KJ

Another day, another post about representation of women authors in best-of lists. This time, it's the NPR YA List from 2012, and although women tend to receive more recognition as YA authors, there is still plenty to discuss. The bloggers over at ladybusiness were kind enough to let me post my thoughts over there.

The NPR YA List: Playing Favorites?

If you are interested, take a look!

In other news, yesterday was my *mumbles age that ends in zero* birthday. I had a lazy day, then went out with friends for drinks and dinner, including a Flaming Mai Tai, which was free, and mighty tasty too.

FogCon is this weekend, and I'm pretty excited. Also a little nervous, because I'm on my first panel, ever, about copyright issues in fandom as they relate to both creators and fans. On reflection, and in conversation with my fellow panelists, it's probably too big a topic for an hour, but we'll see how it goes! I intend to represent as fan, librarian, and OTW member (although hm, maybe my membership has lapsed; I should check) as best I can. Wish me luck!

I was getting coffee at the cafe across the street, as I often do on morning when I have no plans to go out, and someone was playing the piano. This happens so rarely that I forget that the cafe even has a piano, so it look me a moment to realize that the music was live. The song was also familiar, and it took me awhile to place it out of context. Then it hit me: it was the Hymn of the Fayth, from FFX.

By the time I pulled out my phone to inform Tumblr what was happening, the pianist had begun playing Zanarkand, followed by a little bit of Yuna's Theme, and then he moved on to other, less nerdy things (a bit of "Come Sail Away", and some other pop songs, some of the Top Gun theme, a touch of "Heart and Soul"), although there was also an attempt at Roses of May, from FFIX. Then, before I finished my breakfast, he was gone, vanished before I could compliment him on his musical stylings. A bit of random happiness for me, although it makes me a little sad, too, that he will never know that at least one person heard his musical choices and knew them to be a sort of fannish kin.

Yeah, so much for that.

There's a Valentine's Day exchange on Tumblr, the dragonagewomen challenge, already working on a response for ot3_promptfest (wallwalker couldn't have left better KJ-bait if she'd tried), the next round of the Porn Battle coming up at the beginning of next month, halfway through the 30 Days of Dragon Age meme, and though the response to my query about hosting a DA Kiss Battle was fairly small, those who did reply were enthusiastic enough that I'm still seriously considering doing that. Not to mention the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle, if that happens, and I hope it does because I would be all over that, and I imagine that new rounds of ff_exchange and newgameplus are on the horizon, and soon it'll be time to start thinking about megaflare_ff again, and...

And of course I have two major WIPs still in the works, too.

So I have today off work, which means this should be a great time to get some serious time in on some of these projects, right? But instead I spent the morning poking around the Internet, and now I'm half-plotting to start Alim Surana's run through either Awakening or Witch Hunt -- Witch Hunt is more important for his character, I think, but I have this weird compulsion to do these things in order, unless I decide that he washed his hands of the Wardens and decided not to take the offer to serve as Warden-Commander. But he'd probably see that as shirking his responsibility, and there's something appealing about playing Awakening with a Warden who just does. not. want. to be there...

Obsessions are fun. But maybe I can get this one out of my system if I write the ficbit that's clawing at my brain. We'll see.

It's a dreary gray morning here, complete with drizzle, technical difficulties, Muni fail, and not enough coffee. Which makes it a good time to share some cheerful music!

This is one of the pieces we're doing in my chorus this quarter. I also performed it back in high school, and it's long been one of my favorites. Presenting "Good Ale", lyric traditional, music by John Rutter, a drinking song featuring some of the pickiest eaters ever:



Seriously picky: bacon is too fat, mutton is too lean, brown bread is too hearty, white bread is not hearty enough. And don't even ask me to explain the problem with duck. But they want their beer, and they want it now. You have to admire people who know what they want.

Lyrics here. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, hey hey hey, megaflare_ff story claiming for artists is open until Sunday 10/3! We have 10 great-looking stories across several different FF canons, and so far only one is claimed. That's a lot of opportunity left for the right artist. Come check it out!

Other fannish things: making decent progress on my Mega Flare, but currently taking a break to work on my newgameplus assignment, since that's due much sooner -- yes, I did decide to sign up, and it's going a little slowly, but not too bad; I like my prompt a lot -- and a sequel of sorts to my Anders + Cousland story, which is threatening to become yet another monster. What is it about Dragon Age that compels me to write mini epics? I've been playing around in prompt memes a little bit, too, with mixed results, but it's still fun to write up little ideas I'd never do anything with otherwise. On the gaming front, I'm closing in on endgame for my m!Surana replay (I could trigger the Landsmeet, but there are a few little things I want to clear out first); next I think I'll play Awakening again, with f!Cousland this time, and then use that as the backstory for my first DA2 replay (since that will get me Warden!Alistair).

Linkspam: in the name of sharing cool stuff and closing out some tabs, here are some links following up on things I've posted about recently:

1. Game of Thrones/Sady Doyle -- A Kind of Half-Hearted Defense of "A Game of Thrones" by braak (hat tip to lowkey for the link) which does an excellent job of pulling out the problems I had with both Doyle's review and the way she framed it:

I want her to be right, but I feel like her argument here is a little inaccurate. And worse: it’s framed in a way that makes me feel like not only can I not defend the series, but I can’t even ask for a more nuanced discussion of the subject without branding myself a raging misogynist fanboy. It’s like I’ve been set up in such a way that my choices are: agree, or else dismiss myself by the very virtue of my disagreement.

Go read the whole thing; it's very worth it.

2. Another thing worth reading in its entirety: cleolinda's overview of the Gay YA issue. If you haven't been following the story, it's a great way to catch up; if you have been following it, you've probably seen this already, but I link it for you just in case.

Life: Another quarter is about to end, thank god. This quarter has just been beyond difficult, for reasons I can't really talk about here; none of them are going away, really, but I hope with the new quarter we can reset and figure out a way to make it all more manageable. Only one week of break, and we're spending the first bit of it in San Diego, making our annual summer trip to visit T's mom. On the upside, he's finally going to install wireless at her house, so we'll be Internet-enabled for once. Should be a nice change.

Last night, at 1am, with a great deal of enabling from renay, I created my first Tumblr.

http://fuckyeaholdspiceguy.tumblr.com/

Not... exactly how I expected to get my start with a new online service. And maybe I'm a little behind the times, but I don't care. More Isaiah Mustafa in the world can only be a good thing, really.

Another recent foray into uncharted waters: writing for Babylon 5. I can't quite believe it myself, but there you are. Two stories posted yesterday on AO3!

Title: Anniversary
Rating: R
Characters: Susan Ivanova
Pairings: Marcus/Ivanova, Talia/Ivanova
Spoilers: Yes, through the end of Season 4
Notes: Written for Porn Battle XI. I was browsing the prompts, looking for Final Fantasy mostly. But I always check B5 prompts on multi-fandom projects, just in case, and the prompt "Susan Ivanova, memory" jumped out at me and worked on my brain for a couple of days, until I just couldn't not write it. So I wrote it in one day, posted it on the Battle page, then cleaned it up a little and put it on AO3.

All alone in the night, Ivanova remembers. AO3 version / Commentfic version

Title: The Living and the Dead
Rating: PG
Characters: Susan Ivanova, Marcus Cole
Pairings: Marcus/Ivanova
Spoilers: Yes, through Season 5
Notes: Alternate Universe. It was probably inevitable that I would write this story someday. ( Cut for major spoilers. )

Also written in one day. Mostly because I was afraid I'd lose my nerve if I sat on it for too long...

Ivanova gets a visitor on the Day of the Dead. On AO3 only.

see more Funny Graphs

Ganked from oswulf.

Pick 12 characters without looking at the questions below the cut. Then post your answers.

Be warned: there are 50 questions, so this is not a quick meme, and some of the topics covered are borderline NSFW. I found it entertaining, though.

1. Paine (FFX-2)
2. Nooj (FFX-2)
3. Yuna (FFX/X-2)
4. Auron (FFX)
5. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Lost)
6. Juliet Burke (Lost)
7. Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
8. Hermione Grainger (HP)
9. Ashe (FFXII)
10. Lightning (FFXIII)
11. Jadzia Dax (Star Trek: DS9)
12. Worf (Star Trek: TNG/DS9)

So most of these questions would result in some fairly crazy cross-over crack, which suggests that the answers are going to be a little out there. I'm going to assume that I have a giant world-crossing machine which makes the various pairings feasible from a technical standpoint and go from there. Also, writing summaries is probably my least favorite thing to do, ficwise, so I'm going to skip that part of most of those questions.

( Questions and answers. )

Library linkspam! It's been awhile...

• Hayward Public Library tries the Netflix model. For a small fee, patrons can check out three items for an unlimited amount of time. Libraries have tried the "items by mail" aspect of the Netflix service, but it appears that this is the first time one has implemented the "no time limits" model. The hope is that charging people a small amount upfront rather than levying fines will bring more people into the library. I don't think this would work at all in an academic setting, but it has possibilities for the public library. Keep an eye on this one.


• Can video games get kids interested in history?


• What is the library if it's not the place where we keep the books? Here we go again. Is there a role for the library in the paperless future, round #3,497. If we're a paperless society, why have I jumped up about half a dozen times while writing this post to help people with the printer and the copy machine?


• Are digital diaries bad for our brains? The idea, I suppose, is that if we outsource our memory to the Internet and portable devices, we'll lose "muscle tone" in our brain. I disagree, though. The power of being a librarian isn't that I know everything. It's that I know how to look everything up.


• Cheat on an exam, set yourself up for eternal damnation.


• Last but definitely not least, one of my new favorite blogs: Awful Library Books. Two public librarians, showing the worst their stacks have to offer. Computer careers books from 1985? Etiquette guides for the modern teenager from 1947? Tips for CB radio and preparing for Y2K? It's all here, and more!