A Study in Contradictions

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?

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!

So we drove down as far as Luton and stayed in a Travelodge. It was not exactly the most glamorous night of our lives.

On Saturday we made it safely to Belle's house in the Tropics (if by the tropics you mean Middlesex and I do) where there no snow. No snow at all! Our tiny minds were blown... Then we all ventured into London to sample the delights of the food market on the South Bank. We shamelessly exploited all the free samples on offer. It appears that student living leaves its mark. The plan had been to wander the German Market but we spent a lot of time mocking the extremely poor "Snow Globe Experience" and then it rained a lot so what we actually did was go to (HUT THING) and drink very sweet mulled wine. I was meeting my other two housemates from university, Sal and Wren, and their boyfriends, and it was great. I miss my girls a lot.

Then we planned to go to Covent Garden but it was raining and we got distracted by the giant ship in a bottle on the Forth Plinth, so what we actually did was go to the pub. Are you noticing a pattern here? We were forced into having extremely grown up conversations about our jobs (Belle teaches English as a second language, Wren works for the Historical Royal Palaces Society and Sal for a children's charity. My friends are vastly more impressive than me) and our housing situation and the cost of travel and the weather.

Then when we were done with that we got talking about books, which always happens and had about a half hour discussion about YA and how The Book Thief is amazing and made me and Sal bawl our eyes out. Apparently telling people this does not make them want to read the book. But you should! Because it's really good! We were standing in the corner of the pub and the whole thing became kind of animated because we all care a lot about books and the Australians sitting at the table next to us clearly thought that we were all crazy and/or some kind of in pub entertainment.

Me: But once you get past the genocide! It's actually very uplifting!

Belle: The whole thing made me want to ring my brother and yell at him and then *makes sweeping gesture* I don't know, tell him he's awesome.

Sal: Where was all this teen literature when I was a teenager? 14 year old me is PISSED OFF.

Me: Oh, you know Nat doesn't read fiction.
Wren: (Her boyfriend) neither.
The four of us: *turn as one and tut at the boyfriends*

We went out for dinner and while we were in the bar waiting I got a text update from twitter in which moleskinned quoted some fic and I got these terrible snorting giggles.

Everyone: What, Lal, what?
Me: Er. You wouldn't, it's a, never mind. Internet joke.
Wren: It's going to be about porn, isn't it?
Belle and Sal: *nod sagely*
Sal's boyfriend who has not spent a lot of time with us as a group: *gives Sal a 'they seemed like such nice girls' look*

Sunday was a particularly lovely day that we spent on the canal boat that Wren lives on with her boyfriend. It's like a real house all condensed down into a teeny tiny floating space, which Wren has also managed to make stylish and lovely with cushions and baubles and plants. We were talking about how Wren is very good at growing things.

Wren's Boyfriend: I won the longest chilli competition at work.
Me: *tries not to laugh*
Sal: *starts to giggle*
Me: *catches Sal's eye*
Me, Sal, Belle and Wren: *all laugh at once*
All the boys: *look confused*

Then we took the boat out down the Thames. It was a gorgeous day and we made it to Hampton Court Palace. AKA Wren's office. Like I said, vastly cooler than me.

Wren gave us her tour and I added ridiculous but nonetheless true facts about the Tudors and may have suggested that Henry VIII was kind of foxy. You know. In his day.

Then we drove the boat back and made mulled wine. It's very important that you get those steps in the right order.

The next day I went to meet the extremely marvellous hanelissar and altogetherisi for mooching and Harry Potter watching. While Hannah and I were waiting in Waterloo for Isi we went to WH Smith and rearranged their children and young adult section so that all the copies of Hush, Hush and Crescendo were covered by other books.

( Further Fabulous Adventures (because this entry is already flist killingly long) )

The whole thing has left me in a far superior mood for the whole week. Clearly all I needed was to spend some time with people who I can be myself with. Which seems to mostly involve making all bystanders stop in their conversations, but that's practically a tradition in my family.

Have you all had good weeks/weekends? Ready for Christmas (ahahahaha I am so not, before you ask)

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!

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!

Hello Darlings!

So, the time approaches for us to celebrate Chirstmassy Yuletidey Wintery things. I love finding and making cards, so, if you would like one, leave me your address! Wherever you are in the world, I don't mind.

Spammers, I think I have all you guys, and Ari, home address or uni address?

But everyone else, comment on this post with yours. If you don't want to share it with the world wide web then comment anonymously (just sign yourself out of LJ) and that will be screened for your protection and privacy!

Also, if you would like any specific kind of card (Christmassy, Hanukkah-y, Leeds-y, Fandom-y, Hogswatch-y, Sorry we killed Jesus-y) then tell me that too!

YAY POST. I am about five years old when it comes to post. Seriously.



And finally. The question is, is this the Kris Allen icon of my heart, or should I go with

So, let's talk writing...

I signed up for yuletide . \o/ It's after Bonfire Night, we can talk about Christmassy things now, right?

For those who don't know, yuletide is a fic exchange, but for small fandoms. Which I like the idea of, because some of my very favourite fandoms are, well, bijou? Cosy? Anyway, I have offered myself to write all manner of exciting things and if it all goes horribly wrong I shall be blaming novembersmith who, in the grandest traditions of the marmfish, will probably blame me...

Anyone else doing yuletide this year? Or any other kind of fic exchange? Any tips for a total newbie? I am super excited about it. I want my prompt now!

So, I am really going to have to try to finish That Damn Steampunk AU. Currently I am stalled a little, and mildly concerned that it is slightly chatchatflirtporridgechatEPICAIRSHIPBATTLEchat. Oh well. Could be worse.

It also has no name, and I can't call it SPAU for all time. It's a little like SPEW, for a start! Um, help?

It does have a kick awesome summery, though, if I say so myself. "In which Captain Kristopher loves his airship but needs a hobby and Prince Adam is unbalancing. Featuring sky pirates, political machinations, unexpected weaponry and Much Ado About Cogs"

And finally, NaNoWriMo people, how goes it? I am so proud of you all, and expect great things! I will be over here cheerleading like crazy.

Like this *\o/*

<3 Lal

ps. all y'all who had thoughts about blogging, I am in awe of your depth of thought. My flist wins at life.