Okay I'm not in this fandom really and don't plan to be, but it's all over everywhere, and so many familiar names popping up! So sure of course I'm reading it.

(I am going to try to keep these postscripta going if only to track new fandoms I dive into; we'll see if it lasts. the other new fandom I've been reading a lot in lately I haven't really figured out how to do a recs list yet.)

Anyway Our Flag Means Death is about gay pirates. Whether Ed and Stede count as enemies is not for me to say, as I haven't watched the thing, and it's still very in progress. However there have been a bunch of fics lately where Stede's ex-boyfriend and ex-wife gang up on him, and you know I am there for that.

They also make very good intro fics because I think at this point nearly everybody who follows fandom knows, at minimum, that Stede and Ed are idiots in love, and that's basically all Mary knows as of the end of S1, too.

• you should be so happy now (7688 words) by waveridden
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
  Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Mary Allamby Bonnet & Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Mary Allamby Bonnet & Stede Bonnet, Mary Allamby Bonnet & Jim Jimenez
  Characters: Mary Allamby Bonnet, Israel Hands, Frenchie (Our Flag Means Death), Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Lucius Spriggs, Stede Bonnet, Jim Jimenez
  Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Kidnapping, POV Outsider, Mary-Centric, adore the fact that mary-centric is a tag for several fandoms at once. here's one more fandom, Mary Allamby Bonnet-centric, Lucius Spriggs Lives
  
  In which the Widow Bonnet is taken hostage by the fearsome pirate Blackbeard.



• denial (2102 words) by huojuvuus
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Mary Allamby Bonnet & Blackbeard | Edward Teach
  Characters: Mary Allamby Bonnet, Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet
  Additional Tags: POV Mary Allamby Bonnet, Attempt at Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Fix-It, Mary-Centric
  
  In which the Widow Bonnet menaces the fearsome pirate Blackbeard with a spoon.



• Old and New (10992 words) by the_author_anonymous
  Chapters: 4/4
  Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
  Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
  Characters: Mary Allamby Bonnet, Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Assorted other pirates
  Additional Tags: In which Mary gets to meet Stede's new family, Mostly because I wanted her to interact with Ed, dumb pirate shenanigans, kind of a continuation of my last fic (but not really), so you can definitely read this without reading that first, It's time for a family reunion!, exasperating pirates are exasperating, Mary has also contracted the OFMD brainrot and worries about her sanity lol, whoops there's angst now, canon typical violence (but only for a bit), actions have consequences and Stede keeps having to face them, poor mary, awkward and slightly misguided attempts at comfort, the pirates try to fix their mistakes to varying levels of success
  Series: Part 1 of Mary Bonnet's Guide to Befriending Local Pirates
  
  In which the fearsome pirate Blackbeard flees before the Widow Bonnet.

(also, why does OFMD have Stede using the name "Captain Thomas" when they have Actual True Fact that he was known to use "Captain Edwards" sitting in the history books? Oh well, maybe they're saving it for later.)

PotC is what I generally call my second ever fandom, though you have to count in a very particular way to get that result. But it was, definitely, the first fandom where I was there for the beginning - watching, at least, even if I didn't participate much - so it holds a special place.

It's also a great fandom for enemy ship! Honestly the only one I can think of that doesn't count one way or another is Pintel/Ragetti. And of course the whole trilogy is shaped around the most fundamental enemy ship of them all, Jack Sparrow/the Black Pearl.

I never watched any of the post-AWE movies, though, because honestly by the end, Jack was the least interesting character in the franchise. Someeday maybe? At least the ones that have Barbossa in them.

But this recs set is going to be Jack/Norrington. Old Jack/Norrington, from before the second movie came out. Mostly old Jack/Norrington that I haven't reread in at least fifteen years. Because. Some things are just foundational.

And also because POTC was one of those fandoms that landed squarely in the heyday of LJ fandom, from the first movie just as LJ really became everything, to the last movie right in time for us to sing our way through Strikethrough. So everything was on LJ. Stuff's hard to track down.

• Misdirection (11383 words) by Jenavira
  Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
  Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow, Sparrington
  Characters: Jack Sparrow, James Norrington, Joshamee Gibbs, Groves (Pirates of the Caribbean), Governor Swann, Various original Naval officers, and a squiggly thing
  Additional Tags: seafaring adventure, unnecessarily complicated seduction techniques, adorableness, content stolen from Irish myths, and also C.S. Lewis, I am not sorry
  Summary: Jack Sparrow's taken a letter of marque, and Norrington's life has taken a turn for the strange. Still, any excuse to get out from behind a desk for a while.



• Full Moon (18515 words) by firesignwriter
  Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  Relationships: Jack/Norrington
  Characters: James Norrington, Jack Sparrow
  Summary:

  Caught between a rock and a bajillion pirates, Norrington is forced to rely on Jack Sparrow's aid...and then his hospitality.




• Marooned (23259 words) by GloriaMundi
  Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow, Jack Sparrow/Various, Anamaria/James Norrington
  Characters: Jack Sparrow, James Norrington, Anamaria
  Additional Tags: Pirates, Historical, C17, AU
  Summary:

  The world's changed. When everything you loved is gone, what's left? Duty, honour, dreams, dust . . .

The Tiemlords picspam now has me badly wanting the story where Joanna Lumley!Doctor shows up in the 18th century Caribbean in her TARDIS to take her granddaughter, young Susanna Wilhelmina Turner, adventuring with her, but then gets distracted by pirate king business and ends up retrieving the Master from Davy Jones's locker.

...I should probably actually watch "The Curse of Fatal Death" first.

I think I'm officially a grown-up now. I went to a baseball game and instead of rooting for it to go into extra innings, I rooted for it to end half-an-inning early so I could go home and get on the internet go to sleep.

Also there were fireworks afterward. And now I really really want to see the Singapore sequence of AWE again. :(

Fanlib.com is now the first google search result for fanfic for my Stargate otp. To those of you saying FanLib was doomed and irrelevant: ttpphhptt! With tentacles on top!

Okay, so the author of said fics took them down after she noticed the debacle. Still! How long d'you think it will take all 115 of those search results to sink out of Google's database and stop polluting my need to read every single published piece of soppy Asgard romance? Apparently until *just before* I whine about it on lj. :P
______

Meanwhile, fandom_counts is stalled out at just under 34000 journals. Berkowitz's last news post was remarkably more reassuring than his last, proving that at the very least someone has now drummed the concept of 'customer relations' into his head.

However, lolita_icontest, a Nabokov fandom community, is still suspended, along with a variety of other journals and communities, proving that the return of journals and communities had more to do with how many people complained about them than about any actual attempt at making things right. On one hand, the return of journals people care about while the languishing ones continue to languish proves that they did listen to us. On the other hand, not terribly working on regaining my trust here, 6A. (PS: Your new lj homepage *sucks*. And, incidentally, is broken on lynx view.)

And a new version of Movable Type has just been announced.

I know a lot of people, now that the initial rage is dying down, have been talking about the deletion debacle as a tempest in a teapot, asking whether it's so important that they deleted our porn.

It wasn't about deleting our porn. It was about *deleting anything at all*. It was about thoughtcrime. LJ markets itself as a place for private journals and discussion forums, as well as for publishing and networking - that's why many of us are here. And when you tell someone it's evil, wrong and illegal to write about something in their personal journal (however risky it might be when that journal is on the internet) you're about two inches away from telling them that it's wrong and evil to think it. Persecution for yhoughtcrime should *not* be allowed to stand, wherever it is. (And yes, that includes pedophile journals. Even if they were actively breaking the law, lj should have called in law enforcement first. If they weren't actively breaking the law, they've as much right to be here as our porn - maybe more, if you want to start talking about writing as therapy.)

Meanwhile, I'm still planning on posting anything that isn't specifically for an lj audience over at my jf account.
_________

And the offer to make people jf accounts is still open. Have I mentioned how much fun I'm having at jf?

It's quiet - too quiet - but it reminds me of my early days here on lj. Where everything was shiny and new and I didn't have to think about playing to my audience, because they didn't know what to expect of me yet. When my fandom on lj was still small enough that I could try to follow everything, more or less.

Also, I posted a crack crossover poll the other day and got over 1/3 of my flist to answer - a total flist that includes people I know for sure only log in when LJ is down! I post a poll here, I'm lucky to get 1/10. (Be honest - all ya'll filter me out, right?)

Which reminds me: I remembered this poll, from last year. frek and stephanometra, you tied for first with two wrong answers each! (everybody got those two wrong - Tia *didn't* get to mack on Will (anyone notice how much they tamed down her sexuality in this movie? I could go on about that, but I won't.) and I was the only one to predict that Jack wouldn't get the Black Pearl in the end. :D ) Name your prizes, winners!
___

PS: Lt's down. Has been for almost two days now. On the days I set aside for book-organizing, no less. Three things LJ could learn from LT about crisis management:

1. Treat your customers like allies, not enemies. And like they're intelligent. Communicate. Honestly. If you go awhile without updating the news, mention that it was an unforgivable mistake, and explain that it was due to technical issues. Not due to not trusting your customers.
2. Give them something to do. They want to be doing something. If you make a useful suggestion, chances are they'll do that. If you don't ... they'll have to occupy themselves.
3. Don't be evil. And sing along with the songs in your comment thread. :D
____

Also, speaking of the internets breaking, the FCC's deadline for public comment on Net Neutrality is June 15th. That's until this Friday to keep our internets out of the hands of monopolistic robber barons (to the extent that it isn't already, anyway.) Speak out here:


...or anywhere else, really. We got LJ to listen to us; Congress isn't beyond our reach.
( Here's what I sent, for posterity. )

Yeah, I know, but I can't *not* sputter about "interstate commerce act! 1887! @^@$%" every time Net Neutrality comes up. Mrs. Savignac trained me well in AP History, bless her tiny Reaganite heart.
_____

And if that wasn't meme-y or sky-is-falling enough for you, try a zombie uprising on for size. :P

Bootstrap Bill:

Secret Minion of Starro the Conqueror yesno?

(I knew I recognized face!starfish from somewhere!)

I've heard lots of theories about what POTC3 was supposed to be about: honor, love, choosing sides, making your own way ... but I think I've figured it out for *reals*.

It's actually about having to stand in line too long at Disney World.

And if I had the movie footage right now, I'd do the vid. But since I don't, ( I've got the outline and the lyrics )

See, now it's stuck in your head, too! Here's the mp3 I was using.

Swallowdale arrived on Monday. Yay!

Although, still, every time somebody calls him "Mr. Turner" (instead of his *real* name), I hear it in Captain Barbossa's voice. (I'm half convinced that the name was a deliberate reference by the PotC folks. Hooray for James Turner, the (semi-)retired pirate!)

Meanwhile I re-read The Eagle of the Ninth. I'm trying to decide (for nefarious yuletide purposes. I recently realized that Alexios and Hilarion are about 90% of the reason I want to see Cam and John together as much as possible.) if all the books with the flawed emerald dolphin ring count as one series or as a loosely connected set of stories, or if just *some* of 'em are part of the official series. Also trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to try to work out the entire Aquila family tree.

And then I read what is probably the only long tEotN fanfic out there, The Centurion's Hound by Jay Tryfanstone, which is *very* good, though it probably would have been at least as good, if not better, without the explicit slash. It's not like Marcus and Esca could be any *more* in love, after all; and it's kind of a distraction from the important parts (like the ripping plot, and all the characters and how perfectly they fit together, and Flavian and Cub, and and and) and none of the actual canon has, as far as I can recall, so much as a kiss in it anywhere. Although it's been ages since I've read her grown-up stuff, and I think that did get kind of ... odd. Anyway, the other thing that bothered me about the fic was ( major spoilers for the ending of The Eagle of the Ninth )

Now to watch Bones House and watch for election results. And try to figure out the proper way to sew a pennant. And build a pirate bookpile for LT.

If there's any better place to have been reading that than out in hurricane weather, it was sitting in a tiny tea-shop in the pouring rain while eating a scone so hot that it nearly scorched my fingers.

Reading these old YA novels only on my commute seems to be just the thing. I think I shall continue. I'm checking out The Eagle of the Ninth today to tide me over. Now it's time to see if I can find a library that will loan me Swallowdale- neither the school library nor the local one has it. Meanwhile, my flist needs to help me out!

[Poll #814413]

(I'm nearly always Titty, but sometimes John and sometimes Peggy, and when I'm feeling particularly Nativish, sometimes Susan or Roger. But I'm nearly never Nancy, for I'm sadly quite ruthful usually. My sister's maybe John but sometimes Nancy and sometimes Peggy or Titty - but you ought to make her read them and ask her. Actually, frey_at_last, I *really* think that you four and us two need to rent two sailboats on a lake and go play Swallows and Amazons some summer.)

Dear SGA fandom: Sometimes a lemon is just a lemon. And sometimes it's a codeword for copious amounts of sex. Either way, freaking calm down already. You lot look insane. And not in the fun way.

In other news, I am at my sister's apartment. Have been since Wednesday. Mostly, it's been pirates.
[Poll #781727]
Right, break over. Back to homework.

Saturday, I went to an Orioles game for the first time in years. It was fun. And they totally smoked the Rangers. Yay! Take that, Texas! (Someday I should write a long post on why, despite being massively indifferent to sports in general, I still call myself an Os fan.)

Sunday, I finished reading the Transmetropolitan trades that xerahanadu loaned me. (And oh my god, Spider with a black turtleneck and a cane hits me *right* where Old!Bruce from Batman Beyond got me in Middle School. Help.)

Today, I went to the school library on my lunch break and checked out two books by H. L Mencken. Because symmetry pleases me. And anyway, it was near-criminal that I haven't read any of his stuff yet.

I was terribly tempted to just check out the whole shelf, but even I have to admit occasionally that there is a limit to the number of books I can read. Anyway, I also checked out this, this, this, this, and this. (For paper-writing purposes! Honest!) If I ever graduate, having free access to a major reearch university's library is the thing I'll miss most by far.

All of my fingernails have call numbers pencilled on them, and what greater pathway to happiness is there in this world?

Now I just have to decide whether to write my Maryland geography paper on "The Pirates! In An Adventure on the Chesapeake", which was my original idea, or on Captain William Claiborne, whom the professor spent about ten minutes comparing to "the character Johnny Depp played in that pirate movie".

Was driving home, listening to the country station (as you do) and realized that somebody really, really needs to do a post-DMC Elizabeth Swann songvid to Teri Clark's "Girls Lie Too".

Especially if they artfully intercut it with certain footage from the original video of that song.

(You don't remember the original video? You clearly did not spend lots of time that year watching the country stations, and/or suffer from taste when it comes to music. Shame on you. Go watch it now. I'll wait. I'm always surprised by how songvid people frequently are less than conversant with provids. Provids can be at least as awesomely designed, *and* you get to actually sleep with the Captain: what's not to enjoy?)

Actually, I've been wanting to do a Lizzie vid to "Water Lou" for *years*, but now it'd need DMC footage, too. *sigh* I guess it's bakc to trying to find just the right song for Fleischer Clark/Lois.

A poll, on something I have been curious about for years, but particularly relating to the current discussions about race in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

[Poll #767068]
Disclaimer: OMG, not enough poll options! As a liberally-educated white chick, I feel the need to add: These are categories that I felt might be relevant to Captain Sparrow, not necessarily the ones I find most valuable. I also used Wikipedia on casta, list of multiracial terms and mestizo to make sure I had my terminology as clear as possible. Feel free to elaborate in comments if you find the poll inadequate.
( More on race in PotC, reclaiming racial cliches, and trust in storytelling. Lots of non-plot spoilers for PotC2. )

Yes, that essay did count as studying for my Latin America exam. q-:

In completely unrelated news, I've decided that Captain Sparrow's spiritual father among the Orishas is the Black Rabbit of Inlé. Yes.

So, since my last entry, I have:
given my big end-of-semester presentation;
gone to speakerender's suprise birthday party;
gone to our friend's wedding reception;
watched Free Enterprise with xerahanadu and enemy_anime;
had the annual July family barbecue;
Written a bunch more verses of the CitH/XF crossover story.

Oh, and today, Mr. Dan and Linda took Mom and me out to lunch for her birthday and out to see that movie with the pirates in it.

It was a very good movie; far better than I'd been expecting - *pretty*, and some wonderful character moments, and great new characters, and just like the first one, great fight scenes. It was essentially the fanfic I've been wishing for two years that somebody would write, and better than most of the fic, so it had that going for it. It suffered from two problems, though: Too many characters, none of whom ever managed to stay sympathetic for more than about three minutes at a time; and a plot which depended on characters being repeatedly stupid. Especially the fact that apparently everybody in the entire movie (including Will) forgot that ( Not technically a spoiler, since they didn't actually mention this once in the whole film. )

Anway, I would go into more detail, but now I only have about two hours left to not do the stuff that I'd normally spend all weekend not doing.

Some people whose ljs I read, who I respect, are saying vaguely derogatory things about F_W. Now, I've been reading fandom_wank off-and-on for ten months or so, and have actually got a journalfen and been commenting occasionally recently, and I think it's a wonderful, uplifting place that creates a lot of entertainment and fulfills a valuable function in fandom. And I'm not afraid to say so! Look, I'm posting openly and proudly on my journal where everyone can read . .

Oh. Well, yes. Never mind then.

But I do think it serves an important purpose. I didn't start coming there for the wank or the snark; I came because I was bewildered and curious about fandom kerfluffles, and it had slowly become clear to me that F_W was the only place to go to get both sides of the story, clearly laid out, with references, unbiased and open. Yes, my profile here is serious.

People come to fandom wank and find out what the fuss is about. Post updates. Post their disgust with the whole thing. Post about how they're tired of it, and everyone involved needs a life and is various types of female genitals, despite that apparently being contradictory with the metaphor of wank. How the logic is flawed and the motivation is hypocritical Occasionally actually discussing the issues at hand. More and more, at least in HP, the culprits themselves come to F_w to wank. But if they weren't doing it there, they'd be doing it elsewhere. Spewing it all over lj and mailing lists and message boards. Here, at least the only people subjected to it are people who are asking for it, and nobody's let take it too seriously. I believe this makes it die down faster outside.

Take the latest CC mess. Posts on maybe half-a-dozen livejournals, many of which were originally or quickly friendslocked, and none of the open ones had many comments. On F_W? 775 comments. Imagine the mess if all of them had been left lying about all over the place where innocent bystanders and pl3b3y fangirls could stumble across them.

Fandom_Wank: It's about putting all your monkeys in one barrel.

***

Somebody should icon that.

Somebody should also icon the elephant ejaculate from "Being an Experiment," the work of great literature which introduced me to the word cum and its multifarious synonyms.

I visualise anthill graphics cribbed from B.C. Because how can you beat a satanic bastard offspring of Johnny Hart and Neil Gaiman? Unfortunately, all my BC books are at home, and I don't own either Warning:Contains Language or Angels and Visitations.

I also wish I could find halfway good screencaps of the Pintel/Raghetti scene from PotC where Raghetti's wooden eye gets sporked out. Because how could you *not*?

***

The storm drain outside my building is blowing raspberries at me. It's seriously irritating. *When will the rain stop?*