broken-nosed gods

Sometimes I think my creative mojo is 100% gone, and then it turns out it's just misdirected. Which is to say: I cannot believe I just spent three hours working out the rules of a fictional duelling game that I will, in all likelihood, never write about.

(For an AU in which the Death Eaters are, instead of magical neo-nazis, just a really aggressive group of tournament gamers.)

On a completely different note: I have found myself working out an entire theory and history of Arithmancy, as well as a system of magical education in America. Harry Potter universe, why can't I quit you?

(The US doesn't really do the Magic High School thing; people learn from their families or through community programs or the lady who runs the magic bookstore, and then they can go to magic college or not, whatever they want. There is a set of government-sponsored tests, about six, for each major discipline of magic, and these cover absolute beginner up to pre-Master's level*. There are also separate master's tests, usually sponsored by one or two of the national/international guilds and sometimes by universities, which are a bit different from the Master's you would get from a university. However, unlike the Europeans, the U.S. has gone and split the standard mastery up into two levels, master's and doctorate, to match the muggle university levels. A doctorate may only be obtained from a university; anyone who comes from the European apprenticeship model will have to attend a university to get the credentials even if their work is more than up to scratch. --The official level of journeyman is nonexistent in the United States.)


*based on language tests such as the HSK and the JLPT, which are the closest equivalent I can think of -- tests that are not required, nor part of a particular school system, but give a big boost to your CV if you've passed a high enough level. And you can get exam preparation books at your local magic bookstore!

I keep forgetting to mention this stuff, but I posted my springtime_gen fic! Writing it made me love Scorpius and Astoria quite a lot, and Hermione even more, and gave me a chance to finally articulate the Draco inside my head as separate from the ones in everyone else's heads. I'm not sure I'm quite satisfied with the story itself, but it does make me want to write lots and lots about the weird adorable pseudo-incestuous clan of Hogwarts Classes of 1998 & 1999 (which is apparently what we're calling them now) and their kids.

Also, someone made me a thread on the love meme! Thank you, mysterious person, and also everyone else. I've kind of needed it lately.

So I think I wrote a lot less than last year, but more fic & ideas for/of fic actually happened? Which is to say, I am very unsatisfied with myself all around, but I actually made some stuff.

Leitmotif(s) of the year: Freedom, escape (as usual); relationships that may or may not be romance, no one is quite sure; poetry; meta-fiction; and "Well, what do we do now?"

Favorite(s) of the batch: history of the rose, because even though I don't think it's particularly well-written, it's a bunch of things I love all squished together.

Best of the batch: streets and skies and open doors is the only thing I wrote this year where I feel like I really got everything just (almost) the way I wanted it. Writing is a giant pain sometimes, because I keep wanting everything to be a great big spiral of perfect, but honestly if I can get the phrasing and imagery right then the rest doesn't matter that much.

Most underappreciated by the universe: ars poetica, first fic in which I publicly mentioned Tracey Davies and poetry in the same sentence. I feel like I got more of the imagery right here than in the actual poems I wrote for her, mostly because actual poetry is a fucking pain in the ass.

Favorite first lines: My actual favorite first line is Their lives are made of ink and paper, which was going to be in history of the rose until that turned into a completely different fic. My favorite posted line is Latin leaves me like an ex-boyfriend, from wizard-born.

Most fun to write: no such thing as silence was super fun, because it is one of those short crunchy character-sketch fics, self-introspection cheap at twice the price. And I learned that I really do love Taki quite a lot.

Sexiest fic: (not gonna write you a) love song, which I have barely even started on, because I'm still hashing out all the characters in my head. I'm not even sure it's going to have romance in it, let alone sex, but it is still the sexiest thing I have written all year, because it involves a lot of girls staring at each others' hands or hair or mouths. This untitled Chrome fic is probably a lot closer to the traditional definition of sexy, but it's actually asexy so it doesn't count.

"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" fic: That Hermione-goes-to-Ohtori fic. It is self-indulgent crossover meta-tastic idfic at its finest, and at some point I will finish it and post the damn thing.

Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: (not gonna write you a) love song, absolutely. The reason none of it is done is that I'm spending lots and lots of time thinking about Pansy and Parvati and Tracey and Ginny and Hermione, and I still haven't gotten their basic characteristics all worked out in my head yet. But it's going to be fantastic.

New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: I certainly didn't think I was even going to consider writing Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami fic! And yet it is happening.

Hardest fic to write: ALL THE ONES I HAVEN'T FINISHED YET. Everything I have finished was easy, otherwise I couldn't have done it. These current ones, now, these ones are hard.

Biggest disappointment: ME. More particularly, the fact that I haven't written those help_pakistan and help_japan fics yet. They're on the work table, I swear! It's just going slow.

Biggest surprise: The amount of fics I actually did manage to write this year, even if they're tiny.

Most telling fic: silence speaks louder than words, I think. The way Taki relates to the world is not the way I relate to the world, but the way she reacts to great pressure is the way I hope I would.

What's next? Finishing some of the things I've started. Starting some of the things I've talked about. DEFINITELY NO THOR FIC. I refuse!

Now that I (technically) have time again, I am doing what I said I would and borrowing makeste's super-excellent meme!

1. My favorite character.
2. ANOTHER favorite character!!
3. My favorite character relationship, and by "relationship" I don't necessarily mean pairing and certainly not OTP, but on the other hand, depending on the fandom MAYBE I DO!
4. The moment/character/THING/WHATEVER that first hooked me on the fandom.
5. One of my favorite moments.
6. A song or track that reminds me of this fandom.
7. One miscellaneous awesome thing about the fandom.
8. One completely random thought I have regarding this fandom.
9. One fic/essay rec, fanart, or fanvid that depending on the fandom I either had lovingly bookmarked or saved onto my hard drive, or only just now found during a two-minute Google search.

I know I've really gotten back into Harry Potter fandom when I've started hunting down Viktor/Hermione fic again.

Every Sorting Hat quiz I've ever taken has put me in Hufflepuff. When I was younger I used to wish it was Slytherin or Ravenclaw, because they were the cool Houses, but now I know better. Honesty, loyalty, justice, dedication—Hufflepuffs kick ass.

(A lot of these quiz things had questions like "Do other people respect/look up to you?" "Do you get described as 'talented'?" and, um. Yes? GOODNESS KNOWS WHY. It's not like I actually spend my free time doing anything but reading bad fanfic and looking at pretty pictures, and I am pretty sure my only actual talent is remembering hanzi/kanji. How these are assets in anything but fandom and linguistics, I do not understand. I should probably get kicked out of Hufflepuff for not fulfilling the 'hard work and dedication' requirement.)

Some of the questions on one I happened to take* yesterday were actually enlightening, though. A bunch of questions about stress and breaking down under it, and then at the end they snuck in one about "do you consider yourself emotionally stable?" And yes, yes I do, even though I start crying at just about anything, because none of it really sticks for long and I'm totally okay after a while. I mean, I break down a lot but it's nothing serious?

*I totally did not go around taking a bunch of sorting hat quizzes just so I could say they all put me in Hufflepuff. Really.

(Btw, I'm beginning to think I should re-keyword this icon to Jin The Hipster. He liked wearing glasses before they were cool!)

My first use of 750words culminates in a Harry Potter essay, in which my own tastes are extremely apparent even if my logic is possibly not.

( Pureblood culture vs. Mudblood counterculture, or, why I wish all HP fic was like <i>In Loco Parentis</i> )


*Sometimes I really, really want to write fic that is just Dean and Hermione making fun of wizards.

Every time I read Al Potter And His Very Epic Plan, my brain is divided into roughly equal parts of "Wow, this is just as amazing and hilarious as the last time I read it!" and "I really, really, really want to be Benjamin Avery."


Not necessarily when I grow up! I mean, right now would be fine.

I go through these bouts of finding fairly good Star Wars longfic and wanting to keep on reading, maybe even take part in the fandom. And I just can't. The fic I've started reading may be interesting, but Star Wars is such a white boys' story that that one aspect of it overshadows everything. Unless the author is specifically dealing with that, but unlike (say) Harry Potter there don't seem to be a whole lot of Dealing With Canon Issues fics. And also unlike Harry Potter, it doesn't even make a token effort to not be a white boys' world. (Harry Potter: dudes still get to have all the fun and heroics, but women exist and get to actually do plot stuff sometimes. People of colour, there is more than one of them! Star Wars: not so much.)

I've posted about it before, but ugh. Star Wars, why you gotta be like this. Even the other boys-fandoms I complain about are way less sexist. Ai is a brilliant scientist who kicks off the whole plot! Sakura gets to punch giant holes in the ground! Lenalee gets to save everyone! Yuuko has all the fun! Even Bleach, for all its flaws, at least has more than two girls.


Going to go read some shoujo manga and write some Bechdel-test-passing fic now. I need a good healthy dose of POC and women.