shut up and let me see your jazz hands

A couple more fills were posted to the fest recently!

Victorious Girl-friend by fennishjournal (Norse mythology, Sigyn/Loki. Loki from Sigyn's POV; how does she love this trickster, this shapeshifting deity, and how does his ever shifting gender and sex delight her?)

Untitled by agent_squeaks (Powerpuff Girls, Teenage FtM Bubbles, Just because he's femme that doesn't mean he's a girl)

Friday will make three weeks since the start of the fest, so I guess that will be the end of it, but you can continue posting fills as long as you want. :)

We got our first fill for this round!

From the Mouths of Hats by fizzyblogic (Harry Potter, any, a trans character who's never told anyone has a reassuring chat with the Sorting Hat.)

Hopefully we'll see some more fills rolling in soon, as well as more prompts. :D

Oops, once again let this slide, and now it's not even 3W4DW anymore. D:

20. Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?
I know this is a joke question, but here are my actual thoughts on yaoi.

I used to read a lot of BL manga. Even if it was kind of crap, it was something with queer characters (like Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage series, which I also loved at the time), which was more than I could say for most other media I found. And I was a much less critical reader at the time. So I loved it.

I don't read it anymore. Maybe there is some good stuff I'm missing, but the tropes bother me too much to make me want to sift through to find the good stuff.

As for yaoi (fanworks), as opposed to BL (original manga), eh. I have read a ton of yaoi doujinshi that I translated for other people, and I just really don't find them to be telling the sort of stories I am interested in reading. (This is true of a lot of slash, too, of course.)

21. What's your favorite thing about Dreamwidth?
Ooh, tough question! But I think it's the expanding cut tags. That is the thing I really miss the most in reading my LJ flist.

But I also love the people here, both my old friends who moved from LJ with me, and all the wonderful new friends I've made here. ♥

( Full list of questions )

And here's a couple things people asked for the "any questions from the audience?" post:

geoviki asked "Have you ever told the story of how you and Carla met? You both seem so well-suited from your descriptions, temperament-wise and interest-wise."

Hmm, I don't know if I have ever specifically talked about it! I'm sure I've said several times that we met online, but idk if I have gone into detail much. Back in the day, we were both part of a jpop/drama mailing list, and we originally started emailing one-on-one when I offered to make copies of some videos for her (IIRC an Amuro Namie concert and the drama Love Generation). We got on well and kept emailing and I also bought her some Pretty Sammy VHS tapes that one of the video rental stores was getting rid of (she was a big Tenchi Muyo! fan). And at one point we established that we both liked each other, and talked on the phone a couple times, and she decided to move out here from Indiana. She stayed with me and my mom, supposedly just temporarily until she found a job and a place of her own, but that never happened and when my mom got remarried and moved out, we decided to get married, too. XD

zvi asked "Do you see yourself doing fanfiction reviews again?"

I was a bit confused at this one, because, er, of course I do! I just posted a review set during 3W4DW, and while I haven't been reading fanfic (or anything, really) that much lately, I have had at least one review post a month this year. So yes, I do see myself doing reviews again. I might not have another post this month, at the rate I'm reading (I've only read one full fic and part of another one since my last post), but I will surely have enough for another post by next month.


Speaking of things I posted for 3W4DW, I don't think I ever linked this from my journal, but I wrote a very enthusiastic post about Donkey Kong Country Returns over on a_gamer_is_me earlier on in the fest.

How is 3W4DW almost over? DDD: I haven't finished the fic I started for the femslash trope fest thingy, and I haven't even written anything for the fest I'm running! Gahhhhh. Failbot. :(

At least I can do these questions... ;_;

18. What don't you talk about here, either because it's too personal or because you don't have the energy?
I...I don't know what the expected answer is to this? I mean, if there's stuff I don't talk about because it's too personal, I'm not going to suddenly pour out my heart to everyone reading the 3W4DW tag... D: So yeah.

As for the second option, there are all sorts of things I don't have the energy to talk about, but it's not any one specific thing or subject. It's more like, of all the posts and comments I make, there are a ton more I start and don't post or never even start because I just don't have the time or energy, but they are about everything.

19. Any questions from the audience?
Ask me anything! :DDD

( Full list of questions )

14. Did you have a gateway fandom? Still in it? Why or why not? Is there a community for it on DW?

My First Fandom was Digimon, though after being in media fandom so long and being kind of brainwashed by the pervasive assumptions that fanfic is really the be all and end all of fannishness, it took me a while to be able to claim that.

You see, when I was in Digimon fandom, I spent most of my free time on a Digimon messageboard chatting with other fans. A messageboard that happened to be mine, part of my site, which was the main hub for Digimon fandom at that time. I went through various phases with it, but always my focus was on stuff that media fandom tends to dismiss. I bought a shit ton of Japanese books and magazines and scanned everything Digimon-related. I encoded videos of the Japanese episodes to compare scenes that had been edited in the US release. I offered a dubbing service where I would make VHS copies of the Japanese episodes, or burn CDs of the various Japanese albums that were available (back in the days before webhosting with unlimited storage space and sites like MegaUpload and YouTube made it easy to distribute music and videos online). I translated hundreds and hundreds of Japanese Digimon cards and created an encyclopedia (which would have been awesome in wiki form, but alas, was just HTML) which still exists on other sites, because when I decided to take my site down, I zipped all the files and said anyone who wanted to host it could (either continuing to add to it, or just leaving it as-is). I translated the Digimon manga and posted text files of the chapters, back before scanlating was really a thing. I translated lyrics to a ton of the songs. Oh, and I also drew a ton of fanart, which is sort of the red-headed stepchild of fanfic, right? I mean, some people consider it sort of creative and part of fandom?

I'm being sarcastic, but seriously. I lived and breathed Digimon for years (and was also translating it professionally at the time, so it really was pretty much all I did), yet for a long time after getting involved in western media fandom, it never even occurred to me to talk about Digimon when people asked what my first fandom was, because not only was it anime fandom, which, well. But I think if I had been writing and reading fanfic in an anime fandom, I would have thought to "claim" it. But my sort of fannishness back then, despite being the most fannish I have ever been about anything in my life (I do not have that sort of fannishness for anything I have ever written fic for, not even Vampire Chronicles, which comes the closest) and yet there is this belief in media fandom that fanfic is the only thing that really counts, you know?

So, since I am mostly involved in fanfic fandom now, I will talk about my first fanfic fandom, which was Vampire Chronicles. I actually got into it late, around the time of the Queen of the Damned movie (I think 2002). I had been a huge fan of the books in high school, but I had no internet access then, so wasn't in fandom. But I watched the movie and it made me want to reread the books, and then I was like, hey, I bet there's fanfic for this! And unfortunately a lot of the fandom was already gone because of Anne's lawyers, but I found one last tiny corner and wrote a bunch of fic for a year or so before I went multifannish and kind of abandoned VC.

I've never felt quite the same with any other fandom I've written fic for, and I think a lot of it is that there's no longer that isolation. I do kind of miss that, just hanging out on a messageboard and talking about one fandom and really getting invested in that fandom through all the time spent on it. But I also really love being multifannish and the journal style of interaction of not necessarily being fannish with my friends at all, except sometimes in a general way, rather than being fans of the same things.

ETA: Oh, and I forgot to answer the other parts of the question. XD No, I'm not still in it. The stress of being that involved in a fandom was starting to take its toll, especially as I was getting interested in VC. I decided that in order to not feel like I was supposed to be working on XYZ Digimon-related stuff, I had to delete my website. If I had left it up, I would have felt bad about not working on it. I do regret that, even if the Encyclopedia lives on elsewhere, but I just needed to not have it there.

I haven't really gotten into the fandom again, but I have written a couple of fics in recent years, which was funny to me since I never really cared for fanfic that much when I was actually in the fandom (though I did make a doujinshi at one point). I'm pretty sure there are Digimon comms on DW; I think I posted my last fic to one, though I don't remember.

( Full list of questions )

So, when I asked what I should post for 3W4DW, a couple people said fic reviews, and I haven't really been reading a lot of fic lately, but there is what I have read!

Babysitters Club

Accordingly Adorned (The BFF Remix) by velvetmouse Rec+
1300 words. G. Stacey & Claudia. Good fashion sense is gender-neutral. So is friendship.

OMG this is perfect! It's a remix of a fic that was written for me for Yuletide, so it feels like an extra remix present! I'm so thrilled to see more of Claude (or any trans!Claudia).

Full House

Round the Corner Straight by busaikko Rec+
1100 words. Michelle. The first two years, Glen doesn't want to see his family at all, not even cousins or people related by marriage. Joey jokes that he called in his debts, making his voice all Godfather-y, but Glen's pretty sure he actually had to go and explain things to Dad, and that there was a whole bunch of trouble involved.

I...did not know I needed Full House fic about Michelle being trans? (I mean, it actually took me a minute to remember which one Michelle was; at first I got Michelle and Stephanie confused.) But apparently I did, because this is awesome. It makes me want to watch Full House again (I loved it when it was running, but haven't watched it in years and years), but I know that Full House wouldn't be this Full House, so I guess really I just want more of this universe? XD

Harry Potter

Freaks, Geeks and Post-War Resolutions by kaycee
3000 words. PG. Dudley feels out of place at Harry's party until a sweet girl asks him to dance.

I liked the idea of this a lot, but not so much the execution. Very tell, not show. Still, it's cute enough.

Hikaru no Go

Daylight (The Quiet Understanding Remix) by hostilecrayon
200 words. G. Touya/Hikaru. Touya doesn't know, but he understands.

This is a POV shift of my one and only Hikaru no Go drabble. It works really well as a companion piece (and also stands alone, which is always a plus in a remix, IMO).

RPF

Nothing to Say but It's Okay by cesare Rec
500 words. Teen. Jude Law/Ewan McGregor. The man who wriggles out of the linens is every bit as wrecked as the room.

Ces was asking for prompts and I asked for sleepy morning-after-the-first-time sex with either Jude/Ewan, Dom/Elijah, or John/Ronon, and she chose Jude/Ewan, yay! :D It's more funny and cute than porny, which is just fine with me. ♥

Stargate: Atlantis

Ganymede's New Groove (The Erastes Expansion) by sabinetzin Rec
3900 words. Explicit. John/Rodney. It's hard to believe he's twice Rodney's age.

This is an expansion of a drabble I wrote a couple years back for the McShep Match drabble tree. I really like what the remixer did with it. I think I had a more predatory John in mind, whereas this John is just sort of sad (especially in the second and third chapters), but I like that reading a lot. It certainly works with John's character. And I like snarky, jaded teenage Rodney.

12. What do you consider the five most "telling" interests from the list on your profile? Why?
I don't know... I guess things that actually describe me rather than things I like. Also possibly "having more than 150 interests", since that is really key. I love the interests section and on LJ always had the limit and would have to debate over which one(s) to delete when I added something new. I noticed I hadn't edited my DW interests in a while, though, and they were sort of out of date, so I deleted a bunch tonight. Now I need to add some new ones. :D

13. Do you have any unique interests on your user profile? What are they? How'd they get there?
I have quite a few. Part of that is that there are a lot fewer people on DW, so some interests tend to be unique even when they're really not all that uncommon.

brahman: An awesome, but not all that well-known Japanese punk band. I've uploaded a couple of their songs as part of my Daily Happysong postings: From My Window and Oneness.
gunjo: An awesome manga. My review of volume one gives more details about its awesomeness.
jensen's swaggering manliness: This is one of those joke interests I really wish I'd written down the source for somewhere. XD IIRC it's from a parody J2 fic fangirl_says wrote that included a line about Jensen's swaggering manliness, but I don't have time to look for the link. Anyway, it amused me, so.
kawahara kazune: One of my favorite shoujo mangaka. Readers of English-language manga probably know her best for High School Debut, but she also has two other great series, Sensei! and the currently-running Aozora Yell, as well as a ton of one-shots. I have some reviews of her stuff in my manga tag and have collaborated on scanlations of some of her one-shots with estara. By the way, Aozora Yell was being scanlated, but was abandoned for a while, but now appears to have been picked up by another group!
kindaichi shounen no jikenbo: An awesome murder mystery series and probably my all-time favorite manga. I am always so sad that I can't properly rec it to people who don't read Japanese, because it was only partially released in the US and is now out of print, so it's very hard to get a hold of what was released (although don't let the fact that it was not completed keep you away; each mystery is a stand-alone story, so you can read what is available without being left frustrated, except by the fact that there isn't any more!). There were two series in Japan, and then it was over for quite a while, but was revived in the early '00s, not as a third series, but just as occasional new stories. There have also been novels (which I have managed to find four of, but they are difficult to get here!) and three dramas and, IIRC, an anime.
lego games: Lego Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. I love them! ♥ Maybe for my birthday I will get Clone Wars or the Pirates of the Caribbean one.
lois-ann yamanaka: A pretty cool author. I particularly loved Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, but have reviewed two of her books.
mizusawa megumi: Another mangaka I love. NOTHING of hers has been released in the US, despite her being very prolific. If you were around for the early days of the fansubbing scene, you may know Hime-chan no Ribbon, which was available fansubbed on VHS back in the day and fairly well-known. The thing that sets her apart from many mangaka who've not been officially licensed in English is that there's not really even scanlations of her stuff. I believe maybe one or two of her more recent one-shots have been scanlated, but that is a drop in the bucket. Like Kawahara Kazune, she tends to write sweet romances with strong female friendships, which is just the sort of thing I really love, yet is very much not what is typically released of shoujo in the US. Anyway I have some reviews of various one-shots and short series, but since I only started writing reviews recently, I don't have any of her older stuff. I do have her on my list of possible translations/scanlations, but first I have to get through the stuff I'm already working on!
mrs. pell's fish sticks: This is from an episode of The Critic in which Orson Wells narrates Jay's parents' video will, and also talks about his love for Mrs. Pell's Fish Sticks (they're even better when you're dead!). Here's a video of all the Orson Wells bits from The Critic. The relevant ones are towards the end, but all of them are funny.
pineapple lumps: A delicious candy from New Zealand! I should have asked kiwimusume to bring some with her. They are squares of pineapple taffy coated in mockolate, but for some reason they are just super delicious.
see's candies: The best candy ever.


( Full list of questions )

Untitled by anon
Prompt: Hero and Leander. Show me a trans and/or genderqueer Leander? Verse optional. ;)

Throw Your Soul Through Every Open Door by feverbeats
Prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. FTM Giles (And possibly Ethan) - Back in his uni-dropout days, Rebecca Giles used magic to fix an inconvenient little problem. Ethan is the only person still around who knows about it.

9. Are there two people on your reading list that you think should meet?

I think a lot of people on my reading list already know each other. Anyway, I'm not really very good at playing matchmaker. I don't tend to think that way.

(Haha, wow, these have been kind of boring questions the last few ones. Maybe I should have done another batch rather than day by day. It makes the no-answer ones easier to handle, rather than just having to come up with different ways of saying "I don't really have an answer for this". :p

( Full list of questions )

8. What community do you wish was more active?

Well, like I said in my previous answer, I'm not really a comm-oriented person. I don't belong to that many, and have even fewer on my reading list. I just took a look at the ones on my reading list, and I guess I would say that factfinding is one I wish were more active.

( Full list of questions )