elanya

(Look an update! \o/!)

AO3 meme via musefoool:

1. What’s your first and second most common work ratings? Any surprises?

General Audiences (219)
Explicit (46)

Seems about right. Teen and up is in a close third.

2. What’s your most common archive warning? Least common? Do you consider yourself an adventurous writer?

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (28)
Huh. Though I think some of those are just me forgetting to click a box. This is discounting 'no archive warnings apply', of course, which is a vast majority. Next after that is graphic violence.... which is probably under-tagged, tbh. I *can* be an adventurous writer, but I'm not always.


3. How many fics have you written in each relationship category? Is this more accidental, or do you have preferences?

Gen (177)
F/M (83)
M/M (46)
Multi (16)
F/F (13)
Other (7)

I'm not super surprised... I don't think it is necessarily on purpose, though. As for preferences... More about the dynamics. I really am surprised that Gen is so dominant, though! I would have expected m/m to be up there more.

4. What are your top 4 fandoms by numbers? Are you still active in any of them, and do you tend to migrate a lot?

Diablotin (85)
Adventure World (game) (45)
Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game) (24)
Inception (2010) (9)

I'm still active in Diablotin, but my focus there has changed a lot wth the different campaigns. I suspect I may write more AW again when the new game starts, too. Some of those D&D tags are on Adventure World or Diablotin fics, so I'm not really sure it should count! The next one after that is NIght Vale. I'm surprised Inception is still so high up there - those are all drabbles from an old LJ comm. I haven't written for it in ages. Other than 'games I'm in,' I'm all over the place for fandoms, though thwre are some that pop up in exchanges and such a lot. I'm also surprised Books of the Raksura aren't hgher up the list by now.

5. What are your top character tags? Does this match how you feel about the characters, or are you puzzled?

Original Characters (30)
Vedran Callais (26)
Sanadhìl Órecalo (18)
Original Female Character(s) (8)

Hah. Yet both of those named characters are in canonical m/m and m/m/f relationships, so I am again surprised by the relationshp stats! Maybe's its all the drabbles.

6. What are your top 2 most used additional tags, and your bottom 2? What would happen if you combined all 4 of these into a fic?

Top 2:
Drabble (149)
Family (22)

Bottom 2:
Parenthood (7)
Oral Sex (7)


Uhhh. Awkward! Probably a drabble with parents making sex jokes around their adult children? Or somoene giving sex advice? Or else something terrible ;p

7. How many WIPs do you have currently running on AO3? Any you don’t plan on finishing?
One, that is abandoned and marked as so. I wish I had the energy to sustain it, but I tried ones to pick it back up and I failed. Although I saw it differently than a WiP - I was imagining it more like a serial story. And there is a conceptual difference there, to me, anyway. Like, it was less a 'work in progress' and more 'story so far'. Anyway, it is never getting "finished" or worked on again, which is a shame because I put a lot of thought and work into it. It is still my longest story on AO3.

---

In other AO3 news, I posted my Sexus fic for the Haxus Mini Event today, which is over here on the off chance that someone else might want to look at it ;p

I also passed the half way mark on Pulled by the Sunset! Sooooon.... like probably it will be of the needles by next weekend @_@

Today was also the last session for Thirteen. Weh! But a new Adventure World game is going to be starting up soonish, so that will hopefully be fun. I'm going to play a hobgoblin sorta priest of the ancestors who hears voices and practices ritual cannibalism. His name is Corivan and he wears a lot of skulls and fur because aesthetic.

Many apologies to sorcerorfor being a day late with this!

But the truth is, I don't really have a lot to say about the Tudors?

If I had to pick a favourite one, I'd probably pick Elizabeth? But honestly that's more because I'm interested in some of the explorers from her period - Raleigh, Drake, their ilk,the pseudopirates, and all that meant in terms of the tensions between England and Spain during their rush to lay claim to the New World, and the Armada, and all that jazz.

But the Tudors themselves?

I suppose I'm just more of a Yorkist at heart...

morbane asked me to talk a little bit about where I am living these days.

I'm in London, Ontario, and there are things I like quite a lot about the town and the immediately local area. It is definitely a chance for the better for me form College Station. The transit system is a million times better... Everyone here complains and I've had some problems, but hey - it exists! Busts run more than every... what, half an hour at best? Just as I was leaving CS was starting to integrate the city transit (pretty laughable) with the university buses some... London is a million times better.

I live very close to the downtown areas, so I am lucky in that regard - the buses might be worse in a more outlying area. There are also some nice little parks around for walking the dogs and taking the kids to when it is nice out. They have walking/biking trails that run though the city along the river and creeks. There is a pretty decent Italian bakery/grocery a few blocks up the street and on weekends I like to take them up and tie them outside, then stop in and get some morning /breakfast snacks. There is a cool looking shut-down pub up that way as well that apparently someone has been trying to reopen since last October. No success yet I guess? I read something that said it used to have a pretty rough reputation, so maybe that's why.

My walk to work it pretty nice, though it is at the opposite end of town. I have to go partly through a conservation area, and there are some old apple orchards right there. I meant to pick some of those apples this fall but I never had enough time/good clothes for it, alas! I'm looking forward to the apple trees being in bloom this summer though. I've seen lots of deer tracks in the snow, but no deer!

What else can I say about London.... it is sort of tin the middle of the little peninsula of Southern Ontario that dips down between the Great Lakes, so I'm in the southernmost bit of Canada, and the climate shows it. In theory being where we are means we get a ton of snow in the winter compared to other cities around us, but that has not been in evidence this winter. I think we have had more relative to our neighbours, but it hasn't been very snowy at all (at least not so far).

I don't know a whole lot of the local history - I think the development of the city is linked to it being a center of military organization in WWI. there were big training bases here I think? I'm trying to remember some stuff from the exhibit I saw last year ;p The town/city was already here, but I do think it got a boost then. This is also a brewery town - big breweries, that is, though I'm sure there are also microbreweries. The Labatts/Budweiser brewery is very close to my house. I can sometimes smell the fermenting grain, which is sweet and cloying and super gross. I already dislike beer and it sure isn't helping!

I feel like I had more I wanted to say but now I can't remember, boo!

Today, naryrising asked me to talk about the Cthulhu Mythos.

I have a lot of things to say, but I have spend a lot of Brain today already, so I make no promises.

I find the concept of cosmic horror really appealing, but it is difficult to engage with it without running up against Lovecraft's Cthuhu Mythos. He was not the first, but at this point it is really hard to write 'unknown horrors from beyond our scope of understanding that the mind can't process and keep hold of itself' without people assuming you are drawing on Lovecraft directly. Ask the Night Vale writers about this.

A lot of the stuff Lovecraft wrote was problematic as all get out. It was incredibly racist and anti-immigrant, written very much from a fear of the loss of white power to the unfamiliar - and to Lovecraft, culture so unfathomably unfamiliar he couldn't even recognize it as civilized or entirely human. He was terrible, and it is in the work, and there is no getting around that.

But some of the terrors he created that went truly beyond man, like Cthulhu, Azathoth, Yog-sothoth, were just really cool. He wasn't always the best writter from a technical standpoint, and a lot of people can't stand his style, but I feel like the obfuscating language works with reference to the unknowable. It's atmospheric. The cosmic entities are interesting (some more than others). And it is vague - so vague. A lot of it had to do with exploring the last frontiers, space and the sea, and we are still exploring those today in new and different ways.

Later writers did a lot to crystallize things that were obtuse in the original stories, drawing specific relationships between the gods, making their roles explicit. Making them knowable. It is a lot less interesting to me that way.

I think there is still a lot of stuff to play with in what he left us, and that stripping away the racism and sexism and bigotry leaves us with things that are even more interesting to work with, so when I'm playing with mythos concepts, that's what I like to do. Where do these things fit into a modern world and/or a contemporary setting? What effects and meaning do they have for people other than white cis men? What are other perspectives and contexts than can complicate a world in which these forces have an effect?

There are other authors out these still playing with this stuff - no less than three collections of Lovecraftian stories have come out in the last year *that I know of* and two of them centered explicitly on women (characters and authors). Some follow up on things I think are cool, some.... do not. But it is encouraging to me that there is still a market for these sorts of things.... maybe, someday, I will ever sell another story >.>

Megan the Cruel, a.k.a. tethys123, asked me to talk about job searching and my feeling on it.

I haven't really been actively pursuing my jobsearch since I landed the position I have now. This is a little foolish of me, since this position ends in June. Probably. I mean maybe they will get more money and want to keep me? But there is absolutely no certainty in that regard, and I am really not counting on it.

While I haven't been *searching*, I have heard of a few jobs that I could be applying for, and I have been doing a very minimal amount of work towards preparing to do so. I should be doing more.

There are reasons for this, as follows (this is the feels part):

I really like my living situation, on the whole. While I wish I had better access to my things, and I especially wish we could manage better pet integration because I miss having Maze around all the time, I love living with my family, I love being so close to naryrising (Oh and forthright, him too ;), and I like the town I'm living in. My sister and BiL may complain it is Montreal, but it is also no College Station, and in a good way ;p I am reluctant to hurry away fro that towards a career I feel ambivalent about. Especially when I can feel ambivalent about my career right here ;p

The other thing is that one of the jobs I mentioned is academic. I have a lot of ~feelings~ about my degree, the value of my education, my ability to perform in that kind of environment, and if I am being completely honest with myself, my desire to do so. I think I could do it an do well at it, but I feel very ambivalent about some aspects of it. Some of if is probably just impostor syndrome. But I don't think that's it entirely. I think there were actually serious flaws with my education :p There are aspects that are very appealing. It would be a good cool job in a location that is in some regards extremely appealing. Less in others :p Part of me is really excited and part of me wants to just hide forever. I will definitely apply, but even then I think it will be fairly competitive, so we'll see.

And the other job is at the sister institution to my current job, with a lot more responsibility (but maybe also a lot more power, I dunno), but farther away from everyone, so I dunno. I probably have a leg up there, at this point...

Ambivalent. That is my feels. I don't know how to get over my issues surrounding my degree, but if I could figure that out I think it would help a lot :p

naryrising asked me to talk about jewelery!

I like jewelery in theory. I have a few nice pieces - I have a real Thing for labradorite and am lucky enough to own some pretty nice pieces if it. I tend to prefer semi-precious stones to precious ones, or even non-precious things like agates and jasper. I prefer silver over gold, but I like brass and bronze as well.

I don't like cheap-looking jewelery, which is why I am super wary of buying stuff off of etsy a lot of the time - that said I have some Very Nice pieces that came from there, like my cast silver tentacle with garnet that I got from my sister. But a lit of it is like.... dodads hot glued into a cheap copper setting. Or set stones that are just not very nicely set.

That said, it isn't like I only like Super Fancy stuff - one of my favourite pendants is just a drilled polished jasper on a black cord. I just got a piece I really like for Christmas from a friend that is just three overlaid coloured enameled discs.

But thing about jewelery is, really, that I hardly ever actually wear it. At the moment most of it is packed away because I don't really have space for it. I miss it occasionally, but I can't even remember all the things I have that I like? The other labradorite, the tentacle... I have a BPAL scent locket.... the jasper... uhhhh... stuff?

I technically have pierced ears but I hardly ever wear earrings (partly because my ears don't like stuff). I have a few rings I have and like (one is... guess... a labradorite! I have a garnet - another of my very favourite stones - ring somewhere that I got from my sister and I can't find it and I am Very Sad about this). I have a moonstone one that I got from my mother. My last job I couldn't wear rings for and I got out of the habit.

That all said, I wear hair ornaments all the time. I have a bunch that I really like, mostly gifts. Most are wood, but I have a couple of antler ones as well. I have a lot of hair and strong neck muscles, so I can handle pretty heavy ones (and tend to break ones that are too fine, or if they are wooden and cut across the grain, those will last like 2 min :p). I don't like ones that have additional Bits one them, and especially not dangly things, because they just get caught in my hair :p But cool carved ones, especially - yes please! I like the ones with multiple tines - I would probably be inclined to buy more singles now that I have a good easy style that can be held with just one. But yay! Pretty and practical! Gimme!

I currently have 282 works archived at AO3.

Pick a number from 1-282, with 1 being the most recent and 282 being the first posted, and I will tell you three things I currently like about that story.

...I didn't post anything!

Well then - I have been working on a lot of gaming things, prepping for Webercon, etc Doing more job applications, etc.

Have a meme? This is not going to lead to fic, most likely.

If you could have me write a fic specifically for you, what would it be like? Fandom, characters/pairing, genre, plot elements, kinks (if applicable)... what's your ideal fic from me?

Stolen from naraht:

You know those articles on the toast, like how to tell if you’re in a Brontë novel, how to tell if you’re in a Hemingway novel, and so on? If you feel so inspired, drop me a comment along the lines of “how to tell if you’re in a fic by Elanya.” I will also accept more broadly “how to tell if you’re a character created by Elanya.” :D

In other news, I saw Kingsmen this afternoon as a reward for finishing three and a half job applications this weekend. morbane vastly undersold the 'Colin Firth in hot suits performing ridiculous acts of violence' appeal. It was excellent, for that and for many other reasons.

A. The 'post lines from three WIPs' meme! I'm doing two lines each because context :p
1: Ralf could tell Ander was pissed off, more than he let on, he just wasn’t exactly sure about what. It was in his movements, usually casual and fluid but now carried out with an overly efficient economy of movement. (Diablotin, current active WIP)

2: You might think it silly, but I imagine what disagreements we might have over foolish things like what colour or style of drapes is more suitable, and I try to work though how best we might compromise. I know you told me that as I am living there on my own for the moment I should simply do as I wish, but I would rather at least have the illusion of your presence. (Diablotin, on-hold WIP to be resumed maybe after trope Bingo stories are done?)

3: Attal had never felt betrayed by Kai Leed until she'd found her working with Odos Caan. By now they'd crossed blades many more times, but her feelings were still mixed about her old master – her old friend. (Star Wars, WIP in sort of weird limbo :/)

B: ( I had a weird dream last night. )

I woke up at 7 from this and I miiiiight have taken my acid reflux meds or I might have only dreamed I did. I was uncertain enough on the point after I woke up from dozing again a little while later that I opted not to take them again, so hopefully that was the right choice because I am almost out of backup heartburn stuff :p

C: I really just want to work on writing, because between last night and this morning I have things better sorted out, I think, for my plot progression. However I am also trying to do a job application a week at this point and I haven't done anything in that direction yet, so I need to get a handle on that. If I can find something good. maybe a WW first though.... and a staff meeting later this afternoon. Wheeee!