AN UPDATE OF EPICNESS

I finally have all my stories up at AO3, and as many links as possible on my website now lead either there or to DW! (Ah, the things I can do when I procrastinate hard enough ... )

Yes, this does include all the X-Files drabbles! I dithered for a while about what to do with them, thought about putting them up by challenge, but after I'd done so for a few challenges I realized there really had to be a more cohesive way to do it. So I've split them up into four different story files: The City and the Stars (the post-apocalypse series), And I Would Write A Hundred Words (in which I put all the vaguely-MSR drabbles in chronological order - 10,000 words of it, omg), Not the Drabbles You're Looking For (four stories that exist only to make jokes about Star Wars), and Monsters, Friends, and Aliens (where I put everything else, in chronological order). If anyone wants to read through them, please let me know if anything isn't clear now that I've stripped off the headers; I'll go in and add some footnotes.

Sometime, I think I would like to do a poll about where people prefer to read fic. Hrm.

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Clik here to view.halfamoon: 14 days of love for awesome female characters! It's about over now, but if you haven't been following it already, you should head over there now and check it out. Among other things, I now have so many incredible movies about magnificent ladies that I need to watch!

Also in News of the Fannish, I found in a thrift store last week a brown pinstriped skirt suit in exactly my size. It was a little expensive but I couldn't resist; can you blame me? I have got to make con.txt work out, if only so I can show up at the dance wearing *that*. And black converse, a blue shirt, a brown tie, blue sparkly socks, and a tan overcoat, with square glasses and messy hair. :D YES.

I was going to talk about Buzz, but I seem to have missed the boat on that. I think, if done well, I would be more likely to use it than Twitter or Facebook status; but first Google has to get un-evil enough that lots of the people I want to communicate with are willing to use the service. For more information, Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.zellieh has a good round-up post.

My McAfee subscription just expired. I've always managed to get antivirus free through school before; I think this subscription actually came with the laptop, though. My current school, however, is too cheap and too computer-illiterate (still no VPN, what) to provide its students with free antivirus software, and while I did download an install file from my old school while I still had access, I decided to go with avast! instead. I like it fine so far. I'm also running Spybot, CCleaner, and MalwareBytes, and Firefox with AdBlock Plus, NoScript, FlashBlock, Ghostery, BetterPrivacy, Beacon Blocker, and Google's Advertising Cookie Opt-Out. I find that long list mildly ridiculous; how many hoops should we have to hop through to use our computers reasonably safely? And how many people *don't* use all those things?

I'm also trying out Mendeley Desktop, an organizer for PDFs, as the number of journal articles I have saved in various folders was starting to get unmanagable. I think it's going to be useful in the long run, though of course a lot of the files it found are either random non-article PDFs or need metadata added manually. I fear it will be rather like Picasa: a shiny new piece of software that will (dun-dun-dun-DAH) help me (reverb) GET ORGANIZED, except that ultimate organization still requires such a massive up-front time commitment that my interest, dedication, and use will peter out before much happens. Or, like iTunes, it will be a useful front-end for a hopeless mess.

According to a poll, 58% of Americans favor allowing gay men & lesbians to serve openly in the military. According to THE VERY SAME POLL, however, only 44% favor allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. I find this an .... interesting commentary.

Barbie is now a computer engineer. That's awesome.

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Clik here to view.gfish has created a steampunk Jacob's Ladder. You need to go see it.

You also need to go see AXE COP, the only webcomic written by a five year old and drawn by his 29-year-old brother. AXE COP. HE'LL CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF. (Hat tip Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.siegeofangels.) ( have a movie trailer )

The only other thing I have on my list to write about (I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but) is H/D ficrecs .. which might more properly be a meta post all on its own, so I'm just gonna highlight two (a few more are here).

Trajectories by Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.bookshop, which is probably the fic that jump-started my desire to go look up more H/D in the first place. It posits an eighth year at Hogwarts after the war, so of course the student population - the eighth years in particular, and the Slytherins in particular - is greatly diminished. Draco's very alone. Harry's at loose ends. Hermione didn't come back to school. Ron is avoiding his grief. Magnificent, amazing, perfect and painful and bittersweet things happen with the portraits of dead students that have been commissioned for the front hall - Fred, Goyle, Colin. It's very believable and very well-crafted, and you should read it for the portraits if nothing else.

Eclipse, by PhoenixSong. It's very, very long, and very, very good, and the first fic in a *long* time that I actually, without meaning to, stayed up all night to read. After Draco kidnaps Harry for the Dark Lord and is given the task of guarding his cell, he starts to question what he's doing and why, and sort out his actual priorities, which he's never bothered to do before. Eventually there is derring-do and heroics and a long, grueling journey through the forest full of mutual rescues and shared secrets, and an epic battle for Harry's very soul. I just keep thinking about this one; it manages to hit most of my very favoritest things in fic. It's awesome, go read it.

Ok then - back to work I go!

Also, I have brownies.

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