Okay, I give up. There is no way on Earth that my lgbtfest entry will be ready by midnight. I don't know when, exactly, the tiny tense Mary/OFC fic that I was writing grew into a freaking novella - 4000 words before OFC is even introduced! 1000-word scenes! This never happens to me! - but it did, and it's going to take it's sweet time finishing, and drive me insane in the meantime.

(I suspect a lot of my irritation with this fic has a lot to do with the fact that I'm writing about a bunch of things that I know nothing about, like "guns", and "how to fix cars" when I don't even know how to drive. And babies. I'll admit I'm relying on thefourthvine's Earthling posts to an embarrassing degree, since I don't know a ten-month-old baby from a newborn from a potato! Thank god for babysitting; at least I have a vague idea of what five-year-olds are like.)

everysecondtuesday, it may... er, be a while before I get back your Mary/Ruby. BUT IT WILL HAPPEN. (My track record this year notwithstanding.)

I am getting into a fandom that rates things G, M, T, and where half the fic resides in the Pit.

Oh my god, kill me now.

ROMANCE c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (early 14c.), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman). The connecting notion is that medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure. Literary sense extended by 1660s to "a love story." Extended 1610s to other modern languages derived from Latin (Spanish, Italian, etc.). Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair, idealistic quality" is from 1916. The verb meaning "court as a lover" is from 1942.

I shall repeat: it didn't mean love affair until 1916.

Isn't it strange to think that, in a way, the concepts you're taught to build your world on didn't even exist a hundred, a thousand years ago? "Romance" was a heroic story. Love existed outside of marriage, not in it. Once, we thought that the earth was flat, or that atoms were formed like plum puddings. Doubtless in a hundred years, we will think, once, we thought that atoms were clouds of electrons revolving around a nucleus. We are not timeless; we are temporal. There is - I believe there is - the eternal in us, some being or presence, and yet. We don't know what time is, but we are so strongly grown from this one. I don't quite know how to articulate it but it's strange. It's eerie. Like living inside Einstein's dreams. How much of you is made of your time?

Bloddy sodding hell. I never thought I'd say this, but I never want to read another history in my life. I think I've spent almost two weeks in a delirium of accents, strange grammar structures, and trying - and failing, miserably - to explain my research verbally in something other than a jumble of short es and blaighs in an American accent. Thank god at least most of the analyses of the Cumann na mBan (basically, the women's IRA) are in English, and I only have to contend with names and places, which still have far too many letters. Máire Nic Shiúblaigh, for instance. I know there must be a logical way to pronounce it but for the life of me I cannot figure out how.

I must say, I have real sympathy for all these historians, because according to them, during the time they are studying, the push for the Irish language was so strong that the Cumann na mBan secretaries were instructed to relay all their internal messages in it. Ouch.

(And yes, like every other speaker of American English, I am incredibly obnoxious when it comes to language! It's like that old joke that my teacher's linguist wife tells: What do you call someone who speaks two languages; three languages; many languages; one language? Answer: bilingual, trilingual, polyglot, American.)

In other news: sorry, internets. I've been pretty much dead to everything that isn't a) term papers, b) college applications, c) play rehearsal, or d) SAT I and II review. (Though at least with the last, I'm almost done with, and what I have gotten back is pretty good, I think, in the high 700s. Which of course makes my 500s math score suck further.) ...But I promise I'll emerge from this! Eventually!

It is so much harder to remix a good author than a bad one. You know why? Because it seems that they've thought of everything already, whereas the bad ones leave plot holes the size of lower Manhattan! I suppose it's my fault, really; I have this insane devotion towards things having additional meaning. It can't just be pretty, oh no - it has to add some new dimension to the story.

I just don't get it. Why is this so hard?

Guess what I just did? That's right, folks; I signed up for the 2009 sgabigbang.

Oh god, Mr. Cheney, I'll go ahead and get out my duck hunting vest so you can shoot me now.

1. As per the instructions on the sign-up page, I now announce to you: multiverse5000! Is open! Prompt claiming goes until June 1st, with a wealth of different prompts from different fandoms. For those not in the know, multiverse5000 is a multifandom crossover / mashup challenge for SciFi shows. It's got everything from world!gen - the prompt I chose, for example - to character!gen, to slash, to het; from Farscape to Firefly, and some other ones besides. (Seriously. I've never even heard of some of these shows, and I'm a pretty committed geek.)

2. My local comic dealer got some promo stuff a few days ago, and one of them caught my eye: a Marvel "Noir" series, some of which are apparently out already. Has anyone heard anything about them? Are they good?

3. Going to see Design for Living this weekend! Am very, very excited, even if my theatre companion has all of the maturity of a lemur.

(Oh, I am so in for it. This will go down as the greatest folly of mankind.)

Nevertheless - my prompt table for heroes15. Claim: femme, as in all female characters, all the time, both non-paired and femslash/ed. Because even though they are the few and occasionally weepy, Heroes women deserve more loving, don't you agree?

01	Silence.	02	Road.	03	Computer.	04	Ink.	05	Oil.
06	Chain.	07	Language.	08	Wall.	09	Amnesia.	10	Weave.
11	Zoo.	12	Laughter.	13	Choke.	14	Jar.	15	Run.