extemporally

I could do with some love this week.

WORDS AND DEEDS LOVE MEME

1. Leave a comment with your, or anyone else's, username in the subject and body. Self-nomination is totally okay. Anon nomination, also okay. If you don't want to be nominated or you want your nomination taken down, just let me know.

2. Once someone has a comment thread about them, leave a comment and tell them about something they've done or made that you liked. A kind word, a signalboost, a drawing, a story. This can be short or long. You can just name or link to something, or go into more detail.

3. Sit back and enjoy how much the people here are making the world a better place in little, tiny ways. They're filling it with art and honesty. They're doing things that are beautiful and kind. It may not fix the world--what does?--and it doesn't mean they're perfect. It just means they're trying, and you noticed.

my thread here

<333

1 - Your current OTP
2 - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what
6 - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
7 - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
8 - Do you prefer characters from real action series or anime series
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why
10 - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr your social network sites
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom
12 - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for
13 - Your favorite fanart or fanartist
14 - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor
15 - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
17 - A ship you’ve abandoned and why
18 - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms
25 - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from
26 - Ask me a different fannish question

1. Give me a pairing.
2. Give me an prompt.
3. I will write you a three-sentence (or longer) fic.

Anything you've ever known me to be fannishly invested in: One Direction, TSN RPF, figure skating, bandom... hell, I'll do Harry Potter if you like. Prompt prompts, please! ♥

THE YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL MEME

my thread here

400 words left to the last essay of my two-week library bender. I am working in bed and my brain feels like mush, but that is all right because soon it will be DONE and I will be free. Share some love, guys? ♥

Three quick reviews - all of them of YA books, all of them redefining 'short' - of books I managed to sneak in just before the year finished, bringing my grand total to 94. Happy 2012, everyone! I spent my NYE getting ridiculously tipsy on cheap white wine with a friend I've known since I was seventeen. I think that's a win on the previous year. \o/

This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!, by Gordon Korman.

♥THIS BOOK♥

(I... hear that these books are available online. Help please?)

Radio Fifth Grade, by Gordon Korman.

All right, but not brilliant. Positively underwhelming, actually, compared to This Can't Be Happening.

Bad, Badder, Baddest, by Cynthia Voigt.

Pretty good - I really like the way Cynthia Voigt writes friendships - and really amusing, actually, Voigt has a skill with caricature I hadn't really noticed before? but none of the poignancy I associate with her novels, and I think that's okay, this novel was fine without it.

Also the book meme we've all been waiting for.

( or, maybe just me. )

The Runner, by Cynthia Voigt | Sons From Afar, by Cynthia Voigt | A Solitary Blue, by Cynthia Voigt | The Callendar Papers, by Cynthia Voigt | Anne of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery | Come A Stranger, by Cynthia Voigt | Just Kids, by Patti Smith | You Cannot Count Smoke, by Cyril Wong | Pomes All Sizes, by Jack Kerouac | In the Company of Women, by Verena Tay | Oneiros, by Cyril Wong | The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga | How to Be A Woman, by Caitlin Moran | American Pastoral, by Phillip Roth | Amulet, by Roberto Bolano | Who Runs This Place?: The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century, by Anthony Sampson | The Lives of the Muses, by Francine Prose | I Left My Grandfather's House, by Denton Welch | Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens | Kaddish & other poems, by Allen Ginsberg | Sappho: A New Translation, by Mary Barnard | The Lives of Animals, by J.M. Coetzee | Women & Violence, by Barrie Levy | Half + Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial + Bicultural, edited by Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn | Nazi Literature in the Americas, by Roberto Bolano | Corridor, by Alfian Sa'at | Collected Plays One, by Alfian Sa'at | Trilogy, by Haresh Sharma | Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan, & Baby Be-Bop, by Francesca Lia Block | Bloomability, by Sharon Creech | Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall In Love, by Maryrose Wood | High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby | Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, by Leslie T. Chang | The Boy Next Door, by Irene Sabatini | Singapore Shifting Boundaries: Social Change in the 21st Century, edited by William S.W. Lim, Sharon Siddique, & Tan Dan Feng | The Frenzy, by Francesca Lia Block | Goodnight Mister Tom, by Michelle Magorian | The Spirit Catches You And Then You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman | Saraswati Park, by Anjali Joseph | Eston, by Stella Kon | Rape: A Love Story, by Joyce Carol Oates | Rice Bowl, by Suchen Christine Lim | The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell | Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics, edited by Kenneth Paul Tan | Miss Seetoh in the World, by Catherine Lim | Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee | Jointly & Severably, by Eleanor Wong | Wills & Secession, by Eleanor Wong | Mergers & Accusations, by Eleanor Wong | GASPP: A Gay Anthology of Singaporean Poetry & Prose, edited by Ng Yi-Sheng | Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier | Gone Case, by Dave Chua | Sex and the City, by Candace Bushnell | The Waters & the Wild, by Francesca Lia Block | Growing Up: Getting Along in the Sixties, by Tisa Ng | Oreo, by Fran Ross | Caucasia, by Danzy Senna | Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, by Owen Jones | Racism: A Very Short Introduction | Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, by Rana Mitter | Feminism: A Very Short Introduction, by Margaret Waters | A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin | Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean | Sons of the Yellow Emperor, by Lynn Pan | Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People, by Katharine Quarmby | Tipping The Velvet, by Sarah Waters | Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro | The Lantern Bearers, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Silver Branch, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli | Brick Lane, by Monica Ali | The Savage Detectives, by Robert Bolano | Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell | Cat On A Hot-Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams | Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson | The Moon By Night, by Madeleine L'Engle | To Live, by Yu Hua | Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer | The Next Competitor, by K.P. Kincaid | Raffles Place Ragtime, by Phillip Jeyaretnam | Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, by Frances Mayes | Mao's Last Dancer, by Li Cunxin | Marie, Dancing, by Carolyn Meyer | Man Walks Into A Room, by Nicole Krauss | How To Be Good, by Nick Hornby

Post a comment, and I will reply with one or two reasons why I think you're great. In return, you have to post this same meme on your blog and comment for other people.

I WISH TO GIVE YOU ALL EXTRAVAGANT COMPLIMENTS. PLS TO OBLIGE.

When you see this, post a poem.

HAVE THREE! *cheerfully overdoes it*

Animals - Frank O'Hara

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

( it's no use worrying about Time )

Cleis - Sappho tr. Mary Barnard

Sleep, darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is

like a golden
flower
I wouldn't
take ( all Croesus' kingdom with love thrown in, for her )

letter to araya rasdjarmrearnsook - Cyril Wong

1

Dear Araya, I sing to the dead too;
my past self, ex-loves, the truly departed

to whom I offer this poem
like a song, acknowledging
( my past is not as pure, perhaps )

Mirai Nagasu, be more adorable. I dare you. Fits of glee, you guys. SHE USED FOUR TABLESPOONS!

I don't have much to say these days. But you know what is really great about having public holidays on Monday? Not only do you get a long weekend, but it also makes the next week way shorter too! I HAVE FIGURED OUT THE SECRET TO LIFE. \o/

Here's a poem which made me laugh when I ran across it last week, mostly because my brain keeps remixing it so Stephane Lambiel (lololol of course) is the zebra:

Zebra Question

I asked the Zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy day?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I'll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again.

Shel Silverstein

They're very philosophical questions!

AND A MEME:

Ask me my Top Five Whatevers. Fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post (or in comments). Possibly with pictures.

I always used to be kind of shy about doing this meme -- I wrote? really?? -- but I figure my recent fic output justifies this thing, so hey! Why not!

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) -- it can be more than 500, if you wish! -- from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

My fic can be found under the fic tag, bbs!

(It was either post this or talk about all the ridic stories that a Regina Spektor song makes me want, okay. Humour me!)