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.)

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.

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
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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

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.

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.)

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".

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.