A Study in Contradictions

YIKES, I've not used dreamwidth in forever, honestly, the person that these entries belongs to is not so much me anymore. The fic though, that's probably still representative. Anyway! Hello lovely yuletide writer. I completely forgot I hadn't updated this placeholder, I'm so so so so so sorry, wow. Please still like me and forgive a bookseller preparing for Christmas?

I picked fandoms that I'd be delighted with pretty much anything for this year, so write your joy! Any rating from G to NC-17 is fine by me. But I know that specificity helps. So, there are things that I love in general in any kind of story.

<3 Banter. It is my greatest, dearest love. It can be flirtatious banter or friendly banter or people trying to get one up over their nemesis banter. I don't care. I'm KEEN.

<3 People being passionate about things. Just, yes, yes please. Which is linked to -

<3 People being good at stuff. I don't care what! I especially like to see ladies being purely competent at stuff, because, yeah, that is still upsettingly lacking. Extra bonus points if that is ladies being matter of factly good at stuff without it being made a Huge Deal By Everyone and making them any less of a normal, flawed person. Speaking of which.

<3 Flaws. I like my characters to have them, and I like the people who they love to have them and I like them to recognise that the person that they adore, in whatever sense of the word, has them.

<3 if you are writing romantical styles things I am keen on D/s, wall kisses, talking, ~talking, teasing, ~teasing, Meaningful Gestures, established relationship rhythms, fake dating/forced proximity tropes.

I mean, obviously I do not expect you to be able to fit all of this into one small story! But take this as a flavour of the kind of stuff that I love best, but I love all kinds of other stuff too. My somewhat defunct but not inaccurate tumblr can be found at alexandraptor and my unlocked twitter is @mllelal if you want to creep on some things I enjoy!

DNWs! Let’s get this awkwardness right out of the way as quickly as possible.
Please no major character death or discussions of grief. Nothing about people in recovery falling off the wagon.

GOOD GREAT TIME FOR SPECIFIC FANDOMS

Six of Crows

MY CRIMINAL CHILDREN. I love everyone of the six (yes, even Mathias by the end of CK) and would adore anything more about them. I'd really like some future fic for this series, satisying as the ending was. Jesper is my absolute favourite but I'd be delighted with a focus on any of them. Inej and Kaz working through their intimacy issues and being the best righteous pirates of revenge. Or Jesper and Wylan working on Wylan's blush. A gen story of another con that they all have to pull together! I've not read the Grisha series yet so I don't really know the people from there, but if you'd like to use information from the books to inform your story that would be fine.

Band of Brothers

Winters/Nix is one of those ships that just gets me right where I live, you know. I'd like anything about them, honestly. I love their dynamic, the way that they so clear give something to each other that no one else can, understand each other and push each other's buttons and are somehow Old Marrieds. I love Dick Winters who is secretly full of caustic humour and not so secretly good and brave to the point of destruction, and Nix, Lewis Nixon too smart for his own good and too caring for his own liking. If you wanted to do a canon story or go like, full tropey AU I would enjoy absolutely anything.

Society of Gentlemen

Again, this is very much a I LOVE ALL OF THEIR FACES, MORE OF THEIR FACES kind of a deal. Gosh I love these books, I have reread them all a bunch, I can probably quote large chunks of Seditious Affair (my favourite one but the best kind of favourite where everything could be) at this point. I'd adore to see more of Ash and Francis, who I would read seven books of them being adoring and having literally all the sex and generally being the despair of their friendship group. Honestly, I would read a fic that was just the Society having dinner and chatting and mocking each other. Or I would read Richard and Cyprian Do Europe. Or even a modern au! Imagine Silas's twitter. Or Harry's Instagram!

I did mean to make this entry Some Time ago but, ugh, you guys, I'm still pretty sick. I got sick almost exactly on the stroke of midnight (I'm not kidding, I stood up to sing Auld Lang Syne, sneezed and felt a little wobbly) and have only just come out the other side.

And by that I mean, have been coughing myself to death and leaving people completely ridiculous comments that make less than no sense. With .gifs. And because my friends are, you know, my friends, I am now engaged in TWO gif wars. Obviously.

Anyway, I also left for various Christmas type celebrations on the 16th of December, which I hope goes some way to explaining the amount of LJ radio silence. And LJ kind of sucks these days. But yes, I went and had four days in a tiny room with moogle62 and it was GLORIOUS. I think we had about 20 hours sleep total, there was a lot of time spent in pyjamas, some very dignified feels watching TSN vids at 3am that we had to talk to some ice cream about, some even more dignified feels about Sherlock Holmes 2 (IN PUBLIC GOOD LORD) and her flatmate describing me as "your *lowers voice* *makes air quotes* friend".

So all around a triumph, really.

And then we met up with some beloved marmfish for merriment and tube debacles and ice skating. Last year hanelissar and I spent the whole session hands firmly clasped in each others, with much clutching and spinning and delighting in each safe trip round the ice. When we got back onto dry land the rest of the group declared us married. This year I spent more time than seems, um, socially acceptably telling Moog and altogetherisi to just get their legs further apart, jeez.

And then home to the Isle of Man, which ended up being, to quote Moog, LIKE THE ISLAND ON LOST ONLY INSTEAD OF ACCUMULATING TERRIFYINGLY ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE AND ALSO POLAR BEARS IT JUST ATTRACTS THE WTFUCKERY/INTENSE EMOTIONAL REVELATIONS. So we'll just, move right along with that, then.

And then back to see the boy and his parents, only he got sick, then I got sick, and here we are! Oh, no, only I also recorded three episodes of podramble (more on that later) and wrote my Yuletide fic.

Not If, Only or Even, But Always. And no, I'm still not sure if all those commas are right.

It was for the movie Zombieland, a witty, charming movie which I loved more than I ever expected to, and featuring some of my very favourite faces. In a turn of events to surprise no one, I have a number of feelings about kickass conlady heroines and their sisters and their twitchy, adorkable boyfriends.

Um, if I haven't posted the Fandom Snowflake thing by the end of tomorrow, someone yell at me?

Happy New Year, my dearest flist!

How the devil are you?

Before we start, hi, I love you, I'm easy to please. Really. I know people say that but REALLY.

So, there are things that I love in general in any kind of story.

<3 Banter. It is my greatest, dearest love. It can be flirtatious banter or friendly banter or people trying to get one up over their nemesis banter. I don't care. I am a banter!slut and I don't care who knows it.

<3 People being passionate about things. Just, yes, yes please. Which is linked to -

<3 People being good at stuff. I don't care what! I especially like to see ladies being purely competent at stuff, because, yeah, that is still upsettingly lacking. Extra bonus points if that is ladies being matter of factly good at stuff without it being made a Huge Deal By Everyone and making them any less of a normal, flawed person. Speaking of which.

<3 Flaws. I like my characters to have them, and I like the people who they love to have them and I like them to recognise that the person that they adore, in whatever sense of the word, has them.

<3 Trivia. What I mean by this is, little details that make up a world. Or fun facts about squid. Whatever. My greatest fic moment was sharing my "polar bears are ninja" funfact with the world. I just like all the crazy small facts of this world, and all the fictional ones, too.

I mean, obviously I do not expect you to be able to fit all of this into one small story! But take this as a flavour of the kind of stuff that I love bestest, but I love all kinds of other stuff too.

( More details for you, dear author, and also all the creepers on my flist. ICU. )

I have absolutely no idea how that happened.

Well, I mean, I do. I vaguely think about things I want to post and then I get on the internet and forget all about it. I also planned to have finished some of the many and terrible WIPs I have on the go right now, but that, er, hasn't happened either? And then I just think of more things I want to write and I think my brain just sort of gets log-jammed with ideas.

Anyway, in the past month I have tweeted a lot, liked a lot of things on tumblr, finally got myself a TSN icon, totally made "wardo" as a verb happen, played through all three Jojo's Fashion Show games, had the sleep schedule of a mad insomniac and generally failed about the house in my socks and misbuttoned pyjamas.

I have had some on and off temp work, sigh. It's so depressing. The other week I worked for six days, standing up for pretty much eight hours straight every day, and in the end, I scraped past earning £200 *gets back under quilt and doesn't come out*

I also went to a wedding in Wales! It was... Are you going to call me crazy if I say it was very wedding-y? It was like the show-home of weddings. Nat's cousin is a professional cricket player and all of his friends are sportsmen and they all have very WAG parters and it was very... Wedding-y. Also I accidentally flashed my arse to a bunch of people but that's a story for another day.

Oh! Also I watched all of Band of Brothers and wept into my gchat window at daisysusan and there were pretty boys covered in dirt and heartbreak and it was amaaaaazing.

I've been trying to write this entry for like, five hours, and I'm being terrible at it, so, like, ask me things in the comments or whatever. How have you beeeeeeeen?

To make up for it, here is a masterful characterful study of Mr Rochester, by laliandra and moogle62

( ps no that is not my crazy wife in the attic shhh just come )

It's always amusing to me how differently the world looks from where I'm sitting.

Me: OH GOD, now that I've spammed everyone with my The Social Network Big Bang by posting all the entries and posting to comms and talking about it on Twitter, they probably hate me.
A significant portion of my twitter/flist: WAIT YOU POSTED YOUR BIG BANG?

So, yes, yes I did post my conpeople AU, in which our hero learns the importance of love, time, using your damn words and proper lumbar support. And in case you missed me editing it in, novembersmith made the most amazing mix called Love Songs for the Criminally Unaware and I have been listening to it on repeat for days. Interspersed with this. Now that the serious side has been taken care of (SO PERFECTLY I CANNOT EVEN) I can get on with Earnest Mix of Seduction and Post Break Up Terrible Karaoke playlists *g*. Also I'm pretty sure I owe a fair few of you mixtapes; let me know?

Baby's first Big Bang! It was supreme amounts of fun, even if it did mean that I stayed up until past five three nights in a row, once for Moog's big bang, once for mine and once just because when given an IRL moogle62 I cannot stop talking. I loved getting art and being part of something and I think I'm proud of the story, I'm still too close to it right now, and all I can think about is all the things I didn't end up putting in it. But the whole BB has been of a sort of stunning quality. What are you, TSN fandom?

This is the first time in two years that I haven't had a deadline or an active WIP. I am confused by this state of affairs. Obviously all my brain can think of doing now is some sort of timestamp meme.

Out of fandom lifewise, well, hmm, things remain... stagnant. My boyfriend bought a new car which promptly broke down so that was. Yeah. Been better!

My family remain my family:

Me: Oh hey Dad, how are things in South Africa?
Dad: Your grandmother is mad at me because I set the lawn on fire while she was here.
Me: ... HOW?
Dad: I threw a firecracker at a monkey.
Me: Obviously.

And then we had a twenty minute conversation about the Italian national anthem. I swear I'm not making this up.

When I'm not talking Verdi, I mostly spend my days hanging out on tumblr and getting into email loops. Should you wish some quality correspondence, I can be found at muchadoaboutcogs on the gmail.

Aaaand finally, this meme went around a while ago but I never got round to posting it and I'm kind of intrigued. Like I said, I need to see the world from where I'm not sitting!

"If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach." -- Alfred Hitchcock

If I wrote a story today, what would the readers immediately look for?

That was a pretty nice wrap up, there, don't you think? How are you, lovely flist?

Part One Part Two

( Part Three )

Title: Another Vision of Us
Fandom: The Social Network
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Mark/Eduardo
Warnings: none. Some conning and related crime activities.
Word Count: 24467
Summary: Based on this. In which there is a merry band of con-people called the F. Well, merry until the fucking Winklevii take their greatest asset, the facebook. As if that wasn’t bad enough, their only chance of getting it back requires bringing back their estranged team member. Eduardo Saverin (of the Miami Saverins) is a con-man extraordinaire, weather dork, sometime cat burglar and Mark’s ex best-friend (it totally counts if you only say that when they were unconscious).


( Part One )

 The Postcard Puzzle Project aka Everyone Lal Knows Is Made of Actual Win continues apace. I only have one word missing!

Look! (the lightening bolt was actually done by mcollinknight and sadly has to cover most of azurelunatic 's lovely work because her word was my actualfax surname and I like to pretend that I have some semblance of anonymity)

It's so BEAUTIFUL and full of rainbows and delight and marmalade. I think when it's all done I will have to write a really detailed entry in which I thank you all one by one and am generally gushing and embarrassing, and then you can all hang out in comments and congratulate each other on your fancy art skillz.

Also! Part 2, the part with flyers for French tutoring (which sadly I cannot show you, again, RL details) is a go! Nat used his time and resources at work excellently and printed a bunch off, so any ideas about places to put them would be gratefully received. ( Our Day In Gifs )

So that was an awesome couple of days and I already pine for my mornaltwin of typos and lemon. 

And also! The other day we were talking on Twitter about various things, UST and writing and the fact that I tend to abandon sentences in my documents while they are half finished and then I come to them a day or two later and have NO  IDEA how they are meant to finish. branquignole suggested that all the sentences end with make outs, and I felt bad about how all of the sentences wouldn't end with make outs, so I gave her a teaser trailer sentence. And then she translated it into German!  So that became kind of a thing.

So, have some sentences of my heist!AU in German. I couldn't decide whether or not to put the English in, so I decided not to and then if y'all want to know what they say, you can ask. Or give it a shot yourself. It's super exciting to me to see my words in another language. I'm such a language dork...


Ein Lächeln breitet sich über Wardos Gesicht, Mark kann es unter seiner Handfläche spüren.
_____

Eduardo beugt sich nach vorne und fährt mit der Nase Marks Wange entlang, sanft wie ein Zittern, bis ihre Münder auf gleicher Höhe sind, nur einen Hauch voneinander entfernt.
_____

"Du bist aufgeflogen." Eduardo schüttelt den Kopf und sieht ihn mit großen, ernsten Augen an. Mark hat keine Ahnung, wie er das mit seinem Gesicht anstellt.
"Verdammt", sagt Mark. "Es geht mir ziemlich gegen den Strich, alle meine Habseligkeiten verbrennen und mir eine Glatze rasieren zu müssen."
_____

Mark liebt es, wenn Eduardo andere in die Irre führt, wenn Mark der einzige Mensch im Raum ist, der weiß, wer Wardo wirklich ist, die unzähligen tödlichen Wunder, aus denen er besteht, ein Geheimnis für alle anderen.

So. Yes. My lovely exciting new job? Didn't work out. I've already talked a lot about it on twitter and I'm not sure I want to go into it again but. Yeah. It sucks and it makes me sad to think about how frickin' happy and hopeful I was.

But, as ever, my internet family are being amazing. I am, according to the notes attached to the various cards, notes, pictures and postcards I've received "in the process of getting a group hug from the internet. If it doesn't make sense yet, stand by."



YOU GUYS FOR SERIOUS I CANNOT EVEN. They are all so beautiful and HANDMADE and wonderful, oh my god. Thank you so, so much *takes a breath* vandulocity  kaiserkuchen miabee023  sarkysnarky  khasael pigrescuer  branquignole  hanelissar  moogle62 playwithfyr  and the rest to come. I have never been so sad that there's no post on Sundays. I don't know who the mastermind(s) behind the project but oh my god, thank you and I like how it looks like you are quoting me. I love it when you quote me! #mystery #excitement #bears

In other excellent news the fic that I produced for pod_together  with the fabulous nielrian  is up on the AO3! Hurray! It is a Kurt/Blaine summer job fluff extravaganza called Haven't Let You Out Since I Let You In and you can all see what I meant when I said my sunburn was karma. And also experience the wonder that is N's reading, her Kurt voice is so perfect, y'all, I cannot even. PERFECT. I have listened to her say "cliché" over and over. I should probably post it places to be completist but I am so laaaaazy today.

Also I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P2 at the midnight showing and it was very satisfying and upsetting and I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT HARRY POTTER. It really makes me want to write HP fic again. Maybe we should have "Fandom Will Always Be There To Welcome You Home" fic writing, reading, reccing fest or something.

So, yes, this is mostly an entry of things that I will have more to say about later. Whatever. It's like, 2am here and I need to have achieved something today apart from finally convincing my boyfriend to just download the first season of the West Wing so that we can watch it. He's been holding out for buying the DVDs for <i>years</i>. We are late to the party, sure, but oh, what a party!