Because I'm completely unorganized, this is a list of all the ficathons I've written for/am writing for/will write for so that I can at least attempt to keep everything straight in my head.

( Ficathon List )

One of these days, when I say that I'm not going to sign up for any more ficathons, I'll actually mean it. :-/

Happy belated birthday, angelsgracie and lapillus!

And happy birthday, liodain!

Title: Lost in the Shadows
Author: Settiai
Rating: R
Word Count: ~10,000 words
Pairings: Percy/Cedric; hints of Harry/Ginny, Percy/Ginny, Percy/Pansy, Percy/Penelope, and Percy/Ron
Notes: Written for freckles42 in percy_ficathon. Many thanks to emiime, janetlin, and research_girl for beta'ing.

( Percy didn't even realize that his world was crumbling around him until it came crashing down on his head. )

Okay, first of all I'd like to say that I hate my internet connection here at home. It's bad enough that it's slower than molasses most of the time, but I swear that it's been out more than it's been working this summer. And it takes them longer and longer to fix it every time it dies.

Let's see, what have I accomplished this internetless past few days...

My homework for my summer class has been finished and e-mailed to the professor, with lots of curses about non-working internet as an explanation for its being a day late. I've got some work done on fanfiction (speaking of which, I'm getting ready to send e-mails now.)

I've finally found out part of my student teaching assignment. I still don't know which teacher I'll be working with, but I do know that I'll be at a magnet high school in Jackson. I think it's going to be a neat experience, since I've really never dealt with a magnet school before in any way, shape, or form. And the school looks like it will be a nice place to do my student teaching. (The only negative is that classes start at 7:15 a.m. there, so I'm going to have to get up at about 5:00 a.m. every day in order to have time to get dressed, eat breakfast, and make it to Jackson in time.)

I have two-and-a-half weeks left at Shoney's this summer, and then - in theory - I won't be back again. Unless, you know, I can't find a teaching job anywhere in the United States that starts in January. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll find one.

My brother just brought in the mail, and my copies of the new Temeraire and Artemis Fowl book have finally arrived. They both look absolutely awesome. I'll definitely be reading them sometime in the next few days (unless I can somehow convince myself to hold off until VVC, so that I'll have something new to read on the plane - not likely, admittedly.)

Now I'm about to catch up on Stargate Atlantis and try to get some more fanfiction finished. Then I'm, in theory, going to start getting caught up on some of my other shows. I know for a fact that I'm going to get spoiled for them at Vividcon if I don't hurry up and watch them, so I'm going to try my best to get through them all. Though I probably won't be doing my usual episode write-ups for most of them, simply because there's so much I'm behind in right now.

My next day off is Wednesday, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to drive up to the theater then. I've got several movies that I want to see as soon as possible, with The Dark Knight at the top of the list. (Possibly in IMAX, if I can convince myself to actually go all the way to Opry Mills instead of just stopping at Cool Springs - it's quite a bit further away, though, so I'm not sure.) Mamma Mia! is definitely on there as well, as is WALL-E though I might wait until another time to see it. I'll probably be making a movie post then, talking about the (very few) films that I've seen so far this summer.

I really need to check my friends list, come to think of it. But I'm sorta terrified to see how long it is since it's been a few days since I looked at it. :-/

Internet down. Might not be fixed until Monday. Will post again when it's working.

Happy belated birthday, bradcpu, devikun, eloise_bright, and musesfool!

And happy birthday, bluestraggler, medie, and playfullips!

*waves finger at site*

Don't go down like that. I almost had to do something productive, like finish up my homework or frantically work on my overdue ficathon stories.

Luckily, jmtorres saved me by realizing that - lo and behold - I'm a Stargate SG-1 fan. And therefore I could listen to her tale of woe.

Happy belated birthday, carawj, flakygoddess, iko, and lordshiva!

And happy birthday, aliasagent!

( My cats were jealous that I posted pictures of the puppy and not them. )

So there we go. Serenity is just so adorable that Storm and Midnight wanted their moment in the spotlight as well.

( I haz a puppy! )

For those of you just joining us, my nineteen-year-old brother bought a wolf/husky mix named Serenity about a month ago. He told my mother and me about her, but we unanimously decided that it might be better to wait a bit before telling our dad. Last week little brother finally spilled the beans, and - as of an hour or so ago - she's finally here!

Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!

Work was kinda horrible tonight, and I like trying new things in order to get my mind out of the "must. not. kill. customers." mindset. So I decided to grab a six-pack of the Jack Daniels Downhome Punch, since several people who have similar tastes to me have said that they like it.

I have just one thing to say: yum! Seriously, it's delicious.

And now I'm going to try getting either some homework (online class ends next week, and I'm . . . quite a bit behind) or fandom-related things finished and marked off my to-do list. I'm off work tomorrow, so I've actually got a chance to get some stuff done.

Happy belated birthday, bwinter, maechi, and pipsqueaky!

And happy birthday, jebbypal and millylicious!

( It's time for my usual pre-VVC poll. )

What? Everyone else on my friends list is reaching the "OMG!!!VVC!!!" stage, so why shouldn't I? :-P

*bounces*

It looks like a certain casting rumor for the upcoming series that popped up a few weeks ago might really be true.

ETA: And it's been confirmed! =)

This is Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 movies of the last 25 years list.

1) Bold the ones you have seen.
2) Put an asterisk after the movie title* if you really liked it.
3) Cross it out if you saw a film and really disliked it.
4) Underline the ones you own.

( Cut for length. )

I, uh, watch a lot of movies.

( Random Thoughts/Quotes . . . and even more OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!? than last week. )

I'm . . . terrified to look at fandom's reaction to this episode, to be perfectly honest. I expect that it's about 50/50, with half of the fans loving it and half of the fans hating it. It's time to dive into my friends list, so wish me luck. *makes face* I didn't have a chance to check it at all on Sunday (stupid real life getting in the way of fandom), so it's probably going to be at ?skip=500 or so.

Happy belated birthday, 3pipeproblem, _lile, and meddow!

And happy birthday, suffire!

I'm getting ready to leave for work, but I've left instructions for my mom so that I'll hopefully have the new episode waiting for me when I get home. (Hey, four weeks of her not getting it right . . . my luck's bound to change.) It's a really pretty day out, so I'm hoping everyone will be out eating leftover BBQ and sleeping off hangovers instead of going out to eat at Shoney's. Because I'd really like to get home early for once.

See you on the other side!

On this day in 2007, I was squeeing about Catherine Tate joining the cast of Doctor Who. Of course, back then I didn't know just how much I'd adore having Donna has a fulltime companion.

On this day in 2006, I was ranting about Shoney's (some things never change, huh?) as well as talking about the earlier version of the Serenity script.

On this day in 2005, I didn't post. Judging by my posts on the days before and after it, I'm guessing it was because my schedule at Shoney's was kicking my ass.

On this day in 2004, I posted a very long BtVS/AtS Meme/Questionaire. And, wow, my answers have definitely changed somewhat in the four years since then. *pause* Maybe I should redo it at some point?

On this day in 2003, I created two new fanlistings. Which reminds me, I haven't even looked at any of the ones I run in... over a year. Oops?

One this day in 2002, I had already created my journal in order to lurk in communities, but I wouldn't start posting in it until November.

I went to work at 8:00 a.m. this morning, and I was supposed to leave at 2:00 this afternoon.

At 6:00 p.m., I finally walked out the door.

Need I say more?

Happy birthday, jade_starlight!

The schedule for this year's VVC has just gone live!

Is it August yet? *bounces* Is it? It is?

A few people on my friends list were listing their Doctor Who fanfiction stats a few weeks ago, and I thought about doing it myself. I really didn't have the time, though, so I just brushed over it. Since my brain's apparently not working enough to work on homework or fanfiction at the moment, though, I thought that now's as good a time as any to actually go through with it.

( Stats for my Whoniverse fanfiction. )

And, for those of you who are curious, I currently have ten WIPs in various stages of completeness involving the various Whoniverse shows, audios, and books. See? Not kidding about it taking over my brain.

I haven't had a day off work in over a week, and it looks like my body's finally decided to get mad about it. (Though, admittedly, the fact that I'm female and it's been just shy of a month since the last time I felt like death warmed over played a role as well.) *makes face* I went to bed at midnight last night, planning on getting up at 7:00 a.m. so that I could make it to work by 8:00. Except, instead of falling asleep, I literally spent the entire night alternating between having a splitting headache that wouldn't let me sleep and throwing up.

Needless to say, I called Shoney's this morning at 6:30 (which is when the opening server gets there to start getting things set up so that she can unlock the door at 7:00.) Then I rolled over, finally fell asleep, and woke up . . . well, now.

So, yeah, fun day.

I'm going to look on the bright side. I still don't feel that great, but at least I'm able to sit up on my bed with my laptop. Maybe I'll get some fanfiction and/or homework finished today.

"Has Hammond of Texas fallen in battle?"
    - Bra'tac

I'm sure most of you have heard the news already, but Don S. Davis has died of a heart attack. I found out about it just as I was walking out the door on my way to work, so I didn't have time to post then.

He was a talented actor, and he'll be missed. :-(

Happy belated birthday, agapi42, harukami, and linzeestyle!

And happy birthday, rigel_7!

( Spoilery poll related to a line from the most recent episode of Doctor Who. )

If it's not obvious, my sleep schedule's all out of whack thanks to my manager randomly scheduling me night shift one day and then day shift the next. So instead of sleeping, I'm sitting on my bed listening to some more Sherlock Holmes audios.

Um, apparently today's my six year anniversary here on LiveJournal. Yay? I'd honestly forgotten about it until a few seconds ago, when I was editing my profile, but... wow. Six years. That's a long time.

Anyway, a lot's happened in that time. Six years ago, I was a dorky 15-year-old who was already on her way to being multifannish after almost three years in online fandom. I was pretty much solely a het 'shipper (and typically only canon 'ships), my online life revolved around Digimon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (especially Spike/Buffy) with some Hogan's Heroes on the side, I'd yet to discover vidding, and I'd already learned more about sex from reading NC-17 fanfiction than I'd ever learn from talks with my mom or classes in school.

Now look at me. I'm still a multifannish dork, but other than that? I'm a 21-year-old college senior who's going to be graduating in a little over five months. I read pretty much all genres (how on earth did baby!me survive in the Jossverse fandom for so long without slash goggles?) and adore non-canon 'ships just as much as canon ones. Doctor Who has eaten my soul, though several other fandoms are still pretty high up there on my "OMGAWESOME!!!" list. Vidding and songvids are as an important part of fandom as fanfiction to me, and they have been for five years.

. . . and, well, the part about NC-17 fanfiction's still true.

LiveJournal introduced me to fandom on a completely different level. I've made friends who are closer to me than any I've had in real life, and I've cried for days because of the deaths of people that I'd never actually met outside of e-mail and LJ posts. Some of you I only know as a 100x100 picture and a name, while others are known as "the insane duo who picked up a strange teenager at a hotel and drove from Jackson to Memphis (and back) in the middle of the night, just to watch an advance screening of Serenity." One of you met up with me for dinner and a movie, just so I'd have someone with me when I saw Brokeback Mountain for the first time. Someone else met me at the IMAX theater so that we could see Return of the King on the giant screen while you were on this side of the country. Some of you made plans to meet me in another country, just so that we could hang out and talk about Doctor Who; even though things fell through at the last minute, that still counts for something. Two of you I even met in real life first and lived with for quite a while before ever introducing you to LiveJournal.

And then there are some of you whom I've danced with, drank with, ate with, crammed into an already crowded hotel room to watch various episodes of TV shows with, not done the Joxer Dance with (no power in the 'verse can make me), watched the Premieres Show with, almost been run over by crazy Chicago drivers with, been covered in glitter with, marathoned Blackpool until the wee hours of the morning with, slept in the same bed with (minds out the gutter, people), and generally scared all of the poor mundanes sitting around us in the House 'O Meat to death with fandom-related talk with.

Because of fandom, I'm not just becoming my parents Version 2.0 like I honestly think I would have been otherwise. I'm still scared to tell my family just how much I differ from them in, well, everything - but I'm getting there. I've started questioning what I believe when it comes to religion instead of just accepting what I've always been told is right; it's supposed to my decision to make, not someone else's to make for me. I haven't become a staunch Republican just because my family expects me to be one. I'd like to think that I'm much more open-minded than I would have been otherwise, on a variety of issues, and I hope those of you who've been around and read the stories about my family agree.

For better or for worse, I grew up in fandom. It's been an important part of my life since I was twelve-years-old, over nine years ago. LiveJournal's been my home since before I even started high school. Yes, there's been a lot of changes over the years. But to be honest? I can't imagine not having LJ as a part of my life.

Thank you for everything, fandom. It's been a hell of a ride, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.