then there are blackbirds

Vacation doesn't officially start until I've finished the last of the synopses for the lit review I've been putting off, but I am back in the states! I managed to finish half a scarf on the train ride home, based on this pattern, except I plan to modify it to an infinity scarf. (I actually like the natural off-white/beige color but the yarn I had is a glorious red, so... maybe next time.)

Meme from tielan, who gave me the letter T:
1. Comment on this post with "MEEEEEE!"
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

♣ Toph Bei Fong (A:TLA), because OF COURSE. ♥ ♥ ♥ What can I say about Toph that I haven't said before?? She takes no shit and gives no fucks (with her parents as the single exception), and her FACES are my favorite! (Well, okay, all of their faces are my favorite, but really though. &TOPH;)

♣ Ty Lee (A:TLA), who I love for being 100% upbeat and also 100% underestimated, hahaha. Her section in that story I wrote about the Fire Nation ladies explains pretty much everything about my feels. :D

♣ Tonks (HP), who was my favorite independent bouncy badass lady figure in HP, pre-Remus, and also because the metamorphmagus thing is super cool- I have a soft spot for transformation magic. I still don't love the Remus thing and personally am interested in shipping her with almost anyone else (I do have an R/S OTP problem but there are SO MANY interesting options- Kingsley for Auror fun, Charlie or Bill Weasley for oddball family hijinks, Fleur because that would be AMAZING, etc.?!), but the more distance I gain from HP6 & 7, the more I think I've come to appreciate some of fandom's takes on the tail end of canon too.

♣ Tamaki (Ouran High School Host Club), who is probably the most ridiculous character I have EVER SEEN, but also one of the most lovable, hee! My favorite thing about him is that his heart is so enormous, and that he's completely unashamed of wearing it on his sleeve at all times. Where Kyouya is all about the IQ, Tamaki is all about the EQ, which is why they make the perfect team, and he truly embodies the emotional generosity that I strive for.

♣ The Iron Bull (Dragon Age: Inquisition) might be a liiiiiittle bit of a stretch, but I've got Dragon Age on the mind, so. *g* It's been a while since I last played and I'm looking forward to gaming with my sister; hopefully we'll get to this rather than Fallout (though teaming up on that last time was fun). Bull is an amiable and easygoing character who didn't strike me much during my playthrough, but he's definitely grown on me through fic (why yes, I have been reading ALL the Bull/Dorian, and it's been glorious). You have to love a spy who comes straight out and says he's a spy, and then proceeds to be so straightforward and genuinely thoughtful and good with people that you kind of forget that. It's a truly unique kind of sneaky! Also I love that he treats sex, kinks and safewords and all, with the same kind of easygoing openness that he treats everything else- canon sex talks with Bull are the most refreshing I've seen, actually.

» I am SPOILED by DW A:TLA fandom, you guys. Someone made me an APPA HAT! State Dinner is the OTGaang ficlet of my heart!

Other reasons to love white_lotus's Lunar New Year Exchange:
+ a deep delight of the blood- wow, I find bloodbending practice an extremely believable basis for Katara/Zuko now.
+ Ephemera from the Avatar Collection at Republic City University with notes and commentary by the archivists!
+ Primary Sources, aka Sokka and Suki vs. Wan Shi Tong, THE FACEOFF! xD
+ Spa Day is awesome lovely Katara/Toph (with OTGaang in the background ♥)!

» Love meme at dingsi's! Thanks for my thread. ♥

» Check out terajk's Heroes Arrive Last fest!

» The Boy Who Only Lived Twice- I haven't read HP fic in a really long time & I've never read much Harry/Draco, but OMG SERIOUSLY, the way this story plays with all the levels of fucked-up those two are is fantastic.

+ Workin' It Out- dudes, I am not the biggest fan of Adam Lambert, but Adam Lambert + Tumbling earnestfaces = yes please, apparently! Also KIYAMA/MIZUSAWA, BRB STILL FLAILING EVERYWHERE. (Spoilers, obvs.)

Dear internets: NEW DESKTOP HAS ARRIVED! IT IS AMEZZIN! \o/ Also, since it is a long weekend & I am taking next week off work (haring off to parts Canadian with the family, actually- er, why are we traveling to where it's colder during winter again?), I feel it is time to unload some Yuletide recspam: ( Bend it Like Beckham, Chinese Mythology, The Dark is Rising, Disney Princesses, The Effluent Engine, Ender's Game, Fairy Tales, Fire and Hemlock, Greek and Roman Mythology, Haru wo Daiteita, Hip Hop RPF, His Dark Materials, Kushiel's Legacy, Love Actually, Love Mode, Metropolis: the Chase Suite, Nikita, Old Kingdom- Garth Nix, Old Spice Guy, Pop Music RPF, Qing Hua Ci, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, Spindle's End, Stigma, Telephone, Tortall, Westing Game )
last updated: 2 Jan. 2011

Probably I'll just continue to update this list as I keep reading; it's too easy for me to lose track of previous recs otherwise.

Oh, and while I'm spamming anyway, have some rs_small_gifts too: [eta'd for more]
- To Make a New Beginning
- Marginalia
- Hot Mess (and I'm falling for you)
- Christmas Detention
- Lie still, Mr Black
- Watching me as he rows out

&hearts!!

A very happy birthday to avendya, and a happy belated to thingswithwings! Have some shiny, lovelies. :>

» delicious things wot I've devoured over the past few days
+ Tenipuri: About Life and Stuff and Playing the Game, via these fic recs from wistfuljane
+ HP from rs_small_gifts: Gold and Silver Days, Haere Mai (Come Here), The Secret Christmas Plan, Evergreen
+ & some more HP: Delta, A Weasley Tradition
+ A:TLA: unbolt the dark, to cover a bruise, Reign Within, Facing An Open Sea, "... and she rules the sky with lunar goodness."
+ V for Vendetta: the lights burn blue
+ Inception: Cities of Sand
+ Narnia: Adonai
+ Merlin: The Ink Still Drying, OMGWTFOTP

» shiny things wot I've received over the past few days
+ on the wings, a lovely Loveless ficlet by lemniciate! Thank you, sweets!
+ Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse (trans. by Red Pine). &hearts &hearts &hearts *\o/* Thank you, avendya!!
+ The following, from the amazing artemis: ( thank youuu! *flails* )

First Deadline has been made! *\o/* (Okay, am a bit nervous about PDF previewing failure but I did check the online form about 230947 times, so.) Time for a celebratory linkspam, haha.

» some overdue fanspam
+ Check out the Merlin lexicon, risingsunpub!
+ zahrawithaz wrote some Morgana meta!
+ I have spent shameful amounts of procrastination time devouring Guide Me Home, a gigantor Ursa/Hakoda fic. >.>
+ Also, Disclosure will never stop being hilarious. Mai/Zuko complementary failboats, ahahahahahah! &hearts
+ game on: Mai vs. Iroh in a pai sho showdown! Also Mai/Zuko cuteness, hahaha.
+ rs_small_gifts has begun posting, yay!

» foodspam (now I want a food carnival!)
+ deepad: Doodh se Dhuli
+ vi: gross, weird, inedible
+ Jha's Lunar Year's End! AWESOME. &hearts
+ troisroyaumes: Seven things

» +1: Via deadbro, Keeping Hobbits White since 1937 made me laugh and laugh, but also prodded me into some ( thoughts regarding racebending. )

I tried to separate these out but got overwhelmed by categorization; therefore, another haphazard mess! Trigger warnings apply to some of the following. ( cut for A LOT )

Fandom + randoms!

+ musesfool's A:TLA squee post is indeed an instrument of joy- I love seeing A:TLA squee, y'all, and discussions never fail to put a big dorktastic grin on my face. Putting this here specifically so I remember to get back to it!... eventually. Hopefully. /o\

+ Via crossedwires: SULU-OFF! STAR TREK FANDOM, I HAVE NEW SHINY LOVE FOR YOU ALL OVER AGAIN. *____*

+ Guinevere of Rohan by felix_aeternus is gorgeous, omg.

+ The inestimable woldy wrote an amazing HP fic! Chasing Charlie is delightful, I haven't enjoyed reading Harry-POV fic this much in a very long time.

+ A Subversive Expression of Resistance is a fabulous interview with Marlon Hom on the poetry of Chinese immigrants detained at Angel Island.

+ Yakuza 3 reviewed by yakuza, via I think effex?

+ marina made a shiny fanvid: Home Now is breathtaking, and it makes me want to watch East West 101 RIGHT NOW.

+ camelot_fleet is holding a Writers' Round Table! Come and play! :D

... and now I must be off to the library before I faff away the hours until closing time. &hearts!

+ yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, by crooked! (HP; Sirius, Regulus, Uncle Alphard; G; before things went pear-shaped, they were like this.) sd;flskjd;lf ahhhhhhh, cutest, oh my heart. :>

+ via were_duck, Old Spice Man + FEMINIST HULK + Judith Butler.

+ lolbender on tumblr! INSTA-FOLLOW.

+ this gem on Kanye's twitter, discovered thanks to heathershaped's heads-up (no, i am still not a twitter person.)

ETA: via magnetic_pole, PROP 8 OVERTURNED

Lots of interesting things popping up on my reading list today:

+ megwrites's we are the knights who say "no!"
+ miss_haitch's review of Gaslight Dogs
+ shaggydogstail's Sirius Black love post
+ more A:TLA/ATLoK fanart links of glee from inkstone
+ such_heights's utterly gorgeous New Directions, which I was lucky enough to see first (& also it is her first A:TLA fic, yesssss! *\o/*)

-- but ahhh, nothing hit me quite like vi's fantastic poem mother tongue. &hearts

I've talked about language before (the tongue that I lost, the name I forgot), but every time I come back to the subject there's always more to say, and more that I don't know how to say.

( This is a shore that I never leave: )

Link-basket today, since I cannot think.

+ rawles: a quick note (erasing women from the narrative is never feminist)

+ ephemere: What we remember (on Imelda Marcos; Listen: every time you reduce Imelda to frivolity and excess, you spit on countless unnamed graves.)

+ yeloson: Privilege hates, but doesn't know what hate is

+ fiction_theory: The internet IS real life

+ deepad: On talking and not about Israel and Palestine

+ crossedwires: Red Cliff Part I icons! SO SHINY, omg. *___*

+ damned_colonial: Wiscon vid party playlist

+ nextian: where you got lost, how you got by; Star Trek reversebang; Sulu(/Chekov) is AWESOME. &hearts

+ magnetic_pole: Air Heart; HP; stunning; young McGonagall learns to fly.

+ Book 21 of imaginarybeasts (aka edition: WUXIAAAAAAAAAA) is up! *\o/*

+ Thanks to Mynuet for the lovely remix! &hearts