Please, have a cake. 

I'm laliandra  , mostly shortened to Lal. I'm prone to rambling, spontaneous singing, sarcasm and absent-mindedness. I wish I could carry the whole of XKCD round with me to sum up my life. I would kind of like to be a con woman or a Blue Peter presenter when I grow up.

I have a dreamwidth account that I should use more, a Twitter account (now locked but feel free to add me) that I mostly use to flail at people and an AO3 account that I love. Oh, and a tumblr where I am mostly these days, mainly getting carried away in the tags.

Um, my feeling about friending is, essentially, YAY FRIENDS \o/

Please, do feel free to add me, and then leave me a comment so I know who you are and so we can get to know each other. This is the place to ask any questions that you might have or say hi or point out any terrible typos or bad Americanisms or general fails I have made in my fics. Seriously, it takes a village, you're welcome to join mine.

I write fic and my Master List is under the cut. I feel so accomplished, you have no idea. This is literally the most organised thing in my entire life.

None of this makes me anything but comments. Ratings etc are in the fic headers. Fic may contain spoilers/dorky jokes/gratuitous metaphors. If you want to make podfic of any of my fics, I have given blanket permission. Just let me know only because I love podfic and wish to love and link and put it here!

( MASTER LIST!Collapse )

More About The Author :D

Due a nomadic childhood I have a weird nowhere accent that confuses people. I get dorkishly excited about a lot of things, including but not limited too; shoes, cricket, fireworks, baking, rubgy, flags, dancing, steampunk and crosswords.  

I co-host a fannish podcast called podramble which you should check out if you like tropes, tangents and fangirls having too many thoughts about fictional people.

Oh, and I am to blame for everything. Just ask any marmalade_fish ...

I love a lot of fandoms and a lot of things that I am not actively fannish about but would love to ramble and squee with you about!

So, yes, anything you want to know, just ask!

Before we start, hi, I love you, I'm easy to please. Really. I know people say that but REALLY.

So, there are things that I love in general in any kind of story.

<3 Banter. It is my greatest, dearest love. It can be flirtatious banter or friendly banter or people trying to get one up over their nemesis banter. I don't care. I am a banter!slut and I don't care who knows it.

<3 People being passionate about things. Just, yes, yes please. Which is linked to -

<3 People being good at stuff. I don't care what! I especially like to see ladies being purely competent at stuff, because, yeah, that is still upsettingly lacking. Extra bonus points if that is ladies being matter of factly good at stuff without it being made a Huge Deal By Everyone and making them any less of a normal, flawed person. Speaking of which.

<3 Flaws. I like my characters to have them, and I like the people who they love to have them and I like them to recognise that the person that they adore, in whatever sense of the word, has them.

<3 Trivia. What I mean by this is, little details that make up a world. Or fun facts about squid. Whatever. My greatest fic moment was sharing my "polar bears are ninja" funfact with the world. I just like all the crazy small facts of this world, and all the fictional ones, too.

<3 I love hopeful endings. I don't like neat, everything tied in a bow, over simplified resolutions. I do love angst and complications. I don't love despair.

I mean, obviously I do not expect you to be able to fit all of this into one small story! But take this as a flavour of the kind of stuff that I love bestest, but I love all kinds of other stuff too.

More specific fandom details to come

So last year for her birthday I promised my dear co-host, Chris, serial enabler and all around menace to my sanity daisysusan some TSN Amy/Dustin AU drabbles and a year later I have one looooong AU that still isn't finished because I am the worst friend ever.

So THIS year I thought, what would Maggie really like and I decided that she would like me to do something that I would never, ever, ever do unless I loved her very much and wanted to do something extra special for her.

And that's why there is One Direction fic in this post.

I know.

It means that instead of getting something half decent she gets this, a series of ficlets (well, three) that don't really tie together and in which I make only the vaguest attempt at narrative voice and refused to do research. Handily or possibly sadly, it turned out that I didn't really need to do any research because my twitter feed is like having a 1D wiki pumped directly into my brain, which has decided to store all of these facts, mostly so that I can make witty comments about them in gchat.

I make a very specific contribution to fandom.

Anyway, here we go, welcome to some words written with Maggie's weaknesses in mind which is why this is

Three Ficlets About Codependence and Polyamory (That Should Really Be A Five Things Or Something But I Ran Out of Ideas And If This Were Any Later Maggie Might Start Thinking That She Was Getting Something of Substance/Quality)

( Also my new typo of the day is Laim. Poor LiamCollapse )

I'm posing to LJ first because I feel bad about neglecting it even though we are in a fight because my paid account ran and I can't justify it any more and now it won't let me choose which 15 icons to have and I don't want to delete them all and start again.

But anyway.

The point is that I have news! I'm going to be in South Africa for about a month from 3rd October! And before you yell at me for not saying anything beforehand this time it is genuinely been a last minute thing! I'd been planning to go when I got back from the States but then the whole bag/passport debacle happened and then my Dad wasn't well and we found some really good deal last minute flights so ahahaha, off I go!

I should probably make a plan for getting to London and miiiiight be hanging about for the day on the 3rd, seeing as I fly out of Heathrow at 9 at night. If anyone is about...

My internet access is probably going to be suuuper limited compared to now. Compared to anything, actually. We'll see. I am genuinely concerned about how I'm going to cope without you all. But I will probably be able to email fairly regularly and if anyone wants my number for whatsapp you can, and I will get twitter notifications.

But I am SO, SO excited. I've not seen Dad for over a year, and I've not met his partner or seen where they live. And my baby cousins have got big and my big cousin has got married. And it's the land of my birth, red dust in my veins and divided cricket loyalty and Afrikaans slang and all.

The usual offer for postcards still stands, with the usual disclaimer that I suck at remembering to post stuff.

There, now that's done! Now I just need to update my other social networking sites.

I know, I know, I ran away to America, I never call, I never write etcetc...

New York was, to sum up, pretty much the best three months ever. I got to meet a tonne of you and there was ice cream and alcohol and sometimes both of them at the same time.

Anyway, I love you all and missed you a TONNE and if you haven't been watching me tumbl into madness and tabs, or ramble on podramble or yell about nonsense on twitter, then I hope that you missed me too!

(talking about missing people is bad for me, ugh, my klb, my New Yorkers)

My beloved shiningartifact reminded me that people might wish to see my virtual face and suggested this meme as a way of getting back on the horse. So to speak. And because she is wise and wonderful (and also hosts amazing Emma Stone marathon/board game/baked goods weekends) I took her advice.

Comment and I will...

1. Tell you why I friended you. If I remember.
2. Associate you with something.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Associate you with a character/pairing.
6. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. Tell you my favourite userpic of yours.
8. Tell you that you must post this in your own journal.

Apparently I decided that posting in March was too mainstream or something, we could pretend it was part of Black March in which I decidedly to protest by not posting to a website while continuing to give it money.

It is a subtle protest.

But! I come bearing many awesome things. Some of it is news and some of it has actual substance! It is mostly just news though ngl but really substantial news. Meaty.

Firstly, the super amazing quintenttsy recorded a podfic of my Zombieland Yuletide fic Not If, Only or Even, But Always! I am beyond flattered that she chose my little slice of found family fluff to put her creative time and talent into, and you should all go leave her some love. It was also my first experience of what giving blanket permission to podfic can actually mean, which is surprise!podfic in your inbox, done and beautiful.

Secondly, the new episode of podramble aka The Episode of Shame And Not Really Even Because It's About RPF is up. Enjoy tales of Lal's bb!fangirl failure, Maggie re-evaluating her life and friendship choices, so very many ball jokes and the start of Eli's descent into One Direction Madness. Plus many heartfelt recs. Also enjoy my accent because it's probably the last time it's going to sound that English for a while...

Because...

I leave for two-ish months in New York on 1st May. Yes. In eight days. It's... Well. It's supremely exciting and also terrifying. I mean, it's mainly glorious and wonderful and did I mention that brimtoast is the best and most fabulous and is actually beta-ing my life because that is the long and the short of it, really.

Who wants to hang out in New Yorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk?

:D!

I have to pack ALL the things because we're moving out of the house and I'm putting my stuff into storage and cry, I hate packing SO MUCH. I have also been helpfully informed that the weather will be somewhere between 50 and 80 Fahrenheit, which is between 10 and 26 Celsius. Which as you can imagine has really aided my in my packing.

So yes, I will be invading the home of my darlingest brimtoast and her boy and their cats, all of which I am very fond of. I may be looking pleadingly at people in the area for some couch crashing, though, if only so that they don't get sick of me and throw me out of the country. Besides, I would like to see people and hang out and do things and I could make cake?

There is a plan beyond just RUN AWAY TO NYC but all will be revealed in due course. I mean, I've told you I'm going now so I am in a constant state of terror that I have somehow jinxed myself and it will all fall through and I'll have to tell everyone and there will be sympathy and I will want to DIE.

Yeah. Dealing really well with things! Not traumatised by the last couple of crappy years at all! I in NO WAY spent a whole evening last week under my duvet writing moogle62 a series of email that got increasingly crazy until she felt compelled to call me to check that I hadn't actually fallen of my ledge of dubious sanity into an actualfax sea of Gone Wrong.

NEW YORK, THOUGH, GUYS. Anyone who has ever mentioned it to me has been subjected to my starry eyed, Andrew-Garfield-earnest, mildly embarrassing love for that city. There may have been some tumblr tagging that hapakitsune mocked me for a lot but I will forgive her because she has promised me fangirl hangouts, possibly with booze :D

Because, yes, yay, I'm going to get to meet some of my favourite people! And I don't just mean apparently inevitable running into Jesse Eisenberg on the street that literally everyone I've told so far has assured me will happen. EVEN BETTER THAN THAT. I will get to meet my very first LJ frond *sniffle* the brilliant super-fantastique mcollinknight and finally do coffee-and-a-park-bench with anna_unfolding. I can't even express how stunningly awesome it is to think that I will finally get to give these ladies, who have been so very important to me for such a long time, a massive hug.

OKAY THAT GOT SERIOUS. QUICK, OVER THERE!

Postcards and updates and pictures will of course be on offer. If by "on offer" you mean forced upon you all until you beg me to stop, please, for the love of god, we get it, you love New York.

And how are you, my treasures? I feel a little weird about people I don't have on tumblr or twitter *gathers you into me*

So I miiiiight have been avoiding LJ slightly because, okay, I know I have to finish writing Christmas fics for a whole bunch of you and it's FEBRUARY now and I am just feeling worse and worse about it D: Would anyone mind if I just posted them online instead of sending out a handwritten thing? I will probably get round to the second part... sometime but if you want your story quicker then, er, that might be the way to go.

I am a resolute failer and feel faily /o\

But! In real life I have a job, an office girl Friday do ALL the things job which seems to be going well. My co workers are range from nice middle aged ladies who find my ability to type without looking and use google miraculous to a girl who loves comics and Sherlock. The Friday before last we shut ourselves in the post room, watched the machines stuff about 500 envelopes and had a very flaily conversation about our Sherlock feels. It was great. Anyway, I haven't really mentioned that because after the last couple of years my fear of jinxing myself is so great that I live in constant terror of telling people that things are going well only to have the rug pulled out from under my feet. Long term unemployment, it messes with you!

Fandom wise, I've spent the last two weeks, on and off, editing Episode Five of podramble. So, once upon a time on twitter we were talking about the amazing slash report which is a really great fannish podcast that I have managed to get half my twitter feed addicted to. And brimtoast was like, I will miss it when it's gone on hiatus, I wish that there was one, and daisysusan and I were like, well, we've been saying for a while that we'd love to talk about fannish things that we are interested in, and then jumpercut said that she'd love to make a fandom podcast, and so podramble was born.

It's a podcast hosted by me,daisysusan and jumpercut, sometimes with special guests. We have a theme each week that we try and stick to but, yeah, it's called podRAMBLE with good reason, guys. We have a complete blast recording every week and usually end up accidentally enabling each other into new fandoms and epic AUs that we stay up until 2am reading. And, um, people seem to like it? Plus there's something kind of bone deep satisfying about having wanting something to exist and then making it happen.

Possibly I shouldn't be making this entry after only getting about 5 hours sleep and two glasses of wine down, but it was beginning to feel a bit now or never.

Anyway, you should listen to podramble and tell us what you think. This is all I really needed to say about that.

Also, you should take part in the Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II. If you can rec, record or write a ladycentric fic of less than 1500 words, you should come join in! I still need another one thing, at least to read! It's sort of unfortunate that the Amy Ritter snippet that I was writing for Maggie has turned into a 12k... thing.

Speaking of podfic, podklb recorded a ficlet of mine for a Christmas podfic exchange which you can find here. It's a Harry/Draco steampunk story that, aha, oh man, I wrote a while ago and suffers a little from run ons, but klb somehow makes sound natural and unclunky! Her reluntantly amused Harry voice versus her determined defiance Draco voice is so great, you guys. Plus there are some AMAZING ficlets in the collection, you should totally check it out.

And finally, possibly leaving the best until last, because novembersmith is the actualfax best, I now have a handwritten note from Jesse Eisenberg.

I know.

RIGHT?

Essentially novembersmith is a goddess and I'm not saying that I would perform human sacrifices to her, but I'm not saying it's totally out of the question, either...

I did mean to make this entry Some Time ago but, ugh, you guys, I'm still pretty sick. I got sick almost exactly on the stroke of midnight (I'm not kidding, I stood up to sing Auld Lang Syne, sneezed and felt a little wobbly) and have only just come out the other side.

And by that I mean, have been coughing myself to death and leaving people completely ridiculous comments that make less than no sense. With .gifs. And because my friends are, you know, my friends, I am now engaged in TWO gif wars. Obviously.

Anyway, I also left for various Christmas type celebrations on the 16th of December, which I hope goes some way to explaining the amount of LJ radio silence. And LJ kind of sucks these days. But yes, I went and had four days in a tiny room with moogle62 and it was GLORIOUS. I think we had about 20 hours sleep total, there was a lot of time spent in pyjamas, some very dignified feels watching TSN vids at 3am that we had to talk to some ice cream about, some even more dignified feels about Sherlock Holmes 2 (IN PUBLIC GOOD LORD) and her flatmate describing me as "your *lowers voice* *makes air quotes* friend".

So all around a triumph, really.

And then we met up with some beloved marmfish for merriment and tube debacles and ice skating. Last year hanelissar and I spent the whole session hands firmly clasped in each others, with much clutching and spinning and delighting in each safe trip round the ice. When we got back onto dry land the rest of the group declared us married. This year I spent more time than seems, um, socially acceptably telling Moog and altogetherisi to just get their legs further apart, jeez.

And then home to the Isle of Man, which ended up being, to quote Moog, LIKE THE ISLAND ON LOST ONLY INSTEAD OF ACCUMULATING TERRIFYINGLY ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE AND ALSO POLAR BEARS IT JUST ATTRACTS THE WTFUCKERY/INTENSE EMOTIONAL REVELATIONS. So we'll just, move right along with that, then.

And then back to see the boy and his parents, only he got sick, then I got sick, and here we are! Oh, no, only I also recorded three episodes of podramble (more on that later) and wrote my Yuletide fic.

Not If, Only or Even, But Always. And no, I'm still not sure if all those commas are right.

It was for the movie Zombieland, a witty, charming movie which I loved more than I ever expected to, and featuring some of my very favourite faces. In a turn of events to surprise no one, I have a number of feelings about kickass conlady heroines and their sisters and their twitchy, adorkable boyfriends.

Um, if I haven't posted the Fandom Snowflake thing by the end of tomorrow, someone yell at me?

Happy New Year, my dearest flist!

How the devil are you?

Look! I used my elite graphics skillz to make the poster that lc2l made me into an icon. I am not so good at this things, y'all. BUT WHATEVER LOOK IT IS MY LIFE MOTTO AHEM I MEAN THE MOTTO OF CONPEOPLE.

If I have seemed a little MIA it is because I went to babysit my grandmother for a week. She had an operation and has reached the stage where she is bored and trying to do to many things, and I was called in to use my special First Grandchild Powers to get her to sit down and relax.

I had a lovely time, my family are amazing and also crazy, but that's part of what makes them amazing.

Great aunt : [Friend] said she was going to pop in
but then she saw [lord of the local manor house, Old
Money, goes to their church) leaving and she said "well, if Pat (my Granny) wasn't
already tired out she will be now."
Granny: Quite what she thinks I'm doing with [said man] I do not know.
GA: He did come with cheque book in hand
Granny: And he knows I only take cash.

Also we had an awesome discussion about how wrong it is that there is no societal judgement on young men for having lots of sex whereas girls get called slags, and are usually the only ones who have to deal with the consequences and my Granny was like, well, unless the young man gets the clap.

Their house is slightly alarming because everywhere I looked Tiny!Lal looked back (but cutely, am I right?) but there was a charming cat who wished to be snuzzled all the time and took action if he felt he was being ignored.

Aaaaaaanyway, this post is actually a CARDS, CARDS, WHO WANTS CARDS post.

I'm finally starting to get excited for the festive season - though not as excited as Moog - which may be because I currently have four Christmases and a possible fandom meetup planned for it. I'm not a religious person but eeeee, carols and advent calenders and LIGHTS, LIGHTS EVERYWHERE.

SO! DO YOU WANT MAIL? SAY YES! I love sending out cards and random things to people. No reciprocation required.

I know I have addresses for some of you, if I have several you need to tell me which one you would like it sent to.

But everyone else, comment on this post with yours. If you don't want to share it with the world wide web then comment anonymously (just sign yourself out of LJ) and that will be screened for your protection and privacy! Or you can PM me orrr email me at muchadoaboutcogs at gmail. You can email me about other things too, obviously, but at the moment we are on post. Focus, self.

Also, if you would like any specific kind of card (Christmassy, Hanukkah-y, British-y, Fandom-y, Hogswatch-y, Sorry we killed Jesus-y) then tell me that too!

I'm sure I can get testimonials from people who have already given me their home deets that I have done nothing worse with it than sending them random flyers that I think are amusing.

Oh, and if you made a post about sending cards, I may have missed it, I probably missed it in fact, so please feel free to assume my answer is yes! (\kdjhgPOSTkdjhg) or link me to it.

Aaaand I think that's everything. How are you my beloveds? Today I ran out of Castle episodes and it was very sad, and I have to clean ALL THE THINGS because my bf's parents are coming up.

Before we start, hi, I love you, I'm easy to please. Really. I know people say that but REALLY.

So, there are things that I love in general in any kind of story.

<3 Banter. It is my greatest, dearest love. It can be flirtatious banter or friendly banter or people trying to get one up over their nemesis banter. I don't care. I am a banter!slut and I don't care who knows it.

<3 People being passionate about things. Just, yes, yes please. Which is linked to -

<3 People being good at stuff. I don't care what! I especially like to see ladies being purely competent at stuff, because, yeah, that is still upsettingly lacking. Extra bonus points if that is ladies being matter of factly good at stuff without it being made a Huge Deal By Everyone and making them any less of a normal, flawed person. Speaking of which.

<3 Flaws. I like my characters to have them, and I like the people who they love to have them and I like them to recognise that the person that they adore, in whatever sense of the word, has them.

<3 Trivia. What I mean by this is, little details that make up a world. Or fun facts about squid. Whatever. My greatest fic moment was sharing my "polar bears are ninja" funfact with the world. I just like all the crazy small facts of this world, and all the fictional ones, too.

I mean, obviously I do not expect you to be able to fit all of this into one small story! But take this as a flavour of the kind of stuff that I love bestest, but I love all kinds of other stuff too.

( More details for you, dear author, and also all the creepers on my flist. ICU.Collapse )