laliandra | Entries tagged with warning!tangent!

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?

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.

So, I suspect that y'all suspect me of having achieving great and marvellous things in my absence from your flists.

This is sadly not the case.

Sorry.

My boyfriend Nat has been working away, many miles away for the last month, only home at the weekends. So I've been Home Alone. I meant to get a lot of stuff done, mostly writing and maybe some recording. But mainly what I did was mope around the house, watching a lot of crap TV and eating biscuits. Sulkily.

I also went to work. Work sucks, I know, right? It's reached a stage with my co-workers which feels very Assimilate or Die. Like, I have next to nothing in common with any of them, and they are not interested in most of the things I am passionate about and. I can either keep myslef to myself and listen to the music that I like and podfic. Or I can feign an interest in things I really don't care about (can I fake it about fake tan?) and stop myself making sarcastic comments (I swear, I don't mean it badly, it's my sense of humour) and using complicated words (which Karen [who thought that euthanasia was a country] accused me of doing to take the piss). Stop being the proper version of myself. I don't know. I think I've got so used to being with people like, well, like you guys. Who send me tweets supporting my choice to grin like an idiot while I rewatch clips of Glee on the train and who use words like, "proselytize" and who blame me and &hearts me and squee about sexy revelations with me and just GET ME.

ANYWAY. Enough of my angstface/FANDOMADORATION. Seriously though. You guys. <3.

Let us focus on what I actually have achieved...

I made my Master List/ Introduction Post! VICTORY IS MINE AND IT COMES IN DELICIOUSLY LISTY FORM. It took me an upsettingly long time because livejournal hates my face and also my attempts at html. Oh, so very much html. So, new friends, old friends, lurkers, please feel free to go comment and ask anything you would like to (I have included suggestions but have no doubt you'll think of something much more awesome) or just marvel at the amount of of RPF I seem to have ended up writing \o?

I read Who Fears Death for bookdeyada and it was amazing and set in Africa and full of fabulous female characters and non Western mythology and, ugh, I loved it so much. I love it when you get to the end of a good book and you just feel this really bone deep feeling of satisfaction, you know? Shoe joy is all glitter shiny and instant but book joy is real fulfilment.

I recorded myself playing television theme tunes on the kazoo and singing show tunes for various people, thus proving that I probably shouldn't be left on my own for long periods of time.

I broke my laptop charger dancing to My Chemical Romance but now have a new, shiny one that actually works properly and not just in one special position which takes forever to find. My precious laptop, I have missed you so! *pets, gently*

I signed up for Muskrat Jamboree which is a very very awesome fandom convention. In America. So, yeah. I AM GOING TO AMERICA and I am going to stay with

brimtoast in New York and meet

shiningartifact and

novembersmith and

swiiftly in Boston and we are going to a FANDOM CONVENTION and OMG I AM SO EXCITED CAN YOU TELL?!?! So, if you are in the New York or Boston area around the end of March/start of April we should totally meet up and have coffee or something. I plan on riding the A train and charming people with my accent!

I have been around on other parts of the internet, even though I have been a terrible poster. I have been on twitter, like, all the fricking time. I live on Twitter. How did I survive work without Twitter? I have a service that allows me to use Twitter like a text message, where I just write out the message and send it to a number, which I find extremely cool. I get to text people all over the world for free! So I was discussing the Glee version of Teenage Dream as sung by AVPM's Darren Criss with

kaiserkuchen and she made an excellent point and so I replied

Yes, yes eye fucking, exactly \O/

You may notice the distinct lack of an @ at the beginning of that tweet (incidentally have I mentioned that I hate almost all the words associated with Twitter? Tweeting *shudders*) so of course it or rather Yes, yes eye fucking, exactly \O/
showed up on EVERYONE's feed. There was some confusion, but mostly in a "Oh, Lal, what is it this time?" kind of way. Which I appreciated. I feel it is a fairly accurate summary of my feelings on the subject anyway. It is extra amusing to me because just a few days I had been telling Kaz that it is basically my greatest fear that one day I will accidentally text Twitter instead of my boyfriend... I mean, going on what most of our conversations are like it will be something about the weather or poorly spelled shop signs but YOU NEVER KNOW.

I wrote a teeny tiny sequel to my Inception subway!AU fic, (AKA the fic of nothing but crosswords and snarkary, or My Subconscious Loves You,

brimtoast) for

bookshop 's fluff meme. I am well, well aware that this is NOT what I am supposed to be writing, but anyway, I did. This is because I am powerless to resist the lure of being ordered to write something delightful and schmoopy and because the fluff meme is like a big fuzzy blanket that I can wrap myself in after a particularly crappy day and because I wanted to do something nice for many reasons but mainly, as I said to C, because sometimes people in fandom are dicks. There is a little more further down the thread, by the way, so scroll down if you feel your sugar levels can take it...

I also went dancing a lot, which remains awesome. We are doing a samba routine at a Carnaval club night in December and my friend is trying to persuade us all to wear bikinis. I will be on Team More Than Bikinis, Oh Please, For The Love Of God, but I suspect my team will not win. Possibly we need a snappier name.

And you guys? How have you been? Didja miss me?!

Current Mood: excited

Well now.

People who know me will be utterly unsurprised to hear about this.

I write a lot of blog posts that I don't post. Like, a lot. I plan them all out in my head or sometimes even in Word, and then leave them be. But Lal, I hear you say (in a whisper of pixels) why would you do this?

Firstly, because I am the world's biggest procrastinator. Without proper deadlines/encouragement, and frankly, with them, I just do not get shit done. It's an issue.

Secondly, because these posts are not my usual "here is some stuff that has happened to me recently!" They are more Thinky Thoughts about all sorts of things that I get into my head. And, I'm not used to writing like that and not sure if anyone would be interested. And yes, I know, it's my own LJ. But sometimes I fret. It's an issue.

So I figured I would chat to y'all about it. Because then you can make me do it, because then you can tell what you would actually care about reading, because then you can remind me of all the other things I have said I'd blog about and, er, never have. :D! You will note that there is no actual "All of the Above" Option. This is because I am evil. But you can always elaborate in comments!

[Poll #1550375][Poll #1550375]

Current Mood: listless

Okay, so the posting more thing. That went well! The thing is, I have realised that I only tend to blog when I'm happy, and things have not been great, recently. I got made redundent and I had a series of days whee all I could think was "why do such bad thing happen to such good people?". So, yes. But, I am feeling more positive and thus more like blogging. And you know what this means, a meme! A lovely meme about writing, gakked from

rickey_a . This also seems a good moment to point you in the direction of my Author's page at the Archive of Our Own, which I am slowly but surely filling with nice, cleaned up versions of my fic. All handily stored in one place! For (HINTNUDGEHINT) ease of reading and commenting.

I am also declaring this post a "Ask Me About Writing" post. Just in case you had a question you wanted to ask me about anything I have ever written, or in general about being the horrible cliché of a writer that I am...

( I was going to call this Inside My Mind but I thought it might actually put people off )

Current Mood: pensive

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.

\o/

I also kept people still living in the past apprised of the situation re: zombie uprisings and robots. Still no hoverboots. I'll keep you posted!

Anyway, today being the first, I can reveal my Yuletide story! And also talk a lot about the phenomenon known as Yuletide madness. Oh! And explain my present to my December ladies (

pigrescuer ,

jorajo ,

miabee023 )

I wrote Tipping The Balance, a fic for The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. If you would like to go read and then come back, my ramblings below might make some sense... You can comment here or on the Archive of Our Own!

( The story of my Yuletide story, or how I stopped worrying and learnt to love my inner Neil Gaiman voice... )

And now I get to share Yuletide with everyone. Yuletide is amazing. There are thousands of fics, and I have hardly begun reading but seriously. There is fic for the unexpected and the delightful. I suggest that you go read

novembersmith 's recs, and then go to her author page and read everything there, because she was a crazy, wonderful person and wrote FOUR fics and I assure you, they are all AMAZING.

Plus, she deserves some extra love, because without her, I would never have got so very much Yuletide Treasure - a wonderful story of my own, some unbelievably nice comments, the proud, real ficcer feeling of having a AO3 account and the joy of seeing so many people just being so happy and geekishly delighted by things that they love. <3

Current Mood: nerdy

So, I plan to do a proper round up of the last year, like I did before with pictures and things and I want to find a good writing meme (if not I might just make one up but anyone seen any good ones floating about?)

But for I am going to talk about Christmas!

How did it go for y'all?

I had a lovely Christmas. It involved not doing very much for the first coupla days, which was awesome because, OMG SO TIRED. I went to stay with my boyfriend and his family in Warwickshire, so leading up to Christmas I had so many conversations that went

Me: Oh, I'm going to stay with Nat for Christmas.
Other Person: Oh REALLY?!
Me: It's not a big deal! All my family are abroad! This does not make me a grown up!

until when people started raising their eyebrows at me I could barely managed a defensive noise. Until

Me: YES, I'm going to stay with Nat's family, ok?
Other person: Oh REALLY? Ooo!
My Most Excellent Housemate Elliot: But no, it's not a big deal, all her family live abroad. Please don't freak Lal out. I prefer it when she doesn't wander our house muttering to herself.

I knew I was living with him for a reason that wasn't that he says "Epic Win!" a lot, and makes falafel.

But yes, I went and was generally fed and spoiled by Nat's mum, who is a good Jewish mother and frets that we do not eat properly. She also got very excited at having a girl to buy presents for after years of just Nat and his brother, so I ended up with all sorts of cool presents including green nail polish and some very swanky purple gloves. Whenever I put them on I feel like a femme fatale or other things that suggest I should stop reading so much fic *looks sternly at AI*

I also got an extension cable with a fuse from Nat (amongst other things, she says quickly, before he cries misrepresentation) because he worries that my bedroom is an electrical fire waiting to happen. We are so rock and roll!

Anyway, I also saw some random famous people (members of a band called The Enemy) in a oub, bringing my celebrity total for December up to 3. I think I might have forgotten to mention that I met Tracey Emin. She was selling her wares in a fake flea market in the Tate Modern.

And I had a wonderful time and liked all my presents very much, although I think my favourite and present of my HEART was that Kara got an artist to draw the first scene of my AI steampunk story!

!!!

Which I might put up someday when I get round to, you know, getting on with the story. It is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen and I kind of want to pet it and look at it forever.

Plus I got cards from various exciting places (I got yours today

taurenova ! Happy Hogswatch!) and what I am counting as an early present from Kaz, a tag of my very own (I just like tags, okay?)

I also got a very excellent Yuletide fic!

It is Nest Building and it is the most adorable thing that ever adorabled. I will never have a bad day again because I can just read this fic! And it sounds just like the book, I mean, exactly, pitch-perfectly like the book :D:D:D:D

I do not think that anyone has guessed my Yuletide fic yet (apart from the people that I told about it :D). There are prizes! Alright, there are no prizes. But there could be? Or clues. There could be clues.

And then I went off to London for two days to see the marmfish! We had so much fun, I cannot even tell you. Well, I can, and I will, as soon as I rescue my camera and upload my pics. Suffice to say, it was amazing and the marmfish remain amazing and I kind of miss them already,

And I do not have to go back to work for aaaaaaaaages because next week I am off to South Africa to see my Dad and two (TWO!) cricket tests. So you must all remind me to blog plenty before I leave.

Merry Between Times to you all!

You guys, Christmas is INSANE when you work in retail. And when you are working twelve hours days. And when you are trying to write a Yuletide fic that doesn't suck. And also have a life. So far, so good, but I'll let you know how long that lasts!

So, my job is going well! My days mostly go something like this

6.30ish - Get Up. Stagger around.

7.00 Bus No.1 Listen to mp3 player (I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue! Radio 4 comedy FTW)

7.31 Bus No.2 They not to fall asleep and have schoolchildren draw on me or some such.

8.30ish Lift from Coworker J. Discussion of how BLOODY COLD it is.

Working Day - Answer emails. French people tend to come in two modes, either Terrifyingly Polite or DRAMA CAPS THIS IS THE MOST TERRIBLE/WONDERFUL THING THAT THERE HAS EVER BEEN. It's kind of amusing, but a bit of a mood whiplash! Sneak read flist. Write about perfume. Go on Wordreference. Utterly fail to have a lunch hour. Promise people that their order will definitely be there by Christmas. Repeat.

5.30 Bus No. 1

6.30 Bus No.2

7.00 Get home. Collapse in heap...

I mean, I like my job, which is more than I could ever have hoped for, and I like having money (OMG MONEY!) but yes, that is a twelve hour day.

And so, I have three DARLING ladies who all have birthdays in December and who, by all rights should have something written for them from me... But... BUT, I will have a good surprise for you at the end of the month, I promise!

Yuletide fic carries on apace. I have the required amount of words, and remain hopelessly in love with my source. Sigh. If I can be a millionth as good as it, I will be happy! I spend a lot of time on the bus creating my own little world, and so far I'm pretty happy with it. Yuletide is so exciting! I had no idea! I feel so FESTIVE!

In terms of actually having a life, I went to London to visit Belle, Sal and Wren. It was delightful, and we got to see the canal boat which Wren lives on with her boyfriend and hear about Sal's crazy country adventures and Belle's internship with UNICEF. I love my friends, they are the very best kind of special snowflakes.

OH! Thank you for my snowflake gifts, lovely people! I was so touched. And I love that

ontd_ai broke LJ with them. This makes me happy.

AND FINALLY I got everyone's cards and etcs send out on Thursday, so you should start getting them any day now :D

I had to go to the Post Office in my lunch hour, which was interesting...

Lal: *enters with large bag of presents, feeling Santa-like*
PO Lady: Last international posting date stuff?
Lal: :)? *produces many letters*
POL: Is that everything?
Lal: Um... No? :)? :D?
POL: *sighs*
Lal: *sits on floor to stick stamps and labels and customs stickers*
Random Middle Aged Lady; It's good to see people make eccentric use of the floorspace.
Lal: Lady, you have NO IDEA. If you could see what was inside some of these envelopes...

So yes, I'm not dead, and I will see some of you soon (MARMFISH I AM EXCITED FOR OUR COOKIES ) and will be updating more in the future and generally being a better LJ friend and I hope that you are all well!

Current Mood: exhausted

So a few months the lovely

kaiserkuchen interviewed me for her Thesis paper - “Online Blogging & Young Women: The Use of Language and the Internet in Articulating Identity” and she sent me the transcript today. It's a really interesting topic that made me think a lot about me and online life and RL, plus seeing my rambling chattering put down in text form has amused me all day.

So I thought I would present to you selected highlights of The Story of Lal as Blogger, and if you want to chat about You as Blogger then that would be awesome, or if you would just like to ask me about anything I've said or why I use the word "like" so much, that would be cool too.

Also, it means I get to share my dreamwidth analogy with y'all. I am proud of it, what can I say! (--) means a pause, by the way. There are a good few...

Interviewer (Kaz!):When did you first start blogging and how did you even get started?

Lal: Well, I first started blogging properly just over a year ago (--) basically I was in a—I belonged to a Harry Potter fansite and the fansite folded, basically, and everyone switched to LJ. But I used to hang around and lurk on LJ before that, so to carry on and interact with the people I had met on this forum I got a Livejournal! And it was all downhill from there (laughs).

( Follow my progression downhill into the dark world of Blogs )

So, thoughts, fellow bloggers? This has mostly made me want to blog more. Can you start NaNoBloMo (where you blog every day for a month) halfway through a month? Or is that wicked cheating?

<3

Current Mood: pensive

So my poor

kaiserkuchen is writing her thesis and needs something to cheer her up, and we all seemed to be in agreement after my last post that Winter Fashion is great, so I thought I would make a post about it! I am by no means any sort of fashion expert or Style Icon, but, hey, I like clothes, and I love to talk about them and most of all ILKAZ.

It is no secret that I love Autumn, I love the colours and the smells and Halloween (yay dressing up!) and Bonfire Night (yay fireworks!)

And it is even less of a secret how much I like getting out my winter clothes.

Let's talk coats, the most important aspect of your Winter Wardrobe!

I have a bottle green wool coat that I've had for 3 years now and still adore. It came from Topshop so it's still in pretty good nick.

I like that it's not black, and the collar and the buckles are great details. But there are so many pretty coats about this season. And there are lots of nice coats for guys, too. There is nothing more stylish than a man in a good coat... There are lots of cool military ones for both sexes, and lots of nice retro ones too, which I like because I am a retro kind of girl (only not the wanky 'oh it's VINTAGE" scenester type. I hope!)...

I especially like all the very old fashioned styled ones with nipped in waists.

Like this, or this cute blue one

Or the cool detailed, slightly Steampunkish ones like these

Or (Modcloth ftw) combine two great Autumn things into one with a plaid coat,

OMG SO PRETTY.

Wouldn't the grey one look so cool with some brightly coloured tights and a matching knitted hat? Red perhaps...

Speaking of coloured tights, I have a whole drawer of them (Verity tells me some people think this is weird. Go figure!) in all the colours of the rainbow. Pretty much. Apart from orange. I will not lie to you lovely people, Autumnal as it may be as a colour, I do not much like orange... Tangentally, what would be the American equivalent of Autumnal? Fallish? Fallen? Fell?

I love my tights, though, because they make non winter outfits (ie skirts) into something suitable for the Frozen Wasteland that is Leeds, November - February. I love my city, you guys, but goddamn it gets cold and windy. And I own a lot of black (what?!) and tights are a good way to brighten or add interest to an outfit. Plus, I wear much shorter things with thick wool tights than I would ever DREAM of without...

My current hearts desire is some cute grey wool tights, which are sassy and cute, but not cutesy. I am picky!

Like these, look how they just hint at being sexy without being, like, suspenders or anything like that. Plus, soft and warm!

My other two items on my Winterware Wishlist are a proper wool beret and some new gloves.

Now, I love all things French, and I love hats, so I should really get on and buy myself a beret already, am I right? People who know me in RL would certainly agree, because I go all ♥_♥ whenever I see one in a shop. I want a proper felt one, perhaps this adorable berry coloured one from H&M (my favourite shop in the world. About half my clothes come from there, and about 3/4s of the ones I wear regularly. Affordable and so cool!)

I would also love some new glove mitten (glitten?) things. I do have some kick awesome gloves that Nat calls my 'emo kid gloves' because they are elbow length, black and white striped gloves with black buttons down the side. But I used to have glovittens, and they were great because you can have fingerless gloves for doing fiddly things like getting your change out and texting, but still have warm fingers when you put the mitten bits back over.

Accessorize has the best selection of these kinds of gloves (they call them capped gloves but I like my smoosh words better) that I've seen. Like these, aren't they adorable?

They also have super sexy leather gloves, and normal ones with bows. Oh, Monsoon and Accesorise, why must you be so shiny, and yet so expensive...

I also wanted to talk about boots. Yay boots! Also, arg boots. Shopping for boots is like shopping for jeans (did I mention I'm picky) because you are going to be wearing them a lot and they have to fit just right. It took me about 2 years (no, really) to find the perfect pair and I plan to wear them forever. They are brown and have just enough heel. I also have some white material boots that I like to refer to as my steampunk boots and have absolutely no idea what to wear with. I'm working on it, never fear.

In conclusion, here is a what Autumn!Lal looks like, in coat and tights and boots. Do you love boots and coloured tights too? Talk fashion to me, darlings, I'm all ears under my snuggly hat.

(I'm all contradictions too, because I feel like I should make my next entry about something really deep/ungirly. I am so weird, y'all.)

( Coat love! )

Things to ignore in this picture, my face, the mess of cables on the floor, how yellow the walls look, my face, the fact that I am wearing red and green and look over Christmassy.

Current Mood: hat wearing
Current Music: I Can't Stay - The Killers

See, I have not thrown myself off the top of the Parkinson Building. I realise I rather freaked out at y'all then ran away and didn't post for WEEKS. Please accept my apologies. But people keep asking me questions like "What are you going to do with your life?" and I just don't know.

I'll keep you posted.

So, what have I been doing with my time, you may well ask. Well, I have been having terrible days like the one last week I decided that replacing my foundation was a luxury I couldn't afford. Plus, you know, all the days with conversations that went something like this -

Dad: *makes plans*
Nat: *makes plans*
Dad and Nat: *look at me expectantly*
Lal: What I am bringing to this conversation is the ability not to curl up in a ball and cry. Go me.

I don't like talking about this too much here, because I am useless with sympathy and am incapable of talking about serious things for too long. I have no talent for unhappiness, it makes me feel self concious. I tend to rather make bad jokes.

*makes an abrupt change of subject instead*

Thank you, everyone, for all your reasons to be cheerful that you left for me. The theme seemed to be very much pretty boys and cake. I love that you know me so well! My flist is a Reason to be Cheerful, no doubt about it. I highly recommend the comments if you are feeling down.

And I have been having good days, great days too. I went to the Isle of Man for a week with Nat and was fed by my family and bought books by my friends. It's one of those things I may get round to blogging about properly, one of these days. They were all good days.

Or the day I met the lovely

vandulocity for coffee in the arcade (I love the arcade, it makes me feel fancy!) and we had a good old fashioned marmfishy chat.

(A marmfishy chat - One that goes off on tangents, makes other people around you look at you strangely, includes many references to books, the internet, food and, of course, marmalade.)

Or the day that I got exciting post from Kaz *swishes around in her new earrings and drinks thai green tea*

Or any day that I watched an episode of Glee.

In other Lal related news, seeing as we are playing catch up...

My Dad is moving to South Africa! Which is exciting for him, and also for me. Just in time for the World Cup! I will be much more excited about going to visit him now. SA trumps the Isle of Man on so many levels, let's face it... Sunshine, glorious sunshine!

I am really enjoying living in my New House. Though it is not so new any more, seeing as I've been here 2 months. I still miss my lovely ladies of the Hessles, but my new housemates kind of rock, too.

There's Elliot, who I've known for about 3 years, but we only discovered last year that we are ridiculously alike and share a freaky psycic connection that means we KICK ASS at pictionary/charades/The Hat Game/Anything that requires you to be on the same wavelength. He does talk about maths a lot, but then no one is perfect.

Then there are two new girls, Jill and Eve. They are both so nice, I feel we are very lucky to have found them. We three girls watch cookery shows together and judge the contestants terribly.

It is Autumn! I realise this is not exactly breaking news, but I love Autumn. The fallen leaves are so pretty, and smell so good. And I get to break out my brown boots and my green wool coat and all my thick coloured tights. And I love summer dresses, really I do, but I love tights and knitwear and hats more.

So, that is me. Any news from where you are? How is uni, new uni people? How goes your writing, writers? (play! Remind me to sort out and send you the notes I made of YOUR BOOK *throws more confetti*) How is YOUR freak out going, dearest C? How is the thesis, Kaz? How the devil are you, everyone?

Current Mood: drained

Requests at the end, first, DELIGHT!

I am delighted, yet again, because my tee shirt came! You can buy them at Shop Marmalade! It's much greener than it looks in the picture. It's uber soft as well, you know how tees shirts get after you've had them a little while, only this came like that.

Here is a picture of me being a total poser in it.
( Je suis poseur )

And also what I believe they call 'The Money Shot'
( isn't the lettering the CUTEST?! )

I have also found out that you can preorder my friends' band's album from Amazon! I find this remarkably exciting. They are unfairly talented and charming boys, who always have something smart to say. For example, regarding So Tomorrow, one of my favourites, they say

The song was written for a friend of ours who was so anxious about his future and his decisions that he couldn’t move forward at all. OSA have on occasions found themselves equally bewildered by the choices that they see before them. We live in a dual world where every small personal decision we make might have enormous consequences; eg. when OSA buy a cheap pair of trainers are we saving money so we can pay our rent, or are we supporting the abuse of a 14 year old in a sweat shop in the Phillipines? AAAAAAAAAAAAAggggggggggggg

ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So Tomorrow asks how much time we can afford to spend feeling guilty, and whether it might not be better to go out, take up cigarettes and stop waiting for life to miraculously become easy.

And to all of those of you who are anxious about the future, just remember: It’s not happened yet!

So, in the sprit of the thing, I have started to apply for a Masters in Applied Translation. ARG. Terrified!

Anyway, I am very happy but utterly museless. I really want to write, but I can't think of what. So, I'm taking request. Anything you've ever wanted to ask me about? Go for it. Want me to write you some fic? Just just tell me what. Specific as you like, in fact, go super specific, I need help and inspiration! I'll blog/write/well thats all I can do because I fail at drawing whatever you like.

HAVE AT IT!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: in a sunspot
Current Music: OSA So Tomorrow

Many Things!

Bloody hell, you guys, organising the Sekrit Book Club is both fraught and fabulous. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sorry, the First Rule of Sekrit Book Club is, Don't Talk About Sekrit Book Club. If you do, come on, join in!

Tangentally, the last time

sarahtales put up a cookie from her book I mentioned that it made me think of Alan teaching Nick with butter knives, which led

disorderedmess to draw this. Cute, n'est pas? Even though it kind of shouldn't be.

The cutest thing, however, has to be the companion for Princess Micie that

cellophane_ria drew especially for me! Meet Miss Malin Mouse. She is just ADORABLE. I haven't had anything drawn for me in, well, ever. Many hearts and kudos for her <3.

Also, everyone in the world should go and read Wicked Gentlemen, by Ginn Hale. I have about half of a Review and Reasoning post done, so if you need more reasons you should have them soon. But trust me, its excellent.

I loved it, and wanted more of it, and so I wrote some fic for it, well, more of a drabble really. The book has an amazing style to it, which means that I am torn between feeling proud and worrying that it is horribly overdone and off the mark. I have never been so torn by something I've written! So please, for the sake of my sanity, tell me about it.

Its partly for Nat, who put up with me being the horrible stereotype of a writer and getting up at 2am to write some of this down. I am that cliché. I once wrote a scene on a napkin.

Title: Impact
Fandom: Wicked Gentlemen
Pairing: Belimai/Harper
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 440
A/N: For the disconnected, and for our tiny but talented fandom. Set in between "Crooked Teeth" and "Liar".

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nervous

( I have just gone through this and feel there should be some sort of disclaimer. You know like people put Warning! SPOILERS! Well I think this post should have a Warning! TANGENTS! I can only hope that what I lack in coherency.... You know the rest.)

As you may or may not know, I currently live in the lovely English city of Leeds, but I am not from there. Here. Anyway. Also, last year I did not live in Leeds, but the also quite lovely French city of Nantes. So I have come back to Leeds and have fallen hopeless back in love with it, in short, I feel like I have come home. I have a theory about why this might be, which I call The Duckling Theory.

Allow me to explain. I have moved around a lot. When I describe my parents as nomads but without the camels I am not kidding, by the time I was 5 we were on house number 5 and continent number 2. Apart from the first move from South Africa for political reasons, and knowing my parents probably because they felt like it, all these moves have been basically just on a whim. This, as you can imagine, did not go down all that well with Little Lal when given as a reason for having to leave her friends and her house and be The New Girl at school again. I made new friends and now realise that it was a pretty amazing experience, but I have been left with a frankly bizarre accent and a sense of not belonging. Everywhere I have lived in my life I was dragged to, mostly kicking and screaming all the way, and none of the places feel like home. But Leeds, I went round the country looking at universities, and I chose Leeds, it was mine. Therefore, like a duckling looks at the first thing it sees and thinks 'mother!', I look at Leeds, the first place I chose, and think 'mother city!' When people say "Where are you from?" I have an answer. That may not sound particularily exciting, but to me having a hometown is amazing. I can only hope this made sense (and that The Duckling Theory becomes a widespread, academic term).

I love Leeds for lots of other reasons too. For a start pretty much the entire student population is remarkably well dressed. I spent the summer on my Isle, where most people's idea of high fashion is designer sportsware, so I makes me happy to see lots of people being both stylish and individual. With a few notable exceptions. *gets on soapbox*
People of Leeds, nay, of the world. Can we all agree that this skinny jeans thing has gone on far too long and collectively move on? Please. They are NOT flattering on most people, I'm including boys in this as well. If you are too thin they make you look weird and unwell with massive feet, if you are even a little bit curvy they make you look huge. There are many cuts of jeans out there, ones to suit everyone. Be original, diversify!
Also, shorts with tights makes me feel quite violent. But for the most part, everyone just looks cool, beause Leeds is a damn cool place.

I love Leeds even though today the weather went from for-October-almost-tropical sunshine to End-Of-The-World rain in a matter of 15 minutes. Hey, no one's perfect, and love is acceptance of flaws right?! It also gave me an oppurtunity to indulge in one of my favourite sports, umbrella watching. There are some amazing umbrellas out there that give me lustful and covertous thoughts. I only found out recently where the word umbrella comes from (the latin for shade, like ombre, which means shadow in French.) In a rare example of the French language being logical they call an umbrella un parapluie - for the rain. And weirdly in English we use their two other words like like this parasol - for the sun and parachute - for the fall (totally my favourite), but not parapluie. English fails at logic.

I love Leeds because I love my uni. It has the best Student Union, which is both a massive central building and an organisation. The building has shops and facilities and the organisation runs literally hundreds of societies and also helps students with any problem. I love my departments, who are filled with crazy but cool and enthusiastic professors. I love the uni library, the Brotherton. If you've ever seen the film The Mummy the library in that is our library. It's the closest I will ever get to Hogwarts...

Today I also realised I love Leeds because it contains people I love, but also hundreds of thousands of people I don't know. I walk along and look at people and that other bit of my brain, the bit where all the crazy is stored, wonders who they are and what their story is. They could be anyone. They could share my interests. They could be someone whose story I have read on lj, whose opinion I've agreed with or who said they liked my Havemercy fic. They could be one of my favourite online authors. Or not. I love that. Before I lived here I lived on The Isle of Man (haven't heard of it? Don't worry, no one has. It's a tiny country in between England and Ireland, part of the British Isle but NOT the U.K ) and it is about as far away from that as possible. I know everyone, and everyone knows me. I should say that I am the worst representative of the IoM ever. I tend to dwell on its bad points, the dullness, the narrow mindedness, the isolation, and not point out, for example, that it is remarkably pretty. Seriously, google it, it couldn't be more picturesque if it tried. But I can't make up stories for people I see in the street, because I know them already.

So if my last post was an ode to fandom, this is an ode to Leeds, to finding somewhere where you feel you belong, which is a lot more difficult than it is made out to be. It is a long and crazy loved up ramble, but I hope you've got something out of it, even if it is just finding out where the Isle of Man is...

Current Mood: loved

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laliandra

October 2016

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Page Summary

*stares at you all adoringly*
Still To Do: Everything
I Always Pick All of the Above Wherever Possible!
Just write, self. Just write.
Making the Yuletide Gay!
Treasure Troves
News From The Frontline
Blogging is totes a scholarly pursuit
A la Mode
*Is Not Dead*
In which Lal takes requests and has a Zombie Boyfriend (onlynotreally)
Wicked Gentlemen and cute creatures
I heart Leeds. Hmm, I wonder if there are tee-shirts...

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A Study in Contradictions

Entries tagged with warning!tangent!

stares at you all adoringly

Still To Do: Everything

I Always Pick All of the Above Wherever Possible!

Just write, self. Just write.

Making the Yuletide Gay!

Treasure Troves

News From The Frontline

Blogging is totes a scholarly pursuit

A la Mode

Is Not Dead

In which Lal takes requests and has a Zombie Boyfriend (onlynotreally)

Wicked Gentlemen and cute creatures

I heart Leeds. Hmm, I wonder if there are tee-shirts...