Nachdem ich mir bei meinen bisherigen Journals nicht die Mühe gemacht habe, einen Einführungs- und Sammelpost zu machen, habe ich mir dieses Mal alle Mühe gegeben, und versucht, meine inzwischen doch schon etwas längere Liste an Werken etwas zu ordnen. Natürlich sieht das auf meiner Website alles viel besser aus (und dort gibt es einiges als PDF zum Runterladen), aber allen, die lieber hier lesen wollen, hilft die folgende Liste hoffentlich. Außerdem empfehle ich euch einen Blick in meine Tags.

( Fanfiction und Originale (Deutsch) )


This hopefully makes it easier to find the more memorable entries in my journal. I did write that much fic in English (yet), though. You can also take a look at the tags and the memories.

( Fanfiction (English) )

OT: lian, how did you survive the last week? Translating OTW texts can be so exhausting. And after two hours, German kind of stops making sense in the same way a newspaper picture breaks down into pixels if you stare at it for too long.

At least it distracted me from all the profic fail that's going around for a while. Victorientalism. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Out of curiosity, I read the first article, because it's my area of expertise. Sort of. I should just stop reading what people who haven't taken Japanese Studies write about Japan. It never ends well.

It also proves that you shouldn't write about samurai if you learned everything you know about them from The Last Samurai.

The article has basically nothing at all to do with Japan and all to do with the West's idea of Japan. It's about how Japanese culture enriched the West with its otherness (as if that's all there is to it). It completely ignores the fact that these Japanese cultural exports were shaped by the West, to a degree. It's all about an exoticised idea of Japan's past, how we repeat these tropes again and again and how this is a good idea! Japonism at its finest.

( My ramblings about early modern Japanese history, because I have to get it off my chest and I didn't read all those books for my intermediate exam for nothing. )

I haven't read any steampunk yet (that I know of), even though I am interested in theory, but attitudes like this are really off-putting for me:

[S]teampunk allows us to reject the chains of reality and all the racism and guilt associated with it, to explore anew this imagined world of sultans and saberrattling Islamic conquerors; harems and white slavery; samurai, dragons and dark, bustling bazaars frequented by the strangest sort of folk. Isn't this, after all, steampunk's very premise?

Can somebody please point out something that is not wrong with this? All I'm seeing is "I want to be a racist without feeling guilty" (and I'm vaguely reminded of Avatar - the same thing in blue, literally). Am I the only one who would like to read steampunk that doesn't glorify the past?

I think I really have to write this steampunky (or would it be dieselpunk or plain old Alternate History?) plot bunny I have. It's a) about women, b) Wilhelminian, not Victorian, c) one of the women is black and everyone else is at least a little bit racist, including the other sympathetic main characters, d) one of the women is a communist. Unfortunately it would mean a crazy amount of research about Wilhelminian Germany, the First World War, women in the early 20th century, communism, the German colonies, lock picking and so many other things.

And this post doesn't even touch upon the sci fi writer who thinks that stories only exist if they're in a language he can read (= English) and published in a format he has access to.

First of all:



I could actually afford the membership because a few days ago my aunt sent me and my brother an obscene amount of money that she insisted our grandfather would have wanted us to have (he died six years ago), despite the fact that my mother and brother tried to argue that it really belongs to her and our cousins. Now I'm wondering which video game to spend money on ...

There's also comment meta going around, which ... urgh. Is the best way to keep me from commenting on anything.

( My ragey feelings about this post )

Title: An Elephant's Memory
Fandom: Neverwhere
Length: 2698 words
Rating: 6+
Characters: Door, Richard Mayhew, Marquis de Carabas
Warnings/Labels: teamfic
Beta: lelek
A/N: This is obviously the story that I wrote for colebaltblue during Yuletide 2009. I really liked her prompt and writing this story, although I might have defaulted if it hadn't been for merry_stew's support and help. You can find the story on the AO3 as well: An Elephant's Memory.


( In which there are a chess game, an elephant and a lot of mice. )

Okay, I've not yet read all of my gifts because half of them are in the Yuletide Madness Collection. I got six gifts in total, which is AWESOME, and the stories that I could read so far are AWESOME as well, even if my comments maybe aren't the most enthusiastic. If you're reading this dear mystery writers, it's not your fault, it's mine. I suck at writing glowing comments.

So here are the stories:

1. Ghoul Friday, Dresden Files, from Thomas' point of view. "Thomas does a lot for Harry, but entertaining cranky wardens might be going too far. Set somewhere between the novels Small Favor and Turn Coat." It illustrates Thomas' feelings for Harry and his trouble dealing with his Hunger very well!
2. Moving Out (and On), Dresden Files. "Ramirez discovers Thomas has easy access through Harry's wards. Awkwardness ensues," which is a very good summary, and the best about this story is the part that's between the lines, in my opinion!
3. Like Taking Candy from a Baby, Dresden Files. "Charlie had heard rumors about Warden Dresden, but he never expected this." Thomas scares a Warden. Very funny!
4. Carmel, Kings. "Jack sat out on the veranda sipping his coffee and watching the sun rise." A sweet short piece on Jack and Michelle before they return home after their father's death.
5. Like a Virgin, Velvet Goldmine, which is not exactly what I wished for, but incredibly good anyway. "Arthur has a chance encouter with Curt at a record signing that may just change the course of both their lives." Too cute for words.
6. Promise, Let Dai. "Jaehee looked up and couldn't believe his eyes." Jaehee and Dai meet again. Finally!

Updated to include Yuletide Madness stories. Also: My recipient loved my story. ♥

☞ I wanted to shake my Yuletide present this morning and discovered that my writer apparently defaulted because there's no gift uploaded for me yet. :-( Either that or there's a glitch in the AO3 software.

☞ I'm constantly tired at the moment. No idea why. It's just as if my mind never quite leaves this fuzzy state between half asleep and awake. And then there are these brief moments when I'm almost awake and should do stuff but they never last long enough. I suspect it might be low blood pressure again.

☞ Need to prepare for Christmas, mostly by buying food for four days. *sigh* My mother also threatened to send me a useful present, which is probably not the best idea ever. Her idea of a useful present are pans and pots and such and I absolutely hate getting useful presents from her because they tend to make me feel bad. The last time she tried it I would rather have had one present less instead of the one I got. It was a pot, and getting a pot as a Christmas present is really depressing. I'm afraid she bought an electric kettle this time, tbh, despite the fact that I repeatedly told her that I neither wanted nor needed one.

☞ Finally finished watching Jeeves & Wooster, which I loved, except that it's really difficult to keep track of all the characters. I frequently forgot about everyone but Jeeves, Wooster and Aunt Agatha.

I remembered that I wrote this months ago because today is Stargate Wednesday on RTL2. I think I mentioned it somewhere already, so I’m posting this before I forget about it again.


So I’ve been watching a lot of Stargate lately, both SG-1 and Atlantis. Which isn’t quite that unusual since I used to watch it every Wednesday until Pro7 decided to air the xth season of Buffy in the same time slot, and given the choice between Stargate and Buffy, my father lost and my brother and I won. That was before I changed schools for the last time, I think, so it’s been eight or nine years. And I’ve changed since then. As has Stargate. Characters died and left and … well, I don’t want to spoil anyone, but a lot has changed.

I also realise that what I’m about to say has probably been said a zillion times before, but a lot has been bugging me about the Stargate franchise from the start, back when I still lacked the words and the knowledge to express my thoughts. I also find it easier to accept some problematic content (like the premise that pyramids were built for spaceships and its implications) while some insignificant details annoy me to no end. I can suspend my disbelief only selectively, apparently. I also realise that sometimes, the shows did it right. I’m talking more about my general impressions.

( On Stargate And Why It Will Never Be Among My Favourite Series )

☞ My Yuletide beta (I had to write to a second person, who actually answered) promised me she would be done by Monday or Tuesday, so I am now glancing anxiously at the mail symbol of my browser every few minutes while I wait for the weekly party downstairs to quiet down a bit. I'm really nervous because I still have to look for a Britpicker and won't be in LE for a few days. My mother and I are visiting the relative of a relative of a relative in Göttingen for a few days and I don't think my mother will book a hotel with internet access.

☞ In other news: Chuck ate my brain. I only watched it because I was a bit bored, it stared Adam Baldwin and because I caught an episode on TV a while ago. I love it. Chuck is adorable and Casey is like Jayne only more clever; I like Sarah and Ellie and Morgan and Captain Awesome. Also: Awesome likes to run around half naked. Overall, the show is sweet and funny, even though it hits my embarrassment squick sometimes.

☞ I actually found a decent story on ff.de. Weird things do happen. Half of the stories that I have to look at as an OP are Mary Sue stories or stories with canon characters as Sues, though. No idea why people over there think the fandoms are overrun by slash. Do het fans have a persecution complex? Is everything about 15% slash more than acceptable?

How long should I wait for an answer after asking someone if they would be willing to beta a fic of mine?

I'm asking because my Yuletide support group buddy already heard back from the person she asked and she asked later than I did. I've been waiting for two/three days now, and I know that I am online far more often than other people, so I really don't know if it's reasonable to get a little nervous or if it's still normal response time. I've also written to people before who just didn't notice my message and wrote back to say sorry after a couple of months, so ...