Real Name: Emily

Home: The American South

Age: 18

Favorite Books: The Bloody Jack Adventures by L. A. Meyer, Watchmen by Alan Moore, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Silas Marner by George Eliot, Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West, The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugam, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood.

Favorite Movies: Singing in the Rain, Sweeney Todd, The Dark Knight and From Here to Eternity.

Favorite TV Shows: 30 Rock, The Office, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

Favorite Bands/Artists: the Drifters, Dusty Springfield, the Everly Brothers, Etta James, Dion, the Supremes, the Beatles, the Killers, and the Shins.

Favorite Pairings: Honestly, I like all pairings, as long as they're well-written and in-character. It makes me happy when I see fic for a pairing that I've never seen before. That said, I love Mrs. Lovett paired with anybody, because she's awesome. I'm also fond of any pairing that involves Anthony, because I adore him. Some of my favorite pairings are Sweeney/Lovett, Sweeney/Anthony, Sweeney/Lucy, Lovett/Turpin, Lovett/Toby, Turpin/Bamford, and Anthony/Johanna. Yes, I'm aware that most of these pairings are dysfunctional in the extreme, but I wouldn't be in this fandom if I didn't like a little dysfunction.

Least Favorite Things about Fanfiction

(1) Character bashing. It's always unpleasant, often unfair, and rarely results in good writing. It's also self-indulgent. I'm not talking about making fun of characters or having a villainous character behave like a villain; I mean the sort of story where a character meets a gruesome death and/or molests puppies just because the author hates him or her. This usually makes me like the character more. What can I say? I'm a contrarian.

(2) Original characters who steal Mrs. Lovett's lines. First of all, if they're original characters, they should have original personalities. Second, it is not cool to detract from Mrs. Lovett's awesomeness in any way. This brings me to my next least favorite thing.

(3) Fics that depict Mrs. Lovett as a milk-and-water Mary Sue. Mrs. Lovett is a badass. It's not right to have her tremble and wimper at every little insult or nasty look that comes her way. C'mon. This is a woman cooks people into pies. Give her some credit.

(4) Authors who can't take criticism. I guess that they have every right to suck at writing, but still. (That's a bit harsh, really, but I've gotten review replies that were much nastier.)

(5) Written dialect. I don't hate this as much as I do the others; I've read a lot of really good stories that have it. It's just a pain in the ass to read.

(6) Bad grammar and spelling. It hurts my eyes.

Favorite Quotes from Favorite Stories

(The Dark Knight Trilogy)

Pretty Silver Thing

“You could taste the fear in your throat. Because there is nothing scarier than knowing what you don’t want to. There was a monster inside you too, because you loved (hated) your father...you did(n’t) want to hurt him…. You would never hurt him. (You just did.)”

How to Write a Bad TDK Romance

“Everyone had tears in their eyes. Even the Mayor. His eyeliner was running.”

(Harry Potter)

Some Have Greatness

"It is one thing that he knows for certain: of the two of them, Gellert is more likely to end with a bang, while Albus can only imagine his own death a whimper."

A Mary Sue Alphabet

"F for Furiko
Who came from the East
Her father's a magical
Shrinekeeper priest
She brought her katana
And swings it with ease
And she'll say 'onegai'
Instead of just 'please'
Each chapter begins with
A guide to the phrases
And thanks the reviewers
For singing her praises."

Horrid

“It’s wonderful you now have an outlet for all your aggression! I mean, some people turn to drugs—others to sex, others to mutilation, others to Slash, others to Oreos, and so on.”

Harry Potter and the Horribly Unlikely Fanfiction

“She sure loved scones, that McGonagall. What a character.”

(Jane Austen)

I Saw Her Standing There

"Charles had seen Will on numerous occasions secretly fondle a long, satin-finished white ribbon that looked just long enough for a girl to wear in her hair. Charles noticed the covert way Will would take it out of his pocket when he thought no one could see. He never let on that he knew about either the ribbon or Will’s fixation with it."

Adventures of an Unloved Austen Hero

“Poor Fanny was very distraught at my leaving her, and feared that I would end up (as the moderns phrase it) a ‘red shirt’, but I reassured her that, being the hero of a novel already, I could never be content to be ‘police officer #1’ or ‘man who is blown apart in the first encounter to show how dangerous the situation is’.”

(Les Miserables)

My Object All Sublime

"Joly lived in an odd state of constant anxiety intermixed with an overwhelming and optimistic faith in Science. He had learned from Bossuet how to laugh off the anxiety, to release it as a joke as one would cut open a vein to release bad humours from the body, and the cheering effects of alcohol did what Bossuet could not."

Aunt Wodehouse Pays a Visit

"Courfeyrac had not enjoyed his stay in prison, even though his ultraroyalist father had bribed Courfeyrac out of prison within days and obliviously warned Courfeyrac that, even if a group of older students told him he absolutely had to steal a policeman’s hat to be part of the Freemasons, it was decidedly not part of the initiation rites to the Freemasons and, here take this handful of louis d’or, as he would be better off flirting with some grisette in a café or going to the Voltaire (it was still the Voltaire, was it not?) to play billiards."

Zwischen Abgrund und Schein

"When I sat that night, I moved slowly as though my knees were sore. I wondered why. I was in perfect health; the doctor had told me this after he had looked over Cosette. He said I was like my grandfather, that given the will I shall live until I am a hundred. But have I the will? That was the question I had let float in my mind for days."

The Heart Has Reasons

"The world was beautiful when understood, when one realized how beautifully and logically it was put together, and when one simply felt its glories in that fierce and almost frightening flame of desire Joly thought might be love."

Eroica

"Beethoven was a prophet and I am an ass and we must all be free."

Playing Pygmalion

“The first cut is perhaps the most important, because I know that it is easy to fall into the trap of considering the body an individual before you begin; once you have opened it up, it becomes simply a beautiful and intricate specimen.”

The Talk

“Birds live in the trees and build nests. They fly. Bees fly too. They are black and yellow…Courfeyrac, what is the point to all of this?”

How I Seduced Enjolras

"Wasn’t it called ‘Republican boys in bondage’?"

The Miserable Diaries

"Enjolras such a blond at times. Today went into big speech about the colour of the world changing day by day. I said how come you’ve been wearing the same waistcoat as long as I’ve known you then (red with gold braid so last season). He said anyone as pretty as he was could wear big filthy sack and still have everyone in Paris trying to get into his pants. Couldn’t very well disagree."

(The Office)

New York, New York

"He's discovered that the people in this office are just more successful versions of the same neurotic people he knew back in Scranton. Instead of terrifying or depressing him, the thought brings unexpected comfort: people are people no matter where you go."

Because That's What Friends Do?

“He’d watched just about everyone else crash and burn and make fools of themselves and get pregnant and arrested and skip off to the beach and he’d never said a work on way or another, saving the occasional sarcastic observation that no one else seemed to understand.”

(Sweeney Todd)

Spoofy Todd: Yet Another Parody from Fleet Street

"They have nine children, all girls, and all named by Johanna – LaTouretta, LaFawnDuh, Uniqua, Speshelle, Hannah, Montana, Johanna II: Electric Boogaloo, Sweenette, Pirellisha, and Ginaqua."

I Can’t Quite Feel You, Johanna

“Well I thought we could talk…about…er, feelings.”

Dress Up

"She did this often; after a long day of being Mrs. Lovett, she could shed her identity with her blood-stained smocks. It was as much work as the baking to be Mrs. Lovett; her identity, her self being a stupid, bleedin’ weight she dragged around all day. A heavy one, too; not to suggest that she felt guilty for what she was doing, because she didn’t. No ounce of remorse; people were always taken from her; her mum, her babies, Benjamin -- why shouldn’t other people suffer a loss as well?"

How Do I Save You?

"My lovely landlady was passed out on the thread bare chair on the window. Maybe she was waiting for me? In her hand, she was clutching a half empty bottle of gin."

A Nightmare

"Sometimes he would reason to himself that it wasn't such a bad dream, not even when he let it get all the way through. There was nothing much to being Toby Ragg, and his own looks and simple mind had done him no good in life. What did it matter if she wanted him to be something else? He would do it for her, and if she loved him for it that would make everything alright."

Rats Gone Home to Jesus

“The people are starting to drift home, and the judge has even started chatting amicably with another woman. Some French rich someone or other. And he has to deal with a broken pocket watch and a broken woman and the palpable silence between them.”

The Art of Speaking

“You're saving nothing because everybody dies someday, and maybe it's not alone, and maybe it's not as cold and wet and pitiful, but it's still death.”

To seek revenge may lead to Hell

“I’m sorry. You just reminded me of well… me. I tried to show you the world was cruel, but I think you already knew that… I told you to stay away.”

A Lesson in Economics

“This, of course, never occurred to Mrs. Nellie Lovett. She understood enough economics to know that the more good pies she had, the more good customers she would have. She paid meticulous attention to demand. Unfortunately, she had underestimated her own supply.”

Anamnesis in Full Revolution

“There is a definite way of the world, an absolute path that must be followed in all things.”

Backlit

“Now, the stars are obscured

By the same smog that blots out the silvery moonlight.”

Compensation

“I was quite willing—quite happy—to be corrupted by you.”

In the Dark Beside You

“No matter what, she knows that all the preparation in the world will not make her okay when the time comes. She’ll break, and she’s not a woman accustomed to breaking. So that day better just not come at all.”

Remember

“Her hands—what did they look like? I can’t remember.

Were they long and thin, or small and plump?

I remember they grew cold easily.

I remember the lace gloves I gave her to keep them warm,

To hide them from the world.”

She’s a Real Lady

“There was something oddly fascinating about the repulsive way Beadle Bamford consumed food. Judge Turpin likened it to a rat- or any kind of pudgy, slimy rodent- that had been denied substance for a week. The Beadle always ate quickly, with little care as to where the crumbs and morsels flew. He dined with a certain sort of indescribable desperation, as if at any moment some sort of creature larger and more powerful than he would snatch the food away.”

The Caged Bird Sings

“I walked absentmindedly towards the stairs, but on my way I passed one of the large mirrors in the front hall. Staring back at me was a girl that I didn’t know. Her lips were swollen from attention, her hair slightly mussed, but what stood out was how alive and happy her eyes were. The girl in the mirror had a smile on her face that grew when mine did. I felt tears prick my eyes as I took in my new appearance and felt a surge of genuine hope for the first time in my life.”

The Man in the Moon

“Johanna wanted to be loved – she wanted to have someone to rescue her out of pure love, she wanted to come home to somebody who loved her, she wanted whole countries to wage war over her, out of love.”

The Proposition

“The townhouse looked tall and imposing over the bleak London sky. It loomed over the other buildings, the infinite glass windows staring down at them in contempt, like a person she was familiar with. Much too familiar with for her tastes.”

Five Years

"It is a choice. At once easier and harder. Build a better mousetrap, build a better man. Not a better man, no – a harder man. A stronger man. Everyone dies, but the strong just last that much longer."

Poison

"Arsenic was so easily acquired, she had almost forgotten that it was deadly. Almost. The bottle was tinted a shade of orange, and when she looked through the glass, it seemed as if the sky were burning, the whole city on fire."

Johanna's Tears

"She is wearing red when she kills him."

Pity

"Oh, arsenic’s never looked so glamorous."

Distinction

"He didn’t ask for much. For that, Johanna was also grateful. But the fact that Anthony thought that she loved him, for some strange reason - that hurt."

Like a Bird

"She had the impression Anthony liked her hair; at least he looked at it often, had even tentatively touched it once or twice. In the past she hadn't liked to wear it down for the looks she'd get from the Judge, but that time was over now. Turpin was gone."

Fifteen

"And he usually targeted those who had the fewest scars, because they obviously hadn’t been whipped enough—it was prison, he said, and you must be punished appropriately, especially if he didn’t like the prisoner he was beating. That happened to be him at the moment, unfortunately—Perkins had never forgiven him for breaking his nose the very last time he’d tried to molest him so many years ago."

Routine

"He hated that most of all—people knew. People knew what was being done to him, and did nothing to try and stop it. Nobody did anything, because that was the process. That was simply the way it was."

Similiar Rebellions

"She hears everyone around her gossiping, and her name doesn’t come up once. The apothecary assistant is nice and pats her veiled cheek saying that she understands exactly why a young girl in such a situation would want the goods."

Losing Lucy

"And now that Nellie's the one with the advantage, she wishes that it was still a game, and that they could stop playing."

Redemption and Revenge

"Not that Anthony was selfish or anything. Just near blind, like the carriage horses, with their blinkers on. Which was why, he reasoned, that he hadn’t seen the mess on Fleet Street coming. He was too busy looking to the future to see the present."

Pretty Woman

"She feels sort of superior being the only non-cannibal in the room."

Paper Flowers

"I hoped and I prayed that somebody would come for me-you are real, aren't you?”

Proof of Heaven

"Having a companion makes most anything tolerable."

(Don Bluth's Thumbelina)

Gaps in Existence

"No, Cornelius, Nature does not favor the beautiful above all others. I know that these intelligent animals are not always beautiful. Nor does she bless the pure of heart or the deeply in love. Nature always gives the fullest bounty to those who endeavor to reap it for themselves, though blameless they are not."

(Pirates of the Carribean)

Dead Reckoning

"Elizabeth was just about ready to scream. Apparently it wasn’t possible for a person to walk even from one end of Tortuga’s docks to the other without being constantly propositioned by prostitutes assuming she was a boy, men assuming that she was a prostitute, and even once by someone who wanted her to consider the opportunities prostitution might offer such a pretty young lad."

A Slice of the Pearl

"It disgusted him somewhat, that it was so routine now. He had it down to an art – make the rounds once, being very vigilant in scanning the horizon, then take a perch at the bow of the boat. The cool metal of the knife pressed against his ankle in his boot, he wondered absently if the tiny pinprick had drawn any blood as he pulled it out."

In the Dark

"The ocean offered no sweet-smelling wax to grow soft and melt at the touch of heat, only oil and searing flame enclosed in a prison of steel and glass."

(The Phantom of the Opera)

See Christine sing! Sing, Christine, sing!

"The Angel of Music has known Christine for a long time. He likes her very much. He likes Christine very, very much.

Does he like Christine a bit too much?

Well…"

(The Picture of Dorian Gray)

An Actress

"You know what I love about the stage?

I pretend to be many women

When most women pretend to be one."

(Crossovers)

Being Alive

"Though in all honesty, what made him so sure it was a he? It could easily be some hoax from a really bored Mme. Giry."

What's Going On with My Stories

TraLaLa is an extremely silly one-shot that I wrote after watching An American in Paris. In one scene, Gene Kelly was being cheerful and romantic, while this other guy was being grumpy and cynical. It reminded me of "No Place Like London", so I decided to write a fic around it. It's complete now, of course.

It Stung a Little, but Not for Long is also complete. I got the idea for it after I read a book about British poet John Keats dying of tuberculosis in Rome. Originally, I was going to give a canon character tuberculosis in a subplot of a "Lucy doesn't poison herself" AU that I never wrote. Instead, I made up Paul Goodwin. This is probably a good thing, as I didn't have a plot for the AU beyond "Lucy does not poison herself or turn out to be evil or marry the Judge". Anyway, it's doing pretty well now, I think.

The Vengeful Vengeance of Schmenjamin Schmarker is a parody of Sweeney Todd involving ninjas, crossovers, potatoes, and other such nonsense. It is complete, although I've thought about writing an epilogue.

Sailor Boy is a mostly serious but not particularly romantic story about Anthony Hope. I've wanted to write it since I read a snarky comment about Movie!Anthony in Slate Magazine. It was something along the lines of "wouldn't get much sleep at sea" and it stuck with me for some reason. Then I felt sorry for him because there aren't a lot of stories about him, so I started writing about his childhood, which I partially borrowed from William Price in Mansfield Park, and I went on from there. I don't know exactly how or when I'm going to end it, though.

The Throat of the Bird is about Beadle Bamford, for whom I also felt sorry because he was neglected. It is complete. I was thinking about continuing it, but I decided for it to remain a one-shot since I don't have a plot in mind. I might write companion one-shots, though.