While I tweet myself through my grieving process, here are three (ish) fanfic classics that

a) Prominently feature Ianto being awesome.
b) Prominently feature Ianto and Jack getting a happy (ish) ending.
c) Have multiple parts or are novella-length.
d) Have well-crafted plots on the epic scale.
e) Left a deep impression on me.

1. The Doctor & Mr Jones by copperbadge. Ianto is a Time Lord! This fic is basically my personal canon.

2. Unfixed Wishes by christine_twfan. Ianto activates an alien artifact that allows him to be there for Jack when Jack needs him most, even beyond his own lifetime. This fic has a sequel/companion, Secret Admirer.

3. Get Loved, Make More, Try To Stay Alive by dira.* In which Ianto gets pregnant and time is very wibbly-wobbly indeed.


*Who, by the way, wrote one of my favorite Torchwood reaction posts here. Way to see the positive side!

So, my life right now. I don't even know where my time is going. I haven't read my FList since the last time I posted. Which is not to say that I haven't been following the LJ. On the contrary, I seem to be around quite often. It's just that it's become a very specific following of very specific things. For example, the shit-ton of Janto fic I've been reading lately. And the fanmixes I've been downloading. And the communities and friends I can be bothered to check up on when I see them pop up on my Firefox alert for new FList posts.

So. I've been reading a shit-ton of a lot of things in the past month. Most of it is shoujo manga. Basically, any and every short shoujo manga that comes up in goosygirl_icons. That girl has fantastic taste. It has become a problem. A time- and bandwidth-consuming problem.

Also, I've been following Nodame Cantabile season 2, which, can I just say, ack. The picture quality in the second season has dropped off the charts. It still has great voice actors and a great story and its the quality and not the aesthetic that's changed, so it's bearable (not like, say, Antique Bakery, which I still haven't watched because the aesthetic quality of that anime is abhorrent to me), but still. It pains me in a the way that one might be pained to see their lover make a horrible faux pas. You love them, right? But you kind of don't want to be seen with them. Oh Nodame, you are not making it easy for me to spread this love I have for you.

What else, what else. Well, there was a lot of school stuff going on this October as well. I had midterms and an insane paper/presentation thing on Yeats whom, let me qualify, I have loved for years, but possibly never want to hear another word about ever again. I ended up dropping that Psych class and my life is a thousand times better off for it.

Over the past long weekend (Columbia closes up for Election Day weekend) I re-watched Torchwood, every episode of Doctor Who with Captain Jack, and also, incongruously, The Sarah Jane Adventures. Then Wednesday night I was cleaning out my gmail account and ran across arekuru's old rec of the Kimi Wa Petto drama, and randomly decided to start watching it. Such a wonderful mistake. I stayed up all night and ended up sleeping through my first class, but GOD, OH MY GOD, I LOVE KIMI WA PETTO. I've been rereading as much of the manga as I've been able to find online. God, no josei will ever be as great as this one. Love love love.

Oh and OBAMA GOT ELECTED. THAT WAS PRETTY COOL, EH?

This is me attempting not to make this into an insane tl;dr post, but I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their lives as much as I have been enjoying mine. If you haven't, I advise you to repeat the words "PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA" to yourself as many times as it takes for the awesomeness of that statement to sink in. :D

I actually have a lot to talk about, but it is 4 in the morning and I have class in 6 hours, so I'll just give the fandom news run down.

Fandoms Entered in Last 6 Weeks

1. Avatar. Ahaha, I fought this for soooo long, but I really can't imagine why. I was originally an early adapter, but I got busy on Fridays and gave it up, yet I kept hearing about the latest episodes on my FList. So one Friday I was thinking about how I kind of missed it and that somehow led to spending the rest of the weekend watching and joining communities. FTR, Sokka owns my soul.

2. True Tears. I finished La Corda D'Oro, so I needed another really gratuitous anime to fill the void. Enter True Tears, where within two seconds of watching the first episode I screamed, "SOOOAAAAAP," and it only went on from there. "WE HAVE ACHIEVED INCEST!"

3. Princess Princess and it's prequels. Okay, this is another one I fought, mostly due to a misunderstanding of the plot. I thought it was some kind of weird cross-dressing club--like ParaKiss, but with many Isabellas. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I ended up reconsidering the series because of The Day of Revolution. Gender bending taken to the next level, yay! And then I fell madly in love with Mikoto. And Akira's family via Family Complex. And Tohru and Yuujirou in PuriPuri, but nobody has scans of the last three volumes so I'm not done yet. NEED. WANT. MUST GO BUY. Anyone have thoughts on the drama? Does seeing men cross-dressing IRL destroy the manga/anime's veneer of unmanly cuteness? Speaking of destroying the veneer of unmanly cuteness, I could have gone my whole life without knowing what futanari was. Yes, indeed.

ALSO, HISTORY DORKS MUST READ THESE COMICS. A TEASER: GANGSTA POPE.

Also, writing about Paradise Lost makes me want to rip out vital organs. That may be my period talking, but I seriously doubt it.

I realize that I've joined more fandoms in the past two months than I have, basically, in any 8 week period of my life.

In order of conversion:

1. Oofuri. BATTERY LOVE OWNS MY SOUL.
2. La Corda d'Oro. I have this thing for classical themes in anime.
3. Jacob Black. I really don't understand why I read these books, but I will admit freely that I love him without reservation. He can imprint on me any day. ;D
4. Lovely Complex. BOUNDLESS AFFECTION.
5. The Bridgerton series/novels. Trashy, but this is me not caring.
6. Ikuta Toma. I ACTUALLY TRAWLED LJ FOR PICSPAMS.
7. Princess Tutu. See two. Also, this thing for meta. And fairy tales. Although I was a Ahiru/Fakir shipper from episode one, and now am now all kinds of bitter about that.

And I have pressures to watch Gokusen and Gankutsuou.

And I am going to my first Anime Club meeting tomorrow.

*hangs head* *points to icon*

Also, I'm thinking I should do 50books again. I'm thinking it is madness, but I want to do it anyway.

Sometimes I sit back while reading a good HP fanfic, or a particularly interesting moment of the books, and the HP fan in me thinks, JKR, the magic in your books is so believable/useful/natural, I love it and this world so much.

And then the Fullmetal Alchemist fan in me thinks back to The Other Minister and that cursed teacup/gerbil trick and screams at me, NO. NO SELF-SUSTAINING LIFE. TABOO. WHERE IS THE EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE. FAIL, JKR, FAIL.

And then my head hurts a lot.

WTF, I need to go on medication at this point. Real Life, STOP SUCKING. Six Apart, STOP BEING BASTARDS.

I'm standing against Six Apart over Strikethrough '07.

fandom_counts. Stand up and be counted.

End of transmission.

HOMG, linnpuzzle posted in my comment thread! *promptly explodes*

(For the my RL people who are no doubt scratching their heads, she's the one who drew the colored picture on my custom bookcover. I love her liekwoah.)

Well, that was fun! I kind of can't believe it's over already. Not that you know, another day of that and I wouldn't have been passing out all over the place. Lack of sleep is an interesting thing. Anyway, this is going to be a gigantic post of all of my Otakon hijinks and oddity. There will be a ridiculous amount of pictures. Consider yourself warned.

( Read more... )

Well crap. We've been working on this for nearly three hours and we only got through Friday! It's late and we're sleep-deprived. I think I shall continue this tomorrow. Till then!

ETA: Part 2, Part 3

I am such an idiot. In no more than 4 days I will have my cousin from France here and then in another three weeks will actually be in France. That is supposed to be friggin’ exciting. I should be out of my mind in anticipation. There should be yelling from rooftops and much of the insane grinning. Except there isn't.

As the days wind down, the only things I'm thinking are along the lines of "Damn I won't be around for that" or "Don't start that now, you won't be around for 6 weeks, its useless." I have such a gnawing and overwhelming want to get involved in all these new things, but I can't bring myself to start out as a newbie and then disappear for over a month. I am actually nauseous with wish that none of it was happening and I could spend summer in peace.

I am a sick and twisted individual.

I have this odd thing about being forced to do things. I think it developed from my father, who can be well-meaning but tends to go mad when you don't do things he tells you to do. It’s not really an old trait of mine. I only recently developed it. As a defense mechanism, I think. But it really is an aversion to making obligations and/or doing things other people tell me to do. Even if the things sound truly appealing to me.

Case in point: For a whole summer people kept telling me I should swim and I knew I would enjoy it when I did it, but I couldn't bring myself to make the effort and people telling me to made me annoyed. Sick and twisted, ne?

But damn it. I really want to join FictionAlley and I know I'll have to lay off when I go back to school... damn damn damn. I hope I can use a computer where I'm going, or else I think that I might have to die from withdrawal.

Of course there will computers, but... God it's just so hard. I don't want to be gone for three weeks. I don't want to be stuck with one person for three weeks before that. In fact, I don't think I've ever been very up to this whole excursion. From the very start I was like 'what?' and then it got to be three weeks... I think I am going to cry.

And I can't even justify these feelings. It's a really selfish side of me that I don't like admitting to, even though I'm quite aware of it.

But its also this overwhelming knowledge of the heart-wrenching homesickness I am going to feel when I am gone. That’s one of the main reasons I'm so adamant about getting people's addresses. I have this feeling like if I keep writing to people, it will keep that part of me sane. And good God I'm going to get all of my summer reading done because I wont be able to sleep. *melancholy sigh*

Growing up in the same house for the whole of your life... Living in that house with hardly any changes since you can remember... Hardly ever being away from that house for more than a few days at a time...

Being a picky eater and fickle sleeper and so far out of shape the word 'shape' is basically a foreign word...

I'm annoyed and uncomfortable and quite a bit scared about all of this.

Both for myself and for what I am going to inflict upon my hosts. *wry grin*