About me: People call me Heather. I like to read. Has to be interesting, though, or it gets chucked halfway across the room. I am now twenty-one years of age.

As of December of 2006, I am the proud wife of an utterly adorable man with the initials KJK, also known simply as Jacob (who has an account here under the name stop-that-pen).

As of February 2008, we are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, who, though she was born more or less on time, unfortunately had to fight out her first few months of life in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit due to a condition called congenital diaphragmatic hernia/CDH (something we became aware of as early as my fifth month of pregnancy, but still had us on pins and needles for a while due to its severity and high postnatal mortality rate). Our sweet girl is now past her first birthday and is the perfect picture of a happy, healthy little one - we feel blessed that she represents part of a very fortunate minority for babies born with that condition, but fervently wish that more research would be done for the sakes of other babies not so fortunate.

I'm a longtime member of the DBCA, which was started by genius Queen Adibug aka Silvermasque...and if you don't know who on earth the Dramatic Black Cloak Addicts are, or are simply intrigued by the name, go to Silvermasque's profile and click on the homepage link.

MasqueradingThroughLife, or Masque, or Masquie, or Jordie for that matter, is pretty much my age-discrepant twin-from-another-family. Whom I have never actually met in person. Whom I miss horribly, and wish her all the best in her life's pursuits.

New Stuff: I created a new LJ--click here to access it. It's going to be public, for the most part, so you won't have to be a friend to see most of the entries, although I certainly welcome friends and comments. Along with day-to-day ramblings, I'm planning to have important information about my fanfiction--upcoming projects, works in progress, etc., in far more detail than on my profile here. I also have some "old stuff" that used to be here on my profile, but was removed because I thought it was taking too much unnecessary space, or was just outdated.

The Opera Wench is at last nearing its end; it just celebrated its 42nd chapter, and will likely have just a few more chapters to come before the tale is finally done (I say likely, because I never have been good at predicting where my stories will take me). I have nebulous plans for a sequel (which, if it does ever happen, won't happen for a very long time until I finish some other projects first), and an epilogue-type oneshot (more details on that later). I'm also going to go through an intense revisionary process for many of the older chapters.

I am planning to begin posting Succumbed very soon (see my LJ), but want to pre-write a few more chapters first. Many bugs need to be worked out.

I love: My husband, my little Lilly, all things Vanessa Carlton, going to modern art museums, making music flow from my fingertips and the keys of my piano, writing poetry, and taking black-and-white photographs just because they’re nostalgically elegant.

My two absolute favorite writers on this site would have to be stefanie bean and milegre. Each continually comes up with astonishingly original ideas; and even the ideas that have already been done by others always have at least one creative and original twist added into the mix. Neither of them get nearly enough credit for this; it never ceases to appall me how it can possibly be that astonishingly horrid and boringly predictable fics written by woefully inexperienced writers can get thousands upon thousands of rave reviews, yet the astoundingly well-written fics written by writers such as the two I mentioned typically garner nearly no reviews or praise whatsoever except from their already loyal (and sometimes surprisingly small) fanbase. Apparently there's no end to people who crave the same boring fare over and over again; anything new and original seems to scare off most readers under sixteen.

Anyway, back to things I love...let's not forget my undying devotion for The Who, which, in my opinion, is among the best bands in the history of rock as we know it. They wrote the very first "rock opera", after all, so without them, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber probably wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

By the way, all I have to say to the Broadway sequel to Phantom currently developing in Lord Andy's head is W.T.F. Have you SEEN the synopsis (and the title, dear God)? It's like bad fanfiction on his own work--which is predictable, since it is in fact heavily based on a work of published bad fanfiction on his own work...

I heartily dislike: OOC in a non-humorous fic; non-canon slash (except in rare circumstances); when writers think fanon is canon; writers who think every well-meant constructive criticism is a flame; etc.

A word on OOC Raouls - Over the years, I have developed quite a soft spot for Raoul, even though Erik appeals to my more sensual nature. More than that, I think the character of Raoul is an inherently decent and intelligent fellow. I am not fond of unnecessary Raoul-bashing, except of course in humorous/parodic or very well-explained fics. And the only thing I despise more than an inexplicably drunken, wife-beating Raoul is a cheerfully stupid and airheaded (or narcissistic) Raoul. At least the former might be explained somehow by a downward spiral into alcoholism or some such thing, maybe revealing a darker side of his character if written well, but that annoying idiotic and stubborn naivete some writers like to give him in the interest of making him undesirable to Christine is just a little too over-the-top for me - very rarely do I ever enjoy a fic where he's written in such a way. (Ex: "But Little Lotte, how could you not wish to be my wife? You must be delirious from exhaustion to be having second thoughts. Come, eat some chocolates and kiss me and I promise to forget you ever even hinted at such an unthinkable thing, my duck.") Come on, seriously - Raoul may be an idealist, but he's certainly no obnoxiously half-witted fool - nor does he worship himself. You may think you're being "nice" to Raoul by giving him a bubble-gummy, egocentric personality and no brain instead of getting creative with much darker traits, but the truth is, that nonsense is still Raoul-bashing - just a different (and quite frankly, far more irritating and unrealistic) sort.

Another pet peeve of mine is the common mixup of the words "lay" and "lie." The distinction can be confusing, but it is not impossible to memorize.

Lay: to set down, to put down. Infinitive: to lay. Ex: I want to lay my books on the table. Present tense: lay/lays. Ex: I will lay myself down now/He lays me down gently. Past tense: laid. Ex: He laid me down gently. Perfect tense: have/has laid. Ex: I have laid the paper on your desk/She has laid the spoon on the counter. Gerund: laying. Ex: I am laying this book on the table.

INCORRECT USAGES of the word lay/laid: Will you lay with me?/He lay me down gently/I laid with him/We are laying together/I have laid in bed for hours. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Here's why:

Lie: to recline; also to engage in sexual intercourse. Infinitive: to lie. Ex: I want to lie down. Present tense: lie/lies. Ex: I will lie with you/She lies in bed, sleeping. Past tense (this is where it gets confusing): lay. Ex: He lay with me. Perfect tense: have/has lain. Ex: I have lain in bed all day. Gerund: lying. Ex: We are lying in bed together.

(Of course, if by "lie" we mean "to tell a falsehood," then the present tense is "lie/lies," the past tense is "lied," and the perfect tense is "have/has lied." But that's not what we're talking about here.)

Rule of thumb: "Lay" is only a present tense verb when it refers to a direct object (i.e. a book - She lays the book upon the table/I lay the book upon he table). When the word "lay" refers to the subject (i.e. he/she/I, etc.) it is always the past tense of the verb "to lie" (She lay down; he lay with me). However, it is possible to make the subject into a direct object. Hence "I will lay myself down now" is correct, as is "I will lie down now." The incorrect versions of those sentences would be "I will lie myself down now" and "I will lay down now."

Make sense? If not, I wouldn't worry too much, honestly. This sort of thing can take years for some people (coughevenyourstrulycough) to get down pat.

Multichaptered Works In Progress:

The Opera Wench-- Phantom of the Opera. My magnum opus. A Leroux-based phiction with a slightly different spin, involving Erik and my brainchild Tora. The most involved and developed of my works to date.

Too Many Questions--A collection of my random, mostly very old Phantom of the Opera parodies on favorite songs. Some are more mature than others, seeing as how back in '05, I was still in my early stages of Phan status and not too well-versed in how to coherently express my devotion--and I still referred to Raoul as a fop, of all things (gods of fandom forgive me). The most recent chapter is entitled "Long-Legged Fiddle-Playing Man," something that I had a tremendous amount of fun with. I'll probably never push the Complete button on this one, simply because I never know when another dumb little song-parody will invade my head and not let go until I post it on the site.

Ask Erik--Based on various versions of the Phantom of the Opera, starting with Leroux. Inspired by the two brilliant "advice column"-type works of cyberwulf, Ask William and Dear Denethor. Erik responds to various questions sent in to his "advice column", with no small amount of sarcasm and rampant parodic devices. Someday I'll get around to posting more chapters.

We're Going To Have A Wedding--My long-planned Nightmare Before Christmas piece. It will probably end up being about five to six chapters long, but I've been wrong before. It could be even longer. As stated in the Author's Note in the first chapter, I'm writing this at my leisure (and by-the-by, I'm a bit stuck on the second chapter, so it could take a while). It's mostly just a darkly fun side-write. Couldn't think of a suitable blend of categories for it--"Humor" might make people think it's some sort of fluffy almost-parody (which it isn't, it's simply tongue-in-cheek), while "Drama" might make people think it's too serious, and mixing the two seemed a bit odd, so I just stuck it in "General". Blah. Do let me know if you can think of a more proper label.

Indefinite Hold:

Close Encounters of the Self-Insertion Kind-- Phantom of the Opera. Written on a dare from MTL, filled with DBCA in-jokes and poking fun at self, but it's just hard to find inspiration for it anymore, since it was begun when I was very single and not yet in college, and therefore the self-insertion character of me is from a completely different era of my life. Ergo, in order to keep writing it, I'd have to keep the old me in-character, writing about myself as though I were STILL single and not yet in college. Which is quite hard, because it's like writing about a different person and pretending it's still me. I've thought seriously about deleting it, but I'm rather fond of some of its aspects, so I'll probably keep it on the site just for nostalgic purposes.

Co-Authoring:

Broken Hearts Mended-- Phantom of the Opera. Des Iries and I were long ago in the midst of writing a sequel to her phic "To love or not to love," (which I betaed for in the final chapter) but updates and collaborations have been on regrettable hold for quite some time. All the same, be sure to check both stories out on Des's profile!

Oneshots (oldest to newest):

Passion Rules The World's End-- Phantom of the Opera, 2004 film. One day while watching the Point of No Return scene, I was lightning-struck with inspiration and raced to my computer, typing frantically. Simply a few detailed emotions and events, nothing more. Read if you enjoy slight angst.

The Cruelest Fate-- My only Phantom AU to date, besides Blackened. Can't describe it much better here than in the summary, really... Introspective angst, as per my usual.

The Masquerade-- Phantom of the Opera. One of those late-night inspiration deals when I couldn't sleep, so I decided to write a poem about Gerik's emotions during his appearance, dressed as Red Death.

Awakening-- My only Lord of the Rings work to date (since I don't dare to try my hand at anything multi-chaptered--my knowledge of Tolkien's world, while respectable enough, is nowhere near as vast or as detailed as I would like it to be). Written for the DBCA Woven Into Song Challenge, and, for reasons unknown to me, won first place, for which I am happy, but confused.

In My Dark-- Oneshot, Phantom of the Opera, 2004 film. This is no longer going to ever be expanded into a full-length Erik/Giry story, although I may eventually write a story along those lines that references loosely back to this as a kind of prologue.

Oh, What Is Love?-- My first and likely only Harry Potter piece, written for the DBCA Reality Bites Contest an age and a half ago, and won third place. Set in a slightly AU Order of the Phoenix (book) environment, for those who might be wondering. An unlikely pairing, written for the express purpose of shocking the hockeysticks out of you and procuring many a hearty laugh.

The Lip O'erhanging the Abyss-- Based upon heavy suggestions from Wuthering Heights, my favorite classic novel besides Jane Eyre. An interlude between Cathy and Heathcliff on the moor. One of those bursts of canon-induced inspiration again, also carrying scant, bareboned hints from the 1992 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche--but so scant, in fact, that I avoided mentioning it in the summary or author's note because I didn't think such supremely subtle undertones were prevalent or obvious enough in the piece to garner mentioning--after all, 99.99 percent of the inspiration came from canon, not from the film. I included that random bit of information here, however, because as you can see from some of the below explanations, I rather like providing extra tidbits of trivia about my works outside the works themselves on occasion.

The Eyes-- Phantom of the Opera. Written for the Mort Rouge contest, didn't win an award of any kind, but I rather like it anyway, though the fact that such graphic morbidity came from my head caught me off guard. At the risk of giving it away, the ending was inspired by a sort of subconscious cross between The Lovely Bones and a brilliant idea from The Grasshopper's phic Confessions of A Mary Sue. Although in Confessions, it inspires a sort of morbid hilarity.

Blackened-- My attempt at a Phantomish bit of fanpoetry. It turned out rather wonderfully, as my poems go, but the quality is nowhere near that of a particularly amazing poem by Gondolier in my Favorites, entitled The Nacken's Song.

Similitude-- My first Kingdom of Heaven piece, an attempt to climb inside Sibylla's complex and nearly dichotomic skin, to see what she sees. The reference to beard-plucking, which no one will probably understand except students of medievalism, is my hearkening back to a deliciously fascinating historical tidbit that I learned my senior year in high school. In Spanish IV, whilst reading excerpts from El Cid, we learned that during that time period, to pluck a man's beard in public was one of the worst insults that could be paid. I should probably include that rather pertinent fact in the author's note, but I think I'll just leave it here so that fans can stumble upon it sometime whilst perusing my profile and feel about the same as someone who finds an "Easter egg" (hidden extra, if you will) on a DVD.

Dying Sacrament-- Phantom of the Opera. E/C, mostly. Written for the DBCA Smutfest Challenge. Based upon the assumption in Kay's novel that when Christine went back to see Erik for the last time before he died, they had a bit of a tryst, if you will. More sensual than smutty, really.

Tell Me Truly-- Phantom of the Opera. First place in the DBCA Pet Peeve Challenge, which I gave birth to when inspired by Soignante's forum about phanfictional pet peeves. Basically the point was to write a parodic phic incorporating into its structure such supreme annoyances as frequent character name misspellings, fanonical inaccuracies, anachronisms, Mary Sues, and Raoul-bashing, just to name a few. I had a devilishly good time writing it, let me tell you...ah, such catharsis resulted. Perhaps you should write one too. Or for a good laugh just go check out the C2 of twisted humor while you wait (the pen-name is in bold just so's you don't get confused), which purposefully boasts some of the worst phanfictions ever written.

Fail Me Fondly--The sequel to Tell Me Truly, written when I was fed up (or should I say, phed up) with some more phanfictional pet peeves and just downright bored, so it's not quite as cohesive or well-thought-out, though it was still fun, and, I hope, funny. I'm mightily tempted to write an even worse third one sometime, just to make it a trilogy. :)

Ideas in Progress: Check the LJ for info about these.

Favorite Quotes:

"Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose, and come to look round the torture-chamber!" - Erik, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

"It is a good shrubbery. I like the laurels particularly." - Tall Knight of Ni, Monty Python and The Holy Grail

"Either what we hold to be right and good and true is right and good and true, for all mankind, under God...or we're just another robber tribe." - King Arthur, First Knight

"Hallo. My name is Inigo Montoya. You keel my father. Prepare to die." - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

"What's the future but more o' the same, y'know?...more...more bloody gadgets and things? It's the past is where it's at!" - Andre Marek, Timeline

"Twitchy little ferret, aren't you, Malfoy?" - Hermione Granger, The Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

"You remind me of the babe...the babe with the power...the power of VOODOO." - Jareth the Goblin King, Labyrinth

"This look like hockey to you? Huh? Cuz it looks more like a coupla monkeys tryin' to hump a football to me, I dunno." - Coach Herb Brooks, Miracle

"I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by." --Capt. Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

"Ow! You shot me, you A-hole!"--Dr. Evil, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

(after picking a soldier's pocket) "I know I promised, Lord. Never again. But I also know...that You know...what a weak-willed person I am."--Philippe, Ladyhawke

"A-gooooooood a-niiiiiiiiighhht-a-ding-ding-ding-dinggg!" - John Cleese, "Silly Job Interview" skit, Monty Python's Flying Circus

"Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." --David Banner, The Incredible Hulk (TV show)

"My name isn't 'Adam We!'...Or is it? Who am I? What number did you dial?? Don't ever call here again!" (hangs up phone) "I guess I told him. Nobody messes with Adam We." --Mayor Adam West, Family Guy

If you can't stand those "If you... , put this in your profile" things, put this in your profile. :)

And finally, a word to my readers:

One-word/one-sentence reviews. Ex: "omg continue please!" or "great can't wait for more." These are cool in their own way; they let me know that you're reading and taking a genuine interest, and best of all, that you're enjoying my story, but please, for the love of God, if you have time, take it. Let me know what specifically you liked, and how you possibly think I can improve. If you don't think there's any way I can improve, then think of something else to say. Quote your favorite line from the chapter, or cite your favorite point in character development, etc., etc. If all you can seriously offer is a very short review, whether from time constraints or a temporary loss for words/brain short-out (which I totally understand from personal experience), that's fine. I don't have a problem with it, especially if you're just dropping in to let me know that you're still around. But if you have the time, really try to write me a constructive, helpful, fleshed-out or substantial review, if you can, at least two to three sentences. I'd really appreciate it. It helps me so much as a writer to see well-thought-out comments, and you'll probably feel better in the long run (again, this is from personal experience) knowing that you had something really substantial to offer me in the way of a review.