throbbing light machine

now I understand

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:48:22 GMT

anghraine tagged me on tumblr - fifteen things that are making me happy right now:
1. winter is far from over; I have a solid three months of snow left to look forward to
2. the myth-type of Persephone, the rape victim married to her rapist, given a cold power by her trauma and her survival but also fundamentally connected with the renewal of spring. she gets stronger and more dangerous by breaking, and i'm connecting with that
3. soft-aesthetic photos of black men with flowerbeards
4. Jim Kirk's face
5. Lip Gallagher's face
6. Mandy Milkovich's dyejob - so cute! and Debbie's haircut
7. I got to see my best friend and not!sister this week when she came home for her mother's 60th birthday
8. I'm no longer involved in any way shape or form with my ex's endless hopeless drama
9. Jim Kirk genderswaps
10. William Shatner genderswapped is kind of what I look like, except for the eye color
11. Marvel 616 Civil War fix-it fic
12. Cara Loup recently uploaded a bunch of her zine-era Han/Luke to the AO3, and it's glorious - and also imo it's cool to spend time in a SW universe where the PT hadn't been made yet and see what people were doing.
13. Anna (starry_diadem) is publishing some of her amazing Battlestar Galactica 1978 fic as with the serial numbers filed off; her worldbuilding work is tremendous, and also I tracked her down a few years ago after a long break from the fandom by recognizing her very distinctive use of the word "gauche" in fic even after she'd changed pseuds, of which I am unreasonably proud.
14. the water-soluble wax pastels are awesome for coloring my mandalas
15. girl you know i listened to the ESB radio serial again the other night and it is some hot shit; no one else can act at all, but Mark Hamill is there, and he goes pretty hard. the exaggerated-noises style that radio dramas always do work really nicely with the film's plotlines; lots of moaning and heavy breathing and whimpering from Luke, it's all very exciting. also they do the Hoth scene that fanwriters always tackle, with Han and Luke overnight in the shelter. they found the worst voice in the world for Vader tho, which is kind of a problem

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leave me at the town I'm in love

Wed, 14 May 2014 20:10:43 GMT

ob!meme: Everyone should post your most ten CRUCIAL CRUCIAL - ASS movies, like the ten movies that explain everything about yourselves in your current incarnation etc...

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. La Belle et la Bete (1946)
3. Into The Woods
4. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
5. Rebecca
6. Lagaan
7. West Side Story
8. The Court Jester
9. The Adventures of Baron Munschausen
10. The Fall

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measuring the marigolds

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 17:09:09 GMT

Feeling low and sad today. Which I think maybe has to do with family and loss; everyone up home just did the big readjustment that my grandpa's passing this last spring necessitated, my gran moving out into a condo and my aunt moving up from downstate to take over the bed and breakfast. I've lost two grandfathers in two years, and in a way what I end up grieving are the configurations of the family that I knew when I was young, that were so wonderful. I get scared that we won't be able to keep the wonderful after everything changes.

meme, ganked from telesilla: give me a link or title to one of my fics (any 'verse/any fandom), and I'll give you a detail that didn't make it into the fic - it could be background canon, deleted material (if I have it), a look into the future - or ask me a question about inspiration, the writing process, research.

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a post with actual content!

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:11:42 GMT

( meme responses: stuff about Dollhouse, Star Trek, and Narnia )

Also, I want to link to Ana Mardoll's piece at Shakesville on the acquittal of Ezekiel Gilbert for Lenora Ivie Frago's murder, because this is one of those cases I want to point to whenever people (so often in the form of my undergraduate students) assert that we've changed since the (inevitably indefinable) Bad Old Days. It's an impulse that I find really frustrating, because it makes me not want to celebrate our successes, knowing that any mention I make of victory will be taken as a total declaration of the end of the war.

eta: also I passed the graduate Spanish test-out I took yesterday! Which is awesome, because it means I don't have to take HISP 492 for the rest of the summer, and have both the foreign language requirements for my degree covered. Which means that as soon as I defend my prospectus, I'll be ABD. I am chilling out today, but this weekend is going to be for writing; I think I have most of my prospectus worked out mentally, but I need to just sort of pound out the words.

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ain't no use in turning on your light babe

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:31:10 GMT

Wednesday reading: currently vibrating between Josephine Butler's anti-CD Acts pamphlets, which are tremendous, and a reread of the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy, which is actually a pretty logical drift from Star Trek's whole Age of Sail IN SPAAAAACE! thing. Unlike I want to say most people, though, I started with the Bounty Trilogy and picked up Trek later. Nordoff and Hall, the authors, are two of my father's pet figures; he has all their books, and will go on at length if prompted about their quest for Robert Louis Stevenson. Also just picked up yhlee's new anthology Conservation of Shadows at the library, but as I haven't finished the first story yet all I have to say is that her prose and imagery are typically gorgeous and majestic. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

meme from everywhere: Give me a fandom and I'll tell you

my favourite female character
my favourite male character
my favourite book/season/etc
my favourite episode/issue/chapter, etc
my favourite cast member
my favourite relationship
a character I'd die defending
a character I just can't sympathize with
a character I grew to love
my anti otp

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you'll see the sun come shining through

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:03:21 GMT

meme from, like, everybody:

I currently have 75 works at AO3. Pick a number between 1 and 75 and I'll tell you three things I currently like about that story.

eta: so that this entry contains more than a meme - the more I hear about the Amazon Kindle Worlds mess, the more it reminds me of what I've read about the early days of the Pocket Books Star Trek tie-in novels, which I gather fans were initially excited about as a way to professionalize/monetize but later pretty much abandoned once the level of creative bankruptcy necessary for participation became clear. Plus ca change, neh?

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you overflow with an urge to fly

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:04:43 GMT

I've had the flu and I have too much grading/student conferencing time on my horizon - distract me plz!

Characterization meme, ganked from havocthecat: pick a character I've written and I will explain the top five* ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

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fog is in the valley now and all the geese have gone

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:16:33 GMT

meme from ilthit, because I'm trying to freaking finish some of these: The game is to find the word “look” in your current work in progress, and post an excerpt from that section of the manuscript.

( Star Wars )

( more Star Wars )

( Vorkosigan Saga )

( Avengers )

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in the house of mystery

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 22:39:47 GMT

I love it when Long-Expected Party Day and the equinox coincide. So many happys to wish: happy Our Birthday, happy Mabon, happy end of (effing) summer.

eta: the book week meme, because synchronicity
It's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.

"They parted and Pippin hurried back toward the citadel."

The closest book because the newest; I picked up a new big paperback RotK at Goodwill this afternoon because first printing, special edition, September 1970 was just too cool to pass up.

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my reflection somewhere inside these walls

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 22:38:19 GMT

{tred tired semester teaching exam list argh} - so pretty much the usual. Except I'm pretty sure that when George Gissing told me that "there are half a million more women than men in this happy country of ours," i.e. Victorian Britain, he was either wrong, lying, or doing some really weird shit with population statistics. Because. That can't possibly be true.

And, for a change, I am writing words that are fictiony! Which is making me so, so, so happy. And, yanno, maybe someday I'll even finish a fic and I can do that thing I used to do where I posted the words on the internet and people read them. In the meantime, meme! Ganked from everywhere, idek:

Pick a number and I'll answer the question.

1 - Your current OTP
2 - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what
6 - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
7 - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
8 - Do you prefer characters from real action series or anime series
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why
10 - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr [let's substitute LJ here for a more meaningful question in my case]
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom
12 - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for
13 - Your favorite fanart or fanartist
14 - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor
15 - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
17 - A ship you’ve abandoned and why
18 - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms
25 - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from
26 - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go

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in an attempt to re-start my writing mojo

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:57:07 GMT

a meme from musesfool: Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

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because the world is round it turns me on

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 02:34:28 GMT

( that music meme that's been making the rounds )

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AO3 hits meme

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:23:25 GMT

I didn't do this last time around, but it looks pretty cool, so: my top ten fics on the AO3, by hitcount.

Loving in the war years, Avengers Movieverse, Steve/Tony powerplay sizekink wallsex, 3316 hits
...good maude, y'all, I guess this is what it feels like to write for a popular fandom?

until you cry: now you must try my greed, Sherlock Holmes rentboy fic, 1296 hits
No surprise there, this is one of the pieces of my own work I'm most pleased with, and it seems to've hit a sweet spot with readers.

Finds but riddling shrift, Tortall, Numair's arrival in Corus, 1087 hits
A yuletide madness fic, which explains the sloppy ending - I like the rest of the fic, but haaaaate the way it sputters out at the end. C'est la vie.

Entreat me with your loveliest lie, Vorkosigan Saga Gregor!angst, 962 hits
Another yuletide piece, albeit one I had longer to work on - I like what this story does, even if I've found myself increasingly disinterested in Gregor/Miles as a ship.

why press a seal on running water, Spirited Away, Chihiro and the dried-up river, 926 hits
Another yuletide, and yay I heart this story! I did a lot of reading-up in order to write it, and actually started to pick up on the Shinto and environmentalist arguments of Miyazaki's oevre, so that was pretty cool :)

gentle heart but not acquainted, Holmes/Watson WAFF, 816 hits
A kinkmeme fill, one that I'm very ambivalent about - the idea of the project never quite came clear.

Pass, repass, glide away, Sherlock/Mycroft crossdressing incest, 653 hits
Parts of this are, I think, the best Holmes I've ever written.

What are you that wanting you I should be kept awake, Tortall, Daine/Numair post-canon, 560 hits
I have nothing but happy about this story; I had a blast writing it, and I think it does all the work I wanted it to do :)

A bed of daysided gold, Star Wars OT Han/Luke/Leia post-canon, 454 hits
The one where I finally figured out how to write Star Wars, after only twenty-odd years of fannishness!

we have laced the world together, Sherwood Smith's Wren books, OT4, 453 hits
This is one of those rare situations where writing a really rare fandom pays off - this is the only Wren fic on the archive, but Sherwood Smith's given the story multiple positive mentions, which, WOOT.

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take that moon and wrap it in cellophane

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:49:41 GMT

meme, snagged from astridv:

Name a fandom you know (that you think I know too!) and I'll tell you

1. The first character I first fell in love with
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now
3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t
4. The character I love that everyone else hates
5. The character I used to love but don’t any longer
6. The character I would totally smooch
7. The character I’d want to be like
8. The character I’d slap
9. A pairing that I love
10. A pairing that I despise

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wip meme, gacked from resonant

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:09:00 GMT

Post a random sentence (or three whole paragraphs) from every WIP you're currently working on, even if it's very short. Then invite people to ask questions about your WIP. With any luck, you'll get talking about writing, and the motivation to take that WIP one step closer to completion will appear as if by magic!

( How to Train Your Dragon/The Secret of Kells crossover - two rare animated fandoms for the price of one! )

( Tortall, Arram/Ozorne powerplay )

( Steve/Tony up!against!the!wall sex )

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quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:08:34 GMT

nicked from celandineb

Away, you scullion! You rampallion! You fustilarian!
I'll tickle your lotesse!

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

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how shall we fuck off?

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:02:25 GMT

Meme, nicked from wordweaverlynn: Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

Nonfiction edition, from Dysfunctional Families in the Wessex Novels of Thomas Hardy by Lois Bethe Schoenfeld: "Here Hardy stresses the need for close, intimate relationships between the siblings, if not with the parents as well, although he does not offer us solutions to the changing form of the family as a result of social and economic change." Ahahahaha INCEST? LOLWHUT.

Fiction edition, from The Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy: "Receptive." OKAY THEN. I'LL TAKE THAT.

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started from zero got nothing to lose

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:48:59 GMT

Never done one of these before, but what with ... everything, on top of end-of-semester writing woes, I could really use a boost. My thread on allthingsgood's lj-based love meme.

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gacked from staranise

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:56:43 GMT

Here's [a meme] where I'll post the working title of a story, and the first sentence, for (some of) my most current WIPs. No pairing or summary info.

A Study in Circles: The Amestrian military keeps doctors as well as dogs on its leashes; having completed my course of medical study at the Second Laboratory in Central, I was bound to service for several years.

my gold signal like a dragonfly: Teal'c tells people, when they ask him, that his inlaid golden serpent tattoo is a mark of his former slavery to false gods.

Neglect me, lose me, only give me leave: “No,” Taran said, pulling away from under Fflewddur's hand.

saffron and haze and Tyrian purple: Arram Draper had left Tyra as a very small boy, taking with him only a dark olive-brown complexion, a head of curling dark hair, and the recollected tastes of cakes flavored with saffron and sesame, and aromatic bread heavy with olive oil on his tongue.

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if you're looking for Atlantis, you should cast your eye on me

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:13:23 GMT

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. (Editorializing: there is nothing wrong with lj/dwidth, but memes are fun.) So, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ/Dreamwidth and find out what people don't know about you if you want.

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me me:

Thu, 05 May 2011 14:55:23 GMT

Name me a character from a fandom I have known, and I will tell you:

* How I FEEEEEL about this character
* All the people I ship romantically with this character
* My non-romantic OTP for this character
* My unpopular opinion about this character
* One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

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it makes such an almighty sound

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:34:14 GMT

The meme's been going around - if there was a zombie apocalypse and I had to choose five of my own stories, they would be these five.

(bind you with love that is) graceful and green as a stem Frodo/Sam postquest h/c, 21435 words - because this is the one where I finally feel like I managed to say what I mean about hobbits, and also to coherently feel through my half-opposition to the Grey Havens. Because I still feel proud of myself for finding a way out of that ending I could live with. Because I feel like I could happily bask in hobbits taking care of each other for ever, yo.

Of Smoke and Gold and Breathing The Dark is Rising, Will/Jane/Bran multiple histories, 9421 words - this was my Yuletide 2007 main story, and I still have very tender feeling for it, and for this canon as a whole, and for the girl I was when I wrote it.

Calligraphilia Hermione + autoeroticism + pens and ink, 1307 words - an old story, back from a moment in my life when I was just starting to really explore my own sexual identity and the excitement of that was erupting into my fiction.

until you cry:now you must try my greed Holmes/Watson rentboy porn, 6440 words - because this one gave me a chance to play it oldschool, and use pretty nineteenth-century words, and everything in it was pretty and Victorian and sexy. One of the pieces I'm most content with - I feel like it's doing everything I meant it to, and that's not nothing.

we have laced the world together Sherwood Smith's Wren books, Wren/Tess/Connor/Tyron ot4, 9158 words - my Yuletide 2009 story, which got positive author feedback homg! But only if I could also save that review!

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the book meme

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:07:33 GMT

The book I am reading: Oh man. Middlemarch. Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm. I've been burning through the nonfiction, but today I'm due by the library to pick up Kate Flint's The Woman Reader, 1837-1914, Barbara Sicherman's Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women, and Joanne Wilkes' Women Reviewing Women in Nineteenth-Century Britain, so, um, that'll be tonight.

The book I am writing: Prydain long!fic and historiographical reviews.

The book I love most: Jane Eyre is the most resonant, Lord of the Rings the most passionate, The Once and Future King the most enduring, and Three Guineas the most stirring.

The last book I received as a gift: Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings, as a Christmas gift from my da. Heaven love him, he's trying to keep up with what I read. <3

The last book I gave as a gift: Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence; Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse; A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book; Tamora Pierce, Terrier & Bloodhound.

The nearest book on my desk: insofar as my bed serves as my workspace, and I tend to sleep with books - at present a Daphne Du Maurier omnibus, Villette, and Minding the Body, ed. Patricia Foster have been in residence, and there's a huge pile of histories of British women's suffrage an the foot that I'm not going to list off!

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meme ganked from merfilly

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:45:43 GMT

Pick a character and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them. Any and all characters welcome (including ones I haven't written but might know about...)

list of my active fandoms at the AO3

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icon meme

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:20:24 GMT

* Do not look at the comments.
* Take a look at my userpics.
* Post a comment with the icon of mine you associate with me. Leave commentary if desired.
* Repost with your default icon.
* Profit!

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