broadcast me a joyful noise

Dear Yuletide Writer 2016

fahye — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 11:23:58 GMT

Hello, hello!

Yuletide is one of my favourite events on the fandom calendar, and I hope you have a great time writing this story. If you offered one of these fandoms/characters because you have a particular story burning a hole in your imagination: WRITE THAT ONE. Optional details being optional, I'd rather you enjoy yourself thoroughly.

All further details and prompts are below:

THE HOUR

Freddie Lyon, Bel Rowley

I love the perfect blend of idealism and cynicism represented in the show's mix of characters, and the way each person is shown to be a realistic collection of flaws and strengths. I love heartbreakingly determined Bel, I love the way she and Freddie sharpen one another's edges, and I love their history and their magnetic belief in one another.

Feel free to stick within the bounds of the show (or What Happens Next) or to go completely AU with its characters. If your shipper's heart desires, FIX THE DAMN ENDING and show me what these two would be like in a relationship: the things that would be easy and the things they'd have to work at. But I'd also be happy if you want to focus on their friendship and their shared passion for the news.

The Hour is a BBC drama from 2011-12 with two series of 6 episodes each, about a current affairs TV program in London in the 1950s. It's beautifully made, impeccably acted, and plays your emotions like a harpsichord.

The last time I requested this pairing I called it 'the queen of the newsroom and her wayward knight'; I have to admit, they strike my fealty kink BANG ON, and I'd adore any story that dug into that aspect of their dynamic. When it comes to AUs, I'd accept almost anything as long as you keep the show's edge of mingled cynicism and idealism. I'd love modern-day reporters wielding social media to their advantage. I'd love something with a science fiction or fantasy slant.

If you feel up to it, I would particularly like to see Bel and Freddie (and anyone else from the team) on the other side of the lens. The poised politican and her loyal machinist, drinking wine in bed and plotting their power games, all of their ruthlessness coming to the fore. And if you threw some subtle obedience kink in there, you would WIN ME FOREVER.

Re: other characters not in the tagset: I'm totally open to Hector/Bel/Freddie or (if you feel like getting adventurous) a sedoretu bringing in Marnie.

SAGA

Upsher, Doff

I love the complexity, creativity and sheer exuberance of the worldbuilding and plotting in Saga. When it comes to Upsher and Doff, I love their clear affection for one another, their fond domesticity in a dangerous world, and the fact that they are both journalists down to their bones.

I would be fascinated to see your version of their past on their own planet, and especially would love to see more of them in their professional journalistic role, unrelated to the events involving the series protagonists. Five stories they wrestled (literally, or figuratively) to the ground for the Hebdomadal? Their experience in the war? The story of how they met? Go wild.

Saga is a serial graphic novel by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan, about a young family on the run from--well, pretty much everyone, at this point--and the various other people whose lives become entwined with theirs. It's got an incredibly inventive setting which blends scifi and fantasy elements.

This is the second journalist couple on my list this year! As I said in the prompt, I'm happy for you to go pre-canon or during-canon; this is the one fandom on my list where the canon world is part of the appeal, for me, so I'd prefer no AUs which change the setting, but canon divergence is absolutely fine. I tend to read trade paperbacks rather than single issues of comics, and I've read up to the end of volume 6.

There's actually a piece of cover art from Chapter Sixteen that I love. Here's a link, but in case it dies: they're ankle-deep in water and being shot at, Doff is snapping photos, and Upsher is yelling into a hand-held recorder while holding a helmet that says PLEASE DO NOT KILL. (Why isn't he wearing the helmet?? Personally I think it's a combination of total lack of survival instinct + he's worried it will mess up his hair. He does have pretty great hair.) The story behind that picture, of the two of them when they were war correspondents on Jetsam, would be AWESOME.

Saga being Saga and all about the unexpected ways in which paths intersect, and the ways our choices lead us into strange places, you should toss in as few or as many of the other characters as you like.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (2016)

Lady Susan Vernon

This movie's strengths for me were the humour, the vividness of the characters, and the sheer aplomb of Lady Susan's approach to getting what she wants out of life. I'm a sucker for a good Slytherinesque social architect and I would be happy to read anything about Lady Susan being her charming and appalling self.

A post-canon story would delight me, and I'm happy for you to include any of the movie's other characters that you wish, as long as Susan is the focus. I'd also be particularly interested in wacky AUs/fusions, as I feel Susan has the kind of personality that would charge in and begin arranging the social furniture to her pleasing anywhere from a space station to an apocalypse.

If you're looking to pick up a new canon, this is probably the quickest. Love & Friendship is a movie adaptation of Jane Austen's unfinished epistolary novel Lady Susan, and it's one of my favourite things I've seen so far this year: it's very funny, it's got a fantastic cast, and the widowed protagonist Lady Susan Vernon is exactly the kind of delightfully unapologetic schemer that I LOVE.

In terms of which other characters to include: your choice! Show me her interactions with Lord Manwaring, who is such a hilariously invisible man-candy role in the movie. Show me how Susan handles (or sometimes struggles to handle) the farcical yet convenient situation of having her lover move in with herself and her husband. Show me more of Susan and Alicia's delicious conspiratorial friendship. (Or go down the Susan/Alicia route, if you want!)

If you're an Austen fan and would like to include cameo appearances from any of her other characters (Lady Susan Vernon vs. Lady Catherine de Vere: A BATTLE FOR THE AGES!) then I'd definitely enjoy that. And as I mentioned, I'm particularly open to AUs for this request. Space opera? SURE. Magical powers? WHY NOT. Lady Susan herself might also be nicely suited to a Miranda Priestly type role in the modern world.

Final note: this is a movie fandom and not a book one, but I do enjoy the epistolary form of the novel, so if your authorial fancy leads you in that direction--go for it!

THE NEXT BIG ONE - DEREK DES ANGES

Ben Martin, Daniel Khoo

Ben! Daniel! BEN AND DANIEL. Their tentative, spiky romance is a sheer delight and I just want to see more of it: more terrible music, more kissing, more of Daniel's swearing and dubious mesh shirts and abrasiveness and--everything. Or if you prefer, I'd be interested in missing-scene fic for this fandom: drag the narrative away from Ben's POV and show me some of what Daniel was thinking and feeling when the spotlight wasn't on him.

If you want to go larger-picture and pick up some of the tantalising future threads dangled at the end of the book, in regards to the future of the KBV epidemic and how their world and their London will continue to change & become more complicated, then that would be great too. Part of this book's appeal is in the richness of the background tapestry of people whose lives intersect with Ben's both before and during his investigation, and I'd love to see appearances from any of them. But mostly: BEN/DANIEL.

The Next Big One (link to ebook on Amazon) is a medical thriller about London in the midst of a new epidemic, and the journalism student who reluctantly ends up investigating the virus's origins for an assignment. It's tight, well-researched, and full of fascinating, real characters, including (to quote my Goodreads review) a bisexual protagonist, an m/m romance, a lot of angry scientists, a prominent trans character, cheerful and fond skewering of various London subcultures, and an adorable cat.

I don't have a lot more to add to my given prompts, except to say that if we match on this then GOD FUCKING BLESS YOU and please write whatever you want; this is such a tiny fandom that I'll take almost anything. Especially if it involves Dr Daniel Khoo and his ridiculous personality. I love that he's going to be working with Natalya, and it would be great to see some of that.

There's also the fact that Ben Martin expresses a desire near the end of the book to get firmly, intensely and comprehensively laid and I, uh, would also be. interested. in that. Feel free to porn the hell out of it, is what I'm saying.

GENERAL NOTES

IN THE YES COLUMN:

I like humour and clever use of language. I like families (blood or found). I like slow-build romance and lightning attraction. I like mythology, and science, and Shakespeare. I like absurd tropes around fake relationships or marriages of convenience. I am a total sucker for close-to-canon AUs with magical powers or telepathy. I really like things happening in space.

I'm fine with any rating from complete gen to filthy porn, and with any combination of het/slash/femslash/none of the above. I love threesomes and moresomes. I enjoy stories that explore and play around with the control and power dynamics between characters, or obedience (although I don't like humiliation to be a feature). Happy endings preferred.

IN THE NO COLUMN:

I'm not a fan of soulmate tropes or A/B/O anything, I don't like pregnancy or kidfic as a general rule, and the kind of hurt/comfort that hinges on someone getting sick and the other person taking care of them is a bit too close to my day job for me to find it particularly interesting. I don't like very graphic descriptions of violence, especially torture. (I'm fine with you writing about blood and injuries; it's the deliberate infliction that I'd prefer not to see.)

You can find most of my own fic archived on AO3, and I am fahye on tumblr if you wish to do some benign stalking.

Thank you so much, and have a great Yuletide!

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/781049.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

yuletide 2015: recs!

fahye — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 23:02:35 GMT

I have realised I will have to be the Yuletide 2015 rec list I want to see in the world, in the hope that it will encourage MORE REC LISTS, because >2500 fics is a lot to browse through. I need guidance! I need gushing capslock!

Here, I'll start.

First off I have to mention my two gifts, which I already shouted about on Twitter AND Tumblr, but I think they deserve some more shouting:

Spy - A Deal With a Bulgarian Devil
Mission-fic! Action! Adventure! This is pure spy romp from start to finish, featuring Susan's hilarious inner monologue, Rayna being an asshole (but with secret feelings), and Nancy being a delight.

Hamilton - A Miner Refuted
HAMILTON, IN SPACE. And not just that! Adorable Hamilton/Laurens, unapologetic revolutionary bros being amazing, cyberpunk surveillance state worldbuilding that's totally immersive and interesting, and some very clever callbacks to the musical. Everyone go and read this and SHOWER IT WITH PRAISE.

AND NOW FOR SOME MORE RECS. I have been very unsystematic in my exploration of the archive so far, but I've already unearthed some true gems.

Brooklyn Nine Nine - A Margaret Thatcher Kind Of Night
This is a thoroughly cute and very funny Jake/Amy story about AWKWARD SEX, with the best Jake Peralta narrative voice I've come across yet.

Captive Prince - Unmasked
An absolutely lovely, plotty, well-written adventure which handles the Damen-finally-knows-that-Laurent-knows moment TO PERFECTION, and also brings both characters beautifully to life. Just what I needed to tide me over during the wait for Book 3.

Fast & the Furious - Three-Point Turn
GLORIOUS POLY. I mean, the whole F&F series is thinly veiled found-family poly anyway, but this kicks it up another notch by looking at a Tej/Ramsey/Roman relationship. I loved Ramsey in the last film, and I ADORE the way this story unfolds, letting her find her place in Dominic Toretto's mad family.

Jane the Virgin - #Rogeliban
I was laughing so hard I think I strained something. Rogelio discovers the world of RPF. Rogelio accidentally starts a ship war. This pokes fun at fandom in a fond way, and the multimedia aspects are just spot-on.

Jane the Virgin - triangles and parallelograms
You guys know how easy I am for poly anything, right? This is Petra/Michael/Rafael/Jane and it's long and SUPER HOT and full of love for every single character. Plus the asides from the long-suffering Narrator are perfect.

Jeeves & Wooster - The Rummy Affair of the Brinkley Ball
Every year someone manages to nail the Wodehouse humour, and this year, THIS FIC DELIVERS SO HARD. It's got established Jeeves/Wooster and a classic Clever Scheme and it's HILARIOUS from start to finish.

Hamilton - The Courage of Which He Has The Reputation
Apparently there are going to be 50k words of this (!!!) but this part stands alone very well, and it's just--phenomenal. ARRANGED MARRIAGE. EPISTOLARY. ALEXANDER IS ACCIDENTALLY A PIRATE ACCOUNTANT?? And all while feeling historically genuine and with excellent prose. I need to find out who wrote this so I can aggressively befriend them.

Hamilton RPF - THANK YOU MARIO BUT OUR CINNAMON ROLL IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE (AO3 locked)
Ok, so this is LMM/Groffsauce; yeah, I know! I neither intended nor wanted to explore this fandom! But I have read this story, um, three times already. It is fucking hysterical. It is full of feelings and musical theatre nerdery and MORE FEELINGS. It is just SO GOOD. Every time I think about how good it is I get angry again.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - Strife at Methodist Ladies'
Elizabeth Macmillan meets Phryne Fisher at school, when she is supervising detention and Phyrne climbs out the window. NEW HEADCANON. This is a very plausible and delightful backstory, complete with a neat mystery.

Slings & Arrows - Going Dark
There's only one S&A fic in the archive this year, but it's a doozy. This is the story of Darren Nichols and Richard Smith-Jones putting on a musical, as told through poor, poor Maria's rehearsal notes. It is pure, solid Canadian gold from the first mention of Mounties on stage to the final drunken email.

I am sure I will discover more, but that's what I've got for now. Go forth! Enjoy!

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/780692.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

Dear Yuletide Writer 2015

fahye — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 21:11:19 GMT

Hello, dear writer!

Recycling this bit from last year: Yuletide is one of my favourite things about fandom, and I hope you have a great time writing this story. If you offered one of these fandoms/characters because you have a particular story burning a hole in your imagination: WRITE THAT ONE. Optional details being optional, I'd rather you enjoy yourself thoroughly.

All further details and prompts are below:

Spy (2015) -- Susan Cooper, Rayna Boyanov

The further exploits of the CIA's most badass agent and her kind-of-nemesis the sulky foul-mouthed criminal heiress! I loved, loved, LOVED the relationship between Susan and Rayna, which swung wildly between pure antagonism and grudging respect, and was based mostly in creative insults. MORE OF THAT PLEASE.

Maybe Susan has to get information out of Rayna, and visits her in prison. Maybe Rayna got away when they brought down De Luca, and she's sending Susan mocking postcards from her yacht while drinking champagne out of crystal glasses. Maybe Susan gets amnesia due to a head injury sustained on a mission and an escaped Rayna nurses her back to health and convinces her that she is, in fact, Rayna's bodyguard, because she misses having her around. And then they go shopping and diamond-smuggling in Prague, arguing the whole way.

I'm willing to go as silly as you are, is what I'm saying here.

I didn't see this as a super femslashy dynamic, but if that's where you want to take it, I'm open to being sold on the idea.

I also enjoyed Susan and Nancy's supportive friendship, and the utter ridiculousness of Rick Ford, and Our Lady Alison Janney The CIA Director, so I'd be happy if you wanted to throw any of them into the mix.

Plus: feel free to explore ridiculous crossovers with the action franchise of your choice. James Bond? The Bourne movies? Man from UNCLE? The latest Mission: Impossible lineup? I am a total sucker for fun and extravagant action films; Spy was probably my favourite movie of the year so far, and it was up against some very stiff competition. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

(And it's probably the easiest canon to pick up, if we matched on another fandom but you're not feeling any of my prompts.)

Saga (Comics) -- Upsher, Doff

I would be fascinated to see your version of their past on their own planet, and especially would love to see more of them in their professional journalistic role, unrelated to the events involving the series protagonists. Five stories they wrestled (literally, or figuratively) to the ground for the Hebdomadal? Their experience in the war? The story of how they met? Go wild.

I got into Saga this year and was blown away by the complexity, creativity and sheer exuberance of the worldbuilding and plotting. I love EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER, but I'm getting plenty of stuff about Hazel's family in the comic itself; fanfic is for poking your way into the less frequented corners, right? And I really like Upsher and Doff and their clear affection for one another, their fond domesticity in a dangerous world, and the fact that they are both journalists down to their bones. Our first allegiance is to the truth.

There's actually a piece of cover art from Chapter Sixteen that I love. Here's a link, but in case it dies: they're ankle-deep in water and being shot at, Doff is snapping photos, and Upsher is yelling into a hand-held recorder while holding a helmet that says PLEASE DO NOT KILL. (Why isn't he wearing the helmet?? Personally I think it's a combination of total lack of survival instinct + he's worried it will mess up his hair. He does have pretty great hair.) The story behind that picture -- of the two of them when they were war correspondents on Jetsam -- would be AWESOME.

Saga being Saga and all about the unexpected ways in which paths intersect, and the ways our choices lead us into strange places, you should toss in as few or as many of the other characters as you like.

A note on assumed canon and spoilers: I've read up to the fourth TP and intend to buy the fifth soon, but I'm not following individual issues of the comic, so I'd prefer a story set either before or within the events up to the fifth trade volume.

Hamilton - Miranda -- Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens

I am going to be both unoriginal and absolutely frank with you here: I want SEXY LETTERS. The lost romantic correspondence of Alexander Hamilton. Historiographic nerdery -- in the form of footnotes, annotations, or hilarious arguments in the Letters section of an academic journal about Hamilton's use of Revolutionary-era slang for genitalia/frosty warring interpretations regarding Which Of Them Was On Top -- is strongly encouraged.

OH GOD. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. Literally the week after nominations closed, this musical and its fandom slammed me in the face with feelings and opinions and needs. The musical does such a great job of making real, flawed, compelling characters out of historical figures. I love Hamilton's nervy exuberance and the edge of desperation to his perpetual motion, I love his asshole sense of humour, his unapologetic emotion, and his total inability to think before he speaks. I love how his joys and furies bring out strong emotion and strong opinion in everyone else.

Laurens is more of a cipher as far as the musical goes, being presented as less complex, but I like that we see his earnestness and strength of character so clearly through Hamilton's biased narration (redefining bravery!) and it raises the question: what ARE his flaws, and his doubts, and his complexities? What would we see if he was granted a monologue of his own? Plus there's the heart-punch of thematic parallels with Phillip that the double-casting really highlights.

As far as my main prompt is concerned: they don't have to be sexy sexy letters, either; they can be romantic with a sprinkling of innuendo if that's more your speed. Or they can be raunchy and explicit as all get-out. Up to you. Personally I think Hamilton's grasp of language could swing either way (*rimshot*). I've read his existing letters to Laurens and seen Miranda's tweets about his letters to Eliza and Angelica ("Hamilton's sexytimes correspondence"), and the man definitely knew how to wax lyrical about his feelings and desires.

And yeah, if you're in this fandom because you're a politics or history nerd, and you feel like working some sly academic meta into it, that would delight me no end.

But this is a 'Hamilton the musical' request, not a Historical RPF request, so do NOT feel obliged to research/mimic his writing style: go gloriously anachronistic if you prefer, or combine the epistolary format with a modern-day AU (the Lost Sexts of Alexander Hamilton). Or even, if you are a far braver soul than I, the format of the musical itself.

If you are biting the inside of your cheek in horror because a) you like the pairing but hate the idea of epistolary fic, or b) you are a gen writer at heart and really just wanted to explore their Beautiful Friendship, or write about the hijinks of Hamilton's gang of revolutionary bros, DON'T WORRY I LOVE YOU ANYWAY. How about:

- a high school or university AU
- a SPACE AU I'm sorry I just really like things happening in space
- ...do they all work for NASA?? I read & watched The Martian recently and I am very suggestible; they should totally all work for NASA
- Laurens Survives, Hurrah!! canon (er, reality) divergence AU
- any form of aforementioned history-academia nerdiness

I will say I'm not looking for angst, so I'd prefer you didn't write heart-rending deathfic, no matter how historically accurate.

Finally: obviously I only nominated two characters here, and if you are a dedicated OTPer for this pairing, then: full speed ahead! But if you subscribe to the Cheerful Bisexual Alexander Hamilton Is Banging Everyone newsletter and want to throw in some Alexander/Eliza, Alexander/Angelica, or Alexander/Pretty Much Anyone as well, then I would not be at all averse to that. I am especially open to threesomes and polyamory in this fandom.

SUPER BONUS CROSSOVER IDEA

Hamilton/Saga fusion or crossover. They are in space. They are also at war! Upsher and Doff try to interview Hamilton and he monologues obnoxiously into their recorder for half an hour! I'm not saying King George is a TV robot, but: King George is totally a TV robot.

GENERAL NOTES

I like humour and clever use of language. I like families (blood or found). I like slow-build romance and lightning attraction. I like mythology, and science, and Shakespeare. I like absurd tropes around fake relationships or marriages of convenience. I am a sucker for close-to-canon AUs with magical powers or telepathy. As mentioned, I like things happening in space.

I'm fine with any rating from complete gen to filthy porn, and with any combination of het/slash/femslash/none of the above. I love threesomes and moresomes. I'm not looking for anything strongly kinky, but I do enjoy stories that explore and play around with the control and power dynamics between characters, or obedience (although I don't like humiliation to be a feature). Happy endings preferred.

I'm not a fan of soulmate tropes or A/B/O anything, I don't like pregnancy or kidfic as a general rule, and the kind of hurt/comfort that hinges on someone getting sick and the other person taking care of them is a bit too close to my day job for me to find it particularly interesting. I don't like very graphic descriptions of violence, especially torture. (I'm fine with you writing about blood and injuries; it's the deliberate infliction that I'd prefer not to see.)

You can find most of my own fic archived on AO3, and I am fahye on tumblr if you wish to do some benign stalking.

Have fun!

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/780499.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

some content at last

fahye — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 07:33:12 GMT

Recently schiarire sent me a list of writing questions she'd curated by, as she put it, cannibalizing various interviews in the Paris Review, and I'm going to treat them as one long, slow, meandering interview. I expect the answers will get wordy, and I definitely want to have them in one centrally-archived and easy-to-find spot. So I'm dusting off this blog instead of sticking them solely on Tumblr, despite that being--ENDLESS GERIATRIC SIGHING--where everyone hangs out and where most of my content is these days.

If anyone else wants to steal & answer any of the questions as well, go for it. Meme the hell out of it! It'll be fun!

Here's the full list; answers to start tomorrow:

1. Who would you name as fundamental to this conversation?

2. Can you say something about inspiration?

3. Do you keep a sort of abstract potential reader or viewer in mind when you work?

4. Was being a prodigy important to you?

5. What was your daily routine like in those days?

6. Do you think of yourself as a genre writer?

7. Do you still feel that tug between the urge to put something into language and the urge to fend off writing?

8. When did you decide that sex was important to your work?

9. In your writing, you seem fascinated with cities and the contact they provide. Where does that come from?

10. What is the role of research in your work?

11. Did you intentionally want to make something the reader can only speculate about rather than be certain of?

12. Have you matured as a writer?

13. Had your childhood been innocent?

14. Was your writing encouraged at home?

15. When did you begin to think of yourself as a writer?

16. Despite the silence, music often features in your books.

17. What are people missing or overlooking in your work?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/780072.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

hello there 2015

fahye — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 06:48:50 GMT

I feel like any resolution to use this blog more regularly in 2015 is doomed at the outset (or at least, it will be until...May, after exams) but I still want to talk about my Yuletide stories because I'm a dork like that. And I had fun with them. AND I LOVE YULETIDE.

There were five, because why study when you can displace all your stress onto fanfiction.

1) Confidence Artists, the Road to El Dorado threesome fic that was probably inevitable, knowing me and threesomes. I had to throw together a con plot and a romance built on unresolved arguments and also a sex scene involving three people (ugh, TRICKY BLOCKING) and resist, resist, resist the urge to make it too easy for myself and use Tulio as the POV character. But I like how it fell out.

2) fighting vainly the old ennui, the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries canon-AU about how Jack and Mac should be buddies and how PHRYNE IS CATWOMAN (as opposed to the other AU I was tossing up, which went more down the PHRYNE IS BATMAN path). This story was a collision of my love for identity porn, letters, poems, and thief/detective love stories; for a very long time the GDoc was simply called MISS FISHER WHITE COLLAR AU which tells you a lot about how the idea germinated.

(agonistes, I wanted SO MUCH to write a treat for you, but I had already exhausted all of my feelings about Jack and Mac and their beautiful potential friendship while writing this story, so I just wriggled around silently and hoped you would read and enjoy it anyway.)

3) Shades of Pale, a Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters story that I wrote VERY early in the Yuletide period and then threw at my favourite letter as a treat. What can I say, I am easy for witch narratives. And Gemma Arterton. And Gemma Arterton making out with Jeremy Renner while covered in blood, which while not TECHNICALLY a part of the film, I feel was heavily implied to the extent that I had to oblige in fic form.

4) And All Things Nice, the Rule 63 Peter Pan story that FLEW out of me at the last minute when the prompt got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. So far in comments I have revealed that Captain Hook is played by Natalie Dormer (and might actually be Jamie Moriarty, given the James/Jamie thing, you can decide that for yourself) and that somewhere in me is a whole fucking novel about her cruelty and her history. This story did a lot better than I expected.

5) Playing Titania in Tim Hortons, the other story that flew out at the very very last minute (single sitting, Christmas Eve, booyah!) because the prompt was so good. It's a Scott Pilgrim/Slings & Arrows crossover about Knives Chau becoming the new muse of Darren Nichols, and it was absurdly fun to write.

& now, to work on my WIPs. I have THREE dangling and unfinished multi-chapter stories on AO3 at the moment, and this year is the year I will FIX THAT.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/779861.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

DYW 2014

fahye — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 09:14:19 GMT

Hello, dear writer!

Yuletide is one of my favourite things about fandom, and I hope you have a great time writing this story. If you offered one of these fandoms/characters because you have a particular story burning a hole in your imagination: WRITE THAT ONE. Optional details being optional, I'd rather you enjoy yourself thoroughly.

All further (and seriously: optional) details are below cuts:

1. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (Jack Robinson, Phryne Fisher)

Friends, partners, lovers, uneasy co-parents of their strange created family: whatever dynamic you want to run with here, I'll enjoy it. Any and all AUs (space detectives?) or ridiculous romcom tropes (fake marrieds?) are fine by me, and feel free to throw in as many of the other characters from the series as your heart desires.

This show is so good for me. Found family, light-hearted hijinks, multiple versions of femininity taken seriously and played lovingly. I listed Jack and Phryne because I want to smush their faces together as much as the next person, and shippy fic would be fantastic. However, if you want to veer gen-wards and write a fun ensemble piece featuring all of your other favourite characters from the show, that would be great too!

If you love the 1920s aesthetic and want to stick within the canon setting, I salute your choice, but this is also one of those fandoms where wild & wacky AUs would be very welcome. Do you have a secret hankering to write magical realism? Go for it. ARE they space detectives? I approve deeply. Regency era? Post-apocalyptic? Awesome, have fun.

(The only caveat I'd hang on this is that I'd prefer you to keep the Together, They Solve Crime! element of the partnership intact, rather than heading off into realms of coffeeshops or similar.)

If (and only if!) you are familiar with both this fandom and the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries: the cherished and unlikely desire of my heart this year is a crossover, featuring any combination of Jack, Phryne, Peter & Harriet. You'd have to fudge the timelines to make everything line up, but I would put up with flagrant anachronism, ocean-hopping and canonical nose-thumbing to see Peter and Phryne be outrageous at one another, or for Phryne and Harriet to have crime-solving adventures, or for Jack and Peter to be old acquaintances from their army days.

2. Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers (Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane)

There's a fair amount in the books already about how these two very self-sufficient and strong-minded people bend and settle around one another in order to form a remarkably lovely marriage, but I WANT TO READ MORE. I don't mind what tone you want to go for here; something serious about the war would be just as welcome as sheer ridiculous hijinks.

One of my favourite things about the book series is the way Sayers uses them as an excuse to wax erudite about bewilderingly specific things like bell-ringing and the advertising industry, so if you're a nerd (historical or otherwise) looking to drag a fandom into your workplace, then a casefic featuring the indomitable team of Peter-and-Harriet would be AMAZING.

If you're looking for other specific ideas: I would love to see anything about Harriet coming to terms with her identity as a mother, given how gently she had to ease into the idea of herself as wife, and how she balances these identities next to those of careerist and writer. I think these two characters also lend themselves to vignettes, so a Five Things format would be excellent if you're stuck: five gifts one of them gave to the other, for example.

(Also: see the notes above for Miss Fisher regarding a crossover prompt. If you like the Wimsey mysteries but aren't familiar with the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries TV show, then I have no hesitation in recommending it and strongly suspect it would be up your alley -- do check it out, if you're interested! -- but please don't feel obligated to consume a whole new canon just to fulfil my whims. A story for either of these fandoms singly will delight me just as much.)

3. The Hour (Bel Rowley, Freddie Lyon)

The queen of the newsroom and her wayward knight. I love the perfect blend of idealism and cynicism represented in the show's mix of characters, and the way each person is shown to be a realistic collection of flaws and strengths. I love heartbreakingly determined Bel, I love the way she and Freddie sharpen one another's edges, and I love their history and their magnetic belief in one another.

I finally got around to watching this show this year, after people telling me repeatedly that I'd enjoy it, and INDEED I DID.

If your shipper's heart desires, FIX THE DAMN ENDING and show me what these two would be like in a relationship; the things that would be easy and the things they'd have to work at. But I'd also be happy if you want to focus on their friendship and their shared passion for the news.

This is another request where an interesting AU would delight me: nothing that loses the bitter edge that the show has, but a shift in context. I'd love modern-day reporters wielding social media to their advantage, I'd love something with a science fiction slant. (Hell, give me the AU where they're an actual queen and an actual knight, if that's what floats your boat.)

If you feel up to it, I would particularly like to see Bel and Freddie (and anyone else from the team) on the other side of the lens. Poised politican and her loyal machinist, drinking wine in bed and plotting their power games, all of their ruthlessness coming to the fore. And if you threw some subtle obedience kink in there, you would WIN ME FOREVER.

4. The Tiffany Aching series - Terry Pratchett (Tiffany Aching)

Tiffany is one of my favourite fictional girls of all time: practical, powerful, always yearning and always grounded. Show me any unexplored aspect of her life that takes your fancy, either on her own turf or on a distant adventure, either alone or with others.

The Tiffany Aching books are my favourite Discworld sub-series; I think their focus on responsibility and ideas of adulthood and the price of power is amazing, and my love for Tiffany herself knows no bounds. The relationship between Tiffany and Letitia Keepsake has a lot of baggage built into it, around girlhood and witch-hood and large futures, so I would love any story at all about how they will maintain their friendship as they grow into their roles as Witch and Lady and have to negotiate the balance of power between them.

Other Tiffany-related things I would adore if you felt like playing with them: any exploration of Tiffany and Preston's relationship, and any of the older Lancre witches. Wee Free Men optional, but certainly welcome.

If you want to expand the scope of the story to explore the wider Discworld -- for example, Tiffany making another trip to Ankh-Morpork and finding herself mixed up in a random event with Character Of Your Choice -- then I'd really enjoy that too. I'd especially love to see your version of Tiffany meeting Susan Sto Helit, the other practical and powerful and grudgingly romantic Discworld lady of my heart.

As a final prompt: the book Witches Abroad touches thoughtfully on what Granny Weatherwax might have become if she'd gone down the path of selfish power, and while I think Tiffany (like Granny) has too much iron and self-assurance to her to ever turn evil, I'd be VERY interested to see a story about what could bring her close to that brink as an adult, and how she would drag herself back over the line.

General notes

Recycling from last year, more or less:

I like humour and clever use of language, I like magic with a light touch to it, I like families (blood or found). I like slow-build romance and lightning attraction. I like mythology, and science, and Shakespeare.

I'm fine with any rating from complete gen to filthy porn, and with any combination of het/slash/none of the above (and despite the fact that my requests this year are skewing quite het-OTP, I am ALL ABOUT functional threesomes as a general rule). I'm not looking for anything strongly kinky, but I do enjoy stories that explore and play around with the control and power dynamics between characters, or obedience (although I don't like humiliation to be a feature). Happy endings preferred.

I don't like very graphic descriptions of violence, especially torture. (I'm fine with you writing about blood and injuries; it's the deliberate infliction that I'd prefer not to see.)

You can find most of my own fic archived on AO3.

Have fun!

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/779569.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

and walk on

fahye — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:11:42 GMT

Has it really been two months since I posted here? The year is FLYING by, which is terrifying, but I am also gathering up my building excitement about next year, for a variety of reasons:

1) I'll be back in Canberra, which...look, I LOVE the place I'm working at the moment, I'm going to cry horribly at the prospect of working in a place with a less incredible set of people, but at the same time I'm rapidly losing patience with the whole small-town life thing. I miss shops, I miss the theatre, I miss even the modest Canberran version of city crowds, I miss restaurants and cafes and art galleries. I miss my family and my friends.

2) My apartment will be built and ready for me to move into. I don't think you realise how excited I am about the prospect of MY OWN PLACE, my own teensy one-bedroom third-floor apartment with a shitty view and an easy walk to my favourite Chinese takeway place. I'm going to hang art on the walls, I'm going to buy three enormous bookshelves, I'm going to have a fucking kitchen colour scheme, I'm going to have people over for really tiny dinner parties. I'm going to whine about having a mortgage at every opportunity. I already know what my housewarming presents to myself will be.

3) I got the part-time job I was hoping for at the medical school, which will mean I am doing two days a week of research and teaching as well as two days a work of clinical patient contact. After years of running in the other direction so as not to be exposed to the faintest whiff of research, I'm coming around to it, mostly because I love teaching so much and no university will let you just bum around designing curriculums and running clinical tutorial groups, which is my ideal professional life.

Work. Okay, let's talk about work.

I haven't been posting about my work much because it's overwhelming and draining and annoying and incredible and humbling. Being a GP is very, very different to being a hospital doctor; being a registrar and working largely independently is very, very different to being the paperwork and blood-taking monkey at the bottom of the medical pyramid.

I make decisions all day that have potentially immense consequences. I am learning to tell people things they don't want to hear. I am learning to talk about everything and to listen to people say everything to me; I am frequently cried on or yelled at; I've told people they have cancer or that I'm taking their driver's license away from them; I've been manipulated and lied to and resented. I talk to people of all ages and backgrounds about their sex lives, their abusive relationships, their jobs, their fears, their embarrassing symptoms, their pain and their pregnancy, their genitals and their hallucinations. I'm a psychologist and a life coach and a teacher and a social worker.

Which is not to say I'm particularly expert or wonderful at being any of those things. I spent four years of medical school learning the coagulation cascade and the causes of cardiomyopathy, and then spent two years as an intern/RMO learning how to talk an urgent CT scan out of a grumpy radiologist and how to fit twelve hours worth of ward jobs into an eight hour shift. Nobody teaches you how to sit with a straight face and a sympathetic voice and recommend that your 60-year old patient buys a copy of The Joy of Sex to read with her husband because penetrative intercourse has been impossible since his prostate surgery and her response to a gentle suggestion about exploring non-penetrative intimacy was, "I don't think he knows about all of that."

It's so challenging, and so tiring. But I tell you what, it's the best education in the breadth and depth of humanity that anyone could ask for.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/779499.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

contrary to evidence, I do exist

fahye — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 10:35:30 GMT

...I am just increasingly scarce online, through both circumstance (TERRIBLE INTERNET CONNECTION) and necessity (EXAMS).

Please note that my exams are still a while away; the Diploma of Child Health ones are in December, my writtens for Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners are in February, and the clinical exams for fellowship are in May.

HOWEVER. The sheer amount of stuff to be learned has grabbed me by the shoulders and shaken me into a frankly depressing schedule.

My days, currently, have this approximate shape:

6am-7am: study
7am-8:30am: shower, breakfast, frantically catch up on the internet
8:30am-5:30pm: work
6pm-7pm: gym
7pm-8pm: cook and eat dinner, plus or minus grocery shopping
8pm-9pm: study
9pm-10pm: GLORIOUS HOUR OF FREE TIME. write? read? single episode of TV? luxury!!

(I allow myself Wednesday evenings off for PUB TRIVIA and DRINKING because otherwise my sanity would probably snap like a twig.)

It probably doesn't matter that this house's hellish internet is too slow for tumblr, because it's not like I'd be able to spend much time on it anyway.

~

BUT I HAD A GREAT TIME IN TORONTO RECENTLY, hanging out with electrumqueen and exploring the city, and having adventures like World Pride and vegan brunch and IMRY'S WEDDING and drinking cocktails out of sports bottles in a hotel pool with many of the members of my beloved elite international girl gang (&PLASTICS;) and -- yeah, it was awesome :)

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/779187.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

I maintain that this is not my fault

fahye — Wed, 21 May 2014 08:47:58 GMT

Current mood is warring between proud and embarrassed, but fuck it, let's go: I wrote some hockey fic.

Anyone tempted to say YEAH I SAW THAT ONE COMING can join the queue behind, let's face it, me.

It's porn. In fact, it started as an exercise in porn and pacing (because now that I've commited to writing filth, I obviously have to get BETTER at it, right? exercises! drills! ...is anyone surprised yet that the POV character is JToews?) and by the time I'd finished it had developed enough of a structure that I figured I'd post it.

So yeah. 95% porn by volume, 3% being feelings and the final 2% being hockey metaphors because where's the fun in writing people who have totally alien interests and life experiences to yourself if you can't ransack those interests for imagery?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/778894.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

multitasking

fahye — Sun, 04 May 2014 01:35:30 GMT

By which I mean I'm writing this post while I listen to a lecture on paediatric palliative care and prepare myself for the next lecture on child protection services and child abuse. Somehow all the really depressing topics got crammed into this week of the diploma.

I spent yesterday cooking non-stop and stocking up the freezer, because we've definitely hit the kind of dark, blustery autumn weather where when I get home from the gym, all I want is to be able to pull a container of sweet potato and spinach dahl out of the fridge and reheat it. I also made sausage rolls for the first time! It was 200% easier than I thought it would be, and the recipe I used (lamb and haloumi sausage rolls with both fresh mint and mint sauce in the mixture, mmm) was delicious. So now I have a shitload of those in the freezer, along with some virtuous breakfast muffins (bran. lots of bran.) and the dahl.

LAMB AND HALOUMI SAUSAGE ROLLS

(makes 24. a serve of 4 with a salad on the side is a good lunch or dinner.)

500g lamb mince
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (I used dried because I don't have a food processor, but I imagine fresh would create a better texture)
1/4 cup mint jelly
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh mint
200g haloumi, grated
2 garlic gloves, finely chopped (or 2 tsp of the garlic mince you keep in the fridge because you are lazy)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (or 2 tbsp, if you misread the recipe like I did. still tastes fine.)
3 sheets frozen puff pasty, thawed
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt and pepper
sesame or nigella seeds (optional)

- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Line a large baking tray with baking paper.
- Mix lamb, breadcrumbs, mint jelly, mint, haloumi, garlic and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl. This is more fun to do with your hands. SQUIDGY.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Divide mixture into 6 equal portions.
- Cut each pastry sheet in half. Form a mince portion into a long sausage and place it lengthways on a pastry rectangle. Brush the edges of the pastry with a bit of cold water and then roll up the pastry around the sausage, sealing the edges.
- Repeat until you have 6 long sausage rolls. Cut each one into 4 smaller rolls.
- Place rolls sealed side down on the baking sheet, and brush the tops with beaten egg and srinkle your optional seeds of choice over the top.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until puffed and golden.

READING: Halfway through Carol by Patricia Highsmith, and also reading Parasite by Mira Grant. I am doing very little reading, though, apart from occasional comfort rereads of the fanfic collection on my Kindle.

WATCHING: I have six whole episodes of Hannibal S2 lined up for once I've finished my lectures today. It's gonna be amazing. I have S1 of Homeland waiting to be started, and I've been on-and-off making my way through Lost Girl because it's ideal to watch while cooking. Next time I go home I'm going to nab my dad's DVDs of The Wire and rewatch S1 because like an idiot I'm writing a casefic and I need some inspiration re: surveillance systems and drug rings.

WRITING: The casefic is for Brooklyn Nine Nine. It's actually TROPEFIC but I need to at least make sure the balance of ridiculousness to police work is similar to that on the show. I'm also tapping vaguely away at other things, but I have no idea at all which of them will be finished in what timeframe.

As an example of that: I finally, FINALLY posted the Hannibal AU which I had been working on for...a year? I am the slowest. Apparently not everyone in fandom shares my unconditional love of circuses; a lot of the comments have been on the 'I almost didn't click on this' variety, which probably indicates a large chunk of people who scrolled on by because of the circus thing (WEIRDOS) but I'm more or less satisfied with how it turned out :)

no hope of falling down (22940 words) by Fahye
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hannibal (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Characters: Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs, Jack Crawford, Freddie Lounds, Alana Bloom, Beverly Katz
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Circus
Summary: A circus should be a series of miracles, barely scraped into existence. Will Graham is the celebrated aerialist of Cirque Dalmau; Hannibal Lecter is a new arrival with dangerous hands and more than a few secrets.</p>

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/778515.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

I come bearing fic!

fahye — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 05:57:54 GMT

today begins and it's all that we have (6858 words) by Fahye
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Summary: Clint has to blink blearily at the ticket before he accepts that it does say Boston and not Bogota or Berlin; in the past he's walked off one twenty-hour flight and straight onto another on Natasha's instructions, and he was half expecting to do the same now.</p>

~

Feelings, and also pantsfeelings*!

&ASSASSINS;

*I know, I know. Porn? Who am I??

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/778466.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

fahye — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 10:42:34 GMT

It's a bit sad that the thing spurring me to post in my actual blog for the first time in MONTHS is...being in a house where the internet connection is so bad that Tumblr is nigh-on unusable.

How to catch you all up. A list? Let's go with a list.

1) First & foremost: I am no longer a hospital doctor! This is slightly saddening but on the other hand, it means I am a first year GP registrar. I am working in two locations on the south coast of NSW for a year (a family practice, and an Aboriginal Medical Service). It's lovely down here, my supervisor is a fantastic teacher, and I think it's going to be a good year.

1a) Correction: it's going to be a good year once I buy myself some eye-gougingly expensive proper pre-paid internet instead of relying upon this shithouse wifi.

2) Next year I plan to go back to Canberra (where my precious baby brand-new apartment should then EXIST and be ready for me to FURNISH; the number of interior decorating magazines my eye has already been drawn to is not healthy) and split my time between working part time as a GP and -- fingers crossed -- part time as an academic attached to the Divison of General Practice at the ANU Medical School. This is contingent on me coming up with a research project and getting some funding for it, but it means I get to TEACH which is my main goal as far as that position is concerned.

3) I have to sit College exams in a year's time. And also sit some paediatrics exams in December, because like the foolish child I am, I decided to do a distance Diploma of Child Health through my old medical school, USyd. There will be a lot of studying this year. A LOT.

4) I'm going to the gym again. It's painful. I am very unfit. By buying a whole year's membership at once, I qualified for the honour of turning up at the ludicrous hour of 8am on Saturday (whhyyyy) so that someone wearing lycra can tell me just how unfit I am in exquisite detail and probably try to talk me out of eating carbs. Hahahah. Funny joke. NO.

4a) In fact, right at this moment I am more than halfway down a packet of Sour Patch Kids, because apparently Coles sells those now?? I saw them in the confectionery aisle and emitted an actual, audible sound somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. Part of me thinks I should have bought the entire shelf just in case they are a delicious hallucination, never to appear again.

5) I am so into the Winter Olympics it's not even funny. OF COURSE, this corresponds with aforementioned terrible internet precluding me from watching all of the on-demand stuff on the Ten website. Instead I have been trying to watch as much figure skating and hockey on the live TV channel as possible, which is limited by the fact that all the good stuff seems to happen when I am asleep. Last night I passed out trying to watch the US-Canada game and therefore missed the exciting final period; tonight I am going to go to bed early and then maybe get up at 4am like a MORON to watch the Canadian men's team crush Norway like a bug.

6) Since writing and submitting an original short story for an anthology (I have less than zero idea if it'll be accepted; it was written in a massive rush and it's a bit SILLY, but man, have I missed writing silly) I have written...pretty much nothing. Adjusting to everything else that's new and difficult in my lfie has swamped me, for the moment. When my head's above water again I'm sure I'll be writing again.

6a) In that vein, one of my resolutions this year has been to be kinder on myself about failing to do EVERYTHING AT ONCE like I am always, always convinced I should be able to. Full-time job? Studying for two separate sets of exams? Exercising every day? Cooking dinner every day? Maintaining a social life? WELL OF COURSE YOU CAN FIT IN WRITING THOUSANDS OF WORDS PER WEEK AS WELL AS ALL THAT, YOU PATHETIC LAZY CREATURE.

Thanks, brain. You're the best.

7) This may be a help or a hindrance, but: I'm drinking a LOT less than I was in Canberra, which is good, because I was drinking far too much.

8) READING: umm lots of Georgette Heyer as ever. Frances Hardinge. A fun anthology of short stories about mad scientists in which I am loving and detesting stories in approximately equal measure, which is always a good way to experience an anthology. And I'm about to start Patricia Highsmith's Carol.

9) WATCHING: well if I had internet (are we sensing a theme?) I'd be up to date with Brooklyn Nine Nine, and I am increasingly excited for the second season of Hannibal and the wondrous insanity of the Hannibal fandom.

10) I think that's more than enough for now. HOW ARE YOU ALL?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/778066.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

books read 2013

fahye — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 02:56:20 GMT

Not enough, NEVER ENOUGH, but there were some good ones on the list! I am not going to chatter about favourites and disappointments, but if you would like my opinion on/are curious about any of the books listed here, PLEASE ASK.

This was the year I discovered historical and romantic fiction. I AM SO HAPPY WITH THIS DECISION. I also read a bewildering amount of nonfiction about the American economy, go figure.

* denotes a reread

Barnette, Abigail -- The Boss
Barnette, Abigail -- The Girlfriend
Barrie, J.M. -- Peter Pan*
Berger, John -- G.
Bradbury, Ray -- Zen in the Art of Writing*
Bradbury, Ray -- Something Wicked This Way Comes
Bradbury, Ray -- We'll Always Have Paris
Cho, Zen -- The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo
Copperfield, PC David -- Wasting Police Time
Diaz, Junot -- This Is How You Lose Her
Duffy, Carol Ann -- New and Collected Poems for Children
Duncan, Glen -- The Last Werewolf
Dunnett, Dorothy -- The Game of Kings
Fey, Tina -- Bossypants
Fry, Christopher -- The Lady's Not For Burning*
Gaiman, Neil -- The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Goudge, Elizabeth -- The Little White Horse*
Hardinge, Frances -- Fly By Night
Harris, Thomas -- Red Dragon
Healey, Karen -- When We Wake
Heyer, Georgette -- Powder and Patch
Heyer, Georgette -- Pistols for Two
Heyer, Georgette -- Cotillion
Heyer, Georgette -- Frederica
Heyer, Georgette -- Faro's Daughter
Heyer, Georgette -- Sylvester
Heyer, Georgette -- The Talisman Ring
Heyer, Georgette -- False Colours
Heyer, Georgette -- The Masqueraders
Heyer, Georgette -- The Convenient Marriage
Heyer, Georgette -- Cousin Kate
Heyer, Georgette -- Sprig Muslin
Highsmith, Patricia -- The Talented Mister Ripley
Highsmith, Patricia -- Ripley Under Ground
Honey, Elizabeth -- What Do You Think, Feezal?*
Jinks, Catherine -- Pagan's Crusade*
Jinks, Catherine -- Pagan in Exile*
Jinks, Catherine -- Pagan's Vows*
Jinks, Catherine -- Pagan's Scribe*
Kurtz, Howard -- The Fortune Tellers
Kushner, Tony -- Angels in America*
Lanagan, Margo -- White Time
Lanagan, Margo -- Yellowcake
Larbalestier, Justine & Rees Brennan, Sarah -- Team Human
Lewis, Michael -- Liar's Poker
Lewis, Michael -- The Big Short
Lively, Penelope -- Moon Tiger*
Lo, Malinda -- Huntress
Maguire, Gregory -- Lost
Mahy, Margaret -- The Blood-and-Thunder Adventure on Hurricane Peak*
Malzieu, Mathias -- The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart
McKinley, Robin -- Sunshine
Miéville, China -- Perdido Street Station
Miéville, China -- The City & The City
Milan, Courtney -- The Governess Affair
Milan, Courtney -- The Duchess War
Milan, Courtney -- A Kiss for Midwinter
Milan, Courtney -- The Heiress Effect
Neville, Miranda -- Never Resist Temptation
Obrecht, Téa -- The Tiger's Wife
Palahniuk, Chuck -- Damned
Park, Ruth -- The Harp in the South
Pinker, Stephen -- The Language Instinct
Piot, Peter -- No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses
Pratchett, Terry -- Dodger
Pratchett, Terry -- Nation*
Pratchett, Terry -- Night Watch*
Pratchett, Terry -- I Shall Wear Midnight*
Pratchett, Terry & Baxter, Stephen -- The Long Earth
Quinn, Julia -- The Lost Duke of Wyndham
Quinn, Julia -- Mr Cavendish, I Presume
Raskin, Ellen -- The Westing Game
Rowland, Ian -- The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading
Rowling, J.K. -- The Casual Vacancy
Sayers, Dorothy L. -- Busman's Honeymoon
Scott, Paul -- Staying On
Shem, Samuel -- The Spirit of the Place
Silver, Nate -- The Signal and the Noise
Skloot, Rebecca -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Smith, Zadie -- On Beauty
Sparrow, Jeff -- Money Shot: A Journey into Porn and Censorship
Stark, Jill -- High Sobriety
Steenburgh, April & Lennox, Christy (eds.) -- Fight Like a Girl
Steinbeck, John -- Of Mice and Men
Telep, Trisha (ed.) -- Kiss Me Deadly
Tolkein, J.R.R. -- The Hobbit*
Walters, Minette -- The Devil's Feather
Wein, Elizabeth -- Code Name Verity
Wells, H.G. - The War of the Worlds
Wendell, Sarah & Tan, Candy -- Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels
Whalen Turner, Megan -- The Queen of Attolia*
Whalen Turner, Megan -- The King of Attolia*
Whalen Turner, Megan -- A Conspiracy of Kings*
Wilde, Oscar -- The Importance of Being Earnest*
Wodehouse, P.G. -- Summer Lightning
Wodehouse, P.G. -- The Inimitable Jeeves
Wodehouse, P.G. -- Very Good, Jeeves!
Wodehouse, P.G. -- The Adventures of Sally
Wynne Jones, Diana -- Enchanted Glass
Wynne Jones, Diana -- Howl's Moving Castle*
Wynne Jones, Diana -- The Magicians of Caprona*

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/777816.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

Yuletide reveals

fahye — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 23:05:42 GMT

I had one assignment story and three treats in the collection this year, although one of the treats got HILARIOUSLY LONG.

The Evolution of Reptiles - Elementary - Jamie Moriarty & Joan Watson

This is the one that is most recognisably me, I think, being full of lady psychopaths and thoughts about art and MAGICAL REALISM and loving descriptions of everything that Watson wears ever. I had a lot of trouble with it until I decided to stop striving for some sort of impeccable consistency in the format and just add in bits however they felt right, and I think that improved the finished product. My original intent was for it to be femslashy but it would have felt forced, in the end, so you can just imagine your own coda with untrusting makeouts.

Lines on Palms - S.U. Pacat's Captive Prince - Damen/Laurent

I am super proud of this treat, which was born out of my love for this particular AU scenario and also the prospect of writing from Laurent's POV. I realised that I'd bitten off more than an easy mouthful when I had to sit down and rebuild Laurent's character from the ground up - the AU assumes that Auguste is alive, leaving Laurent both protected from the Regent and not the heir presumptive to the throne - while keeping the essential parts of him intact. In this regard I owe huge thanks to both electrumqueen and nextian, who squinted hard at the characterisation of both Damen and Laurent and nudged me back onto the right path when I started to veer off it.

It was going to be simpler than it was, but...Laurent. Nothing is ever simple with him. There had to be a dash of intrigue and a great many games and a lot of silent sarcastic judgement of everything going on around him, even though he had fewer flinty personal walls and was a little more open to the prospect of fun for fun's sake. Once I settled into the narration and had a handle on the AU, it was heaps of fun; Laurent is much more my sort of character to write than Damen is, after all. Twisty and sharp and observant.

This was also, as I have been telling people, my PORN DEBUT. I set my teeth, I gathered my skirts, I gazed despairingly at all the male pronouns...and then I churned out Baby's First Smut. Apparently all you need is to really, really, really want the characters to bone.

except in my affections - The Importance of Being Earnest - Cecily, Gwendolen, Algy & Jack

I wrote this, start to finish, in the very early days of Yuletide. Before I'd written a word of my actual assignment. I just liked the idea of smushing together tropes and seeing if I could document the result in Wildean dialogue, and it was so much fun to do. (This may be the only time I ever attempt babyfic. Usually I can't stand it. But the baby in this isn't so much a CHARACTER as an amusing prop.) Thanks to skygiants for her excellent beta!

a distinct lack of tutus - Brooklyn Nine Nine - Amy Santiago/Rosa Diaz

HAHAHAHA. Oh man. I wrote this on Australian-Christmas-Day, over a time period of three hours during which I was also shovelling turkey and ice cream down my throat, and uploaded it at the last minute. And then it proceeded to win at Yuletide.

This fic contains all my love for Amy Santiago (neurotic perfectionist that she is) and the greater wacky B99 family, whose dialogue was enormous fun to capture. It also contains my deep aesthetic appreciation for Diaz's hair and boots.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/777698.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

true yuletide magic

fahye — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 23:45:29 GMT

As dusty as this blog is at the moment, I HAVE to use it to gush publically about my Yuletide gift, because it's perfect.

The Soldier's Not for Leaving (2303 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lady's Not For Burning
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jennet Jourdemayne/Thomas Mendip

This is everything I wanted when I asked for Thomas/Jennet fic: it has kissing, it has Actual Witch Jennet (in a really subtle and beautiful and slightly sad way) and it is, as I remarked to Becca last night, as though Christopher Fry himself had wandered onto the internet for just long enough to write an extra scene of the play. The writing is gorgeous, slyly funny and philosophical and romantic, and I've read it twice already and will probably read it a few more times today.

This year I wrote four stories for the archive and I'm proud of all of them, and much to my DELIGHTED HILARITY it seems that 2013 is not only the year I became a published writer, it is also the year that my published work inspired Yuletide fanfic. So. I think I've lucked out on pretty much all fronts, yeah?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/777390.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

Dear Yuletide Writer 2013

fahye — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 06:34:54 GMT

Hello hello! I hope you enjoy the mad Yuletide process as much as I do, dear writer, and that you have a great time writing this story.

1. The Lady's Not For Burning - Christopher Fry (Jennet Jourdemayne, Thomas Mendip)

(This request is environmentally friendly: 100% recycled.)

I'm trying to think of an elegant way to say, AND NOW MAKE THEM KISS. Uh. The best things about this play are the way it weaves humour so seamlessly into pathos and poetry, and the way it builds a love story out of the warm, desperate, flickering exchange of words. Jennet and Thomas! Backstory, future story -- whatever you want to write, I'll love it. Especially if there's kissing.

If we matched on this, HELLO, LET'S BE FRIENDS. (If we didn't, it's probably the easiest canon to quickly absorb, but don't feel at all obligated to read it or, you know, like it.) This is one of my favourite plays in existence, and as much as I love the delicacy of the romance, I've always hungered for mooooooore words about these two wonderful people and their issues around death, obligation, love, and purpose. If you are stuck for starting points: I have always secretly wanted Jennet to actually be a witch. I LOVE WITCHES. Or you could go some interesting AU places, as long as the basic themes and dynamics were preserved.

2. The Brothers Bloom (Penelope Stamp, Bloom)

PENELOPE. I love her, Bloom loves her, we all love her. I'd like a glimpse at what happens after the movie, incorporating as many of Penelope's ridiculous hobbies as you care to mention. How long does Bloom manage to hold out against her thirst for hijinks and adventure narratives? (My suspicion: not long at all.)

Everything about this movie appeals to me, but on a most basic level I love the meta storytelling and the examination of what it means to live your life through roles. I think it argues quite convincingly that you can't escape playing a character of one sort or another, and that you can't exist outside of the narrative of your own life, and I would love to see those themes explores in the post-movie existence of Bloom and the wonderful Penelope. I enjoy Bang Bang enormously, so feel free to include her in any way you like; ditto with Stephen, be he phantom or memory or plot twist.

3. Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones (Charmain Baker)

Charmain's personal growth in House of Many Ways was wonderful to read about, and now I want more of her interactions with the other characters of the Howl series; feel free to focus closely on Charmain or to draw in as many of the others as you want. I'd particularly like to see a mentoring relationship with Sophie and/or Lettie develop.

What was I saying about witches? The ladies of the Howl series are some of my favourite characters of all; I love Charmain and her fussy nature and stubborn emotional growth, so I've picked her for this year, but as I said -- BRING 'EM ALL IN, if that's what you fancy. Charmain intersecting with Sophie & Howl (one of my weaknesses is outsider perspectives on OTPs, too), Charmain receiving magical tutorials from Lettie, Charmain conducting some sort of magical pen-pal relationship with Flower-in-the-Night wherein they discuss books and comisserate over being brought up to be useless at practical things.

I'm not hugely interested in AUs for this fandom, I love the Ingary world with its Diana Wynne Jonesian feel for fun and pitfalls and human weakness sympathetically portrayed. That said: if you're looking for specific challenge and you're familiar with both fandoms, I have a deep desire for a Discworld crossover looking at the different conceptions of what it means to be a witch. If you somehow managed to introduce Charmain to Tiffany Aching, I would adore you forever.

4. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (William Brandt, Jane Carter, Benji Dunn)

This movie was so, so good for the part of me that adores dysfunctional teams and utterly ridiculous action-movie stunts. Feel free to write their next mission, improbable high-tech gadgets and all, or to go completely AU. (Regency? Heist? Space pirates? Superheroes? WHATEVER.)

HIJINKS O_O You can go as wild as you like on this one. I am totally in favour of the tongue-in-cheek reboot that this movie delivered to the franchise, and would prefer something fun and snarky and featuring unlikely explosions to something overtly serious. (Unless it was post-apocalyptic, because apocalypses get a free pass with me.)

I have very few shippy feelings about these characters, to be honest, though if you want to wrangle them into a codependent triad then be my guest; I am all for ridiculous threesomes between people who save each others' lives on the regular. Lastly, my feelings about Ethan are a great big 'eh' except when it comes to his occasional poker-faced trolling.

~

General notes:

I like humour and clever use of language, I like magic with a light touch to it, I like families (blood or found). I like slow-build romance and lightning attraction. I like mythology, and science, and Shakespeare.

I'm fine with any rating from complete gen to filthy porn, and with any combination of het/slash/none of the above. I'm not looking for anything overtly kinky, but I do enjoy stories that explore and play around with the control and power dynamics between characters (although I don't like humiliation to be a feature). Happy endings preferred.

I don't like very graphic descriptions of violence, especially torture. (I'm fine with you writing about blood and injuries; it's the deliberate infliction that I'd prefer not to see.)

You can find most of my own fic archived on AO3, or there's a master list here.

Have fun!

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/777086.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

fahye — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 08:33:35 GMT

5. 10 songs you love right now

1) Vienna Teng -- Level Up

2) Bastille -- Things We Lost in the Fire

3) Passenger feat. Josh Pyke -- What You're Thinking

4) Tegan & Sara -- Love They Say

5) Delta Goodrem -- The Speed of Life

6) OneRepublic -- Counting Stars

7) Nicki Minaj -- Va Va Voom

8) Vienna Teng -- Never Look Away

9) Dessa -- Sound the Bells

10) Pentatonix & Lindsey Stirling -- Radioactive

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/776924.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

fahye — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 10:23:35 GMT

4. What are you afraid of?

Bushfire. A smallness of life. The drift apart. The suffering of loved ones. Leaving things unfinished, unwritten, unread. Choking. Heading in the wrong direction. Knowing. Not knowing.

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/776462.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

this is why I keep a commonplace book

fahye — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 08:05:04 GMT

3. Your favourite quote

oh god I can't choose HERE HAVE THREE

Mate would have been Njiru's word for this: the state of which death is the appropriate and therefore the desirable outcome. He would have seen Hallet as being, in every meaningful way, dead already, and his sole purpose would have been to hasten the moment of actual death: mate ndapu, die finish. Rivers fingered his lapel badge, his unimpaired nerves transmitting the shape of the cadaceus to his undamaged brain, his allegiance to a different set of beliefs confirmed without the conflict ever breaking the surface of consciousness.

- from The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

The history of each story, then, should read almost like a weather report: Hot today, cool tomorrow. This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour cold critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today - explode - fly apart - disintegrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, reading your story, will catch fire, too?

- from Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

The way of art, after all, is neither to cut adrift from the emotions, the senses, the body, etc., and sail off into the void of pure meaning, nor to blind the mind's eye and wallow in irrational, amoral meaninglessness -- but to keep open the tenuous, difficult, essential connections between the two extremes. To connect. To connect idea with value, sensation with intuition, cortex with cerebellum.

- from 'Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction' in The Language of the Night by Ursula Le Guin

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?Collapse

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/776246.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

fahye — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 07:30:15 GMT

2. 20 facts about you

1. I have had this tab open for ages trying to think of good facts, and now I am going to randomly steal ideas from electrumqueen's list.
2. My fuck-off shade of red lipstick is Armani Silk in 10; my favourite everyday summer shade is NARS Niagara; my favourite everyday winter shade is Revlon Lip Butter in Sugar Plum.
3. For a while when I was younger I wanted to be an optometrist, and now I have no idea why.
4. I also wanted for a long time to be an English teacher who specialised in Shakespeare, and now I wonder why I ever dropped that idea.
5. I still haven't seen Ghostbusters. Or, come to think of it, Independence Day.
6. I wish I'd started reading historical and romance novels earlier in my life instead of buying into whatever internalised misogyny decided they were not worth my time, because DANG, the amount of enjoyment I've gotten out of those genres this year is awesome.
7. My footy team is the Sydney Swans. I don't have a team for any other sport, other than being vaguely interested in how the Australian cricket team is faring.
8. I made white chocolate and cranberry cookies yesterday and so far I've eaten, like, twelve. Maybe fourteen.
9. I played netball for a season in primary school, and then I ragequit because our team wasn't very good. I had, uh, ego problems.
10. Milk in tea weirds me out.
11. Today I made the decision to FINALLY start watching the Utena anime.
12. I have a large left lateral thoracotomy scar from heart surgery when I was a baby
13. I probably drink too much. Okay: I definitely drink too much.
14. I am very easily manipulated by things that are trying to be scary. Music. Haunted houses. The most transparently terrible sort of horror movie. And I have never seen the appeal in the adrenalin high to be gained from being scared; I just end up very cranky instead.
15. Thanks to my mother, I'm quite good at identifying birds.
16. Things that I will usually order if they are on a menu: homestyle baked beans, calamari, scallops, creme brulee.
17. Part of me would like to be a film actor simply so that I could wear amazing period dresses and have my hair done in awesome ways. I am a terrible actor. This would be a dreadful idea. BUT DRESSES. I could probably pull off playing some sort of royal lady with almost no lines; I could sweep around looking disdainful, I am good at that.
18. I'm in a terrible mood because I haven't finished any stories for months. All I seem to do is start things.
19. My car is a burnt-orange Ford Fiesta called Fernando. I like to imagine him as smug and flamboyant.
20. Asymmetry makes me feel itchy.

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/776139.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

let's do this

fahye — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 07:43:31 GMT

I am intrigued by this 30 posts in 30 days meme, if only because it is surpassingly more suited to a blog platform like DW than FUCKING TUMBLR.

1. Introduction and recent photo

Hello! As most of you on here know, I am Fahye, though I've started going by my real name (Freya) as well because I am the privacy-slack person my sixteen-year-old self was determined never to be.

Partly this is because I have published and, with any luck, will continue to publish, under the name Freya Marske.

I'm 26 and have been kicking around fandom for more than a decade. Of my two passports I identify more with the Australian one but have the highest hopes for the English one.

I'm a doctor; next year I'll take the first steps down the specialisation road and start training under the College of General Practice. I spend a lot of time wishing that fanfic writers would send me anonymous asks on tumblr so that I could answer their medical questions and stop their fic from being wrong about everything from stab wounds to sexually transmitted diseases, but I'm not sure of the best way to publicise my willingness to provide such a service.

I like nail polish, dresses, secondhand book shops, baking things, musicals, people assuming that I'm a natural redhead, and the cities of Sydney and London.

1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/775791.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

hear ye, hear ye

fahye — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 05:44:52 GMT

Hello, internet! It's officially September 12.5 (the 12th for her, the 13th for me) which means it's time for me to gush about my best friend in public, because this is our anniversary.

Our TEN YEAR anniversary, no less.

Ten years ago I was a baby sixteen-year-old, brand new to fandom, inhabiting an obscure corner of LJ where I wrote vaguely bad X/1999 fanfic and belonged to a Discworld RP and was soon to be a founding player at Milliways. I was still getting the hang of Making Friends On The Internet.

And then, via someone following a mutual friend's link and commenting on someone else's story, I met Ji.

At the age of nineteen I flew across the world on my own for the first time, all nervousness, to meet her; we watched House and Queer as Folk and went to Millicon and it was just as easy in person as it was online. Three years after that we met up in London and laughed over our inability to find a place to eat curry. And three years after that, we sat in the sun in Central Park.

We've written stories at one another, and RPed with one another, and written so many letters that I have shoeboxes bursting with them. We've made each other read countless books, and cheerfully explored our disparate tastes in music. We've watched movies and TV shows in tandem, from opposite ends of the world. We've known each other's lives in a silly amount of detail.

I love anniversaries. In six more years I will have known Ji for more than half my life, which is strange because it seems like she's always been in it. She's the one-person audience I'm always writing for. She's one of the greatest and kindest and most talented people I know, and she's made me better: at writing, at life, at being a full and decent human being. I love her and admire her and if we lived on the same continent I'd probably have tricked her into marrying me by now.

But even if it has to be once every three years, even if we never meet in person again: Cosmas, you've been one of the best things about this decade, my darling. Here's to many, many more.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/775612.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

insert wit here

fahye — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 09:37:57 GMT

I had grand plans to make a nice, thorough life update post today, as it's a day off. But I've just tumbled straight into one of the busiest terms, obstetrics & gynaecology; it's awesome work, I love it, but it's draining as hell on all fronts. Long hours, lots of dashing from one end of the hospital to the other, speculums and babies and constantly scrubbing for theatre. So today I'm in the immediate post-on-call daze of mumbling and slouching and wanting nothing more complex than tea and naps.

Plus, it's the job-hunting time of year for the medical community, and after dragging myself through the application process for general practice training, I've been offered a training spot in the ACT network (hurrah!). So I've spent all of today's available brainpower CV-polishing and calling and emailing and trying to persuade people that they want to show me their practices and interview me for jobs.

What else. I don't know. Brainblah. TV? Not watching anything at the moment.

Reading? Writing? Not much happening on either front.

Napping.

Yes.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/775294.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

this is me putting my money where my mouth is

fahye — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 00:12:06 GMT

(as it were)

& resolving yet again to post more on DW/LJ, because as much as I am resigned to tumblr being Where Fandom Is at the moment, I still sigh into my pillow at night and yearn for the good old days.

I'm also going to use it for writing-accountability, because that worked quite well when I was racing towards my Fight Like A Girl deadline. Speaking of! Did you know that the ebook version of our little anthology is now generally available in the Amazon store? And that our wonderful editor April did an author interview with me on her book blog? (LOOK AT ME, ALL FANCY)

In just over a week (!!!) I will be hosting the fabulous littledust in her first ever international adventure. We plan to eat a lot, write a lot, plan ridiculous erotic romance novels a lot, and romp around Canberra and Sydney and probably some beaches as well, despite the fact that it is still winter here.

To that end, I have chosen her arrival as my self-imposed deadline for the Never Ending Hannibal Circus AU Why Did I Do This To Myself Oh God, which is sitting at 11,000 words. If I can get that done, I can then start to panic anew about two more upcoming deadlines, one of which is the Hannibal Big Bang (what was I THINKING) and the other of which is something original. If you think I have written a word of either of those latter two, your faith in me is touching but misplaced.

Plus I am determined to squeeze another chapter of the Merlin heist AU out of my soul within the next few months. I expect the bloody thing will be completed when I am, oh, thirty-five.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/774942.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!

state of mind

fahye — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:32:47 GMT

1) I've totally lost track of who knows about this (the people I email? probably twitter??) but: I'm buying an apartment! It's a tiny one-bedroom place, buying off the plan, won't be ready to move into for at least another year. But it will be MINE, and it will be brand new, and the location is one that I didn't expect I'd be able to afford. Adulthood, Jesus Christ. I'm going to have a mortgage.

2) I listened to the 'Internet friendship' episode of slashreport and I'm having a horrible fit of longing and self-pity about how much I miss hanging out with fangirls. I love my RL friends, but none of the ones I am in close proximity to are fannish at all. It was wonderful to hang out with people in the US last year -- even though by the time I ran into most of the Boston people I was in the midst of a severe introvert reaction and barely holding it together sociability-wise, SORRY -- and I am really sick of not having fannish friends on my CONTINENT, let alone in my city. I keep wondering if I should move to somewhere like Melbourne where I know a handful of fannish people and would be able to stumble across plenty more, but, well, a) incipient mortgage and b) work.

2a) How the fuck do people make friends on Tumblr? I DON'T GET IT. Which is a pity, because the Hannibal fandom seems 99% Tumblr-based (with the exception of the kink meme) and also full of cool people. How...do...connect??

2b) Dreamwidth, let's be friends. GROUP HUG. LEAVE A COMMENT.

3) I'm really liking my GP placement at the moment. I'm interviewing for the training program next weekend and am feeling very positive about it as a career path, especially considering the fact that it's easy to subspecialise as a GP in the two areas I like best (mental health and women's sexual/reproductive health).

3a) So many fucking adorable babies in clinic this week. "Yes, I must hold your child on my lap. It is important for...medical reasons. AREN'T YOU AN ADORABLE BALL OF GERMS, YES YOU ARE."

3b) How I have not yet come down with every virus under the sun, I have no idea.

This entry was originally posted at http://fahye.dreamwidth.org/774724.html ( comments). Comment wherever you wish!