Hello. I suppose I should tell you something about myself.

Some Likes:

Books: Dragon Rider, Inkheart, Thief Lord, Dragonflight, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, Nerilka's Story, HARRY POTTER, His Dark Materials Trilogy, Eragon, Circle of Magic Quartet, The Circle Opens Quartet, Song of the Lioness Quartet, (Seriously, anything by Tamora Pierce) Surviving the Applewhites, Artemis Fowl series (The Lost Colony and Artic Incident most of all), Becoming Naomi Leon, A Northern Light, The Island of the Aunts, Red Storm Rising, Dealing with Dragons, City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, Forest of the Pygmies, Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing), Rainbow Six, City of Masks, City of Stars, City of Flowers, Rise of a Hero (and first part of trilogy), Maximum Ride, Lamb, The Warrior Heir, and many, many more that I can't think of right now

Short Stories: I know this is a strange passion, but I like short fiction. The Lottery (S. Jackson), The Yellow Wallpaper, Those Who Walk Away From Omelas (U. LeGuin), A Rose for Emily (W. Faulker), A Tell-Tale Heart (E.A. Poe), The Dead (J. Joyce?), Pie Dance, and many more.

Movies and TV Shows: Star Wars (Empire Strikes Back is my absolute favorite), Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Lord of the Rings trilogy (Two Towers most of all), Indiana Jones Trilogy, Rambo II, most action movies, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner, Men in Black I and II, Apollo 13, The West Wing, Bones, Lost, House, American Idol, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Stargate: SG-1, NCIS, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, Burn Notice

Food: spaghetti, chocolate, root beer, pizza, ...a whole list probably longer than the list of books I like

Music: Enya (although my friends frequently want to destroy my CDs...I'm not sure why...), Anna Nalick, a little Green Day, Claanad, All-American Rejects, Evanescense (did I spell that correctly?), Nightwish, Journey, Queen, Josh Ritter, and sometimes the psychotic stuff my friends listen to

Random stuff: reading, writing, sleeping, eating...and a much more stuff I can't think of at this moment

Some Dislikes:

Food: a lot of vegetables, minced lamb pie, and more I can't think of

Music: I hate rap. I hate it. I'm sorry if you like it, but I think it is absolute crap.

Books: the Maximum Ride series. Not that it's going to deter me from reading the fifth one when I can get my hands on it.

Random stuff: backstabbing, very perky people, braces, bigots, uninformed opinions, and irresponsible leaders.

Notes on My Wide And Varied Array of Fandoms and on Fanfiction in General:

In the past, I have read stories from the following categories: Harry Potter (first and foremost), Star Wars, West Wing, Anne McCaffrey (though, honestly, not impressed with what I found), Artemis Fowl, Bones, Dark Angel, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Firefly, House, Law and Order, Lord of the Rings, Lost, Maximum Ride (never again...), NCIS, Pirates of the Caribbean, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: 2009, and Tamora Pierce stories. I have a few things to say about them.

First, for the love of whatever-higher-power-you-believe-or-do-not-believe-in, PROOFREAD. Please. I'm begging you. And consult a grammar handbook at some point in your life, even if you just briefly glance at the proper punctuation of dialogue section. It would be so much nicer for your reader if they did not have to occasionally decipher what you are trying to say. Here, also, the tremendous helpfulness of having someone else read your story for you comes in because they will likely see things you won't. However, if English isn't your first language, kindly ignore what I just said because I would never be able to write a flawless story in French (nor would I try...not in any way fluent), and I appreciate you writing in English so I can understand your story!

Second, shipping. Oh, shipping, shipping, shipping...I have gone back and forth on this particular issue the entire time I have read fanfiction. My first gut instinct was shriek and run away in horror of non-canon ships (particularly slash, which I had the misfortune to blunder into when first reading HP fics (literally, like the third story I clicked on) without knowing what it was and half-scar myself for life). I persisted with this attitude for most of the time I read Harry Potter fanfiction, mostly since at that point I did not read slash and the idea of a Harry/Hermione pairing is WRONG and inappropriate for their characters. Harry/Luna, on the other hand, does work. Which leads me to my second philosophy on "shipping" -- that is, ok, sure, let's see what this is like. This has gotten me into some trouble because there are certain fandoms where either the main character is an immortal ex-time agent omnisexual who can literally be paired with anyone or the lack of canon ships leads to everyone being paired with everyone else (e.g. NCIS). And also because a good author can bend the character into any relationship he or she wants and make it seem plausible. Which led me towards the philosophy that, "Ok, crud, maybe it is better to stick with canon pairings to avoid this utter insanity." Unfortunately, this is rather dull. For example, the canon Pirates of the Caribbean pairings are boring. Jack Sparrow is the most interesting character in that fandom, and to be canon, he must be stuck with a random OC, who frequently ends up being a horribly cliched character. Sparrabeth or Jack/Will or even Jack/Norrington are much more interesting because there is actual conflict, as opposed to Will/Elizabeth which is, again, dull. Yippee, they live happily ever after...why are you writing about it?

I have since moved to a fourth perspective, which is a mish-mosh of both. I will read something if it makes logical sense to me before reading the story (for instance, a...Harry Potter/Crabbe fic does not make sense to me, and I would therefore not read it (though if you have run across one, and it's actually readable, please tell me because I would like to see how the author managed it)). This means that I will move away from canon (for example, McShep fics in the Stargate: Atlantis family), but I will not kill, maim, and incinerate canon (Dumbledore/Harry or Luke/Leia or Gibbs/Ziva or something equally horrid). Still, I will read most any pairing...for instance, I've read well-written Owen/Ianto fics; I love, love, love, love a handful of Janson/Mon Mothma (spelling...and I bet you've never heard of either of those characters before) fics in the Star Wars fandom; there's a Hermione/Snape fic that actually made sense the way it was written; and I finally overcame my objection to Sirius/Remus fics, though Harry/Draco still hasn't quite won me over.

Third. On the subject of reviews -- I rarely, rarely, rarely, rarely to the thousandth power, rarely write them. I read prolifically when I'm in the mood and have the time, but I can't even remember the last time I wrote a review. This is mainly because, in my opinion, a review can't simply be, "OMG I luved your story evil cliffie! OMGGGG!!" A review would have to consider all of the different facets of a story: the characters, the plot, the language, etc. For me to review a story, I would have to read it about fifteen times in a row and copy it into a Word document to mark it up so I remembered where the issues were. I simply don't have the ability to do that for every story I read, but if I love your story and feel like I have an intelligent or helpful point to make about it, I will write a review.

Fourth...my rant about the misuse of the concept of AU. AU, or Alternate Universe if you thought I was speaking of something else, ought to be used to change some fundamental fact of a story to create a "what if?" situation. It should not, under any circumstances, be used to put yourself into the fandom. Yes, I am looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean writers who write self-inserts, not that you will probably ever read this, but just in case you do, please stop. I don't care that you think Orlando Bloom or Johnny Depp or Keira Knightley are the most attractive people in the multiverse. I have no problem with you obsessing over them or writing a story about meeting their characters. I only ask, hopelessly, that you stop posting said stories on the internet. This goes for Lord of the Rings fics as well (something about characters Orlando Bloom plays seem to invite the self-inserts).

I close with this: fanfiction is a horrible habit. I hate it. Despise it, in fact. But I still read it obsessively for weeks at a time. If anyone comes up with a good cure for this...addiction, please tell me!

Stories:

The Journal of a Witness to the Crucifixion: This is something I wrote for a class at school. I kind of got carried away, because its like 12 pages (it only needed to be about two or three pages). I hope you'll read it, even though I don't really like parts of it. It's quite sappy.

"Her": PotC fanfic, AU. They betrayed her, they broke their oath, and she intends to make them pay, but there is a darker force than the EITC at work here, one that threatens the survival of their world. Updates will be sporatic. (3/10/08): A much darker force than the EITC threatens this fic--school. I've been absolutely swamped lately, and I do have to do some work on my original fiction. There will be updates. But not anytime soon.