Links!
Well, here's a few links. Check back later for more as I think of them.
- Friends:
- Suika Roberts.
Suika writes really nice fics (I particularly like Shin Seiki Evangelion
Chouchuanshan, Shin Silver Millennium Monogatari, and Tip.) and is in addition a really nice person.
Here's her page.
- Azalais Malfoy.
Azalais is a ceremonial magician and writes House of Ill Faith, a lovely Harry Potter series including: realistic magick, non-evil Death Eaters, a Severus Snape who, while not necessarily nice, has good reasons for being that way, and two of the neatest OCs I've ever seen, Juliana Snape (née Malfoy) and Séverine Snape.
Read her stories on FFN.
- Anime, Manga and Fanfic Links:
- Writer's University has a wide variety of resources for fanfiction--authors' policy statements, grammar and usage guides, links, and more. Multi-/pan-fandom. Not perfect--their non-English language resources are spotty, frex--but quite good.
- Fanfiction on the Net is a link site covering a range of fandoms.
- Links to Anipike are common as dirt, but here's mine:-).
- Most of my fics used to be posted on the Fan Fiction Mailing List (which is anime-specific. Please don't whinge at me about how unfair that is--I didn't name it:-) This was down for some while, but seems to be running again out of a new server; I really need to rejoin. Here's the newest version I could find of the FFML FAQ which will tell you what it is, how to subscribe, and so on.
- Fanfiction.net is a general fanfic site--I have stuff posted there. The search engine sucks dead rats, it's hard to find stuff, there's a lot of really bad fic, and sometimes the C&C seems more like a popularity contest than anything useful, but it's really not a bad site. There's lots of stuff, and some of it, once found, is really quite good.
- Philip Mak's Ranma and Ukyou Webpage. He has me in his author list, so that alone should recommend him:-) Seriously, there are some nice fics about a nice pairing here.
- Philip Mak's Ranma and Shampoo Webpage. Just what it sounds like.
- The Church of Ranma and Kasumi. A site devoted to another of my favourite pairings (or two-of-a-group-ings).
- The Paradoxical F/F Archive-BtVS. I read Buffyfic as well--this has quite a number of nice femslash stories, some of them poly (both all-female and mff).
- Shadow Lurker Productions. Ranma and Akane: A Love Story is, despite being a mono Ranma/Akane fic, absolutely tremendous. References include Pratchett, Yeats, Usagi Yojimbo, the Carmina Burana, and the late great Stan Rodgers.
- Aikan Muyo (No Need for Sadness and Joy) A very nice Tenchi Muyo lemon series (some of the best lemon work ever, IMHO) which, alas, has not been updated in an extremely long time. Despite this, it's still worth reading.
- Pete's Draka Page. Pete Karsanow's Draka page includes his fanfic "A Connecticut Yankee in the Archon's Court" (an engineer from an alternate Cold War timeline falls into the reality of SM Stirling's The Stone Dogs), an amusing Simpsons-Drakon crossover, Douglas Barrett's "Yearnings," and a fairly complete set of links to pages containing Draka information and fanfic.
- Minerva McTabby is the author of Two Worlds and In Between, a brilliant fanfic set in the world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, ca 1855. She also writes wonderful Dr. Seuss parodies. Click here to read her stories on Fanfiction.net.
- Elizabeth Barr writes Harry Potter fanfic, mostly centred round Severus Snape. I particularly like "Waiting For Hell" (see her HP page.), a seventh-year Snape/Harry/Hermione fic which manages to be simultaneously grim and affectionate.
- Didodikali's Lemonade Party contains the cute illustrated fanfics and wonderful fanart of Didodikali. She draws wonderful versions of the Harry Potter characters; I particularly love the hilarious, not to mention adorable, fanfic Teacher's Pet (Nice!Snape, unusual Animagus forms, and unexpected characters wearing "Snakes Rule" t-shirts). I also like her Escaflowne fic Four Minutes, a Dryden/Millerna romance. See also her stuff at Fanfiction.net.
- The Harry Potter Lexicon is a guide to the Potterverse--timelines, people and places, book and movie info, differences between the US and UK editions, etc.
- MegaTokyo is a tremendously funny and well-drawn manga-styled webcomic. Otaku jokes, cute girls, and even a Pogues song (see Christmas 2000)!
- Elflife is a cute webcomic about, well, exactly what it says. Try it. You'll like it. I... well, I don't guar-AHN-TEE it, but I do think you will like it.
- FairyTail.com is artist Kore's site. Cute pencil drawings, and some coloured works, of various mythological type critters and people--fauns, pointy-eared elf-types, cat- and regular-type- centaurs, and others-- along with a few stories (some better than others--"Stronger than Wine" is a cute piece about a struggling dancer/barman.), set in a self-created fantasy world using names yanked out of context from various (mostly Celtic) mythologies. Which last is a characteristic that usually annoys the frell out of me, but for some reason it works here.
Maybe it's that Kore draws very well and has a real flair for cute girls and appealing scenes. In any event, check it out.
- Stuff Related to my Other Hobbies and Interests:
Yes, I do have hobbies other than anime/manga and fanfic. Anyone who's looked at my writing
speed already knows this:-)
- Bouzouki:
I play Irish bouzouki. No, that is not a joke. It's not a Greek bouzouki used to play Irish
music, either. It's sort of like a big, heavily-strung mandolin.
Han Speek has pretty much the best
bouzouki page around.
- Anglo Concertina:
I also am trying to learn to play anglo concertina. Think of a very small dry-tuned (in other
words, the pairs of reeds are in tune, not "wet" (slightly out of tune) like those big ugly
piano accordions one sees polka bands and overweight comedians hauling about) hexagonal button
accordion, only with just single notes (that is to say, one makes chords by pressing multiple buttons, not hitting a chord button such as accordions have). The layout of the buttons is counterintuitive at best:-). But I am persevering:-). Here's a link to
Concertina.net, which is anglo-oriented, and another to a
generalised Concertina FAQ which
also talks about the other varieties of concertina (I'm not even going to try to explain them
here:-).
- Opera. The world's fastest and IMHO best web browser. Available in both a free ad-supported and a bought version. Download the free version and give it a try. It's infinitely superior to Bastard Gates' Internet Exploder, and considerably better than Netscape as well. Available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and several other OSen. Made by Norwegians!
- Ceolas.I don't much fancy their continual use of the dreaded "C-word," but they're a very good starting point for Irish trad on the web.
- The Mudcat Cafe is a good resource on a variety of "folk" musics. The Song Archive is particularly handy for lyrics.
- Homebrewing:
I haven't brewed much lately, but homebrewing is tremendous craic. You don't do it in your
bathtub, and it's not just a source of cheap alcohol--with a little work you can make beer
as well as most microbreweries, and maybe even better. You don't need to buy one of those
silly "Mr. Beer" kits, either (in fact you're better off doing a little research and getting
a basic set of supplies at an homebrewing store--you'll spend less money and make a better
product). Here's a very nice library of
homebrewing documents with everything from beginnner's guides to articles on advanced
techniques.
- Society for Creative Anachronism:
I haven't been very active since grad school, but the SCA contains some very fun people and can be a tremendously good time.
- The Asian Traditional Archery Research Network has some very interesting material about both crossbows and stickbows.
- Gaeilge ar an Ghréasán
- Irish language links, including learner's materials.
- Daltaí na Gaeilge
- Irish language information and learning materials.
- The Archaic English Project.
- The AEP promotes the restoration of lost treasures to the English word hoard. J.R.R. Tolkien would approve, I think.
- Der Folkspraakinstitut.
- Folkspraak is an hybrid Germanic language which originated as a pidgin used by members of an international and interdenominational monastic community in Denmark.
- Scots Online: Pittin the Mither Tongue on the Wab!
- Lowland Scots (Germanic language related and to varying degrees mutually comprehensible with English) language and literature.
- Gascony
- A page in English and Gascon for the land and language (a form of Occitan) of Gascony.
- Action Cadienne
- Je suis pas Cadien, mais je suis un ami des Cadiens et leur lutte pour leur langue et culture.
A page for the support of the Cajun French language and culture.
- The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts
- I gave up sport fencing because I got sick of electrified pieces of wire, twits who didn't care if they would have got spitted with a sharp as long as they touched a millisecond before the other guy, and the general degeneration from my old maitre's classical style to flicking and poking. SCA schlager fencing was fun, but I'm not convenient anymore to a group. I do Shaolin Kung Fu with a master from Taiwan, and I love it, but if I were near these guys I'd love to work out with them.
The ARMA (formerly the Historical Armed Combat Association) is dedicated to western martial arts, from mediaeval longsword and axe to Reniassance rapier, sword and and buckler, and backsword. They use a system of drilling with bated blades, contact sparring with padding and various training implements, and cutting practice with live blades.
Anyone writing fanfic with Western swordwork in it should go here and do research. Those interested in Asian systems might also find worthwhile crosscultural material here (not to mention a new appreciation for Western traditions as far more than the stereotypical poke and pray, hack and slash, and things that go boom).
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