Hi, there, dear readers (or bored people surfing the web),

Thanks for visiting this page (even if in error). I am... wait, why would I tell random strangers my real name and age? That'd be like holding up a big blinking neon sign that said, HEY PERVERTS, OVER HERE!

Y'all can call me Jane, after one of my favorite authors and one of my favorite characters, Jane Austen and Jane Eyre, respectively, although I am not nearly as awesome as either of them. I live in that vast, (kind of) English-speaking country in the Western Hemisphere. No, not Canada. The other one.

I love fiction of all kinds, from LOTR to The Count of Monte Cristo (translated. I don't speak French, unfortunately). I just write fanfic for fun, so please excuse me if I mess up a few times with obscure culture stuff: I write during my nonexistent free time. Feel free to yell at me about my stories' problems any time; as long as your complaints are legitimate, I will do my utmost to correct things.

Right now my super-long list of favorite stories includes fics from (in alphabetical order) The Aeneid, the Artemis Fowl books, the Anne of Green Gables series, the Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dark is Rising Sequence, Doctor Who, Greek Mythology, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Les Miserables, Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Protector of the Small Quartet, Sense and Sensibility, The Silmarillion, Song of the Lioness Quartet, and Will of the Empress. As you can guess from this list, some of my most favorite authors of all time are Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper, Tamora Pierce, and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter seem to have some of the greatest scope for fanfiction: some of the authors on here are really stellar, and the worlds are big enough (or, in Harry Potter's case, have enough plotholes and loopholes) to give authors room to do a lot. Same goes for Tamora Pierce's world, although some of her books for younger readers/earlier books tend to have fics of corresponding quality and youth.

I honestly love all of the stories on my list. Most are canonical, while others are a bit on the crack or OOC side, and a few are just fantastic! (as Nine would say); but all have good ideas, decent writing (or better), and are quite entertaining. I.e. you should read them all. Now.

Notes:

From A Maiden of Rohan, a little info. on sod houses: http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/soddies.html

A little piece of randomness, my former cello teacher's definition of a string quartet: "A good violinist, a bad violinist, a violist who used to be a violinist, and a cellist who hates all violinists." Sounds accurate to me :)

I just saw this Joseph Wright painting: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/joseph-wright/vesuvius-from-portici#supersized-artistPaintings-258232 and it immediately reminded me of some choicer Mordor shots; now I fervently believe Peter Jackson saw this painting at least once before working on ROTK. Methinks the similarities are far too close to be ignored.

In case anyone is wondering about my newest profile pic: I like pandas. Don't you?

On my stories:

So far I've written 3 stories for LOTR, a one-shot for The Aeneid, and a poem for Great Expectations. I like many other books and fandoms, but I doubt I'll ever write for them, especially TV shows like Doctor Who (which, my fellow Americans, is a children's show) or the plethora of Tamora Pierce books.

A Maiden of Rohan (LOTR, incomplete): This started out dangerously close to a Sue-fic, but as time progressed (and as I learned a whole lot more about the Riddermark than I thought was possible) it turned into something a whole lot better: a coming-of-age tale about a girl who manages to stay a lot more interesting than I'd thought possible. After taking multiple litmus tests, I'm pretty sure the main character isn't a Sue, but she's just close enough to catch an interesting mix of readers. Part 1 as a whole is, I admit, a bit Sue-ish, although there are sections that I am quite fond of. Feel free to disagree, but I myself feel that really the story starts hitting its stride around chapter 10 (the start of Part 2). I'm not sure how much of this is my improving writing skills and how much of it is the fact that maybe I'm just not meant to write romance...

Update: This story is going to be finished, but I can't promise when. My muse is still hanging in here (although a bit wan and overworked), so we're going to have some powwows together before I post chapters that I'm completely satisfied with. I don't like keeping you guys waiting, but I also want to be proud of my work.

Song of the Outcast (LOTR, complete): This unrelated one-shot popped into my head on a dreary winter evening and worried at me until it got written. As the summary says, it's in essence an AU fic but surprisingly close to canon all the same (scarily close, to be perfectly honest). It was an interesting exploration of how changing one's perspective can alter the whole story.

On the Immutability of Fate (The Aeneid, complete): I was bored, and I was wondering exactly how Fate worked for the Romans, since Dido supposedly died before her allotted time had passed. I also wanted to find a way to explain Jove and Juno's relationship. ...Then I noticed that FF.net gives one the language choice of Latin, and I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I actually published a Latin fanfic in Latin? But alas, time constraints did not allow for this, so instead I posted the original story untranslated.

Closure (Great Expectations, complete): I had to write it for an English class. It got written, I liked it, and then I forgot about it for a time. Recently I found it and still liked it, so I figured, why not?, and posted it here. I'm honestly not sure how good it is (or even if it is any good at all) in terms of literary value, but it's a fun character study of Estella, who's got to be one of the most misunderstood heroines ever. It's based on the original ending to the book because I honestly think it's more realistic, more legitimate (in terms of Dickens's characterizations and such), and actually a much happier ending then the one everybody knows now. Please PM me if you agree/disagree/just want to talk about GE.

From Undómiel to Tinúviel (LOTR, incomplete): As someone who doesn't believe in love at first sight, and especially not the kind of love that makes a person sacrifice her immortality for a (comparatively) scant 6-score years of marriage, I found myself bothered by the rather lame story we're given about Aragorn and Arwen. Tolkien left me disgruntled and unfulfilled, and Peter Jackson, stellar in so many other ways, failed me when it came to Arwen and just made me hate her as an annoying and rather useless character. So on another dark and dreary winter evening I started writing about their first meeting from her perspective, and somehow a fully-formed likeable Arwen appeared in my (probably diseased) mind. This endeavor is, I think, ironically my most original as well as being the most difficult by far.

From the Journals of Will Shaksper, Therapist (Macbeth, complete): I wrote this for an(other) English class. The prompt was simply to say what sort of advice I would give the Macbeths (pre-murder) if I were a therapist; I took it and ran with it. I rather like it, so I decided to post it here just because. It was fun trying to figure out if there were psychological underpinnings (beyond ambition) behind their reasoning for murder; others on FF.net have discussed Lady Macbeth's possible father issues, but I don't know if anyone has approached the situation from quite this perspective. It would also be interesting for somebody to explore having therapy meetings on the other end of things, taking place after Duncan's murder instead of before. (P.S. The title picture is of the Shakespeare who meets the Tenth Doctor and Martha while, fittingly enough, dealing with some witches.)

If you're reading my stories and don't review, that's cool; but if you do have something to say, however nitpicky or problematic, please tell me. I take all ideas into consideration (though there's no guarantee I'll use them), and I love getting feedback on my successes/failures.

Thanks,

Jane