I am desperately catching up on several weeks worth of LJ/DW, so if you've been getting lots of comments from me on old posts, that would be why. I am not yet all caught up, so expect more! Also, in case anyone is abandoning LJ in light of recent updates, I am on DW as "brigdh". Feel free to add me there if you prefer.

And now, a meme:
Let's start 2017 off in a positive way with a Pay It Forward meme. The first 6 people to comment (and more if I can manage it) will receive a surprise from me at some point in 2017 - anything from a book, a ticket, something home-grown or made, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! It will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy.

If you can, post this in your own journal and pay it forward. Let's do more kind and loving things for each other in 2017, without any reason other than to make each other smile and show that we think of each other.

(Note that this will require you to give me an address. If you're uncomfortable with that, perhaps wait for another meme! :) If you're alright with that, I'll email or PM you after I've gotten 6 comments.)

Okay, so I'm doing this thing! My thread at the love meme. I've been having a hard time, the last few months, and would appreciate comments. Though, you know, no obligations!

A meme taken from dhampyresa:

My Top Ten AO3 Fic by Hits:
1. Psalm 133, 4297 hits. Boondock Saints, Connor/Muphy, complete porn. Knowing fandom, it's really not surprising that my most popular fic is short brother-cest porn.
2. Strange Language, 1764 hits. A Song of Ice and Fire, gen focusing on Missandei and, to a lesser extent, Dany. A Yuletide fic, which always helps with the hit count, and a fic written before the TV show started, which I suppose gave it the advantage of being there first.
3. Four Moments the Sands of Time Didn't Erase (and One It Did), 1180 hits. Prince of Persia. More porn (m/m, m/f, and threesome!) and another Yuletide fic.
4. A Place to See Things You’ve Not Imagined (The Singapore Counterpoint), 1131 hits. Pirates of the Caribbean, mostly about an OC with an outside perspective on the canon characters. I'm not sure why this fic is so popular; maybe it's just the advantage of a big fandom.
5. Summer's Day, 856 hits. Yami no Matsuei, Tsuzuki/Hisoka first time. Awww, it's one of the first fics I ever wrote. Good to know my habit of pretentiously titling fics with Shakespeare quotes dates back that far. But I'm glad people are still reading it.
6. Kissing Cousins, 821 hits. Georgette Heyer's Cotillion, Freddy/Jack. Another Yuletide fic! I'm not sure where these hits are coming from, since I don't think Heyer has that big of a fandom.
7. Tolerance and Love (Apres Moi Le Deluge Descant), 768 hits. Merlin, Uther/Morgana. Another one where I'm not really sure where the hits are coming from, but clearly most people do not find what they're looking for, since it only has 4 kudos.
8. Five Things That Never Happened to Hisoka, 726 hits. Yami no Matsuei, mix of gen and Tsuzuki/Hisoka. YOU GUYS I WROTE A FIVE THINGS FIC SO LONG AGO I HAD TO EXPLAIN THE CONCEPT IN MY AUTHOR'S NOTES /old-school cred
9. Thy Faithfulness in Destruction, 645 hits. Yami no Matsuei, Muraki/Tsuzuki dubcon. I'm kind of surprised this one isn't more popular; I'd consider it the best written of my YnM fics. But I suppose it's not that surprising that people prefer fluffy first times or fun AUs. (Which sounds more cynical than I mean it to be! It's just that 'stylistic quality' is probably not most people's main factor in choosing a story.)
10. A Very Necessary Thing, 609 hits. Swordspoint, Richard/Alec. I think the Yuletide bump is why this fic ranks over any of my other Swordspoint fics, but I am fond of it. It actually has a plot other than porn! :D

My Top Ten AO3 Fic by Kudos:
1. Psalm 133, 138 kudos. Still not surprised by fandom.
2. Learning the Rules, 89 kudos. Goblin Emperor, gen about Maia adjusting to life post-book. But this one is surprising! It's such a tiny fandom and such a new fic that I had no idea it was my #2 fic.
3. A Very Necessary Thing, 57 kudos.
4. Strange Language, 50 kudos.
5. Too Great to Ignore, 35 kudos. Rivers of London, Peter/Nightingale H/C pining. God damn, RoL fandom! 35 kudos for a drabble? I guess I need to write more for you.
6. Summer's Day, 34 kudos.
7. Posession, 30 kudos. Yami no Matsuei, Tsuzuki/Hisoka porn that I couldn't be bothered to write an actual scenario for. So of course it's incredibly popular.
8. Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures, 28 kudos. Practically original fic about a folk song. AKA that one time I kinda had a Yuletide hit.
9. Five Things That Never Happened to Hisoka, 26 kudos.
10. Wear This Together, 26 kudos. Sleepy Hollow, Ichabbie pining. Apparently pining drabbles in new fandoms work out very well for me!

Almost none of these are what I would consider my "best" fics, or my favorites. A lot of them are fairly old, which I suppose is why they've had time to rack up so many hits and/or kudos. Some of them are older than A03 though, which means they'd be even higher if one could somehow add in the hitcounts of their original incarnations on LJ or the old Yuletide site. It's kind of interesting that my list for top hits has been fairly steady for a while (not that I check it that often), but the top kudos list has several new fic on it. Maybe it's just that several of my top hit fics are porn, and people are sometimes shy about giving kudos to porn (especially when it involves incest or dubcon).

Stealing a meme from egelantier, because I really enjoyed it last year when I did this: I randomised 10 songs and chose lyrics from each - your job is to pick a number and a character (or ship) (or friendship) (or assortment of characters) and receive a ficlet!

1. But in her heart a cold December (Thomas Morley: April Is In My Mistress's Face) Fill: Sita from the Ramayana for lynndyre

2. Tomorrow we start again / Tomorrow came and went (Matthew Good Band: Indestructible)

3. Hundred shots through the dark you can never hit my heart (J. Cole: New York Times)

4. You say, 'We'll go where nobody knows, guns hidden under our petticoats' (The 1975: Chocolate) Fill: Minou/Chloe for withinadream27

5. Soft winds blowing through the pinewood trees / Folks down there like a life of ease (Louis Armstrong: When It's Sleepy Time Down South)

6. Soon as they like you make 'em unlike you / Cause kissing people ass is so unlike you (Kanye West: I Am A God)* Fill 1: Buffy/Faith for lavode, Fill 2: Lydia from Untamed for court_of_ocelot

7. We will bear this together / We will wear this together (Thea Gilmore: Instead of My Saints) Fill 1: Goblin Emperor for egelantier, Fill 2: Ichabod/Abbie for shes_unreal

8. I drove to New York / In a van with my friend / We slept in parking lots / I don't mind, I don't mind(Sufjan Stevens: Chicago) Fill: Hakkai/Gojyo for veleda_k

9. Darkness, darkness bind him to me / Hide him in your velvet cloak (Richard Shindell: Fenario) Fill: Michael Godwin for just_ann_now

10. The warning signs have all been bright and garish / Far too great in number to ignore (The Mountain Goats: Old College Try) Fill: Peter/Nightingale for dipping_sauce

*I really had to resist the urge to use the line "Hurry up with my damn croissants"

I really, really should be working on some editing, but I don't want to. So, a meme instead! Taken from somebraveapollo:

Give me a trope & I’ll tell you my thoughts on the trope you’ve asked me about and if I’ve written it myself, or if I ever would.

Genderswap
Bodyswap
Drunk!fic
Huddling together for warmth
Shag or die
Undercover in a gay bar
Pretending to be married
First time together
Amnesia
Crossdressing
Forced to share a bed/fake relationship
Mind control
Handcuffed
Wingfic
Mpreg
Mistakenly assumed to be gay
Let’s play truth or dare
Mary Sue fic
Aphrodisiacs
Curtain fic
Hurt/Comfort
Apocalypse fic
Someone has a baby
Telepathic soulbonding
Circus AU
Language barrier
Historical AU.

A meme from egelantier: Comment on this entry, and I'll give you three themes along the lines of "username and [some idea or concept or thing]". You then post what you have to say on these themes in your own livejournal.

She gave me:
wordsofastory and new york
I love New York. I've lived here for almost eight years now (I arrived at the end of August in 2006) and would very happily stay here for the rest of my life. I've lived in three neighborhoods in two boroughs, so there are huge swathes of the city that I know too little about. Or that I haven't even seen, considering that I've still never been on Staten Island other than at the ferry dock or on the highway across it.

I like the physical conveniences of the city – subways and a bus system that actually works; every store or movie or restaurant you could possibly want; access to trains and airports and people who are more than willing to visit you just because of the city. But I also like more intangible things: the feel of the people, the rules of social interactions, the smell of a pizza place or bakery or, on occasional windy days, the ocean. I like the anonymity of it – like any big city – but also learning to recognize or be recognized by the people at few favorite places. The only thing I don't like is the price of rent; whyyyyyy is it so high? Okay, I know why, but it still pains my soul.

Also, I've gotten to the point where I can claim to be a real New Yorker, because I can give people directions. (Well. Usually.)


wordsofastory and dreams
I actually don't dream very much! Or perhaps I just don't remember them. On the positive side, that means I almost never have nightmares either; the last one I remember having was years and years ago (and was about an elephant chasing me down stairs, which for some reason was TERRIFYING).

I wish I did have more memorable dreams. I'm always a little jealous when people recount theirs, and they have dramatic plots and fannish characters and cool settings or whatever. I must be happy when I'm unconscious though, since I've been told I giggle in my sleep fairly often.


wordsofastory and favorite narrative tropes
Ah, so hard to choose! I think I tend to respond to stories almost entirely based on how I feel about the characters, rather than the narrative. But some of my favorite tropes are traveling (road-trips or post-apocalyptic search for survival or traveling circuses or finding the MacGuffin or anything like that; traveling just for tourism is much less interesting to read about) and things to do with cons or trickery; if we're going to have a straightforward good vs evil narrative, I prefer our heroes to be underdogs who have to work through less-than-straighforward methods (spying, assassinations, lying, stealing, disguises, etc) instead of meeting on the field of battle, so to say. I'm much more into friends-to-lovers than foe!yay or antagonist pairings. I like people who are broken in one way or another (usually emotionally, but it's all good) not getting better, but getting on with their life, having relationships that manage without healing. I tend to be waaaay more interested in the stories of an established relationship than a first time – like, great, now you know you're interested in each other, that's important, but what I really want to know is about how you work out differences and make compromises and decide where to live or who sleeps where or who does what, when you tell the other about some important backstory or future goal, how you come up with routines or nicknames or inside jokes, how you fight and make up, little things that didn't seem important at first which become obstacles. I feel like there's so many stories after the first time, and they tend to get less attention, alas. I also almost always tend to write characters in relationships that are at least open to some degree, if not explicitly polyamorous. I don't know why; I guess jealous is boring and petty and I just want to explore all of the characters with all of the other characters. ...This has sort of devolved into talking about character tropes again.

ANYWAY NON-ROMANTIC NARRATIVE TROPES: I really adore retellings, reversals of tropes, fairy tales and mythologies. I love taking an old story and twisting it, doing something different with it. (Which is one of the reasons I like fanfic so!) I like lovingly described settings that are really important to the plot, so historical AUs and cyberpunk and things like that really work for me. The protagonists Saving The Day is obviously awesome, but I am also fond of bittersweet or mixed endings. I can even like a bit of grimdark, depending on how it's done.

Hmm, I'm sure there's a ton more I love, but I can't think of them. I'm so bad at plots, really! I go to look at what I've written, and it's all slice-of-life or relationship details or little ordinary moments. People actually doing things, pshaw.

A meme stolen from Tumblr:

1) Something Old: A blurb from one of the first fics you ever wrote.
But she doesn’t mind. A roll and a sway and you fit yourself into the life you’re given. You do what is expected of you, you want what you have, you learn what you know, you love those you see. And every other step down has a pause before your foot hits the floor.
This is the way it is. Life. The ocean. And you are what life makes you. How can you be something you’ve never been? How can you want something you didn’t even know existed?
Tsubaki-hime is expected to be pretty. She is. Being smart was never as important. She wants that now, that power to understand things, to find the hidden truth. She wants to know what to do. Everyone is dead or gone or changed, and Tsubaki-hime thinks that she will have to follow them or be left alone forever. She doesn’t know how to change, she doesn’t know where to go, and she doesn’t want to die.
A Sway and a Roll (Yami no Matsuei). This was posted in January 2003; it's not the first fic I ever wrote, but it's the oldest one that I've kept track of. It's surprisingly not bad, for something over ten years old, though it would be better with more editing.


2) Something New: A snippet from something you're currently working on, or from the last thing you posted.
Hannibal stood, for a moment still and watching her, almost as though he expected her to take back her permission. She fisted her hands in her skirts to prevent herself from reaching out for him, and in one quick movement lifted them, baring most of her legs. His eyes dropped from her face to look, and she saw his shoulders lift as he took a deep breath. He sank to his knees in front of her with a surprising degree of grace, and desire spiked in her, sharp and solid as a actual blade. She was grateful that her petticoat hid him from view when he leaned in; she already was so desperate that she didn't want to know how she would react to watching him do this for her.


3) Something Borrowed: A scene or section of dialogue from another writer's story. Maybe something that inspired you or resonated with you. (Credit the writer and link to it if possible, please.)
January nodded, but when he wrote days later he described Minou's baby, and how Rose was setting up a school once more with the money gained by selling Gambi's treasure, and how the two of them had been married on the twenty-fifth of the month, only five hours after little Charmian Viellard made her entrance into the world. He didn't say, "You and Rose are as different as Bach and Beethoven," or "Your eyes are the same colour Ayasha's were," and he certainly didn't say, "Come back to New Orleans before Rose and I both go mad missing you."
From Dans le Défit de la Coutume by Elspethdixon. Which is actually a Ben/Shaw fic, despite the quote. I've reread this story so many times and I still adore it.


4) Something Blue: C'mon, you know you've written a really gut-wrenching bit of angst at some point. Let's hear the saddest or angstiest thing you've got. Alternatively? Tell us about the last time you described the color blue.
He watched mutely while the pool of his partner's blood soaked into the ground, gradually fading to the brown of ashes and dust. The splashes on his shoes had cracked and peeled like paint. The sun rose up from behind distant hills and burned like a splash of bleach to sleep-deprived eyes. Anger required something to do, someone to lash out at; despair was much more suited to these hours of wasted time. He held the cellphone in his hand, afraid of not hearing it ring if it was tucked away in a pocket. Afraid of it never ringing.
He prayed without meaning to, a repeating litany of please and not so soon and I won't do this again, but the gods he knew had never had any particular interest in keeping him unscarred.
Thy Faithfulness in Destruction (Yami no Matsuei, warning for non-con). Another old fic, but one I quite like, and probably the angstiest thing I've ever written.

I'm doing that old December talking meme, but for May! Feel free to ask me something; I have lots of empty days.

May 3rd - "movies! Which are your favourite films, which do you loathe with a passion, what movies would you wish into existence if you could" for somebraveapollo. Oh my God, May 3rd, I am so far behind already.

I am, in general, not as into movies as I am into other media; I tend to have problems focusing on visual media. I always get distracted in the middle and wander off and start doing something else instead of paying attention. This is not a problem in theaters! Because it's nice and dark and very focused. But alas, movies are so expensive these days. I used to see a movie every single Friday with a group of friends; we had this whole routine where we'd always see something, just to hang out and have something to talk about, even if all the movies available that week were dumb or not our favored genres. But tickets have more than doubled in price (almost tripled, actually) since then, though it's been less than ten years. That seems... an inordinate amount of inflation. I wonder if it's because of the rise of piracy? Surely higher ticket prices only drive more people toward piracy? Anyway, I'm not an economist, so who knows why it is. But it does mean I see less movies than I used to!

I don't think I have a single favorite movie, in a general sense. It depends on what mood I'm in. I love to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous when I'm sick or not feeling well; it's a mockumentary about a small town high school beauty pageant, and it's so silly and over-the-top and just ridiculous that it always makes me feel better. I love The Fall for sheer visuals, the Pirates of the Caribbean series for action and PIRATE KINGS YES, Boondock Saints for its incredibly blatant twincest and visuals (though, uh, terrible ethics. It's definitely a movie I have to not think too hard about). I absolutely adore Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet, in all its crazy modern-AU weirdness. The movie I've probably seen the most times is The Christmas Story, as my dad is obsessed with it, and we watch the 24-hour marathon (or, well, less "watch" and more "have on in the background") of it that's on TNT every Christmas. I went through an intense obsession for a while with Silence of the Lambs (alas, back when it had no fandom. I should be into it now!) and have loved some obvious ones: Dogma, The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Unbreakable, The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project.

There's definitely some movies I've seen that were not worth the time it took to watch them: Splice (incest rape by mutant baby!), Battlefield Earth (John Travolta with alien dreads!), the Saw movies (okay, I've only seen Saw 2, but it was so terrible I wanted to leave the theater; I don't think I've ever seen another movie that so despised its audience), but I can't think of any movie I've really loathed. Okay, maybe Saw 2.

For which movies I would make, OBVIOUSLY A BEN JANUARY MOVIE. Though no, clearly it should be an HBO series, so you could do one book per season and have lots of time to do worldbuilding and character moments. I think Swordspoint would make a pretty good movie! It's short and self-contained enough that I don't think you'd have to cut too much, and the clothes and setting could really do with the big budget of a movie, so they could be as lovely as should be.

Ha, I feel like this has been a boring answer. I don't think a lot about movies, unfortunately! I do really like to listen when other people can discuss interesting topics, like color schemes and angles and framing shots, but alas, I don't know enough myself about those details to do so.

A meme, stolen from dhampyresa:

1. of the fic you’ve written, which are you most proud of?
2. favorite tense (past/present/future)
3. favorite POV (first/second/third/etc)
4. what are some themes you love writing about?
5. what inspires you to write?
6. thoughts on critique
7. create a character on the spot..... NOW!
8. is there a character you love writing for the most? the least? why?
9. a passage from a WIP
10. what are your strengths wrt writing?
11. what are your weaknesses wrt writing?
12. what’s your favorite place for writing resources?
13. who are your favorite writers?
14. anything else that you want to know XD

Fandom snowflake!

Day 7: In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something.

Stealing a meme for this from egelantier and somebraveapollo: I've randomized 10 songs and chose lyrics from each - your job is to pick a number and a character (or ship) (or friendship) (or assortment of characters) and receive a ficlet!

1. A dangerous daughter in a leopard print skirt / A Polaroid camera recording the dirt (Suede: Attitude) Fill: Jessica Campion for just_ann_now

2. Down the stairs the lady came thinking no harm / Lankin he stood ready to catch her in his arm (Steeleye Span: Long Lankin) Fill: Jude/Kit for egelantier

3. Momma once told me / You're already home where you feel loved (The Head and the Heart: Lost in My Mind) Fill: Gabriel Corbier for somebraveapollo

4. Steal home before sunset, cover up my tracks / Drive home with old dreams at play in my mind and the wind at my back (The Mountain Goats: Genesis 3:23)

5. Does it matter that our anchors / Couldn't even reach the bottom / Of a bath tub? (Regina Spektor: Sailor Song) Fill: Hisoka/Tatsumi/Tsuzuki for ranalore

6. I love you, I swear it, I would never lie / But I fear for our lives and I fear your closed eyes (Wakey!Wakey!: War Sweater) Fill: Night Vale for lady_ganesh

7. And even if the morning never comes / My hands are blessed to have touched the sun (Local Natives: Sun Hands) Fill: Hannibal/Ben/Rose for egelantier

8. Ever since you left I've thought of nothing else / Been a man possessed by the way your touch felt (Simone White: What the Devil Brings) Fill: Richard/Alec for just_ann_now

9. Now the hard times are behind us / So let's not be alone (Cherry Poppin' Daddies: Hi & Lo) Fill: Hakkai/Gojyo for veleda_k

10. Wind out of Oklahoma this morning smelled like blood and smoke (The Mountain Goats: Pink and Blue) Fill: The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug/Benjamin January mysteries crossover for lynndyre