Yuletide!

Fandom is a-flare with Yuletide excitement!

Part of me thinks that yuletide is not the sort of thing that needs pimping--in some ways, it is the ficathon, my flist is crazy with posts talking about what they signed up for or what they will sign up for. But also, it occurs to me that some of the people on my flist who are here because they know me from high school or college or who are otherwise on the outer limits of fandom might be interested in playing along. Because the exchange focuses on "obscure" fandoms--from Homer to Shakespeare to Austen, from Orson Welles to Stanley Kubrick, from lyric poems to webcomics--it tends to have a more "literary" feel. The stories don't always "read like fanfic" (whatever that would mean), so if there's something about fan culture or the typical tropes of fanfiction that keeps you away, that needn't be a problem. And plenty of the fandoms are in the public domain, if that's been worrying you.

Maybe you shudder at the thought of writing a sappy sex story about Buffy and Angel (and fanfic has much more to offer than just that, but that's a different conversation for a different day) and run screaming from Mary Sues. (Maybe you have no idea what a Mary Sue even is.) Then maybe a Sherlock Holmes pastiche is more up your alley. Or a look at what a few characters from Shakespeare were doing off-stage. An introspective piece about Baudelaire's childhood. A revisioning of a beloved tale from your childhood. Take a look at the fandoms in play and see if there isn't something that is to your taste, something you'd really like to read or to write. It's a diverse and ecclectic list, and I'm willing to be that there's something on there for everyone.

Come join the fun!

Now about me.

I signed up for Yuletide this morning. Three hours it took me, partly because I listed characters for all but like two of the fandoms I offered to write, and I offered a huge number of fandoms. And of the course the characters I offered to write probably aren't the ones most likely to be requested.

I mean, I want to stretch myself to write more male characters and more m/m, to challenge myself, but I don't think Yuletide is the best place to do it.

No one nominated A Little Princess this year? What is up with that? That was the most-offered fandom last year (although I believe it pulled in very few requests?), wasn't it?

Anyway, I went ahead and requested Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (Carmen/Player), The Parent Trap (Annie/Hallie), and Robert A. Heinlein's multiverse (Laz/Lor). (I was the one who came up with "World-as-Myth multiverse" last year as a name to label the threads I wanted, and l'm glad that people apparently understand what that means as people are offering to write it.) Which means that while last year 3/4 of my requests involved sibcest, this year it's down to 2/3 (as I didn't ask for Peter/Valentine on account of receiving it last year; other than that my requests are about the same), both being twincest of the f/f variety. Which means, since I asked for a female Player in my first request, that all three of my requests this year are femslash.

Beta Request

I've been wildly searching through my notebooks for the scene I totally remembered writing in which Mindee Cuckoo plants a compulsion to make to love to waterfowl in homophobic/anti-mutant assailants' minds after they call her by various offensive ephithets (and try to beat up her and her friends, which is a really stupid move in so many ways because, really, they're the frelling X-Men, bitch). (Which means, I suppose, that I'm going have to warn for implied off-screen noncon bestiality. That'll kill my comment count.) I was beginning to worry I had dreamed up the scene rather than actually written it.

It is found, and is one of the last scenes which need to be transcribed. Which means I'm going to renew my request for a beta.

You don't even need to be familiar with the characters, because really, we get three different character concepts for Kitty in as many movies and despite searching through X3 screencaps of the scene Mindee and her sisters are supposed to be in, I still can't even find her.

But I'd really like another set of eyes on this. I'm not above begging.

I Guess I Should Buy Tickets or Something?

The Donnas play in Philadelphia on Monday!

ETA: I have purchased a ticket, so I guess I'm going for realz. I've never been to this sort of concert before, so I'm kind of nervous. I sort of fail at being social; I just want the all-girl rock.