eliza_bethie's stuff

I am looking forward to this more than is healthy :) Though I wonder whether it is possible for it to be funnier than this review -

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/bum-reviews/13853-ep032

Also - have become addicted to photoshop. What will I do when my free trial expires???

I HAVE TICKETS TO SEE SNOW PATROL! :D

Today I was on strike. So I stayed home and watched tv and made the most of my rapidly dwindling photoshop trial and made two SWAC icons (lookit! Chad is a Blossom Scout!).

The people picketing on the news seemed to be striking in a very different way to me. Though in my defence, no-one from my school was going to go on the protests.

Also, I watched both 'Dancing with the Stars' and 'Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two' and all my crack!fic senses are tingling. Seriously, why is there not already a DWTS type fic for LWD? Casey is a dancer, you can posit that Derek becomes a famous hockey player...Truman is obviously Casey's ex-fiance (and possibly a smarmy Ant'n'Dec type presenter) who gives a tell-all interview just as things are heating up on the dance floor...

I need to write something sane soon.

...there's a second where I think, "OMG! They're making a film of L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon!"

Anne gets all the love :/ Not to mention the interesting love interest.

Also - snurched from everyone, the one sentence meme! Give me a pairing and/or a prompt, and I will write you a one sentence ficlet. For something other than LWD, even!

Srsly, crack!fic - you are not the only ridiculous flower I need to water in my garden of WTF?!

( the missing genderswap: part 4/5 )

Yes, updatey spam. Apologies. This was going to go in with the photo-post, but then I went a little photoverboard.

Onward, for genderswappage, crappy explanation of fencing moves that I don't entirely understand, and a timeline more mixed up than the original LWD...

( the missing genderswap: part 3/5 )

Today 'Pillow Talk' was on RTE 1. It was a sign! ...of cheap ass Irish programming, I guess, since 'Pillow Talk' seems to be re-run every couple of months. But I decided to dig out my fic, anyway. Only to find that I have lost the next bit! I remember writing the part where Casey came to Sheldon's office and he fell in love with her, much to the disgust of Emily...but now it's gone. A victim of sudden computer death and pen drive loss.

It was only a thousand words, but I'd much rather complain about it than rewrite it. As you can probably tell :)

Also, it was a chance to use a terrible pun in my subject header, and I can never resist that.

We have five more days until The Play. I can't believe it.

It's a bit bizarre. For blindfolds and restraints, we have, um...stretchy hairbands. Hairbands that start off light blue and shade artfully into dark blue. I think it still looks like we are wearing hairbands on our faces, but maybe it works, I don't know. We are also wearing weird futuristic clothing and rocking Star-Trekesque hair, so...maybe the hairbands will pass without comment?

I am tired of rehearsing though. Every day for the past week, we've done four and five hour stretches. I think I'm a bit loopy from it.

Before I went in to rehearsal today, I caught an episode of iCarly - iNevel, I think. It's the one that introduces the Nevel character - I know he shows up every so often. Anyway, the consequence of me dipping my toe into the brightly coloured waters of iCarly fandom is...I really want a college-fic with that kid. Because Carly wouldn't have Sam or Freddie or Spencer to make her interesting then, and she'd be doing the Normal Girl thing, when BAM - Nevel would crawl out of the woodwork and disrupt all that. Like he'd be the Professor Moriarty of the college, writing a review section for the college paper and reducing people to tears. And Carly would step up, and there'd be NEMESIS-SHENANIGANS (despite Carly insisting that normal people don't HAVE nemeses). And in spite of everything Carly would kind of enjoy it, because it'd be a reminder of the glory days of iCarly.

And hey! Wouldn't I, Carly be a cool title for a fic about Carly coming to terms with the fact that there's no more iCarly?

If you type Carly more than twice, the name starts to look weird.

Why have I spent so long talking about iCarly?

Oh look - to save this entry being all about iCarly (because I don't think I am ready for that quite yet) - a meme! Seen on fandom_memes

1) Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands [fannish etc.] that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.
2) Have your f-list guess your favourite character/member from each item.
3) When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

( cut because my fannish loves may not be of interest to everyone )

So, you know...I'm officially a doctor now! Granted, the useless, can-analyse-Harry-Potter-but-can't-write-a-prescription kind, but still!

I graduated yesterday :) I got to wear the silly red robes and the ridiculous hat, and myself and another girl led the academic procession in, which was nerve-racking, but also kind of cool.

And there were photographs - horrible, horrible photographs where the photographers wanted the smiles dialled all the way up to RICTUS OF TERROR. If they didn't see teeth you were in trouble.

Altogether, there were seven of us, and it was nice. And bizarre, a little bit. The other people all did theirs on proper grown up things, like Seamus Heaney and the literary tradition of schizophrenia and that kind of stuff.

But it doesn't matter, because I have the parchment and they can't take it away now!

It says something about my childhood reading patterns (and maybe my inability to separate real life from fiction), but I swear, my first reaction to the headline -

'Twin faked identity while on remand'

- was, "Oh, Jessica."

The headline underneath it was no better - 'Alarming incident under a glitterball'

I didn't actually click on either title - it was much more fun pretending I was living in Sweet Valley and browsing through my copy of the Oracle.

I have much to do!

This is the season of the EEPs - and I have at least three to write. AND I HAVE SWORN THAT I WILL DO THEM THIS EVENING, because I have only three days at school this week, and then I have graduation - and THEN, I have holidays and I am NOT writing EEPs over the holidays.

Also, I must learn my lines for the second half of the play.

But I have purged my head of crack, and the procrastination ends now!

( the missing genderswap: part 2/5 )

I don't know why - I find that line HYSTERICAL. I've been watching a cartoon I found from my childhood - David the Gnome, and wow. Standards have changed. Big time.

Now you need the live-action, and the zany, and the punchlines and the child-protagonists. Kids these days don't know how good they have it. Within seconds of being ushered into the world of David, the 399 year old gnome, and children are being lectured about men! Shooting all the animals in the forest! Men! Polluting the world! Men! The assholes! (Okay, David the Gnome doesn't call them that, but the message is clear). Then he condescends to the purehearted children watching, and says that maybe they need to spend some time with him, in Gnomeland, so that their horizons can be expanded.

The worst part -

HE DOES THIS WHILE BUCK NAKED IN THE BATHTUB. Seriously, he leers at us to come in, because gnomes are welcoming and don't have boundaries. SRSLY. His hand delves into the water, BETWEEN HIS LEGS, as soon as he greets us.

Then - he spends the whole episode getting the art of show-don't-tell backwards. Seriously - he narrates rubbish no-one in their right mind would give a monkey's about - like how much GNOMES WEIGH.
Answer: THEY'RE FICTIONAL! Does it matter?!

He tells us about some exciting things that happened in the past - like the time he had to get a wire out of a goat's stomach, and that time a badger was poorly. Don't worry that the excitement will be too much to handle - because it won't be! The worst part is that he wears skin coloured scrubs, so at various points, it looks like attending to the animals is a bit of a fetish for him.

I can't believe I used to watch this stuff.

The worst part is - he's about as smug as a Sprouse, but better animated.

Somehow, this seems fitting. Bad!fic, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever! Inspired by quaggy_mire, executed - with extreme lack of compassion, taste, and regard for canon - by me.

You know what I found out? Bad!fic is fun! Before you know it, I will be writing a Mary Sue about the girl with haughty violet eyes who turns Derek Venturi's world upside down when he rescues her from gangland criminals.

( the missing genderswap: part 1/5 )

It's so ridiculous - I got such a shock when I went to open my email this morning and one of the 'click on me' link stories was that Stephen Gately had died. I mean, I didn't know him and I wasn't a fan or anything.

That said, it's very sad - he was only thirty-three and now...he's dead. No warning, no illness, apparently no tragic accident. Just - dead. It's such a waste - a very sad waste.

Urk - it's funny, I feel a bit ridiculous myself for mentioning it, like I'm hopping on the mourning bandwagon, when I wasn't even a fan of his. But it is sad.

The Chicklet and the Duck were down this weekend - and in the space of the past few weeks, they have become Doctor Who fans.

The Chicklet asked, with breathless shippery fervour, "Does Rose ever come back, after Doomsday?" while the Duck was more pragmatically minded - he demanded to know HOW Donna got into the Tardis for the teasery end scene at the end of season 2.

I have loaned them my Doctor Who DVDs. Their parents are suitably horrified grateful.

I am waiting for the live classroom to start up - the first session of my special needs course.

It is like cod liver oil - good for me. I don't mind the study - okay, I don't particularly like it, because y'know, my head thinks that five years of cramming feminist theory and overanalysing children's literature is QUITE ENOUGH higher education, thank you. That said, I can soldier on...but man do I h-a-t-e the live classrooms. Currently we are texting inane - 'hope you are well's and 'tis mad to be back, isn't it? The summer just flew's.

Hence, a meme! Stolen from thebucketwoman

Okay, so I don't WRITE in a lot of fandoms, but I have opinions on almost everything! I have very firm opinions on shows I've never seen, even!

...please to be distracting me from the fact that my feet are cold and I have so much work to do?

Tell me a Fandom and I shall respond with my...

1. One True Pairing Ship:
2. Canon Ship:
3. "If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" Ship:
4. "You are one sick bastard" Ship:
5. "I dabble a little" Ship:
6. "It's like a car crash" Ship:
7. "Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" Ship:
8. "Makes no canon sense but why the Hell not" Ship:
9. "Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" Ship:

Meep.

...it begins.

We went shopping today, and I found the perfect dress - this bright pink shift dress with a purple and grey piece at the top, and POCKETS! And the fabric is just this gorgeous, cozy stuff. So, so pretty.

Except when I tried it on, it was the wrong size, and they didn't have any other sizes. BUT the shop lady told me two other shops where they stocked the same brand, and I raced from Town A to Town B and THEY HAD IT IN MY SIZE!!!

Yay! I know it'll be hidden under the graduation robes but still - pretty!

Also, I got back in time to see the last twenty minutes of the very first episode of Merlin season 2 ( cut for potential spoileriness )

Two nights ago, I dreamed a - surprisingly coherent, actually - Middlemarch fanfic, where Dorothea married Dr Lydgate (he followed through on that whole 'not seeing Rosamund' thing, and after various travails, he and Dorothea ended up getting married).

And then I went looking and...this fanfic doesn't exist. As a matter of fact, no Middlemarch fanfic seems to exist. This makes me so sad. Come on, if people can write Jeeves and Wooster, or SHAKESPEARE, as well as P&P (and pretty much all the fanfic for that is coming up with different (and okay, sometimes awesome!) ways for Lizzie and Darcy to get together - why not Middlemarch? Where is the love?).

Then, last night, I dreamed an iCarly fic...and I don't even watch iCarly, when the chicklet and the duck aren't around. It too was surprisingly coherent - and not just in that 'Of COURSE they need to ride the giant rats into Egypt to win the juice cube trophy!' way (though I think that's less a comment on my dreams and more on the iCarly show itself. Giant rats and juice cube trophies would be TAME in comparison to the actual stuff on the show).

Am wondering whether actually writing about it will break my streak of fanfic-dreams. But since they are for shows I cannot write for...eh.

Tiiiiired, and it's not even mid week. It's the driving - barring other cars, roadworks, goats (I WISH I WAS KIDDING...oh, hi there bad pun!), it's a forty-five to fifty minute drive. By the time I get from the first school back to my base school at one o' clock, I want to lie down on the floor of my room and sleep.

Adjust soon, plz, Liz!

Oh! Meme!

In my lurkings, I saw this going around - write a love poem in fifteen words. Fun!

First effort:

I am completely lost in you.
At your earliest convenience
Please send me a map.


First effort, reworked:

I am completely lost in you

As the expert in this field –
Some directions
...please?

...which sounds like the name of a superhero in a comic book...

"WHO WILL PREVENT THIS LEGAL TRAVESTY?"
"Why look! There's Victoria Justice and her scales!"

Um. Anyway. So, no-one remembers this except Irish people who were subjected to re-runs of eighties soap operas during the long and badly programmed summer holidays of their youth, but there was an actress called Victoria Principal on that...

(You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?)

Okay, the spelling isn't exactly right, but...

VICTORIA PRINCIPAL AND VICTORIA JUSTICE!

...together, they fight crime.

I feel there is a sad lack of crime-fighting granny-grandchild duos out there. Clearly, this needs to be addressed.

Oh God, I'm work-tired. I need it to be the weekend already.

Survived first day :) However, I am horribly afraid that before the week is out, I will violate the 'sneeze into your elbow' etiquette the fear of swine flu has thrust upon us.

In cheering, non swine-flu related news - my Life with Derek and Everwood DVDs arrived this evening, making Tuesday a glass half full kind of day. I think this fully merits Paul Gross arms! \o/

I am also made joyful by the fact that there are SO MANY musical groups based on Harry Potter. I mean, I knew of Harry and the Potters, but over the weekend, I acquainted myself with Draco and the Malfoys, The Whomping Willows, the Moaning Myrtles, Tonks and the Aurors, The Parselmouths, Remus and the Lupins, The House of Black, The Butterbeer Experience, The Ministry of Magic, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, The Mudbloods, and Gred and Forge (extra points for the title of the album - Half the Band I Used to Be).

Also (better late on the bandwagon than never), I have finally seen A Very Potter Musical. \o/ x 1,000,000!

I don't think I've ever done this one

1) Music player on shuffle
2) Post first line from first 32 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing
3) People guess songs...if you do the meme when everyone's doing it and not months later...

( cut for random ipodosity )

Also, I found this! I had forgotten I wrote this! It's a piece of a Kendra/Sally story (...yes. I know) that never got completed. You can tell it's me, because it's all build-up and it peters out before there's anything resembling a payoff. I really have to finish it, for my own piece of mind. And to mess with Sally a little bit...

( Sally's never been one of THOSE girls )


On another note - I have come to the conclusion that I need to start giving my files actual names instead of saving them as the first line of the story. All embarrassing silences that ensue upon sight of documents that begin, "Casey thought there might be a stripper" will henceforth be no more!