genarti

Updated whenever I remember to! Format shamelessly adapted from sotto_voice. Last updated 6/14/11.

( Avatar: The Last Airbender )


( Baccano! )


( Chronicles of Narnia )


( The Dark is Rising sequence )


( Fullmetal Alchemist )


( Gundam Wing )


( King of Shadows )


( Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien )


( Marvel comics )


( Milliways Bar-centric )


( original )

A quick fma_ladyfest-related note, for those of you that might care! We put a poll up last week about whether there was interest in running another Ladyfest this year. In a couple of days, we'll take stock of the votes and figure things out from there, so if this is relevant to your interests, swing by and vote.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/148122.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

God, has it really been this long since I posted? I guess it has. Uh, sorry, guys! I would promise to be around more, but that's not happening any time soon.

However, a few things:

1) I'm going to be at AnimeBoston this Saturday! Hanging around with skygiants and sandrylene and probably thewickedlady and shati? I can't even remember who all is coming to the con part of things. Anyway, if you're coming too and you want to meet up, let me know! We can try to find each other amidst the hordes of cosplayers!

(I will be one of them; we will be a three-person Gunnerkrigg Court contingent. This is a new record for costume-creation speed for me: two days from "ack, none of my existing costumes work, LET'S BRAINSTORM" to having all the pieces in my possession! Probably a new personal record for total cheapness, too. So if you see a Gamma and Zimmy and Antimony together, you have probably found us.)

2) So I have totally been even scarcer than my usual these past few weeks. Apologies to all! Especially since it's likely to continue for, oh, the next month. Work is busy, and will continue to be busy until the semester is over; Japanese class is giving me plenty of homework, and ditto ditto. After that will come GLORIOUS SUMMER, in which work may or may not ease up but my extracurricular commitments definitely will. I'm looking forward to this enormously.

3) Other things I am looking forward to: New England finally deciding about whether it wants to be spring or summer or mud season. (This is a futile hope, because New England likes to change its weather every few hours just to keep us all guessing, but doomed optimism combined with grumbling is a regional sport.) I want to have picnics! Or at least sit out on the porch or the grass and read, before it gets so hot that I turn into a whiny melting popsicle instead.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/12586.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Yuletide authors were revealed this morning, so I can now say that I wrote Skill Exchange for gramarye1971! I had kind of planned to write some treats, also, but it totally didn't happen, so there may eventually be an NYR or two. We'll see.

The fandom was A Certain Scientific Railgun (To Aru Kagaku No Railgun), which is probably the most obscure fandom I've written for Yuletide -- it's the only Railgun fic on AO3, unless I'm failing at searching -- though I think that aside from being full of unfamiliar Japanese names it's generally accessible to readers who don't know canon. I had a ton of fun with it! It's a canon full of delightful young ladies being friends and often being badass, and also there's a ton of handwavy fake science. (How is your personal reality related to your psychic powers related to quantum mechanics? We don't know, but canon says it is!)

The other entertaining thing this year was that Gramarye is a good friend of mine, and in fact came to visit the weekend before fics were due. So I felt very sneaky! Letting me pretend to be a ninja without requiring any actual skill except a bit of conversational deflection is always an excellent way to amuse me. I have no idea yet if she guessed that it was me from the first paragraph or something, but I felt stealthy, which is all I really care about.

I should thank my betas, while I'm at it! skygiants, thewickedlady, and sandrylene were all marvelous betas from the ideas stage through last-minute line edits (Becca and Heather especially gave me eleventh-hour help), and dictator_duck was also great about letting me bounce ideas off her. They are all marvelous!

And now I'm going to go have breakfast, because I was up until 5 in the morning what with dancing at the Delaware Valley Hogmanay, and eventually I will be driving back to Brooklyn with skygiants! And thence to Boston tomorrow. It has been a delightful New Year's vacation that I haven't been posting about at all. (I met meredyd! She is 100% awesome.) I hope you all have been having good times too, while I've been busy and not checking my friendslist.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/8331.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! (Except people across the date line, in which case, uh... Happy Boxing Day, and sorry I'm belated.) To those who don't, happy midway through Hannukah, or have a lovely weekend. Actually, have a lovely weekend no matter what you're celebrating or not celebrating!

My family opens presents on Christmas Eve, so yesterday was my big celebratory day, with two church services (Unitarian Universalist, where we had an enormously sequin-spangled pageant about Good King Wenceslas and the virtues of giving back to your community all 365 days of the year, and then Congregationalist, which was much more traditional and full of carols) and a delicious dinner and then presents around the tree until very late. Today, we'll have another fancy dinner because my family loves excuses to cook, but other than that we're basically just lazing around. My brothers are watching NBA basketball, and seem prepared to do so all day long. Personally, I am determinedly ignoring the tv in favor of Yuletide.

Speaking of Yuletide and presents! I haven't yet had a chance to read anything but the fic I was given (that comes next), but here, have an insta-rec! Because the fic that was written for me is MARVELOUS.

By the World Forgot (Spirited Away) is a bittersweet, beautiful story about how Kamaji came to run Yubaba's boiler room, and what he was before he did. It fits perfectly into canon, and is my new mental backstory for him. (You can probably read it fine if you don't know canon, though you'll get more out of it if you do.)

And now I'm going to read through "By the World Forgot" one more time (seriously, go read it!), and then start working my way through more of this year's Yuletide. I hope you all get just as lazy and fun a day as I'm having!

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/8163.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Dear LJ: thanks for the most annoying, least user-friendly changes I've seen made in a good long while. And thanks doubly for making them compulsory -- it's not even opt-out when you don't provide an option for opting out, and who knows if the styles that still have the old comment style will even keep that for long.

Thanks for a sneeringly condescending Writers' Block about it, too. That's charming.

There's a list of workarounds posted, though I haven't tried any of them yet. In the meantime, I left furious feedback, for whatever good it does. I am cynical.

I wouldn't at all mind having this new look as an option that people could freely choose or ignore. I'm sure some people like the new look, and that's fine. However, I very much mind having it forced upon us. Suddenly all the communities which use subject lines to organize (auctions, RP threads, kinkmemes, etc) have that organization rendered invisible; suddenly people with limited internet, screenreaders, etc are obliged to load thumbnail image files every single time they want to use an icon, instead of a textual drop-down box -- even if they paid good money to have a huge long list of icons. Making all of that compulsory and unavoidable? Just lovely.

(I have more fun stuff to post about too. I promise I'll manage that soon, although possibly not today. Today I get to dash about trying to finish up my Yuletide fic and wrap presents before my little brother arrives (hurray!) around midnight. Tomorrow after work, I head northwards to home and a long holiday weekend!)

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/7687.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

My Japanese final exam is tonight, and then I am FREE for winter break! For a definition of "free" that of course entails still having to go to work, and not being done with Yuletide yet, and traveling for holidays, and so forth, but whatever. The point is that I will soon have more time in the evenings to do things I've been putting off, like reading books and RPing and posting on LJ and generally lazing about. I'm looking forward to it enormously.

One thing I've been vaguely meaning to do for a while is a fic commentary of some sort. This is pure self-indulgence, of course; I like rambling about meta, and it's extra easy when it involves navel-gazing about something I already spent writing time navel-gazing about. (Is this an excuse to share with the world the dorky in-jokes I put in, or reluctantly cut out? Maaaybe.) But possibly some of you may be interested too!

( Accordingly, a poll! )

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/7576.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Hello! You're awesome! We matched up on at least one fandom, so I know thereby that you're a person of good taste and general excellence. :D

All of my prompts this year were kind of novel-length and full of options. I want to reassure you that every single one of these canons is one for which I'd love to see just about anything – any fic, any tone, any character. So write what makes you happy to write, and I'll love it!

If you're the sort who doesn't like to be pinned down by too much detail from your recipient, you can click away now, and go do your thing. :) But if you're the sort who finds more detail to be a useful framework, then follow the cut text.

( General preferences )

( Fandom-specific ramblings )

I look forward enormously to seeing whatever you come up with! Thank you so much in advance, and please, have fun. If you have fun writing it, I can guarantee I'll have fun reading it.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/7359.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

sandrylene has joined another band, and is in the process of learning their songs. Since this is the Boston contingent of Sassafrass, which specializes in close harmony and songs about Norse mythology, she's in the spare room right now, singing things like "Icy sons and icy brothers, icy father, fuck fuck fuuuuuuuck!" IT'S KIND OF HILARIOUS. I spent a while in there working on a cosplay prop and totally not laughing at her in any way. Totally not.

Meanwhile, today has been a day of cooking. I feel all accomplished and stuff! (Even though I haven't done half the things I meant to today. Um.)

It started off with pancakes, which due to enabling housemates became Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. ( Thoughts on the pancakes )

And then I made improvisational soup that was so tasty I have to share the recipe. Uh. "Recipe." See above about slapdash experimental cooking. This was vaguely based on a semi-recipe rabswom posted a year or two ago, but then I changed most of it. It's very easy; it's also the kind of recipe that involves maybe 15-20 minutes of chopping and stirring, and then wandering away for two hours while the soup finishes cooking, and coming back for a little more at the end.

( Easy Tomato-Garlic-Chickpea Soup )

Now: time to work on Japanese homework I've been ignoring in favor of internet-surfing and writing up recipes! And maybe go outside to peer at the snow on the porch. Oh, Boston.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/6963.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

As usual, I've been meaning to make a post for what feels like an age and a half. And, as usual, I haven't done so, which means at this point I have about twenty million Things I Ought To Post About, and I'll only manage a few of them here. Time for a list!

1) FALL. Fall is my very favorite season, and it has finally hit New England for real. I'm overcome with my usual seasonal giddiness; I come home and dash straight out to stay on the porch until the sun goes down, and I plot to myself about when I can make it out to the woods. The downside of living in a city, even a city I love, is that that does take plotting.

I was hoping to get some good nature time this weekend, but alas, it was restricted to viewing a lot of pretty foliage out the car window. (I went to a dance in Vermont. It was tremendous fun! But my plan of leaving extra-early so as to squeeze in some time to sit under a tree and read was defeated by sleep.) Maybe I'll manage some this coming weekend instead! Maybe not. We'll see what the weather and my gumption levels are like.

In any case, I have apple cider and gingerbread and a front porch, so life is pretty good.


2) I've finally gotten around to getting a Twitter! I keep sort of eying the page and wanting to poke it warily, like my father does when presented with new technology. (Then he starts button-mashing, which is why my father is only allowed to investigates laptops and iPhones and such under supervision.) We'll see if I manage to use it with any regularity. I've never wanted to be constantly connected to the social networking world. On the other hand, I am very fond of texting friends, and this is texting writ large, so who knows.

In any case, I'm ep_birdsall there. I don't expect to be tweeting about much of anything fandom-related; if I do use the thing, it'll be for RL stuff and probably occasionally writing stuff. So, uh, consider what's relevant to your interests, and do follow if you like!


3) So, you remember that lesbian steampunk anthology I'm in? Well, Steam-Powered II is finally available for ordering! The ebook is available now, or you can pre-order the paperback.

Having read all the other stories, I can tell you that it's full of awesome.

If you need any more convincing, you can see a roundtable interview post at Tor.com, or read the full individual interviews up at Silver Goggles. (Mine is here.)


4) Other than all this, life continues apace! And it's treating me pretty well at the moment, I have to say, even if it's also keeping me very busy. There are worse things.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/6709.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Back from Dragon*Con! It was, as ever, enormously fun. I spent the whole weekend running around, mostly in costume, with occasional breaks to flop in hotel rooms and mock the tv with friends; on the last day, my room (the ROOM OF REVOLUTION!, we declared ourselves, based on the number of copies of Gundam Wing and Revolutionary Girl Utena we could have brought if we'd all done so) had a GW watch-and-affectionately-mock session while we packed up. I tried to go to a couple of panels, but didn't successfully make it to any, and had too much fun to mind a bit.

At least some pictures will be posted as soon as I get off my duff to upload them. (People who were there with me, let me know whether you're okay with having pictures posted? I won't put up pictures of anyone who hasn't said I can.)

Meanwhile, this is my busiest week of the year at work, so I don't know how much I'll be around online. On Monday, I came home from D*C and read comics for a while and then faceplanted; yesterday after work, I did about the same. I hope this means I'm recovered enough to stay awake in the evenings for the rest of this week, but WE'LL SEE. I'm taking Japanese again, though, so I better manage at least enough alertness to do homework, and the lesson planning I owe for dance too... This weekend, I have nothing planned except homework and a demonstration team rehearsal, and the thought is GLORIOUS. Coffeeshop on Saturday, here I come!

(I may or may not be able to catch up with my giant flist backlog, so tell me if anything important went down while I was off in the wilds of cosplay-filled Atlanta?)

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/6555.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Hello, my friends! I had a long multi-item post planned about a) how fma_ladyfest is done and was an awesome modding experience and a FABULOUS reading and art-viewing experience*, and b) I am not at all ded of hurricane, and in fact only suffered a few hours of trying to work on cosplay by candlelight, and c) work is busy, busy, busy and thus eating a lot of my brain, and d) DRAGON*CON. But then the week stayed super-busy and it's getting close to 5:00, so instead you get a short multi-item paragraph full of too many clauses.

Dragon*Con, though! I am departing imminently, and will not return to the internet until Tuesday at least. (I should have some level of email access, but having time and energy spare is another matter.) If you're going, look for me, and I will look for you! I do not say we'll meet up, because crowded cons are the enemy of planning. But I will be spending much of my time dressed as either Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena (red ballgown, purple hair, ridiculous epaulets) or Sheik from Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the Super Smash Brothers games (blue unitard and blue body armor, bandage-turban-facewrap thing), and my badge will say Genarti. Say hi if you feel so inclined! And for those of you not going, have tons of fun without me, and please don't burn down too much of the internet in my absence. I want to help, you see.

*How about a footnote? It's like a paragraph, but saves me from worrying about organizing the order coherently. I received Oil and Water from gretchen8642, about Rebecca and Riza becoming friends at the Academy. Coincidentally, I wrote Nobody's Perfect about the same characters in the same loose timeframe, for dictator_duck. Becca and I also co-wrote Five Books Sheska Read for bay115, because apparently we have made a tradition of last-minute self-indulgent co-writing. There's a lot of really excellent stuff I had nothing to do with the creation of, too, so go check it out if you like FMA. Or if you read in fandoms you don't know, like I sometimes do.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/6221.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

1) Becca is insisting that I must link you all to a brief and parodic Edward Cullen/Firesong I perpetuated on IM at late o'clock. I am insisting that if you go and look at it, you ought to at least consider inflicting other, similar fic on her in the comments, because the world could do with more overwrought and cracked-out YA crossovers.

2) If you're participating in fma_ladyfest, be advised that you have exactly one week until your fic and art are due!

3) My new favorite tumblr: Utena Texts From Last Night. I don't even like tumblr, but this is glorious. So many of them are so true.

4) My second-favorite tumblr, which is totally different: Of Another Fashion. Vintage photos of women of color wearing fashionable clothing; it's delightful.

5) I don't remember if there's anything that should be #5. We'll go with YAY IT'S FRIDAY (IN MY TIME ZONE); that's always a good fallback. I am so ready for the weekend. It will contain Six Flags and cake!

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/5922.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

NPR's Top 100 SFF Books list is out. As usual, it's both interesting, and in no way comprehensive; this kind of thing ends up being something of a literary popularity contest, and some submitters think more critically about their choices than others, and some use different criteria, and just about everyone probably forgot at least one book they'd agree should be on it, but oh well. There's a finalists' list of 237 books I haven't looked at yet.

Also as usual, somebody (telophase in this case) started a meme: Bold if you've read, italicize ones you fully intend to read, underline if it's a series you've read part but not all of. I've also occasionally used underlining for books I started but didn't finish, and commented accordingly.

I nearly private-locked this, since I don't know if anyone else will care about what books here I have and haven't read, but enh, you can scroll on past if you don't care! (Feel free not to care.)

( List behind the cut )

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/5846.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

I've been holding off on announcing this partly until I could point to the entire Table of Contents listing (and jump up and down in glee with zero dignity), and partly just because I am behind on a bunch of posts, what with travel and DDOS and general distractability, so why not this one too? But mostly the former reason. However! Now I can point to it! SO.

Some of you may remember Steam-Powered, the collection of lesbian steampunk short stories that came out last year this winter. Those of you who missed it: you probably know from the description "lesbian steampunk stories with a post-colonial slant" whether you're interested in it or not. But I own it, and I can say that there are a lot of excellent stories in there, and I highly recommend it if it seems like your kind of thing. (There are a couple of reviews here and here.)

Anyway, there's going to be a second anthology, and I will have a story in it! Guys, this line-up makes me shiny-eyed all on its own; the fact that I'm part of it is just icing on the cake. (But it's very, very happy icing. Yes, this metaphor is very muddled.)

Introduction: Kevin Steil (of Airship Ambassador)

Journey's End: Elizabeth Porter Birdsall
Amphitrite: S.L. Knapp
In the Heart of Yellow Mountain: Jaymee Goh
Playing Chess in New Persepolis: Sean Holland
A Thousand Mill Lofts Gray: Jeannelle Ferreira
Dark Horse: A.M. Tuomala
The Return of Cherie: Nisi Shawl
One Last Interruption before We Begin: Stephanie Lai
Selin That Has Grown in the Desert: Alex Dally MacFarlane
Granada's Library: Rebecca Fraimow
The Canary of Candletown: C.S.E. Cooney
Fruit Jar Drinkin', Cheatin' Heart Blues: Patty Templeton
Deal: Nicole Korhner-Stace
Not the Moon but the Stars: Shveta Thakrar
The Terracotta Bride: Zen Cho

Article/Afterward: Winding Down the House: Taking the Steam out of Steampunk: Amal El-Mohtar

Check out that line-up! I can attest to bookelfe's story being awesome, because I have read it! I have not read the others, but I cannot wait until I get to. My own story is about a cranky middle-aged airship engineer flying off into the sunset at the end of the story, and finding that if you're the one doing that you get to live through the epilogue, too.

I will tell you further details about the publication date as soon as I know them!

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/4951.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

A miscellany!

- My flist is full of people posting about the lovely ReaderCon they had. I wouldn't have given up Pinewoods, but I'm still faintly envious! Next year, for real. (If it conflicts with Pinewoods again... well, we'll see, and I'll pine for what I'm missing either way.)

- Are any of you fans of Diane Duane's Middle Kingdoms series, aka the Door Into... books? (If you're not, and you like well-written epic fantasy featuring really cool magic, fascinatingly inhuman dragons, layered mythology, and bisexual polyamorous marriages of three-dimensionally human characters -- uh, except the inhuman ones -- then hie thee hence to pick up The Door Into Fire! It's out of print, so you might have some trouble finding the books, but they're well worth the trouble.)

Anyway, if you are a fan, and especially if you'd be interested in reading the long-awaited last book The Door Into Starlight, go check out Diane Duane's post on the subject. Not only does she provide a lot of perfectly reasonable insight into why she hasn't written it yet, but she's soliciting information on whether enough people would buy the latest book to make it worth publishing. So please, if you genuinely would be willing to pay for this book -- and heaven knows I would gleefully buy it in hardback, which I rarely do -- go read the post!

- It's hot here in Boston, guys. I know that much of the US has been dealing with these temperatures for days now; I know I have it better than many, in that I work in an air-conditioned building and my housemate has a window AC unit so I can take refuge in her room; I know other regions have temperatures like this on a regular basis. But I'm whiny anyway. I live in a place where I don't have to have air conditioning on purpose, here! And of course I keep wanting to walk or bike places, now that I would melt into a puddle if I tried it. Whine whine whine.

It's supposed to ease off come this weekend, at least. Fingers crossed!

- Cosplay ahoy! Now that Pinewoods is past, I've compared the number of weeks before Dragon*Con with the amount of work yet to do on my Sheik costume, and am having the usual genteel deadline panic. This weekend's plans include getting my tolerant housemates to make a plaster cast of my arm for armor fitting help, distressing fabric until it looks appropriately battered and aged, and doing a lot of futzing about with scraps of fabric. Soon I will also have to acquire a wig to abuse into shape. Should be fun!

I love cosplay because it's a game of sewing and problem-solving, and generally has a deadline to make sure I actually finish. Here's hoping I manage this year without too much eleventh-hour stuff.

I have a vague idea that there was more I meant to say, but I can't remember now. I'm sure I'll think of it right after I hit post.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/4539.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

The time has come once again, my friends, for Pinewoods! Which is to say, from tomorrow midday through the following week and weekend, I will be more or less completely incommunicado due to being off in the middle of the woods having a glorious time dancing my feet off. (Not literally. Even if I do have a pair of red shoes.) I'll have my cell phone, which means I could take a call in a real emergency and have limited email access, but let's be honest; email is not going to be my top priority, even aside from the facts of poor reception and a teeny phone keyboard.

I have a long packing list, a mercifully shorter but still long to-do list, and a whole bunch of gleeful anticipation. It's a full week of vacation which involves pretty scenery, lots of dancing, and a lot of friends I don't get to see very often. What's not to love? Except the mosquitoes and the weather report of 80-degree days, but, uh... oh well.

Speaking of dancing, I passed my candidate exam! So I'm now a Level One teacher, which everybody and their cousin calls a prelim because the old system had much catchier names. Thank you to everyone for the good wishes, and I promise not to blather about the RSCDS teaching certification system (oh, the bureaucracy) at you any more, at least until I go for my Level Two/full. (And if any of you are coming to Pinewoods, I'm teaching the Saturday class on The Pinewoods Reel Demystified, if that's relevant to your interests.)

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/3891.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

1) Those of you interested in good singing, people doing hilarious impressions of other people, or French: check out this video, in which a lady named Véronic Dicaire imitates Véronique Sanson, Patricia Kaas, Lara Fabian and Edith Piaf in quick succession. (I list the singers in case that's useful information for you; personally, I only know Edith Piaf from this list, but I heartily enjoyed it anyway.) There are about 30 seconds of intro talk, and some discussion at the end, and if you watch to the end she does a Celine Dion impression too. Thanks to la_rainette for the link.

2) Bit by bit, our new apartment turns into a habitable living space instead of a collection of rooms filled with boxes! Right now, every room but the guest room is actual living space, if you ignore the fact that the walls are still mostly bare and there are a few bins shoved discreetly into corners and closets.

3) A meme! From half my friendslist, but most directly from silveraspen:

Comment with "Come at me, bro," any question-requesting phrasing you like, and:
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

( My answers to Aspen's questions )

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/3586.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

For those of you interested in Fullmetal Alchemist: Just a quick reminder that fma_ladyfest sign-ups close today at midnight EST! If you want to sign up for this year's Ladyfest, you've got about nine and a half hours left in which to do so. (More or less. If something comes in at 12:05, we are not going to throw a wrench at you or anything. We are, in fact, probably going to go OH HEY MIDNIGHT PASSED I GUESS DIDN'T IT eventually, and sign-ups will close then. But try to get it in by midnight, and not count too much on our inability to keep track of time!) And then I'll shut up about Ladyfest until it's time to blather gleefully at you all about the finished stories and art, so those of you not interested in FMA will be off the hook for a few months.

I feel I ought to have some other content to justify this post, but I'm running low on material. My life continues to be eaten by unpacking boxes, trying to figure out which box contains things like my phone charger, and taking my dance teaching exam this weekend.

On the bright side, I am a walking example of the power of Scottish country dance in keeping one fit; I'm feeling a lot more energetic and chipper than I expected to, two days after running a zillion boxes up and down two flights of stairs. Which is not to imply that my calves aren't knotted up, but they used to be worse than this after every day of the Montreal dance weekend, so I am counting blessings and surreptitiously massaging them, since I have to have good technique for the examiners tonight. Wish me luck!

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/3390.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

We have moved apartments!

It took several hours of stressful waiting (until the ogres were finally gone at a bit after 11 am, after a lot of polite chivvying plus carrying help from the landlord while we all prayed that they would just MOVE OUT and stop being a headache for us all), and then five hours of hauling things up and down stairs. Luckily, we'd gotten movers to move the heavy stuff! I will never move again without movers, oh my god. Still, they were only here two hours; we were at work before and during and after, and we are all exhausted. SO EXHAUSTED. We are basically all flopping on things, muttering to ourselves, and occasionally mustering the gumption to do something like put sheets on the bed.

But guys, our new place is so big! It's awesome! Pictures will follow once the place is in some kind of organization other than piles of junk everywhere. But trust me, it's HUGE AND AWESOME, and we are delighted, and if you come to visit and see this place, we will even have a proper guest room (with a half bath!) to put you in! I mean, we will once it's not filled with books and boxes and bags and heaven knows what else, and has actual furniture instead.

And now I am going to stop pirating the neighbors' weak internet, and go back to reading YA (The Mermaid's Madness, aka Fairy Tale Princesses Kick Ass, The Sequel) before I fall over. Oof.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/3082.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

First of all: the marvelous and talented rhea314 has made a podfic of my story Some Find Solace! Go have a listen!

This is a story I wrote for this year's Yuletide for edonohana. The fandom was the Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar song "The Mountain," which is the sort of thing that only counts as a fandom when Yuletide comes around, but it was tremendous fun to write. (And absolutely zero canon knowledge is required; there's not really a canon to know, though the song is gorgeous and worth listening to.) I have to say, personally, that it's fascinating to me to hear this story read by someone else. The only other fic of mine that's been podficced (also by rhea314, except in collaboration with a friend that time) was Baccano! fic, and that's a canon with very distinctive character voices; this is much more open to phrasing interpretation, and Rhea does an awesome job. Again, go check it out.

Second: Don't expect to see much of me for the next week or two! We're moving next Wednesday, which means a) everything we own has to be packed up before then, albeit only enough to be carted upstairs by movers, and b) at least one day of interrupted internet. (It should only be one if all goes as scheduled, but, well... cable companies.)

This weekend is my birthday, and a handful of friends possessed of both free time and ridiculous levels of awesomeness are coming to hang out and have cake and help us pack things. This weekend I also have a most-of-Saturday dance class; next weekend I have my dance teacher certification exam, which is a two-day process with a decompression party afterward. So I won't be around a whole lot! I'll be around some, though, because everybody needs procrastination time.

Third: This video will either pain your soul or bring you GREAT JOY, or both.

Features a new song by Bruno Mars, and Leonard Nimoy being... inimitable.

Fourth: If anybody wants a Dreamwidth invite code, I have a bunch! Just let me know.

Fifth: Those of you interested in fma_ladyfest, please note that you have only one week left to sign up for this round!

AND THAT'S EVERYTHING until the next time I decide to procrastinate packing with posts!

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/2952.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Every time I read a book, I feel the vague urge to booklog about it, or mention it on Goodreads, or something. And every time I never get around to it. So I'm going to ramble about a few things I've read and watched recently behind the cut! We'll see if I manage to make this a habit or not; no promises.

There are minor spoilers in every one of these reviews, but nothing major or detailed.

( Books! I Shall Wear Midnight, The Stepsister Scheme, Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and The King Of Elfland's Daughter )



( TV: My Little Pony FiM, Stargate: Atlantis, and Gosick )

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/2572.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.

Name: These Are The Scars
Author: genarti
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (manga or Brotherhood)
Rating: Mild PG-13
Characters: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang, minor mentions of the rest of Mustang’s team.
Wordcount: 2300ish
Notes: I wrote this ages ago, and have finally gotten around to cleaning it up and posting it. Thanks and blame go to bookelfe for enabling, nagging, and betaing! (Especially since this is the most blatantly shippy thing I’ve ever written, which says more about me than the rating of this fic. For the record, I don't actually tend to read Hawkeye and Mustang as having a physically romantic relationship at the time of canon -- generally I read it as absolute partnership and truckloads of mutual UST -- but I couldn't resist writing this scene.) Title is from the song "Gravity" (lyrics) by Vienna Teng, which is pretty much my mental soundtrack for the entire fic. This takes place pre-canon, but I leave it to the reader to decide if that's months or years, and it contains significant backstory spoilers but none for actual series plot. (Edit: now also on AO3.)


( It's become something between a habit and a running joke over the past month or so. )

[Also posted on DW at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/2169.html. Comment either place!]

Those of you who are interested in Fullmetal Alchemist, and interested in fanworks about awesome ladies: fma_ladyfest sign-ups are now open! This is a fic and art exchange that bookelfe and I ran last fall, and will be running again this summer. Check out the comm (especially the FAQ) for all the details, and then go sign up!

Those of you who aren't interested in Fullmetal Alchemist, continue about your business. (But know that this is silly of you in my completely unbiased opinion, because it's awesome.)

It has been a long week, guys. And this weekend will be busy -- mostly with fun stuff, it's true, but some of it is fun stuff that requires me to wake up early in the morning.

So of course, I and my housemates are embarked on very serious business!

That is to say, we watched two episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic -- well, really the two-part first episode, I guess -- and now we've moved on to Sailor Moon episode 1.

Sometimes, all you need is magical girls (species optional) and sparkles, my friends.

This entry is also posted at http://genarti.dreamwidth.org/1734.html. You can comment on LJ or DW, whichever you like. comments at DW.