katemonkey, I saw this and thought of you. Oh yes I did.



( And a quizmeme )

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

Have planned a term of shinyness for the Rainbows including Carnival and Penguins and entering of Centenary competions.

Then came home to find Mum watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on BBC3 ♥ Peter was standing their being all noble and I realise it's been AGES since I rewatched the first film and oh I love them all so very very much when Peter is noble and Edmund is determined and totally looking up to him and Susan is brave and competent and Lucy is just the best one of all (okay Peter is the BEST best one of all but Lucy's fab) and Lucy when Mr Tumnus is de-stoned and the hug *points to icon* and and and ♥♥♥

Is it Dawn Treader time yet?

Also we now have snow here. Not a lot as yet but it wasn't supposed to be hitting till gone midnight and then more tomorrow so we'll see.

Early experimentation with .exe files, winrar and a little judicious replacement of file extensions indicates that when Virgin media say all executable files will bounce when sent via email, even if they are zipped, even if there's no extension, they are no match for even the mildly technically minded.

On which note, Alyse and I were talking about sheep.exe a while back, and if you would like to grab it (rared with winrar), feel free :) (unrar with Winrar), double click to set it going. Most I've ever managed was 27 instances running simultaneously, but my pc didn't enjoy it ::g::

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

Last year I saw 57 plays.

*pauses for a moment*

I'm still slightly scared by that. In 2008 I saw 27 plays which means I've more than double my theatre going and easily surpassed my totally not real goal of seeing a play a week (on average).

Of course actually that total includes things that aren't EXACTLY plays and which I could probably take out now, a Caberet thing and a couple of story readings, but I'm counting them this time because I want to :-D

4 were repeats of things I'd seen in previous years (RSC Hamlet, Avenue Q and Frontline, Phantom). Also I saw 2 musicals multiple times (Hairspray twice and La Cage five times)

2 were new productions of plays I'd already seen (Othello and Hamlet)

Of the others a few were familiar stories I'd just never seen on stage (Taming of the Shrew, Sunset Boulevard, Legally Blonde *g*) but a lot were entirely new to me and actually a fairly impressive number were either premieres or plays still in their first few years.

I went to the National Theatre 11 times with a fairly even split between the three theatrs there. I saw 6 things at the Globe and 6 Donmar productions (2 at Wyndhams and 4 at the warehouse itself). I went to 3 RSC productions, 3 things at the Royal Court and I went to both Sadlers Wells and the Young Vic twice. Everywhere else is once except for repeats (so I went to the Playhouse 5 times *g*)

( Ramblings about actors )

Favourite play Jerusalem, though with several close runners up including Arcadia, Our Class, Cock and A Doll's House.

Favourite musical I am completely torn between Legally Blonde and La Cage Aux Folles (though Sunset Boulevard was VERY enjoyable and has stuck in my mind).

Last year I wrote a sentence about each play, this year I... would probably not make this post till about March if I tried that *g* though I might later for my own amusement. Still they're all linked to their reviews.

( Plays (etc) I saw in 2009 )

So far I've got 6 things booked for 2010, well 4 plays if I'm only properly counting those this time and then TERRY PRATCHETT and then STEPHEN SONDHEIM. As to the rest of the year? Well we'll see.

I totally mean to do my 2009 theatre post this evening and some other online bits BUT THEN Mum suggested we watched the second episode of Cranford which we'd recorded (from it's VERY late night repeat with sign language).

So that was lovely. Am now more in love with Tom Hiddleston than ever *sighs* also Tim Curry's overacting is fab and ALL of the ladies of Cranford are just ♥_♥

And then, still with the lingering feeling of warmth and fuzziness, I decided to catch up on the Christian & Syed storyline on Eastenders.

*stares into mid air a bit*

Not quite so warm and fuzzy now. More broken into tiny little pieces. I haven't even watched tonight's episode but really :-(

So yes. Theatre tomorrow maybe. And then Venice after that I hope *nods*

I find myself yearning for the nastiest kink of them all: something really vanilla. Where both parties have agency and make active choices. Where someone says no and they go do something else instead. Where bedtime means sleeping and wordlessly fighting over the covers and warming up the shower because you know she hates the cold tiles.

I think I'm missing real people.

Oops?

Anyway, I jumped on the bandwagon and have an account at formspring. Feel free to ask me anything (questions are anonymous). If I can, I'll answer.


Talking of asking questions, I've been looking at my stats on LJ, and am bemused by how many people seem to be lurking around here. *waves at lurkers* It's not many, but I wasn't expecting *any*, so... :)

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

Before I start this post can I just make a quick PSA I have not watched Doctor Who yet. Everyone's being utterly fab with the lj-cuts so far but, well, I can quite see that will slip soon and anyway people may well assume I have and, well, I haven't.

ANYWAY

The point of this post is last year's books!

84 books read (that's about one every 4 days which isn't bad *g*), only 12 of which were rereads which surprises me a LOT but I think maybe looking back I don't always reread whole books, more dip into a favourite scene if I want a comfort read/am bored/can't remember an exact line and then I don't think to include those.

Themes? Well a lot of YA books, I'm branching out from just Harry Potter, Alex Rider and the Chalet School and I've read some absolutely great books. I'm VERY much looking forward to getting my hands on sequels from Sarah Rees Brennan and RJ Anderson and also exploring more Meg Rosoff (got another one for Christmas <3)

I also read quite a few non-fiction books and the Anne Fadiman essays in particular have really stuck in my memory along with the Morville Hours (which is probably my one top reccomendation of this year)

Um. As always there's a bit of a SciFi and Fantasy in there, new Gaiman and Pratchett (well new to me) though it feels odd to admit that for once I think I preferred the new Gaiman :-S Still Nation was pretty good too.

Lots of Georgette Heyer, her mysteries being new to me and her romances rereads.

Tell me if you spot any other trends *g*

( Complete list of books in 2009 )

January details
February details
March details
April details
May details
June details
July details
August details
September details
October details
November details

And because I didn't post this before:
( December details )

Next year, or at least for the first part of it, expect more Steampunk (and if anyone has any recs please share them!), a fair amount of YA again and hopefully a bit more real/hard SF because I haven't read much in a while.

The perils of chatrooms. Seriously, I should go check some out ::g::

I didn't write as much as I had hoped, but, totting it up, it's more than I thought. So, that's maybe an overall win.

A handful of MMOM, a line of five for kinkbingo, some Primeval for a ficathon, two Yuletide stories and one SGA Santa. That said, they were fairly widely varied. I'm not going to do more of the meme than just listing them all, and that's more for my own satisfaction than anything else, but in the unlikely event you want to know more about something, ask :)

( 46312 words; 16 stories; 11 fandoms. )

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

son_of_darkness, who is a great go-to guy for things kinky & thinky, has an interesting topic up for discussion today. He writes:

Most of the geeky people I meet are kinky, but not a lot of the kinky people I meet are geeky. [...] I wanted to ask if any of you had noticed something similar, and if so, why do you think there seems to be such a correlation between being a geek and being kinky?

I replied: I know I found a lot of consolation in geeky settings because I didn't feel I fit in to mainstream culture -- which included, in large part, things that turned me on. There's a huge overlap for me between wanting to explore the subtext of movies/TV/books/etc. and wanting to explore the kink lurking in things like villains and vampires and intergalactic space exploration and what have you.

Fannishness and kinkiness have always been intertwined for me. I told ticcyyy once that the most important, life-changing thing about fandom for me has been to meet people, from home and from the other side of the world, who share a fierce love of the same things I do, that I was told when I was younger -- by my parents, by my best friend, by teachers, by culture -- were strange, deviant, not okay. I never had confidence in myself like I've had since finding fandom. For one thing, I can read wonderful, amazing, hot, kinky fic whenever I want, and share my own when I want, and we have this community that celebrates it.

There is so much more to say, some day. But I thought some of you might want to share your thoughts and experiences, here or there. I know I want to hear them.

Happy New Year to all (slightly late)

I have returned from Venice, somewhat damp around the edges, and am now contemplating catching up on LJ and fic exchanges and generally the whole world with some horror.

In fact I think I may abandon all efforts till tomorrow *g*

Still welcome to 2010. I bet the rest of you weren't standing in a 20cm deep puddle when the new year arrived :P

(tell me if I've missed anything vital! I will try to catch up tomorrow but, well, you know)

Oh. My. God.

( Glurp. Spoilers and acertain amount of live blogging... )

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

Naturally two seconds after I post that the Yuletide reveal hasn't happened, it happens.

So, I wrote three gift stories this year, two in Yuletide and one in SGA_Santa.

I got two Georgette Heyer prompts in Yuletide, and picked the one for Cotillion, which I do love rather absurdly.

An Evening In: Written for Cdeacon, wherein Kitty and Freddy are left alone with their hapless offspring. Dear Walter, I am *so* sorry! ::g::. ♥ Kitty & Freddy ♥ Word count 2279. PS, Walter for Sir Walter Scott, that famous author of Lochinvar... :D

In Primeval, I wrote Dinner and a Dance for Alyse for the prompt 'Abby being Awesome'. Which she duly is :) Word count: 584 I LOVED the whole conversation we had a couple of days ago where Al talked about her story and who might have written it, and I nodded solemnly. Anyone who believes everything I think is written on my face may wish to pause to consider this for a moment ::g::

And my SGA Santa story was Everything Changes (And you gotta be ready, which was the first 25K words or so of the story I've been planning for a while :) In which I munge SGA, Doctor Who and Torchwood. God knows if I'll write more, but damme, I loved writing this. I absolutely love the summary someone gave it on Delicious:

John gets accidentally kidnapped by the TARDIS, The Doctor tries to reason with a Wraith Queen, Rodney calls in the Valiant for a rescue mission when the SGC won't give him a ship and blows his "double agent" status. Basically your average day in Pegasus, right?

Because... yeah. Pretty much :D

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

I'm waiting for Yuletide to reveal authors before I do the traditional ripping off of moustaches. In the meatime, I've barely been in the new year a day, and already I'm irritated.

Firstly: Dear Gordon Brown,

We don't fucking need to beef up our security measures, because a/ He was denied a visa and put on a watch list in the UK last year, and 2/ He didn't travel through the UK. He didn't travel through the UK because he was put on a watch list and refused an entry visa last YEAR. And by last year I mean 2008.

This is nothing but a cheap effort to ramp up government control and incite public fear. It's grotesque, irresponsible and by the way, profoundly insulting to the UK security services, who, since you haven't noticed, stopped him coming here already.

That is not to say there aren't changes that can be made in other countries, but frankly, Gordon, my old muppet, that's NOT YOUR JOB.

So fuck off, why don't you, and do something useful like increasing access to justice for those charged with crimes, or increasing mental health resources, or I don't know, banning arms dealers. Something happymaking for the new year.

No love,

Tem.

Secondly:

When someone is knighted or inherits a baronetcy, he becomes (for example) Sir Arthur Wellesley, or Sir Arthur; under no circumstances is he Mr. Wellesley (unless he's stripped of the title), Lord Wellesley (unless he gets another title), or Sir Wellesley. And definitely not Arthur, Sir Wellesley. It's not complicated. Sir [Firstname Lastname] formally or on first mention; Sir [Firstname] informally or on subsequent mentions. I've now seen all these mistakes on Yuletide in the last week, and it's bugging me out of all proportion to the fault.

Lastly, I do have New year resolutions but they look a lot like my resolutions since about April of last year, and so do not bear repeating /wry.

Dear my friends, be safe, well and happy, and I shall be happy also.

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

'2010' seems bizarrely futuristic to me, more so than 2000 or 2001 ever did. Don't know why. Anyway. The future is now.

Good luck :)

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

I haven't mentioned here yet that there's a Mormon temple nearby. When I get on the Beltway going west and turn the first corner, it appears above the trees like Cinderella's castle. It's hard to describe how unreal it looks: like a matte painting in a movie, flat and oddly lit, golden-tipped towers glinting in the sun. It is, however, quite real, as I confirmed last night when the Laundrys and I went to see the forest of holiday lights set up out front.

Teaser:




( Lights, temple, sunset. )

Despite school in the first half and new jobs in the second, 2009 was a good year for fannish creativity. I wrote 50% more stories and three times as many words as last year. I started vidding, and made a House vid that lived up to what I'd envisioned years ago. I uploaded a batch of stories to the Archive of Our Own, participated in my first mcsmooch, tried out anthropomorfic and some new kinks, and took the plunge and posted a few of my (formerly) private Mary Sue vignettes. I got peripherally involved in kink politics, one result of which was to, with a few exceptions, begin using "contains" in headers instead of "warning." I once again did best with 'fests that offered deadlines and prompt selections.

I also seem to have written almost no gen this year. Although I can think of a few reasons this happened, it is not cool. Need to finish some works in progress on that front.

And now, without further ado, the final roundup, with mini-DVD commentaries, in chronological order by fandom:

Fics
( House )

( House/SGA crossovers )

( SGA )

( Anthropomorphic )

( DS9 OCs )

Vids
( House, SGA, The Professional )


Stats:

• Fics: 18
• Word Count: 36,365 (plus WsIP)
• Vids: 4
• Minutes: 8.5 (plus WsIP)
• Slash: 9
• Het: 8
• Gen: 3
• Threesome/moresome: 2
• Mixed/Other: 5
• Meta-type: 2
• Poems: 1
• Fandoms: 5

Goals for 2010:

• Work to reincorporate some of the careful styling and attention to story and characterization that I had when I first started posting stories. I haven't written anything as crafted as "Dissonance" or as meaningful to the characters as "A Helping Hand" or "Untouchable" in a while.


• Finish writing WsIP: dancing (in progress for 1 year), MRI (2 years), secret House crossover (3 years)


• Vids to make/finish: Team Oliver!, Pegasus Dylan, John/Ronon silly dance song, McShep (?) Auden


• Work with synn on a design for my subdomain now that there are enough stories to warrant breaking up the index page

Would anyone want to read more Cadet/Cardassian Mary Sue noncon? I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and am in one of those questionable moods where I think it's a good idea to share. Warning for noncon; contains 1,400 words of bondage, a toy, a forced orgasm, and no redeeming value. Also, Karin sounds suspiciously like John Sheppard at times. Not to denigrate John Sheppard.

Disclaimer/explanation is in the first post under this tag.

( 'Is this position perhaps more to your liking?' )

This started life in the previous entry, but got too long :)

A few stories to rec off Yuletide, one which I nagged moonlettuce until she read it because it deserved not to be missed: The Cable & Deadpool Yuletide Special.

Then there's the Eddie Izzard monologue which is scarily believable as the real thing, including Canada, polar bears, Cannibals and Nazis. Delicious.

Wings, a sweet story around Titty and Nancy of Swallows and Amazons, all grown up, and about courage, and growing up and moving on.

A couple of neat Vorkosigan stories. The bleak Sworn in Silence, dealing with the days immediately following the murder or Piotr and Aral's family. I have to admit it felt rather like meeting a legend to had the legendary Prince Xav walking and talking around a very young Aral, and I really loved the way the author conveyed that sense of history without making it stilted or implausible.

And the far more light hearted Improbable Scenes from an Impractical Courtship, where Gregor misses the clue that Miles may in fact reciprocate. It's a big clue: Miles gives him a planet.

One more before I give in and watch Labyrinth: Clean Linen, which is a lovely and note-perfect crossover of Unknown Ajax and April Lady, bringing Claude Darracott and Felix Hethersett together. Just the right amount of contemporary mores and manners, blended with a story that has all the craziness of the Unknown Ajax (complete with Richmond's impetuousity) and Felix's pragmatism.

Last and by no means least, Iwas lucky enough to have three stories written for me. I got two Spirited Away stories and a Dresden Files story, and I loved them all.

While We Wait For This Rebirth, where Chihiro grows up, and finds Haku again, a gentle, real story where the ending was not precisely happy, but not *unhappy* either. Either way, it fitted. I don't have words for it without spoiling it badly, and I don't want to do that.

Why press a seal on running water, which gives Haku and Chihiro a different ending, still imperfect, but it works for them.

This kind of meeting is very much the tenor of the other Spirited Away story that I particularly enjoyed: The River to the Sea, where Haku waits for Chihiro, and Chihiro becomes her own legend. NB: character death.

The last of the three (three!) stories was a Dresden Files story, 'Twas The Nightwith Harry, Mister, Mouse and Thomas at Christmas, and Harry's family ganging up on him :)

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.

Right. So Legally Blonde...

Are any of you actually expecting a review from me that isn't just LEGALLY BLONDE! PINK! SPARKLY! SHERIDAN! DUNCAN! PETER DAVISON! SPARKLY SPARKLY SPARKLY JOY!!!

Well. Are you?

I'll try

( Legally Blonde @ Savoy Theatre )

And unless I see anything in Venice that's my theatre year complete. I'll post my complete list when I return home!

Oh an I promised LB cast twitter accounts:
@LBtheMusical (the official show twitter)
@Sheridansmith1 (Elle, obv)
@MrDuncanJames (Warner, again obv)
@Suziemclean123 (Edith)
@Sherriepenn (Swing)

Had a wonderful xmas and boxing days :) I will thank people properly for pressies (thank you everyone who sent me something :D) , but later, once I'm a little less zonked :) We dived up to the Metrocentre this morning -- the plan was to get there early, so Claire knocking on my door at quarter to nine was a bit of a shock. Still, we were on our way by nine, which was the original plan (and I'd managed to cram in a very fast shower, which was probably a relief to everyone ::g::).

I even managed to read my Yuletide treat, which was lovely. I was lucky enough to get two proper Yuletide stories and one treat. A Dresden Files story with Harry and Thomas and Mister and Mouse: the three of them ganging up on Harry :). And two Spirited Away stories, both of which were gorgeous, and made me very happy. I do so enjoy Yuletide.

I wrote a couple of Yuletide things, and my recipients liked their stories, which is very happy making :).

Ran off to see Sherlock Holmes yesterday, which was less gay than I'd hoped but plenty slashy :) I felt somewhat cheated by the lack of angst over a certain event towards the end of the film,but that's what fic is for. Also, I have to hope that there will be a director's cut one of these days which will be even slashier :)

Also saw Avatar just before Christmas, which was just... bizarre. Fabulous effects, predictable plot, world building ripped straight from Andre Norton or Alan Dean Foster, and anti-exploitation themes Disney-style. ::blink::

And now I'm missing Labyrinth, so I will stop writing and hit post :)

Cross-posted on Dreamwidth, with comments.