lirazel | Odds 'n' Ends

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Odds 'n' Ends

- Yay! Poetry love going on over here. Join in!

- So. I'm kind of depressed. A few months ago, I was following links around and stumbled upon this website. It's Spuffy fanfiction by Ariane, and there's some really gorgeous stuff. She writes beautiful prose. Anyway, I've never seen her stuff archived anywhere else or seen it recced, either, so when I thought I'd read all the good Spuffy out there, it was quite the find.

Unfortunately. The website seems to have glitched. And worse--it's not in the Wayback Machine! So I was wondering if anyone knew where I could find some of these fics so that they won't be lost to me forever! Stupid internet! All the stuff that you want to disappear never will, and all the stuff you want to be around forever vanishes! Help me, flist Kenobi! You're my only hope!

- Meme time! Five awesome questions asked by

ava_leigh_fitz. Answers behind the cut because I'm way too verbose for my own good. Also, comment and ask me for questions and I'll try to come up with some good ones for y'all.

1. Speaking of, do you have any names picked out, or family names you want to use for your kids?
2. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? (...Vienna?)
3. Favourite cake ever?
4. Um, I'm sure you've already told me but what brought you to the internet?
5. What book would you love to read but has never been written?

1. Boy howdy do I. I always have a running list, and it changes from year to year. I love names.

And this is how big of a Faulkner geek I am: I want to name my daughter Cassandra and call her Caddy. I know that the real Caddy's name was Candace, which is lovely, but isn't for me. I also like all the Classical associations with Cassandra, who was kick ass and tragic at the same time. I could go for a double-whammy of Faulkner love and name another daughter Temple. Too much? Also, I love Eden. Which may or may not be related to the fact that I read too many Elswyth Thane novels in middle school.

I will not, however, name my son Quentin, even though Quentin Compson is the love of my life. That would just be mean.

I love the tradition, strong here in the South, of naming sons their mother's maiden names, but mine just wouldn't work (you know this, Izi. Wouldn't that be mean?). I've always liked the name Beau, for reasons I can't really explain. And Joel. And of late I've become ridiculously fond of Ransom, mostly because of a certain someone on my flist. But it's old fashioned and strong (and also an Elswyth Thane name!), so I'm keeping it in mind. I'm not as positive about boy names, though. There aren't as many cool ones.

As for family names, Lynn and Ann are the two middle names that get passed around with great frequency in my family, so no doubt one or both of those will pop up. And my uncle Stephen died when I was ten, so I feel like I'll probably end up honoring him with that name, probably as a middle.

2. Too. Hard. There are way too many places I'd love to live. Mostly it depends on what's on my mind at the moment. Like a month or two ago I was watching a bunch of movies set in Australia, and I was all "I MUST LIVE THERE." And then it was books set in India and "I MUST MOVE NOW."

But yes, my love for Austria remains strong. And even though I'm not a city girl, I could definitely see myself living in Wien if I could get my German back to par again. Or a smaller town--Grinzig or Melk, maybe--or a vacation home in Hallstatt. I just love Austria in general.

I've wanted to live in Britain since I was a very, very little girl. That's where all the books happened! And after visiting, I would love to live in London (in one of the nicer parts. The parts I'll probably never be able to afford. I feel in love with Kensington and Chelsea) or in a small town. I'm a small town girl at heart. I love the countryside. So if I had to choose one place, it would probably be a small English village. ;)

3. My grandmama's coconut cake. A Christmas staple. The most moist and delicious thing you've ever tasted. Though I'm mostly a pie kind of girl.

4. I was 13 and had just gotten into the canon for a particular fandom. Of course, I had no idea what fandom was or that it existed or anything like that. So I'm poking around on the internet, trying to find some more info on said canon (can I be any more vague? Watch me) and I stumbled upon a website. And from there a forum. And I poked around there for a while. And then I followed someone's link in their sig to their fanfiction. And a whole new world opened up for me. It was like it was designed for me. So from the time I was 14 till I started college, I wrote there. And then I outgrew the fandom, moved on to Harry Potter and Firefly and then I got an lj, and the rest is history.

5. So many. I wish M.M. Kaye had written a gazillion big long novels. I wish there was way, way more fantasy novels based on less Western European cultures. I wish I knew where to find really, really good steampunk. I wish I could find really good historical fiction for more obscure but awesome moments in history--hasn't the Civil War and WWII and the Regency Period been overdone? I mean, seriously? I wish I could find more really, really good apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) fiction.

I wish there was something like Dune but less pretentious, with lots of plotting between houses and people poisoning each other and forbidden loves between sworn enemy houses and lots of blowing things up and espionage and space ships and laser gun firefights and snark and general awesomeness. Like the Medici set in space. Or at least a not-Western-European-influenced fantasy world (like A Song of Ice and Fire, you know? But less War of the Roses).

I guess I'll have to write them. Right? I'll get right on that.

- And last, but not least, my favorite song for
Day 01 → Your favorite song
Day 02 → Your favorite movie
Day 03 → Your favorite television program
Day 04 → Your favorite book
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobby of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

I may or may not do all of these. We'll see.

Poor Man's House - Patty Griff...

I can't find the whole thing anywhere! *sob*

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Yeah, the site has glitched, but you can still sneak your way into the pages. Just hover your cursor over the links and you'll see the urls where the fics are, even if clicking on the links takes you back to the homepage. You'll have to manually copy it, but I managed to pull up Love and Chaos so the others should work, too.

Oooh! Excellent news! I am greatly pleased that they're still all there! Because I couldn't remember which ones I really, really loved....

Thanks, hon!

Meh. The trick doesn't work for all of them, so thankfully

rebcake provided links!

I live to serve:

http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/crypt.htm#ariane

or

http://www.the-sandlot.com/fic.php?mode=author&auth_id=2

And I live to appreciate you! Thanks so much!

Ariane was one of the first BTVSS writers I found [after the show ended]. I hadn't found Live Journal yet so it was her own site. Which is gone, now.

I have some of her stories saved so if you need, please contact me
lew404@gmail.com
and I'll see if I have it to send.

Thank you so much! When I have time, I'm going to see what I can find that's still out there, but if I find myself lacking something important, I'll drop you an email. You're so kind to offer!

HIT MEH
and spuffy! and you! ♥

OKAY! ♥

1. Which writer would you want to be able to write like if you could choose. No "I want to write like me and be original!" cop outs on this question. ;)
2. What's the one place you've always wanted to visit and have never been?
3. What's a movie you should be ashamed of loving because you should have outgrown it by now but you keep on loving it anyways?
4. If you could add one more season to any TV show ever, which would it be?
5. I don't really know where you are faith-wise or lack thereof, but what's a place/song/book/object/person that fills you with a sense of holiness and wonder?

Okay?

and then I got an lj, and the rest is history.

Awwwwwww! I wanted to hear more of the vague story about how you joined Buffy fandom and Spuffy in particular. *pouts*

Okay!

Um...people told me to watch Buffy. They all said I would love it. I wish I could remember who specifically--I know

moonlightrick was one of them, but there were probably others. Probably

ava_leigh_fitz and

ineffort were like, "That Joss guy who wrote Firefly? You'd love his other stuff."

And I watched. And I loved. Loveloveloved.

I really connected to Spike. I identified with him and I was super invested in him, and he loved Buffy. So I started in with the Spuffyness because of that--it wasn't till much later that I started really, really loving Buffy for herself.

But anyways, I watched. And then I did what I do and I found fic. Nocturnal Light, I think, was one of the first. I still remember the feeling I got reading Herself's "A Terrible Thing." It was unlike anything else I'd ever read before. And I kept reading, all the Spuffy fic I could find. I read

elisi's meta and

the_royal_anna's love letters to Spuffy. And I wrote "Kaleidoscope."

It was fic that sort of got me into fandom. People were so lovely when I first posted "Kaleidoscope," and then they started giving me some awards, which blew my mind, because that had never happened to me before. But I was sort of lurking around the edges for a while. I feel like I got more involved when I asked

gabrielleabelle if I could friend her. And I started having conversations with people that weren't about fic, and that was really cool.

But it's kind of all a blur! A beautiful, fun blur, but a blur!

Oooo fun! You're so shiny and new to Buffy fandom, just like me! Though I'd watched the show as it aired, I didn't join fandom (actively) until Season 8 came out.

Btw, I'm thinking about making Mondays my poetry day. Just to counteract the draining droll of the work week starting up - poetry is much needed!

Edited 2009-12-08 00:01 (UTC)

I am! Two years, maybe, since I first watched it?

I approve of this plan! I have many poems to share!

I'm now in love with Poor Man's House, thank you :)

I hate when I lose fic -- or worse, when an author abandons a series in the middle and never comes back. Epic sigh. Two of my favorite fics (an Auriga/Snape and a Harry/Ginny AU) were abandoned about halfway through a Hogwarts year. Never... quite gotten over it :p

DUDE YOU READ CONFESSIONS OF A STARRY-EYED TWIT? I LOVE that fic!

You're so welcome! I am mad about Patty Griffin, and that one might be my favorite. I'm glad to know that I've converted you to her ways!

YOU KNOW ME, YOU KNOW ME! *SQUISHES*

Seriously, who else could pull a fic out of the air like that ;) I still have all the Auriga/Snape fics in a special bookmark folder called "Ophiucus Constellation"

I went ahead and bought the album :p She's amazing!

Actually, it's "Lamentations," isn't it? Not "Confessions." WHATEVER IT'S AWESOME.

I don't even like to read much comedy, and I could care less about Snape as a general rule. BUT I LOVE THAT FIC SO HARD. It has me screaming with laughter. Gah. So great.

YAY! Seriously, she's a genius. This is the beginning of a beautiful romance, between you and Patty, I'm telling you. And I was here when it started!

Tip: if you're so inclined to check out more of her albums later, try "The Impossible Dream" or "1000 Kisses." "Flaming Red" is good, but so very, very different that it takes a while to get into it. Also, "Children Running Through" is good, too.

You're right, it is. And there was the companion piece for Snape was "Diaries of a Dungeon Dwelling Moron" :) That was hilarious as well!

1. Quentin? I think Quentin is a lovely name. Something so outspokenly humiliating. No he won't be shoved into a locker any time soon. Even if maybe three peopel will get the reference. iT'S LIKE HOW IN TEN YEARS EVERY KID IS GOING TO BE NAMED BELLA AND EDWARD. everyone. YOU CAN'T LOOM THE STREETS!

2. *sticks tongue out* Guess who's been there? Me. Guess who bungee jumped off a bridge there? Me. Guess who shopped and bought numerous books there? Me. Guess who fed a kangeroo? Me! HAH!

3. *twitches* Pie.

4. *shakeshead* I'm gonna find out what it is! I'm borderlining Sex and the City and StarTrek. That's how close I am. Nevertheless. I WILL FIND OUT.

Patty Griffin? Really?

ngl, I love that southern tradition of naming children after the mother's maiden name. Even though I'm not really southern, if I have a son I'd lobby pretty hard with my husband to call him my mother's maiden name (which is also my middle name, because my mom didn't change her name when she got married). And ngl, I have thought about how that sounds with a certain middle and last name...and it totally works.

Seriously, my stupid ovaries need to take a time out.

It's one of my favorite traditions, and it kind of kills me that I can't do it with either my last name or my mama's. Just won't work.

Seriously, my stupid ovaries need to take a time out. Hee!

Give me questions!

Also, I love Patty Griffin. But I'm sorry, I do not have that song. I've been listening to "Rowing Song" and "Trapeze" a lot lately because they are beautiful and sad! "Trapeze" always makes me think of Buffy, too.

1. What's been your favorite thing about being in the armed forces? (I'm a horrible person, and I can't remember which branch!)
2. Describe a scene from a book that you've read over and over and tell me why it's so awesome.
3. What's your favorite song/band/singer to sing along to when you're driving (or showering, or cleaning, or whatever you're doing when you sing along)?
4. You have Dolly Parton listed as one of your interests! I fangirl her so hard! Do you like her bluegrass or her country stuff better? And what is your favorite album/song?
5. What's your favorite childhood holiday memory? (Any holiday. Pick one.)

[ETA] Yay for Patty Griffin! I saw her live at the Ryman a year or two ago, and she was incredible. "Living with Ghosts" might be my favorite of her albums because it's just her and her guitar and her lyrics and her awesome, awesome voice. She's so perfectly suited to sad songs. "Rowing Song" and "Trapeze" are two of my favorites, too!

Edited 2009-12-08 23:08 (UTC)

1.) There are many awesome things about my job. One of the best is getting the opportunity to work with a lot of absolutely awesome people and seeing exactly what they can accomplish, whether faced with intellectually or physically (and sometimes both) challenging situations.

2.) Oh, gosh. This is such a hard question for me. I don't think I can limit it down to one scene. Rather, I will limit it to a set of books that I have read over and over and over again. The Lionness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. I first read them when I was a young girl and fell instantly in love with the hero, Alanna. Alanna is a girl who desperately wants to become a knight, but the laws of the land forbids girls from becoming knights. So, she disguises her gender and goes to the castle to earn her knighthood anyway. She's a rash, bold, determined thing, and because of her, I spent way too much time while growing up daydreaming of being an adventurous knight, fighting for my country and being generally kickass.

3.) Favorite music to sing along to is undoubtedly Ani Difranco. But I'm pretty easy. Throw on some country or Rilo Kiley, or pretty much anything with words that I know, and I will start singing at the top of my lungs. I love singing in my car.

4.) Hmm... while I am a bluegrass fan, when it comes to Dolly, I prefer her country music. My favorite CD of hers is definitely "White Limozeen."

5.) Favorite holiday memory? Let's see. Christmas party at my Aunt Tracy's house. Me, my brother, and all the cousins went out and played paint ball in a massive, muddy field. It was so damned hard to run... mud clung very thickly to our boots, making them extremely heavy.

I found all of your comments really interesting, but I completely fail at lj, and I'm only just now getting around to answer comments from the last MONTH. *sigh*

1. That's super cool, the challenging thing. I...don't see that at my job, but I bet it's awesome.
2. I have always meant to read Tamora Pierce books! But I never have. This year appears to be the year of rereading young adult fantasy stuff for me, so I'll add them to my list.
3. Fun!
4. I'm more of a fan of her bluegrass stuff--my favorite is "Little Sparrows"--but I feel like I need to catch up more on her not-huge-hits country stuff.
5. That sounds absolutely awesome.

Thanks for sharing!

I forgot to say that I'd love some questions!

Oooh! Fun!

1. I know you grew up in Minnesota (I will always, always remember what you wrote about the libraries there), but now you're in North Carolina (gorgeous state). So. How did you get from one place to the other?
2. You're designing your ideal TV show. Which actors do you cast? (Feel free to run with this one.)
3. What's your guilty pleasure music?
4. Your dream job. Anything. Regardless of skills or education or income--if you could do absolutely anything at all, what would it be?
5. What's your favorite Roger line from Mad Men? (I know! I'm cruel!)

Eeeeeee! These are the best questions EVER!

Cool - I'll add the link to the others I have from her; didn't add the sandlot one before.
Her other site is in the waybackmachine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071128143907/http://www.geocities.com/ariane_five/DarkDreamsFIC.html

I've wanted to live in Britain since I was a very, very little girl. That's where all the books happened!

Exactly. And then I grew up, and it was the books and (some of) the history *g*

#4 made me laugh. Vague fandom mentionings were very vague. I'm like that when it comes up in RL. "Yes, I sometimes post my writing on the internet... Oh, just, um, sort of off some science fiction-like stuff? Right, look, another Starbucks in Vancouver!"

I wish there was something like Dune but less pretentious, with lots of plotting between houses and people poisoning each other and forbidden loves between sworn enemy houses and lots of blowing things up and espionage and space ships and laser gun firefights and snark and general awesomeness. Like the Medici set in space.

That would be awwwwesome <33333 I keep trying at some similar with one of my series to come sort of in the same galaxy as that kind of awesome, but I keep getting distracted by things I haven't been writing and getting tangled in since I was eleven :P But you should definitely beat me to the punch and write even more awesome stuff with far better prose :D

I'd love Q's :D

For years I wanted to have a daughter so I could name her Evadne, also inspired by Elsywth Thane. I've left it a little late, unfortunately, but you never know...

I haven't read that one, apparently! But I love the name! I hope you get the chance to use it, if that's what you still want!

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