fantastic idea to do a Collection at AO3 (she says we both had the idea, because she is gracious enough to share the credit, but it was really totally her who had the stroke of genius, I was just there for the brainstorming).

Thus Little Black Dress: The Jossverse Crossover Collection was born.

We're going to do a prompt collection/claiming type ficathon at some point, now that the holiday exchanges are (mostly?) complete and people are back to regular daily life, but the Collection is available now.

This part taken directly from her post about it: If your stories are already up at AO3, you can just edit them and fill in, say, "lbd_btvsangel" in the "Post to Collections/Challenges" field that will now show up! If not, you can add it to those groups when you do upload them. There are subcollections for BtVS/Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible, so if you've written crossovers involving them, we want 'em!

So if you're going to post or already are posting your stories at AO3, please keep the LBD Collection in mind for your Jossverse crossovers, because we always want to find more things to read. (Yeah, this is totally a selfishly motivated thing for us. Hello, more fic to read is a good thing!)

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After the glut of Yuletide activity at the end of the year, I've not been reading fannishly so I'm behind on the debate (some are calling it a wank, I'm sure) about Yuletide moving to the AO3 archive and the recurrence of people critiquing the OTW and AO3. I do have thoughts on this and for all that I am a tag wrangler and have an AO3 account, I'm not sure how much I support some of OTW's work and goals, so I plan to catch up on what people are saying, but from the little I've seen, my knee-jerk response to some of OTW's more outspoken supporters is the same as it was when rumblings about OTW first began: Not supporting OTW doesn't make people bad fans. Not everyone has to support OTW, so stop acting like it's the end of the world if people criticize it.

(I'm also seeing stuff from the anti-OTW side that makes me want to say something similar to them: Supporting OTW doesn't make someone a bad fan, stop acting like it's the end of the world if people support it.)

More on this later, I'm sure.

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I talked about how excited I was when I wrote the Scooby Doo fic "Haunted Things (Real and Fake)" for sotto_voice for Yuletide and wanted to add her to the flist based on her awesome prompt, but then I learned that she wrote the Sons of Anarchy fic and the Hellboy fic I really loved, so there was even more reason to add her to the flist. Then she found me first and so it all worked out, but I just love how someone who prompted me to write a fic I love also wrote fic I absolutely adored. Small world.

Yuletide is awesome.

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J introduced me to Boston Legal which is just -- well, I am left flailing my hands after every episode, because it is absolutely ridiculous overall, but then they'll do something absolutely heartbreaking and touching. I kinda adore the show right now, unexpectedly.

Then, because we don't have any new Sons of Anarchy to watch (I should post about the season two finale, because I finally watched it and wasn't as happy as I'd expected to be), Sister K recommended we try Dexter. We watched the first three episodes over the weekend and I think I like it.

Based on recs by dangermousie and rainscene, I started City Hall.

A lot of the first episode involved Mi Rae hitting my embarrassment squick; the scene where she makes a mess out Jo Guk's bathroom made me squirm with second-hand embarrassment something fierce. The humiliations heaped upon the heroine nearly turned me off of Last Scandal, which I ended up adoring, so I'm not giving up on City Hall based on a bit of bathroom humour.

One scene that I loved: Jo Guk grabs Mi Rae's breasts when she falls; after a horrified minute, he releases her, and she falls. After getting back up, Mi Rae's reaction is as follows: since he already had his hands all over her breasts, he could have at least pushed her back up!

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/363243.html.

Things you may not know about the AO3: You can add "Character A & Character B" to the relationship field to denote friendship. It will be wrangled as friendship, and not folded into "Character A/Character B."

See: Moko/Kyoko vs. Moko & Kyoko.

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Operation: Expand Horizons is a go, thanks to all the lovely recs.

( Lots and lots of books )

All of my "Recommended by Amazon" books are now Japanese novels, and Swedish crime stories. *g*

I'm sure that some of the above books are going to end up being very much not my thing, but I'm excited to try them all.

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/362864.html.

so.

if i were going to make an effort to write more . . . professionally and less journal-like this year, and i was thinking about getting a regular old blog, (as in, one i don't have on f-lock almost all the time) and i already have one in progress for reviewing my YA reading . . .

what the heck do you think i could write about? somehow i don't think a daily discussion about whatever random thing comes into my head will work. i want it to be more . . . i don't know. like those crafty blogs. or the cooking ones. or the ones about interior design. only i don't really do those things.

sigh.

maybe the book blog will take all my energy, but i feel like i need another goal for the year, and a blog might be a neat way to track it. maybe something mindfulness related?? I DON'T KNOW.

what is interesting about me? :P

anyway, tomorrow is work, and i need to sleep. if i had a better camera maybe i could try to take a photo a day. i wonder if jackie would let me borrow hers . . . though i have no idea how to use it. hah.

Would it surprise you to learn that my very first Bollywood movie involved a crossdressing heroine?

The movie in question is Dil Bole Hadippa!.

Our conflict: two old friends--one from India, and the other from Pakistan--play a yearly cricket match. India has lost spectacularly for nine years. Tired of losing, Vicky tricks his son Rohan--a profession cricket player in England--into coming home. Can Rohan whip Team India into shape, and beat Team Pakistan?

Our heroine, Veera, is crazy about cricket. Unfortunately, she has no real outlet for her talent, because girls aren't allowed to play with boys. The answer: crossdressing! Of course, things are never that simple. Especially not when there are smoking hot guys around.

I liked the movie a lot, even though I was completely bewildered by the big cricket match at the end. The colours, the music, the sheer amount of fun! Also: Veera and Rohan are both gorgeous, and have smiles to die for. Every time either of them smiled, I couldn't help but smiling along with them.

( Screencaps and embedded YouTube video )

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/362729.html.

( Read more... )

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/362426.html.

This Bitter Orange Mood was one of my favourite Yuletide fics this year. The fic is about Liz Williams' Inspector Chen series. I enjoyed the first book in the series, Snake Agent, immensely.

But.

I think this post by tevere, author of This Bitter Orange Mood is well-worth reading, and keeping in mind.

...Except, as it turns out, not so much about Chinese people. I mean, I get it: it's hard to write characters from a culture you're not familiar with. But what really hurts me-- what makes me boggle-- is the fact that while the author has freely borrowed from Chinese myths and beliefs and religion (and again: fine with that!), she has clearly chosen not to make the effort to write characters who think, act, or even live in the same physical and cultural environment as actual Chinese people.

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So you know how I squeed about Mulan? marina has a Mulan post with actual content.

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aliaspiral, did you know Rainie has an album?

This entry was originally posted at http://anenko.dreamwidth.org/362085.html.