A Look Back, 2011

So.  Two years ago I posted a little 3K one-shot called "The End of Love" to ffnet.  I was so excited at finally posting fanfic after a hiatus of many years that I forgot to even put an obligatory disclaimer on it, and then I had to learn how the edit function worked... or didn't.

And then shimizu_hitomi  posted my very first review and I think I went "SQUEEEE I loved 'Through a Glass Darkly'!!!" and things were cool.  I wasn't just making a hit-and-run on fandom, which was pretty much my intention at the time.  Since nobody flamed me for pairing Marth and Nyna, even in a totally non-romantic context, and Hitomi liked it, I came up with a few more story ideas that were posted in rapid succession.  And then I went out on a limb with "The Golden Age," which provoked a whole fanfic 'verse I dubbed "The Tales of the Unified Kingdom" as an attempt at writing post-game stories that weren't dystopic.  But at the time, I still figured I'd shortly run out of ideas, get bored, etc.

Then hooves  enticed me onto LJ, and pretty soon fe_contest started up, and well... it's been two years and sixty-odd stories, meme fills, and contest submissions.  Wow.  And eventually I ventured outside my little Archanea box and started writing for FE8, and some very weird things indeed came out of that.  :)

Wouldn't have lasted this long if not for all you awesome people-- for ideas, meta, crack theories, and moral support.  <3

Stuff I look back upon fondly:

( Read more... )

I'm not saying these are my best or most essential works or that they're recommended reading or anything, but they're pieces that I was, in some fashion, compelled to write, and they turned out pretty much how I wanted them to.

[I find it kind of amusing that some people are apparently reluctant to stalk my LJ when I've only been around for two years, heh.  I'm not exactly a lifer in this fandom.]

Mark's Non-Recommendations for Horrible Kiddie Lit

 OK.  I was planning to post this days ago, but life happened.

Good kiddie lit is, IMO, kind of disturbing on some level (The Mouse and His Child).  Or very disturbing.  But definitely not "safe" sugary nothingness.

But some kids' books just are not...right.  Here are some that traumatized me as a child.  Keep in mind that from age three onward, I read by myself, mostly unsupervised.  People gave me books and I read 'em.  For instance, my grandfather gave me William Safire's novel Freedom when I was ten.  I read it.  I loved it.  But Grandpa clearly didn't vet it before handing it to me, or he'd have noticed the, ah, sex scenes.

Reading is very informative!

( Five all-time losers. )

I suppose it says something about ME that I found William Safire easier to handle than the books listed above.