So readerofasaph tagged me:

Sometimes it's ok to pimp yourself out. Post a list of your top five fics favorite you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.

In no particular order:

Romp. Narnia, Bacchus/Edmund. Mostly because I'm just inordinately pleased with how it came out. And also at perving out Narnia just a bit.

Vector. GW, Duo gen. Very much one of my older things, but it's one I'm still very fond of.

after the snow, rain. GW, Duo/Heero. Again, an older fic, but it came towards the end of my time in GW. I liked what I was doing here.

Pen & Ink. PoT, Yukimura/Sanada. Purest self-indulgent AU crack glory. I loved every minute of it. And that might be some of the best smut I have ever written.

Arcadia. PoT, Saeki/Yuuta. Again, purest self-indulgent AU crack, albeit much shorter and sweeter. I wrote it in one fell swoop, stayed up till dawn doing it, and it was glorious.

*chuckles* Actually, I could probably keep going. I have a lot of things I've written that I'm still ridiculously proud of, even if they're not the best-executed things I've ever done.

crossposted between IJ and LJ

We were talking--we being some classmates and a professor--about books, the reading thereof, and what one does when a book one has elected to read just ain't doing the trick. Some favor abandoning the book and some plow through to the end whether they enjoy it or not.

So, a poll:


Poll #1221044 What to do when a book just isn't grabbing you.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Say you are reading a book, and you're just not enjoying it. Assume that this is a book you are reading by choice, not one that you are somehow obligated to read (for class, book club, or some similar purpose). Do you:

If you stop reading the book, why?

Other reasons you might not finish a book you're not enjoying.

You're not enjoying the book, but you finish it anyway. Why?

Why might you feel obligated to finish a book you've chosen to read, or what are other reasons you might finish it not outlined above?

You're not enjoying the book, but your reasons for plowing through it anyway or abandoning it are contingent. What are they contingent on? (Elaborate in comments if you need to.)

Ticky?

crossposted at IJ and LJ

It may be the half bottle of wine I've sucked down, but I can't stop sparkling over this.

Because damn it, I miss y'all. Sticking to one's ideological guns is all well and good, but sometimes very lonely!

*beams benevolently at you all and totters back to her wine*

*surfaces* Yeah, so hey. I don't know how many of you are paying attention to the LJ Advisory Board elections, but if you aren't, they're going on right now, and if you haven't voted, I'd encourage you to go over and do that. Polls close at 9:00 p.m. PDT Thursday, May 29, 2008.

Now, as for candidates: most of y'all are fans of various stripes, and a lot of you have been involved in various fannish productions--art, vids, cons, fic, squee, meta, and stuff that defies easy categorization--so I would suggest voting for fannish candidates.

Me, I'm backing (in this order) legomymalfoy, rm, and vichan because all three have strong fannish connections. I'm not going to tell anyone else how to vote, but I can tell you that these are the three that fandom seems to be collecting around, and in an instant run-off system of voting, bloc voting is the best chance we've got of getting sympathetic people into the Advisory Board position.

[Tangential: I don't really expect that this Advisory Board will be able to do that much for fandom against our Russian overlords, but every little bit helps. Also tangential: I like Squeaky, but considering how much he has on his plate running IJ plus his real job, I don't really think he needs another hat to wear right now.]

If you do decide to vote, vote for your top three choices. Don't cast all three votes for the same candidate. This election is being conducted run-off style, which means that to win, the candidate has to have 50% or more of the votes. If you look at the numbers now, you'll see that's not happening.

After they close the polls, if none of the first-choice candidates have a 50% majority, here's what they'll do. They will take the first-choice candidate with the fewest votes, and drop him/her. Then they'll look at all those voters' second choices, and reassign the numbers accordingly. So if you voted for Bob, Lily, and Cthulhu, and Bob's got the lowest score, they'll count your vote for Lily instead. And if Lily has the lowest tally after that, they'll count your vote for Cthulhu instead.

They'll keep doing this until they get a candidate with 50% of the votes. If no one has 50% once they've exhausted all the ballots, they'll award the election to the candidate who had the most first-choice votes.

I know--it sounds complicated. What it boils down to is that voting three times for one candidate is more likely to waste your vote than voting for your top three choices.

If you've already voted, you can go here to change your vote.

If your journal was created after March 11, 2008, you can't vote. You can't vote with multiple journals tied to the same email (i.e. you can't sockpuppet).

Educational materials:

Here's a good round-up of links pertaining to the candidates.

Here's a good sum-up of why I really don't want to see jameth get the position.

...and yeah, that's about it. Hope you all vote, hope this all ends up meaning something.

*tips her hat and slinks back over to IJ*

*surfaces* Many of you have probably seen this, but in case you haven't:

LJ's proposing new policies procedures. The draft of them is here. This is a draft that they hope to finalize by May.

If you would like to leave feedback for LJ, go here.

ljspeaks has post that details some of the pertinent fandom points here. Like the fact that artwork depicting underage folks engaging in explicitly sexual activities is now officially prohibited. (According to staff clarification in the debate/feedback post, this does not extend to written depictions, barring a few exceptions.)

If you're sticking around LJ, I'd heartily suggest that you go review these documents and leave feedback where you think it's appropriate. Me, I'm just hanging out here to keep track of my flist, so I'm not all that wound up about it. Remember that you can find me on IJ, same username, but much cooler site admin!

LJ sucks, and has been sucking, for months now, and I've finally given up on it. You've probably noticed that the posts have been getting sporadic over here. That's because I'm doing most of my journalling over at InsaneJournal now, here, because IJ is frankly a whole lot more user-friendly than LJ has been. Their owner, Squeaky, posts regular updates regarding the site's status and growth, and in most cases, responds to most of the comments left on his news posts personally, and really sets the bar for customer service a whole hell of a lot higher than it is here at LJ.

Yeah, so IJ's site design is old and creaky, but a newer site design is in the works and should be hitting beta testing pretty soon, so don't be put off by that. The new design's going to be pretty sweet, from everything I've seen of it, and also customizable using browser styles, if it's not quite everything you ever wanted from a site scheme.

However, you can buy a permanent account for forty bucks (US) and extra icons and just about everything else a person could want out of a journal, and there are lots of folks who've put together journal layouts to replicate the best-beloved (but not opensourced) layouts here at LJ.

Anyway, to make a long post short, that's where most of my entries are. I'm still making sporadic entries here and checking my flist regularly, but if you want to follow all my posts (and why wouldn't you?), then you'll have to go over there.

But Em! you cry, your journal over there is friendslocked!

This is very true. However, if you aren't inclined to create an IJ of your own, you can comment to my friends-only entry using OpenID (enter in Username.livejournal.com) and I should, theoretically, be able to friend that OpenID login and allow you unfettered access to my journal.

So yeah, that's where we're at. Just thought you should know.

But there are a few things you should look at before you comment to be added...

The Basics: This is the journal of a twenty-something, decidedly liberal, rabidly feminist, most assuredly not-straight, fannishly-oriented, godless heathen. I am extremely opinionated and fairly stubborn, but do my best to maintain an open mind. This journal is friends-only because I bitch frequently about this and that, and some things are better kept out of the open. I value critical thinking, good chocolate, intelligent conversation, and warm socks. I am very often quite a silly person.

Friending policy: I friend people whose journals I have an interest in following. Comment here if you'd like me to friend you; I'll probably investigate your journal before I do so. You do have to comment to be added; if you friend me without saying anything, I won't friend you back. I reserve the right not to friend you at all, or to add you and then remove you later. Feel free to add and drop me at will; it won't hurt my feelings, I promise. As a general rule, though, if you bother to leave a comment, I'll friend you.

Exceptions to the friending policy: if u tyep li3k th1s, there is no chance in hell that I will friend you. You have to respect the English language before I will respect you.

If you are the type of person who likes to really ratchet up the drama by posting entries to the effect of If you don't comment then I'll defriend you! then I will roll my eyes at you, drop you out of Default View, and breathe a sigh of relief whenever you get around to taking me off your friends list. I don't care for drama, and I especially don't care to enable drama. If you're the sort who thrives on drama, then perhaps you'd best save yourself the time and find another journal to friend.

My posting levels: I post a lot. Sometimes the content is thoughtful, deep, and meaningful. Mostly it is fangirly fluff and/or bitching about how much I need sleep or how much I hate my neighbors and so forth. I do tend to filter a lot of my posts, depending on the subject matter, but the fact remains that I post a lot. If you don't want to be spammed on a daily basis, this may not be the journal for you.

If you still think you want to be added, then by all means, comment! I don't believe I'm as much of a bitch as the above makes me sound, but I like to be straightforward whenever possible, and forewarned is forearmed. ^_^