Random Dionysian Fandom Chick

Dear Yuletide Author,

First of all, thank you thank you thank you! I am SO excited and looking forward to this whole process. :) (The first part I cribbed off of my letter last year, but I figure, why reinvent the wheel, you know?)

In general, I like 'shippy stuff, and witty banter, and have a particular love of thick and heavy UST (depending on the couple, and how much that fits their personality, of course.) My biggest sticking point/wish is that characters be in character or have good, well thought out reasons *not* to be in character. ::g:: Any rating you'd like to write is ok with me.

More particularly (thoughts and suggestions you are free to include or not as it moves you):

Haven: I have developed a total obsession with the whole "Nathan can feel Audrey's touch" issue. I'm not particularly interested in just a PWP with these two, but would love something that looks at the UST and sensuality of Nathan secretly being able to feel any time Audrey touches him, or even after he's revealed to her that he can feel her, and it being *their* little secret and the new dimensions that it brings to their relationship.

I also <3 the idea of Nathan/Audrey/Duke as a threesome, and any plot or PWP potential there-in. :)

The Changeover: Mostly, I'd love to get a glimpse into what Laura and Sorry's life is like once they return to school after she's changed and the whole issue with Jacko is taken care of.

Greek Mythology: any sort of Dionysus-centric fic would be fabulous. :)

Warehouse 13: I love Pete/Myka of course, but I am also fascinated with the relationship between Myka and H.G.. (And I would never say no to Myka/H.G./Pete fic.)

Much love and thanks,

Koren

This fills me with huge amounts of glee: twelvecolonies

If you're interested, you should go sign-up. I'm on teamgalactica. :) If you tell them I sent you, I will get cookies. Or at least extra points for my team, probably.

(FYI: Challenge communities, like legendland, whedonland, twelvecolonies and etc. are groups that give you everything from drabble contests to graphic-making contests, to fandom-specific puzzles and games, all of which earn you points for your team (most comms have 3 or 4 teams). Usually, you can participate in anything from one event a week to all of them (different comms have different numbers of events and things, of course.) You don't have to do things outside of your comfort level (if you don't like to write, you don't have to do the fic challenges, etc) but there's normally enough variety that there's something for everyone.) More info is available on those sites' user info pages, of course.

As long as I stay on top of what's going on, I don't have much trouble managing multiple challenge comms. I'm enjoying them more than doing task-specific comms like icontests or drabble-writing comms, probably because of the variety of events. I'm trying to convince myself I really shouldn't go try and find the Harry Potter one I know is floating around somewhere...

I've had a week. I have a sneaking suspicion the next one won't be a lot better from that standpoint, though it certainly has the potential of being better in some areas. (The part I'm not quite so encouraged about is the part that would be roll-over from this week.)

I washed out of the writing round of startrekbigbang, and am about to do the same thing with the polybigbang unless the word-fairy helps me out with a miracle today. I really hate that, because to me it means I wasn't on the ball and was procrastination girl and therefore it's my own damn fault. I do that with way too many things.

There are big weeks going on over at whedonland and legendland and in both cases, they snuck up on me and now they're in full swing and I don't feel like I have a good grasp of what's going on, how it works, or what I should be doing. Therefore, when I run across those posts, I feel sort of like you would imagine someone would feel running alongside a train who's steadily increasing it's speed as it leaves the station.

The main reason for that is, quite simply, I've had a bad week. I haven't slept well (by which I mean that I've either fallen asleep before I meant to, and therefore in a weird position and done that thing where you keep waking up just enough to know you need to move, but not enough to *actually* move, or I've fallen asleep ok but woken up incredibly stiff, sore, and tired. It's not unusual, but a week and a half (or more) in a row of it is very draining. And when my energy gets low (it doesn't take a lot, I don't have much to begin with) then I get very muddle-headed. Like VERY muddle-headed. Like, I can't read a paragraph (or sometimes a sentence) without fading out on it and not understanding what's going on or what it's saying. I'm in no way, shape, or form a stupid person, but that level of tired makes me into one, and I really sort of hate it. Caffeine can only do so much, and I have to watch how much of that I have anyway.

In completely other news, I'm now the Secretary for the Board of Whedonites United. There's all sorts of stuff surrounding that giving me stress, but I feel a really strong calling to do more in terms of fandom community organization to help fulfill that side of my job as a priestess to Dionysus. I do a lot of the religious stuff already, but fandom community has been neglected for the last several years.

Oh, and the husband just enrolled (today - well, yesterday, now) in Massage Therapy school. I'm really quite proud of him, and overall am very pleased with this turn of events. We have to meet with the Financial Aid office there next week, and classes start the middle of next month. Hopefully he'll be able to get financial aid and hopefully anything that doesn't cover his family will be willing to help out with. But this should - no, this *WILL* open up a lot of opportunities for him both now and for his (well, our) future. So I'm pleased and hopeful.

Tomorrow (Today) is Rosh Hoshanah, so I'll be busy all day helping kadollan get ready, and cook, and so forth.

Dear Fandom Writers,

First, let me say that I am inordinately fond of your work. Virtually any mood that I'm in, I can count on you to provide me with a story that will complement it, or correct it, should I so desire. I love your creativity, your possibilites, and your infinite variety.

I whole-heartedly believe that you have the right to write whatever stories you wish, with whatever content you wish, however you wish to write them.

However.

If you are going to write a story with content or themes that may be disturbing or triggering for someone, please, for the love of all the gods, do not warn for it, and then proceed to outline in detail (even if it's not graphic) in the summary exactly how those warnings are going to play out in the story behind the cut.

It's really not cool.

Sincerely,

Me

You don't have to sign up for the community in order to vote - it's FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Seriously, the more voters the better.

In case you aren't familiar with the system, pre-registered competitors write drabbles, which are all posted together anonymously. You vote for your most favorite and least favorite, so every week there's a winner and one or two people who get voted out, until there's a "Last Drabble Writer Standing". In this case, all drabbles have to mention Draco, Ginny, or Draco/Ginny, and there's a different prompt every week. We're having a blast, and it would be wonderful if you could take a minute to stop by and read and vote.

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post.

C'mon y'all. PLAY WITH ME.

Gakked from most recently kadollan (who had better come up with some since she made me play in the first place! :) )

Fandom lost a great writer and friend this morning. :( simons_flower will be greatly, greatly missed. More info here.

My own memories:

I first met Trisha when I started playing in the HP fandom - specifically when I started looking for Trio fic. Over the years she was one of those authors I got to know on a personal level and who I came to consider a friend as well as a favorite author. Frankly, at the moment I'm still in shock and kind of dumb-founded.

::cries::

I'm posting the icons that came from this week's challenges at str_icontest (#5: Out of Character), richlan_ic (#19), and seekerstillness (#6). All of the images were provided by the community as prompts, and the textures used are from Hybrid Genesis (hgx).

9 Chris Pine
5 Zachary Quinto
4 Richard/Kahlan (Legend of the Seeker)
1 Richard  (Legend of the Seeker)
1 Kahlan (Legend of the Seeker)
1 Denna (Legend of the Seeker)

Teaser:


( The Icons )

There's also the harrypotterbang, which is pretty much anything-goes HP-themed Big Bang, and polybigbang which is a multi-fandom polyship-themed Big Bang.

I'm already signed on as an Author and a Mixer for the startrekbigbang.

I know it *sounds* like I'm a crazy person, but really, half of these are going to be pieces that I've got a big chunk of sitting on my harddrive, just waiting for an excuse to see the light of day.

(Really, this is a tricky trick on my life to get the universe to provide a job that will make all of these fic obligations a million times harder. Murphy's Law and all, you know. ;) )

Um.  Hi.

I haven't been around much.  And I'm not actually 100% sure that this is a change in that particular trend, but ::shrug::.

I want to write things down and record them.  I want to keep a running tally of my life, online, and use the materials and tools that I have at my disposal to do so... I'm just not sure *how* to do that.

That's not exactly right.  I suppose, in an abstract way, I do know how to do it.  I could write you manuals and papers about how all these things work, but I'm not sure how to apply them to my life.  What things do I want to record?  How do I want to keep up with them?  Like my physical surroundings, if I had a cut and dried system of where things went and how things should be sorted and what kinds of classificiations and distinctions I should be making, then I could impose some kind of order on things.  I'm just not sure what those things are *for me*.

Take ravelry, for instance.   I can record what yarns I own, what projects I'm working on, etc.  There's also a tagging system, that would allow me to organize and categorize and classify my projects, my queue (projects I want to make someday), and my "favorites" (things I just thing are neat) into categories that are meaningful to me.  I know that many people are able to create and use tags in a completely organic way, and that works for them.  I, however, can guarantee you I need a better basic structure than that (because I've *tried* the completely organic thing, and it doesn't work).  So I need to decide at the outset that I'm going to mark all my books with a tag "book" and further that I'm going to call science fiction "speculative" and not "sci-fi", "scifi", "science fiction" and "science fic".  Because I *WILL* do the later if I'm not properly prepared beforehand.

Then there's the age-old question of "what kind of a planning system do I need to be using?  What do I need to keep track of?  I have several little peices and ideas, but I don't know what the picture is yet or even what shape the puzzle is.  I know that I need a hard copy, paper calendar I can carry around, that's small and lightweight, and has the months in it with plenty of room to write.  I finally figured out a year or so ago that I "see" and "think" of time in months, so that's the best way for me to see my schedule.  Daily pages are *way* too excessive, and weekly pages seldom get used.  I know that I need some kind of contact/address book, and it needs to have both a high-tech component and a low-tech (ie, written on paper) component as well.

Going back to calendars for a moment, while I know I need a paper calendar, I also want/need to use my Google Calendar because that's where many of my events and activities first get posted, and I have several friends calendars I'm linked to.

I have my LJ tags where I want them (I think) but none of my others are that organized.  (Also, I feel like I should at some point go back and tag the old LJ entries from the before times when there weren't any tags so that they'll be searchable too.)

Any thoughts/advice/etc would be appreciated.

*****

In completely other news, I'm on Clue 1 of the new Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl, and while I can't say that the Knit Picks' Gloss Lace is flipping my switch all that much as a yarn overall, I LOVE the color I'm using (Mango).  It's a nice, cheerful orange-y peach that makes me happy when I look at it.  Which is a good thing, considering how depressed I've been lately. 

I've finished one of two socks for the Hogwarts Sock Swap (5), and I know I need to get cracking on the other one (it's due the 28th).  

My swap-ee for the Reducio! swap seemed very pleased with her package, and I'm pretty pleased with the idea/execution of said idea that I came up with.

*****

The House season finale blew me away and left me climbing the walls for next season.  I still need to go watch the season finale of Dollhouse, but I really liked "Briar Rose".  We're having to wait to watch the last two eps of NCIS because I had to put the Netflix on hold until I can deposit my next check (I was stupid, didn't keep up with my money well enough and accidentally went overdrawn).   Castle was lovely, though, and I'm THRILLED BEYOND BELIEF that it's coming back.  

I'm both looking forward to, and a bit nervous about the new season of Jon&Kate+8 starting on Monday.

I got a look at the 2009-2010 Upfronts at TV.com and I have to say I'm pretty happy with them.  I don't see the House spin-off though?  But there's a bloody lot of genre shows, which pleases me to no end.  And I've already checked out the pilot ep of Glee and can't wait to see more.  

I'm loving the new season of In Plain Sight (Mary/Marshall for the win! though Brandy/Peter are pretty cute, too) and the more I see of Royal Pains the more I want to actually watch it.  

*****

I'm reading New Moon right now, and liking it ok.  I'm not turning into a rabid fan, but I don't think that it sucks, either.
 

Speaking of rabid fan-girl-ness, I want more Star Trek OMGOMGOMG.  I also loved Wolverine, and was quite pleased with Angels and Demons.  The pacing of A&D is much better than it was in The DaVinci Code, I think.  I've finally see the original Night at the Museum, and want to see the sequel.  I wouldn't mind seeing Terminator: Salvation in the theatres either, which is kind of weird since I never liked any of the original Terminator movies.  But Christian Bale is lovely.  Speaking of lovely, "Australia" was lovely - and Hugh Jackman is ::guhdroolguh::.  

*****
WhedonFest is going to eat my brain.  I know it is.  And I'm going on a trip the weekend before, and GI Joe comes out somewhere in there.

Oh, and Skin Trade (the new Anita Blake) is out on the 2nd of June.  Want. Badly.

*****
Finally, I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday this month.  My Brain Age is 42 right now, I've cleared all the Basic Sudoku levels, am on World 6 in the New Mario Bros. and am trying to find all the zoo animals in My Sims Kingdom.