I want to write, and I have a ton of things I could and should be writing (hello, femslash fic prompts!), but I just can't seem to.

I've at least gotten a lot of scenes outlined for the original novel, but I still can't pluck up the courage to start actually writing it again after close to a year and a half of absence. Maybe I'll reread what I wrote back then, post it here, and then see if I can write more.

This is driving me crazy. I want to write! But I can't even manage to tag in my roleplays.

In the meanwhile, suffer as I have suffered. I love/hate/ARGH addictive Flash games.

One of the things that's cropped up in the latest slash wank is the lamentable lack of femslash in fandom. So it's time for...

♀ The Femslash Fic Prompt ♀

→ → → Pick one of my fandoms (especially one of my current ones) and a pairing of two or more female characters. Give me a prompt along with that pairing. I'll write a short fic in return.

Some ideas for pairings I could write, in case you're stuck:

Tales of the Abyss: Legretta/Tear, Anise/Arietta
Gundam 00: Shirin/Marina, Soma/Marie, Soma/Louise, Kati/Sumeragi, any pairing not involving Mileina
Macross Frontier: Sheryl/Ranka, Sheryl/Klan, Sheryl/Grace
My-HiME: Shizuru/Natsuki, Haruka/Yukino, Haruka/Shizuru, any pairing not involving Mikoto
G Gundam: Rain/Allenby
Princess Tutu: Ahiru/Rue

But if you give me a good prompt and time to canon review a bit, I might be able to come up with something for other pairings too. And who knows? If this is a success, I might do another one after I've gotten into some more fandoms.

Nth round, same as the first. "Why isn't there more fanfic about women?" "Why aren't there more awesome female characters?"

We have all had the madonna/whore complex imposed upon us in different ways, both those of us who create the characters and those of us who evaluate and react to them. Deciding that some female characters (love interests and damsels in distress) are Bad Models Of Women, while others (ass-kickers and tough loners) are Good Models Of Women, only reinforces this. Like who you like. Be receptive to others' different views of these characters, though.

We have all had the notion of Woman As Other imposed upon us in different ways. Handwringing over how people should write more fanfiction about female characters as some sort of charitable gesture only reinforces this. Write what you want to write. But step outside your comfort zone now and then and challenge yourself; you might find you enjoy something you didn't consider before.

I took a look at what characters and pairings I end up writing about and the biggest pattern that emerges is randomness. Ask me for my top five pairings, then ask me for the five pairings I've written the most fic for, and you'll get different answers. I haven't written any fic for Garak/Bashir or Zoe/Violet, and they are up there. I've found that what matters more than how much I love a pairing is how engaged I feel with the fandom.

My most-written pairings, for the record, are Lockon/Tieria and Sasuke/Sakura by a huge wordcount (I don't write the latter anymore, because I'm no longer engaged with either the canon or the fandom). One is slash (or genderqueer depending on who you ask) and one is het. I have never seen fans pass a moral judgment on the slash pairing--a value judgment of "omg this is so canon ^__^" or "God, I'm so sick of this stupid baseless overrated pairing," sure, but not a moral judgment. The het pairing? Last I was in fandom, it was constantly looked down upon for being a Bad Model Of A Relationship, just as so many female characters are looked down upon for being Bad Models Of Women. You were considered a better, more enlightened fan if you shipped slash or a het pairing that lined up better with Western feminist expectations of gender dynamics, regardless of its other flaws or canon evidence. I wonder if that's a pattern in het pairings vs. slash pairings? Come to think of it, in my current fandom, the pairing I saw called "incestuous mental pedophilia" with no evidence to back up the claim is het (and does have problematic elements, like all male/female gender dynamics, but incestuous mental pedophilia is not one of them).

A meme I've just seen emerge from the last round of is-slash-(appropriative/progressive/written by straight women/written by queer women/feminist/misogynist) navel-gazing:

Comment with the name of a female character and I'll tell you why I love her.

Edit: Oh, yeah. My comments on a previous round of this discussion can be found here.

Since I never got around to participating in the auction, I'm going to try this instead.



My offering thread is here. Request away, as anonymously as you'd like!

Finished G Gundam last night. It was terrible and wonderful and adorable and everything great about cheesy '90s anime.

I won't lie: it's part of the reason I picked up Irresponsible Captain Tylor at Best Buy today. I'll marathon it soon.

On the Gundam front, Turn A Gundam is probably next. For now, have some fic I wrote for G Gundam.

I am somewhat dubious about this whole affair¹, but it gives me the excuse to write shippy stuff. So far I've written Ingway/Mercedes, Luke/Tear, and Gwendolyn/Oswald. Go request more stuff in my fandoms. Or your fandoms. Or go fill some prompts yourself. Whichever!

¹ Especially considering some of the pairings being requested--look, if you want to ship creepy wrong pairings I'm not going to judge you (I mean, look at some of the stuff I've written), but some pairings are not meant to be requested in a fic-a-thon based around consensual relationships.

Fandoms written: Gundam 00, Gurren Lagann, Final Fantasy VIII, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Persona 3, My-HiME, Princess Tutu, Egyptian mythology, Macross Frontier
Fandoms roleplayed from: Gundam 00, Persona 3, Odin Sphere, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gurren Lagann, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Macross Frontier, My-HiME

( A timeline, month by month. )

This next bit's from zalia.

( Themes and variations. )

I have a problem.

I get ideas for stories. I flesh them out in my head. But I can never manage to write these ideas down. Sometimes I can start the actual story, get a chapter done, but I can't pour out the plot seeds and character notes. It feels weird and unnatural.

But I know I need to write this stuff down, or I'll never finish anything. I need to make an outline, and for that I need to put down notes.

Any ideas? What helps you write outlines for your writing projects?

I don't know if I'll ever get the holiday gift fics done, so instead, have a general fic prompt.

DISCLAIMER: Actual results may vary. But I need to give myself something to do so I don't mope too much, so here it is.

Prompts this time are pulled from pretty lines in New Scientist. Pick one, then supply character(s) or pairing, plus ideally a more concrete prompt (such as "a moment of rest" or "argument"). Most people should know what fandoms I write for at the moment, but if not, the trends and interests over at archerastar should give a decent idea.

1) convulsed by ancient energies
2) I walk in ghosts and shadows
3) life is giving up its secrets
4) tension can work wonders
5) the past belongs to everyone
6) they might have affected the fundamental shape of the universe
7) fleeting feelings of emotional intimacy as our voices blended into one

Go, go, go.

So my holiday is almost over, and I still haven't posted a wishlist.

I guess I might as well. It's not like I'm too timely myself.

Things I Want This Holiday Season

1) Translations or scanlations of my doujinshi. What I've got scanned in so far is Gundam 00 stuff, an FFVIII Laguna/Raine doujinshi, and couple of old Naruto doujin, but if anyone wants to translate it I'll scan in other stuff (especially my lovely Simon/Nia doujinshi) too. Ask me for details on what I've got.
2) Fanfic for Mai-HiME: any Midori and Nao interaction; any Shizuru and Haruka interaction. Bonus points for Shizuru/Natsuki and Haruka/Yukino, but the key here is the Shizuru and Haruka interaction. I am starved for it from the series themselves. Otome-verse is okay for the latter, too.
3) Fanfic for Macross Frontier: Sheryl-centric stuff.
4) Fanart of any of my OTPs or favorite characters.
5) Fanart of scenes from my fanfic. I'm not an egomaniac at all, nope.

It's dark and getting darker. What does that mean? It means the holidays of sparkly lights are approaching. Sparkly lights, and showering gifts upon each other. So I have decided to do a gift prompt. I cannot draw and I have very little money to spend, but I can write short fic, put together FSTs, make icons, and RP.

So now it's up to you. My own wishlist will be up shortly.

STEP ONE: Decide what you want. Fanfic? It will probably be short, possibly only a sentence or two if you ask for a fandom I've abandoned or otherwise do not much write for. Mini-FST? It may be sloppy music-wise, but I will make it with pretty pictures and all. Icons? I cannot promise artistic genius, but I will make several of them, so long as they're not manga icons that need to be colored. A particular RP thread/post? I'll see about getting it done at some point in the near future.

STEP TWO: Make your request!

STEP THREE: Provide details. If you want fanfic, give me character/pairing/group and a prompt. If you want mini-FST, give me the subject. If you want icons, give me the subject and, if it's something I'm unfamiliar with, a link to where I can find images. If it's an RP thread or post, let me know with whom and if you want it to be in continuity in one of my games or in a musebox or dressing room.

STEP FOUR: Wait. I may not fill all prompts in a timely fashion, for I am slothful. But I will get as many as I can finished in some form or another.

I have shame, I'm just putting it away somewhere for now because I could really use the ego boost lately.

THE FANFICTION LOVE MEME

"Becoming an Otome means giving up on love, giving up on female happiness...unless you become a lesbian like we did. We encourage it!"

I think I might be paraphrasing a bit. Just a bit. Okay, a lot.

My favorite part so far is seeing what Shizuru, Natsuki, Haruka, and Yukino become once they're given a less messed-up background (in Shizuru and Natsuki's cases) and several years to mature (in the case of all four). As I predicted, they take over the world. I still prefer them in HiME because I like the messed-up-ness of HiME!Shizuru/Natsuki and have less interest in them as an admittedly hot settled-down couple, but it's nice to see.

I also like the expressions the main characters make. There will be icons. So far, though, I prefer HiME. If Arika gets the kind of depth Mai did, I may change my mind, but, well...HiME has psycho Shizuru, and I'm one of those horrible fans who loves her best.

Oh, yeah, and Shiho reimagined is glorious Especially with Nao. And I love her, Akane, and Chie as a trio.

Name a fandom and I'll tell you three pairings I love, two pairings I consider shipping, and one pairing I hate.

That's the fun part of this entry. Not that it'll tell most of you anything you don't already know, but I don't seem to have the energy to RP or write at length, so here, a useless meme.

Here, have a couple of useless lists.

Annoying Things
* A peg on my 1/100 Dynames broke. Now I have to go look for model glue to put that arm together, and I'm not sure how I'll go about doing that once I get it.
* Grim Grimoire's gameplay is bugging the fuck out of me. It's probably great if you love tactics games, but good lord, the battles take forever and they're frustrating. I am deeply intrigued by the story and the fact that the main pairing is lesbian (and adorable), but I cannot stomach these battles. I just want to run around exploring, hitting things, and getting points for hitting things. Maybe after I finish this stupid battle which never seems to end, I'll take out Grim Grimoire and put in Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories.
* Still no progress on getting the gym/"wellness center" to say whether I can join.
* I'd like to go outside because that might make me feel better, but the weather sucks.

Things I Might Do Today
* Work on cleaning my room.
* Make more clay runes.
* Try to get the next scene in the moonfic done. But that is unlikely to happen because I am still having writer's block.
* Read more.

Mom and I went on a walk to the library/community center, where we discovered a small but well-equipped and cheap gym. Its hours are pretty terrible for her, but they're great for me. Plus, half a mile away, therefore, easy walking distance! Hopefully I will get signed up soon.

Then, as we were walking back, I spied a sign for an estate sale. We eventually found it. Antique dealers had picked most of it over the day before, but there was a lot of stuff left for fans.

Show of hands, who appreciates how awesome it is that I got a twenty-five-year-old Bruce Springsteen 45" single with "Jersey Girl" on the back for seven bucks.



( More (and bigger) under the cut. )

I am going to have a new userinfo header shortly.

I am temporarily burnt out on writing on account of passing 40,000 words on That Fic and finishing my Sheryl application for edensphere. But I still feel like doing fannish stuff, and I've been gathering a lot of music lately.

So give me a character or pairing and I'll make a short fanmix for them, or at least try. Some characters kind of stump me.

...characters and pairings I have already done fan soundtracks for are not necessarily out, as I may well have additional music for them. Or I might reuse some old and some new. Whatever. This is a spur-of-the-moment meme. Your results may vary.

Wrote this a while back, reminded to post it by a post linked on metafandom. Time to get this out of the way so I don't feel the desperate urge to rant about it every time I see the subject come up in the future. Instead I can just link here! Note: this refers primarily to anime fandom's practices. I can't speak for other parts of fandom, as the post I just linked is clearly talking about.

MY THOUGHTS ON FANART ICONS.

( And now for some tl;dr. )

Obligatory disclaimer about how I am a hypocrite and repost Japanese fanart all the time goes here. But I will point out that I usually only do it under friendslock.

From precto: Write a 250 word prompt about Lockon and the Fat Blonde Commander from Gundam 00 uuu~ It has to be about the two fighting over using the same urinal in the bathroom, uuu~ Post it to your LJ uuu~

It's set in the afterlife bakery, of course. If you don't know what that is, then you haven't watched this. Go ahead; I'll wait.

This is actually 333 words. Live with it.

( Oh god why. )

syaokura gave me this dare:

Write some drabble porn about Lockon and a character of your choice ~ desu!

This is not much of a dare for me. Nevertheless, I failed it: this isn't a drabble (it's over eight hundred words) and it isn't porn. But I think it is kind of sexy? Yeah. Lockon (Neil)/Tieria, S2 episode 8 WTF.

( Kind of risque, but basically worksafe. )

Next: precto, I will do yours. Although it will be decidedly less sexy.