then there are blackbirds

1. OMG YOU GUYS, crossedwires WROTE ME A NYR STORY FOR RED CLIFF! &hearts &hearts &hearts ride until we fall is so utterly glorious (Shangxiang! *______*), I can't even tell you. *flails* Go forth and read!

2. I was thinking about putting up a post for this year's Yuletide friending meme, but sarashina beat me to it! :D &hearts If you're interested in meeting new people who share your tiny fandoms, hop on over!

eta: 3. dark_agenda's Chromatic Yuletide 2010 Challenge Summary & Discussion post is up! If any participants or readers have time to hop over and leave feedback, it would be very much appreciated. &hearts /eta

... I had a couple more roundups I meant to do (2010 book log, & perhaps one for icons), but eh. Will get to those at some later date.

Oh, man, ( one of the best Christmases I've had in a while; )

I'm trying to keep myself off the AO3 today, but I did manage to read a couple of Yuletide stories, and they are glorious! I received The Sugarcane Drive, which is utterly delicious intriguing and politicking with Eugenie and Jessaline and HOMG YOU GUYS, I GOT EFFLUENT ENGINE FIC, HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!?!? I also managed to read Sincerely, Cindi, a Metropolis: The Chase Suite fic which is one of the best love letters to visionaries and revolutionaries that I have ever come across. I plan to hit up dark_agenda's Chromatic Yuletide masterlist and trawl through the Chromatic Yuletide Madness prompts next! :D

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating, and happy Yuletide/happy Saturday to the rest of us!

TOO MANY IDEAS

NOT ENOUGH WORDS

~4 HOURS UNTIL SISTER COMES HOME AND DERAILS ALL WRITING PLANS

FUCKING TYPICAL, SELF. REALLY FUCKING TYPICAL.

1. It is generally a terrible life decision to go to work on 2 hours of sleep, y'all. Also a terrible life decision? Staying up until ass o'clock in the morning reading epic 100,000+ word A:TLA fic when I still have to do ALL THE THINGS. It's a good thing I was productive yesterday, otherwise I'd be kicking myself really hard over that "writing break."

1a. In unrelated terrible life decision news, I have been neglecting to back up recent icons and music & video files to my external hard drive, and now my creaky 6-year-old desktop where most everything is housed is suddenly refusing to turn on and I have no idea what is wrong with it! Probably it's not worth fixing since I need a new computer anyway, but argh. 6 years' worth of ahemmables! And now I will not be able to check which media files I need to re-ahem, sigh. At least I use googledocs/laptop/thumb drive religiously these days, I don't know what I would have done if actual important things (like my personal statement!) were on it.

2. dark_agenda has a useful AO3 invites and reminders post! Which actually reminds me that I have an AO3 invite, should anybody need one. *g*

3. Still debating Yuletide signups. /o\ None of my Deadlines coincide with the fest deadline this year, so I will technically have enough time to write fic! Must ponder requests...

* &hearts

Nota bene: I love Yuletide, and I like the AO3; there is no need to defend either to me.

However.

This is how I personally define Yuletide: a rare fandom fic exchange, where rare fandoms are "rare to the best of my knowledge and google-fu" as opposed to "on AO3/ff.net/archive of your choice/LJ/DW/IJ/JF/etc.", and keeping in mind that I am only a part of English-language fandom. To me and to many others, this is what we understand to be the purpose of the Yuletide challenge- to write and receive fic in fandoms that we (members of English-language fandom) cannot otherwise find, or find very little of. This is what we love about Yuletide.

The AO3, on the other hand, is a tool. Yes, it is very shiny, and yes, I do like it there- as behind on my uploading as I am- but it is not the end-all and be-all of Fandom Everywhere. If the parameters and purpose of the Yuletide challenge are indeed supposed to be what I have laid out above, I find the sole use of AO3 statistics to be disingenuous*. It is illogical to claim that the AO3 is any more than a subset of fandom, or that it can, will, or should be the One Heart of Fandom to anyone and everyone, when our individual needs and preferences are so varied. (I don't have the time or words to express this properly at the moment, but if you're curious, my thoughts are along the lines of wistfuljane's here and troisroyaumes's here.)

Obviously, the parameters of Yuletide are the sole decision of the mods, but in my opinion it would be to everyone's benefit to have a clear outline of what the parameters are, if only so we can make informed decisions about whether or not this challenge is for us.

* If you're wondering why I'm "only bringing this up now," well, I'm not the first. Many people brought it up before this Yuletide season began (I seem to remember a round of questions in August?), and also suggested that the rarity of fandoms could be confirmed by some organized crowdsourcing- with two thousand-odd members of yuletide, not to mention their flists, there is a very large pool of potential volunteers. I don't know of any response to their concerns.

Presumably y'all have seen the Yuletide nominations post, but have you looked at the Chromatic Yuletide 2010 Nominations post?? Because I will tell you right now, there is A LOT of shiny floating around in the comments!

My noms:
- glockgal's Supernatural [Winchestgopals ftw!]
- Monga (film) [wikipedia, movie website]
- N. K. Jemisin's The Effluent Engine
- Red Cliff [crossedwires has a picspam and an icon set for Part I]
- Saving Face [my tag is a good place to start!]
- Minekura Kazuya's Stigma [haven't seen any intro posts for this, but last year I made an icon set that includes some of the art?]

(I know I said I'd nominate Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid, but someone- multiple someones!- beat me to it, so I went with some other tiny beloveds.)

This was a super hard decision, but I think it is my final one? if only because I'm not sure I have the fortitude to go through the nominations list all tactically-minded a second time. Unless... is anybody nominating My Name is Kim Sam Soon?? Because several of you would probably enjoy that, and I am pretty sure more people have watched it than Monga... (But, but- Monga, omg, I really want fic for it, and also to see a subtitled version, askldfj!) I don't knowwwwww, ack! Maybe more people will nom these other tiny things than I think? /o\

A-anyway! Dilemmas aside, there are OH SO MANY SHINY CHROMATIC FANDOMS on (and off!) that list, omg. Please please consider nomming some of them, I will *______* and &hearts &hearts &hearts and incoherently keysmash at you forever!

Happy new year, loves! :)

We spent the night at home, my sister and I, with cheap lobster and unopened wine, nearly sleeping through the last few seconds of 2009. (Our parents rang in the new year at Taipei 101, in the company of old and rarely-seen friends- a getaway that they fully deserve, although my dad remains chained to his work and his laptop.) I passed the time watching CSI and NCIS and (ha) The Replacements rather than any of the new year's countdowns, and was quite content with that.

( 2009: me and you )

Anyway! Moving right along, here's a fandom/writing retrospective:

( Fic )

***

( On race )

Phew. Apparently I wrote a lot more than I thought I did. *g* Icons and more Yuletide recs to come later!

ETA: Yuletide reveals! This year my assigned story was five exercises in aggravation {Junjou Romantica), and I also wrote eating together (Saving Face) for Yuletide Madness. I find it inordinately amusing/amazing that all of the Saving Face fic this year was written either for or by me. &hearts &hearts xD

Attention Yuletiders:

If you've seen any prompts that fulfill the Dark Agenda challenge and you happen to have a bit of spare time on your hands, please help enter them into this convenient spreadsheet of chromatic prompts!

[source; contains more handy links]

Title: light all around them
Fandom: Guy Gavriel Kay- The Sarantine Mosaic
Rating: G/PG
Summary: Aliana and Crispin, the days after. Written for telesilla's NYR 2009 prompt; posted here because I couldn't for the life of me stretch it to 1,000 words. /o\ I hope you like this!

( Caius Crispus surveys the dome of the modest church with hands on his hips. )

as I am taking a brief emotional health break from IBARW. (The post I planned is draining, is all; I shall recommence tomorrow.)

1. Have purchased and devoured Jaidani's SHADOW MAGIC, OMG! SO GOOD. SO SO GOOD. I MIGHT LOVE IT EVEN MORE THAN HAVEMERCY, FOR SRS. If any of you guys have read it, BRING ON THE SQUEE. :D SUBTEXT! SUBTEXT EVERYWHERE, IN LARGE AND SPARKLY LETTERS! (I am resisting thremedon at the moment, as I don't want to accidentally spoil anybody.) Also, I have some flaily race-related thinky-thoughts (of the win variety) just waiting to emerge, so, y'know, let me know when more of you guys have read it! A party of one ain't a party. *g*

2. Also! I received a NYR story today: Deserving, by mechaieh! It's Haru wo Daiteita, and features Yoshizumi, and is just about making my life- outside of the aforementioned, anyway. ;)

PS- I have been failing MASSIVELY at reading things other than ibarw lately, so please hurl your links at me: fic must-reads, personal posts, lulz, macros, music/picspams, rants, whatever. I promise I'll play catch-up after this week is over! &hearts

ETA: WIRELESS!FAIL, omg. Have been trying to post this for an hour.