A Study in Contradictions

Hey you guys! I have a googledoc open where I am writing up various terrible stories from my life (yes, including how I accidentally flashed a bunch of people at a wedding) because my existence is sprinkled with stories that make me sound like a sitcom character. So if you have any requests, speak now.

Also I should not be allowed to write fic on tumblr. Someone remind me of this.

Anyway, I got memes! From the incomparable antistar_e

1. Reply to this post with "MEME IS NOT A DIRTY WORD" and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

( Heh most of these end with ALSO PRETTY *shallowest* )

Meme Two! This one has feeeeeelings.

Reply with "and while we're at it, NEITHER IS SQUEE" and I'll give you four fandoms.
Write about your favorite character from each fandom.

And fandoms! Downton Abbey, Harry Potter, The Social Network, and Merlin.

( So many feels and also indecision )

It’s only been a month! I! No, I have no excuses, I am the failiest blogger ever to fail at blogging. Aaaand now the word blog has stopped sounding like a word to me.

On with the con report!

YOU GUYS I WENT TO A FANDOM CONVENTION AND IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER.

I was staying with brimtoast in New York (you know, as you do) which will be part of another thing which I will totally get round to writing up and then novembersmith drove a Very Long Way and braved the wilds of New Jersey to come bop around NYC and the thriftstores therein with us for a few days, before driving the three of us to Boston for muskratjamboree 

Oh yes, fangirl roadtrip! During which we listened to the Libertines and decided they are the most perfect The Social Network soundtrack band ever and that someone should make a vid to Can't Stand Me Now immediately and also The Fantasticks cast recording, with brimtoast telling us the story in between the songs. novembersmith did an extremely heroic job because it was dark and snowing A LOT and it turns out that it’s quite a long way to Boston *hopelessly English*.

We were supposed to be meeting shiningartifact and swiiftly at the hotel where the con was happening and where the five of us had a room. Fangirl sleepover! But, heartbreakingly shiningartifact hurt her back just a few days before and couldn’t come. The pining, it was epic. But we found ourselves a lovely swiiftly lurking in the lobby and then proceeded to not sleep, as we had planned to, but to go through her welcome pack, eat chips and then I read out the opening page in French for reasons that made a lot of sense at the time...

Which may be part of the reason that we all got up blearily late and I was still in the shower and novembersmith only half dressed when it was time to go down for breakfast and the welcome and icebreaker thing. So we missed those :/. But on the plus side it meant that when we did wander down we migrated to the craft table, which turned out to be a brilliant plan! Now, I am not an artistic person, at least not with Visual Mediums, but it turns out that I cannot resist the lure of photos of people I fangirl. And glitter pens. We ended up hanging out for about an hour and making some very useful signs for future panels.

Also novembersmith helped make a Very Special Picture of Gerard Way and brimtoast put googly eyes on Lord Voldemort which turned out to be too terrifying to exist *shudders*

I made this!


The way MJ worked was that there were two panels every hour, so had you had to pick one that you were attending, which was sometimes nigh on impossible. Okay, so panel lists and reaction to follow. This might get long, kids.

( A Round Up Of The Panels I Attended Part 1 )


After the panels we piled into the lift to find the The Social Network watching party.
novembersmith : Did you check for the room number?
Me: I was just following this person with the glittery “Social Network Party!” sign
zeenell : Er, hello!

The viewing party was probably one of my highlights of the whole weekend. There were delicious mudslides, which as far as I could tell are wonderful but lethal cups of various spirits mixed with ice cream. It was just a room of happy people, all laughing and being delighted to meet each other and fangirling each other and piling onto beds to watch a brilliant movie with brilliantly slashy subtext.

The Social Network: *starts to get pretty sad*
novembersmith : Lal! This is the point where we hold hands.
Me: *strickenface* YES I AGREE *clutches*
swiiftly : *takes novembersmith 's other hand from over on the other bed*
elipie : I know we have just met, but I think I need to clutch your hand also.
Me: I think so too!

So then everyone held hands to get us through the tough times. We may also have yelled at the screen some. These things happen. Afterwards we had to watch happy vids. Essentially, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a bunch of fangirls sing along to Bad Romance while slightly tipsy and falling off beds laughing and dancing.

Then we went to get ready for the vid party! And by get ready I mean drink candy coloured drinks straight from the bottle and wander around in various states of undress. Because we are the classiest.

While waiting for the show to start we - possibly in a horse, stable door situation - had something to eat. I remember gesticulating a lot with a stick of celery. We also alarmed the random other people sitting at our table.

Me: You and your dead boys.
novembersmith : I know, I know. I just like writing about them...
swiiftly : But it’s ok!
Me: Because there’s no necrophilia!
novembersmith: EXACTLY.
Me: And no-one has actual sex with a dragon.
(please note, these are things that novembersmith has put in fic summaries/disclaimers.)
Girl At Our Table: Ohhhhkaaaaay. *looks at life, looks at choices*

There were a few technical difficulties which brooklinegirl dealt with a good deal less panic than I would have, and there a mass sing-along of a song about pirates. I don’t even know. But it was awesome. The vidshow was epic, I LOVE FANVIDS SO MUCH YOU GUYS. Even the ones for fandoms that I didn’t know. Watching vids with fangirls is such a great experience, listening to everyone laugh and cheer their favourite characters and also be utterly destroyed by this Harry Potter video. Seriously, the lights came back up just afterwards and everyone was just clutching each other and sniffling.

Then it was time to dance! I very much enjoyed that my dancing parters were also of the DANCE IN THE MOST DRAMATIC AND INTERPRETIVE WAY EVER school of movement, which is the best way of dancing ever, okay. Highlights were definitely doing the most energetic point at everyone dance with brimtoast , swiiftly and mistresscurvy  to If I Had You, the whole room bouncing for the whole of Planetary Go! (with added fabulousness from K), brimtoast and I learning the dance routine to Guilty Pleasure in about 3 choruses and yelling bed based Panic! lyrics at swiiftly .

There was a slight room keycard incident after the show but we managed to use our problem solving skillz for the win, and also I found an ice machine and vending machine with ginger ale in a hidden area around the corner from our room. My very important priorities, let me show you them.

In a slight tangent, I’ve just noticed how much internet specific language I’m using here, and it was definitely one of the things I enjoyed about MJ, getting to use all of these words that are day-to-day to me, but never get to say out loud in social situations. I mean, sometimes people used terms that other people didn’t get but it was just so, idk, freeing and lovely and easy to say things like “jossed” and “flist” and “fridged” and “bulletproof kink” and so on and so forth. Also people weren’t surprised when I finished a sentence with “I can’t even...” which confuses my boyfriend on a regular basis.

Anyway! Saturday!

( A Round Up Of The Panels I Attended )

So, yeah, MJ. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. So much love and kudos to brooklinegirl and mrsronweasley for organising it (while also moving house, wtaf, these women are superheroes). The level of planning and detail that went into it was incredible and it all went so smoothly.

I think the defining thing I will take away was how positive it was, in every possible way. You couldn’t move for people complimenting each other. Someone was always telling someone else that they just loved their cool geeky tee shirt or their hair or tattoo or their tights (:D). People saw usernames on name tags and ran up to say “I love your fic/art/post/general existance!” Seriously, someone hugged novembersmith for writing Anatomy of a Fall and me and brimtoast got all *proudtear* IT WAS AMAZING. And when someone said something funny, or clever or cool in a panel, and people were always saying funny, clever, cool things in panels, everyone was so appreciative. And it does bear repeating, the comments in the panels were of an incredibly high standard, I could hardly stand it. Fangirls are fucking hilarious, and they are damn smart and they are hella interesting.

And it was also positive because it really did feel like, I don’t know how to say this without sounding really cheesy, but it was just really open. Like, everyone got to talk about their kinks and their queerness and their stupid things that they just really, really love, they love them so much that it makes them make crazy hand gestures and squeaky noises and they can’t, they can’t even. And everyone else? Everyone else just said, HELL YES. ME TOO.

And on that note... <3

So.

2010.

I was trying to sum it up the other day for Kara, actually, and what I ended up saying was this. The highs were very high, but the lows were really, really low. And in between them there were vast periods that felt like an exercise in survival. If I can just make to the end of the month, make it to the weekend, through this one time. So, yeah. I moved in with my boyfriend and I lost my job. I started writing again in a fandom I love and I was so poor I walked for an hour across town with half of my possessions because I couldn't afford the bus. I got to spend a movie montage perfect week with my best friend and I had to sit helpless on the other side of world while someone I loved was hurting.

I enjoyed all of your company for 2010, and I love you all so much. I have really great memories of 2010 thanks to you, and I hope we get to make many, many more.

In the spirit of the thing, here are some memes! That I totally stole from mcollinknight (sorry about the sprinkles!)

First sentences of 2010:

January: Happy 2010! I had a most excellent New Year's Eve. It involved homemade hats and glitter glue, chocolate fondue, champagne cocktails from the roaring twenties, Nat making friends with a baby, much Inappropriateness and Innuendo("Is Ivy's flange warm?") and The Hat Game, Scattergories and The Humming Game.
February: I went to South Africa and as promised, bring back tales of Adventure. And I even managed not to cause any kind of international crisis (aren't you proud of me mathsnerd ?), though not through lack of trying...
March:  I have been distracted by work (which, that's a whoe other post) and going to the ballet (<3) and not being able to shake this damn cough (When you sound like Satine at the end of Moulin Rouge, it's never a good sign) and doing edits and then Word losing 13 pages of them (*shakes fist*). Huh, actually, when I put it all down, it's been more than a bit of a week. But life goes on, and so must this meme.
April: So! I am 23. It feels much as 22, only less symmetrical.
May: Hey you guys! Not dead, or time travelling. Just faily.
June: So I have been woefully sick for the last few days. It has been most unpleasant and I have been living in a cave of pillows and listening to this weekend's cricket commentary and tennis. The sound of other people excelling at sport is soothing to me!
July: Still not dead!
August: So, I have this temping job and it's kind of soul crushingly, brain atrophyingly dull
September: Currently, I spend a deal of time sitting on trains marvelling at the weather and so, as I told twitter, I want to write all the sunshine filled stories in the world. Colline instructed me to write and I can't really say no to her charming Canadian vowels.
October: I keep thinking about making a real, honest to God post. I am also thinking about some sort of Intro/Masterlist post thing because, hi new people! I'm still trying to work out what people need to know about me. Suggestions?
November: Oh, god, I haven't posted in forever and a day. Or, like, three weeks but whatever. The internet moves at the speed of light and all.
December: This weekend Nat and I went to that there Londontown to catch up with old friends aplenty. There was a concerning few days midweek when the snow got so bad that I got sent home from work and sat in the car with a co-worker (my favourite co-worker and not just because she agreed to drive me most of the way home) and we couldn't see anything beyond the front of the car bonnet. Which was a little alarming, to say the least!

LET ME JUST SAY, I AM UNSURPRISED THAT MANY OF MY ENTRIES START WITH AN APOLOGY.
( 2 more memes under the cut! )

30. One wish for '11?: Success, Batman and shininess for all

Seriously, I love you. Firstly, I am SO SORRY for leaving this friends locked. I wrote half of it and then my RL exploded , please accept my most abject apologies. 

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.

I love fluffy stuff, and I love hopeful endings. I don't like neat, everything tied in a bow, over simplified resolutions. I do love angst and complications. I don't love despair.

As you can see from that last example, I tend to put stuff that I like into my own writing, which can pretty much all be found listed on my Master List or my AO3 account. Other people's stuff that I like is bookmarked at delicious. I would say enter at your own risk, because the bookmarks were written for my own crazy self, and are therefore, well, kind of insane.

As for my specific fandoms. Well, I am happy with anything, which is completely true, I promise you.

Lady Gaga (Music videos)

<i>I think all of Lady Gaga's videos are truly amazing and have such a clear sense of story that I would love to see explored further. The one I am really drawn to is Alejandro. It's so compelling and cool, I would adore anything that goes into the characters and stories depicted in it. But any would be amazing.</i>

Okay, so obviously Lady Gaga is incredible and always makes incredible videos. And she is always at the centre being fierce and complex and awesome. The Alejandro video seems to have about 5 stories in it and I would kill for any of those to be told. I have seen some excellent Telephone fic (this one is a good example) but not a lot for the others and whenever I see the videos I pine for fic. Things I Like About This Canon - awesome ladies of awesome, surreal and brilliant worlds, dark undertones.


2. Scott Lynch - The Gentleman Bastard Sequence


<i>I would love anything set in this world, but one of the things that I love best about these books are the cons. So I would really love a story of a con job. It can be set any time, before the books, during or after, I don't mind. A real bonus for me would be to see something more of Nazca Barsavi, because I think she's amazing, but that would just be a cool added extra. Or if you just wanted to write something focussed on her, that would be awesome too. Any ratings or pairing are fine with me, including slash.</i>

I loved both of these books so very much. I think I loved nearly every single character who appears in them, and the world that they are set in is so intricate and unusual and just plain cool. Like, I said, I loved the confidence tricks, the schemes, the sheer balls of the thieves. I have such a thing for this genre of story. I loved Oceans 11 and Duplicity and Hustle. I just find clever people doing clever, complicated, immoral things sexy, okay? I loved that there were a plethora of ladies doing all kinds of things well. I loved the relationships the characters had. I loved that things went wrong, and sometimes they could fix it, and sometimes they couldn't. People got hurt, and had to heal. There were consequences to being stupid, or slow, or wrong. I thought Nazca was a wonderful character and I would love to hear more about her life, which is why I singled her out, and I adored her friendship with Locke. But really, anything anything anything.

Glass Books of the Dream Eaters - Gordon Dahlquist

This is probably my most open request, because I loved the world and the characters of the book and would love anything that explored any of those further. I wanted so much more from The Dark Volume, so I'd be happy with something set after it (and I would kind of prefer if the deaths were at least given a bit more explanation, but also I figured there was at least one fake one there. But if you don't agree, that's fine!) Or alternatively, more backstory would be marvellous for Celeste, the Cardinal or the Doctor. I just loved them and would love stories about any of them!  Things I Loved About This Canon - the main characters being flawed and competent as all hell, Celeste and her love of shoes, the steampunk brilliance and general worldbulding, the huge set piece adventures and the Victorian sensuality . 

Again, many apologies for the lateness! I am delighted we share a fandom and whatever story you want to write, I know I'll love it. HAVE FUN AND MERRY YULETIDE!

Hey guys!

I am just so pleased it's the weekend and there is so much cool stuff going on, offline and online, that I am basically a giant happy ball of Lal as I sit here in my pjs (they have pink sheep on them, if you were wondering), eating dried mango.

So I thought I would share some of the things that have been taking me happy places in the last few days, in exciting video form!

There's been a lot of discussion recently about women characters in fiction and in fandom (bookshop and sarahtales have some pretty damn fabulous and fascinating posts on the subject) going on recently. And obviously as a girl with a vested interest in both of those things, it's something that I've been thinking about a lot. I'm sort of umming and ahhing about making a post about My Thinky Thoughts on reading girls and writing girls and all that, but I don't know if I would just be shouting down a hole and/or preaching to the choir. But anyway, there is a festival called halfamoon going on that is fairly awesome, and one of the things that has come out of it is this vid. It's celebration of women in sci-fi and fantasy, of women being brilliant in every way possible. It's pretty much everything I wanted to say, and it's just beautiful and beautifully made.



It makes me feel like I could do anything, you know?


Another thing that is making so very happy is, actually, a TV show. I don't know if it shows, but the thing I love best in the world is books. I can hear your "DUH"ing from here. But I am also exceptionally fond of televsion programmes. Even lots of really bad ones. But sometimes, once in a while, I fall in love with a show like it's a book. I know this sounds weird, but bear with me.

And this show is called WHITE COLLAR. You guys, I cannot even. Everyone in the world should watch this show. All the cool kids are doing it!

White Collar is a show about a con man and an FBI agent and together they fight crime. No wait, they actually fight crime! Neal, master forger, is working for Peter of the White Collar crimes Division, who caught him and put him in jail twice, under probation. Neal has to wear a tracking anklet, neither of them should really trust the other, they are very different people, but they make a Pretty Awesome Team. So far, so mismatched buddy police procedural, I hear you say. BUT WAIT.

What White Collar is also is smart, funny and totally character driven. And said characters are smart, funny (noticing a pattern), wonderfully acted and utterly believable, and 100% adorable. It subverts your expectations, delivers quality acting and has New York City looking so good I want to move there tomorrow.

What White Collar is to me is the equivalent of having a box of puppies delivered to me every week.

Everyone in the show is adorable and I want to hug them. EVERYONE. Neal, who is a charming, I mean unbelievably charming, brilliantly smart conman who wears hats and waistcoats and believes in love and beautiful things and has some Trust Issues but wants to trust Peter. Peter, who is a practical, deceptively brilliant, FBI agent who believes in justice and really likes smart (that is a direct quote, btw). El. who is a funny, sensible events planner who is married to Peter and likes to engage in adorable banter with him and basically keeps the boys from tripping over their tangled relationship and myriad issues. There is also Moz, Neal's friend who is played by <3Stanford Blatch<3 from Sex and the City<3 and who is a hilarious, non people person, conspiracy theorist forger/unassuming criminal genius. The rest of Neal and Peter's team! So adorable and witty! June, Neal's landlady who knows he is a criminal and doesn't care!

A box of puppies, you guys. Did I mention they are all seriously pretty. I mean Matt Bomer - Neal and also Bryce from <3Chuck<3 - is an insanely attractive man, but Tim Dekay has this crazy ninja hotness that blindsides you and frankly the cast as a whole is pretty damn fine. The show is very prettily shot as well.

Furthermore, everyone has SO MUCH CHEMISTRY it is ridiculous. I really believe that Peter and El have this real, really good marriage. Neal and Peter have some of the best bicker-banter I've ever seen (and yes, I've seen Sherlock Holmes). Oh, just watch this video. It's very well made and the song choice is marvellous.



And then go watch White Collar! As I said to shiningartifact when persuading her flailing at her until she agreed to watch it, I feel confident that everyone will love this show. Unless they do not like hot people being clever and adorable in great clothes. And there are only 11 episodes to catch up on!

Aaaand finally. The Winter Olympics starts today! WOO! I mean, as a country we lack the necessary climate and mind set for most of these sports, but I love the Olympics and most importantly, this means there will be ICE SKATING ON TV. I lovelovelove ice skating, y'all. I used to have a Torvill and Dean poster and tee shirt and a video and OMG ICE SKATING. It is the most camp and ridiculous thing to ever call itself a sport. I cannot love it more.

I feel the whole thing is summed up by America's Johnny Weir's routine to Poker Face. No. Really.



It's like Adam Lambert took up figureskating. Or had an insanely talented sparkly ice baby with Lady Gaga... It's so unapologetic and celebratory and wonderful. You do kind of have to ignore the commentators a little, but still. Love.


And that's everything I can think of for now! Come chat, I have about a billion things to say about, well, everything I've mentioned here and you guys are always my happy place.