Re-Introduction

[my_daroga]

Or, some things you might want to know about me. Or, way too much information, thanks.

Inspired by stultiloquentia's post, I thought this might be a good time to say a few things about who I am and let anyone who wants to ask questions. Not that questions aren't welcome at any time! I'm not currently leaving LJ for Dreamwidth, and this is going up in both places because I daresay there are/will be new people at both places at some point. Apologies to those who know all this, already!

1. As of Friday, I am 30 years old, female, a Seattle resident for almost 4 years, married to Mr. Daroga, living with the amazing lettered, two mutts (Mr. Darcy and Auryn, whom I have for safekeeping), and Kitty-Kate (named for Kate Bush). I work as a copy cataloger for a public library system, which means I put numbers on the sides of dvds, books, and cds. I got my MLS in December, and am seeking full-time librarian employment, though I do not consider it my "calling." If I have one. My undergrad degree is in English lit and film studies, and if I can figure out a way to be paid for watching movies, I will.

2. I'm in a band, called Landlord's Daughter, in which I play keys and sing. We sometimes play out around Seattle in small clubs and bars and have a self-produced album coming out by the fall. You can also hear my and Mr. Daroga's former band, Mercy Brown, at myspace.

3. My first fandom, before I knew what that word was, was Sherlock Holmes, which I "joined" in probably 1993 or so on Prodigy. Yes, before the WWW! My longest-lasting "active" fandom is Phantom of the Opera, going on 16 years now, with hiatuses and drastic alterations in my opinions and focus. For whatever reason, Phantom is where I feel comfortable writing, and somehow I've never managed to branch out despite being frustrated by the narrow confines of a fandom defined by so many different canons/fandoms so that very few are speaking the same language.

4. Some favorite:

artists/bands
Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian, Ben Folds Five, Kate Bush, Scott Walker, Neil Young, Bloc Party, Muse, Talk Talk, Elvis Costello, The Smiths, The Zombies, Leonard Cohen, Pulp, Simon and Garfunkel, Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith

npr's pretty much a constant in our house, too. Musical theater-wise, I'm pretty much Sondheim-only these days, though I have a lingering fondness for things I loved back in the day.

movies/directors
Lawrence of Arabia, Phantom of the Paradise, Peeping Tom, Sunset Boulevard, Sweet Smell of Success, Night of the Hunter, All About Eve, The Unknown, The General, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Wet Hot American Summer, Amadeus, Dangerous Liaisons, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Josie and the Pussycats, Harold and Maude, Blow Up, Mulholland Drive, Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Orson Welles, David Lean, Michael Powell, David Lynch, Russ Meyer

tv shows
X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood, Freaks and Geeks, Veronica Mars, Touch (anime), Mysterious Cities of Gold, Firefly, Star Trek: The Original Series, Jekyll, Twin Peaks, Doctor Who, Mad Men

books/authors
Phantom of the Opera, Mists of Avalon, Lolita, The Silver Metal Lover, The Foundation and Robot books, Fire and Hemlock, Dogsbody, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Blankets, Eagle: the making of an Asian American president, Lost at Sea, Beauty, Till We Have Faces, Phantom

Diana Wynne Jones, Philip K. Dick, Vladimir Nabokov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, Henry Jenkins, T.E. Lawrence, Laurie R. King

I also read A LOT of nonfiction, mostly film-related, which I'm not listing here as it's probably pretty special interest. Also Harper's.

plays
Hamlet, Arcadia (Tom Stoppard)

(Side note: Listing this stuff makes me really anxious that I've missed something, which probably contains some clue about my character.)

5. I'm vegetarian without being militant about it; I think we all make choices, and I prefer informed ones, so if you prefer to eat meat (and if you even want to use my dishes to prepare/eat off of) that's fine (as long as you wash 'em). I don't even mind stuff being cooked on the same grill or in the same fryer, I just don't want to eat meat. For one thing, I've never liked the taste of most meat, and otherwise it's currently about the way we farm more than anything else. I'm not even sure why I'm mentioning this, except for the fact that lots of people finding this out have questions about why and how and there are lots of different motives for vegetarianism.

6. I'm liberal, agnostic-atheist, and theoretically bisexual, but in origins I probably belong to most of the dominant U.S. categories. Feel free to ask me to elaborate. I work hard not to be defensive when I'm wrong, and getting better all the time. I think I'm a pretty good person, but I think I need some work, too.

7. I think I want to be a writer, but I'm not sure about that as I can't seem to make myself write much and one would think that being a writer would involve liking to write. I like it when it's easy--all too often, lately, it isn't. I'm supposedly working on a nonfiction book about the permutation and influence of different versions of Phantom of the Opera, though a very similar book has been announced on Amazon as coming out this summer, and I have no credentials.

8. I do, occasionally, write fanfic. I plan on doing a sort of "guide to my fanfic" post but for now you can find the Phantom stuff here at my cross-canon POTO archive (open to all!). The rest, a smattering of some Naria and some totally random, is here at my journal or on ff.n. I tend to write in order to 1) subvert the happily-ever-after fairy tale qualities of a lot of schmoopy, Erik/Christine fic or 2) get the daroga hooked up with Erik. Both noble goals, as far as I can tell.

9. I also write movie reviews, which you can find at my movie review blog under my real name or in this list (currently LJ-only, as the links won't be right on DW, though the films tag will get you there).

10. My other hobbies involve photography, digital art, watching/discussing/arguing about movies and tv shows, walking the dogs, travel (I want to go everywhere), over-thinking stupid stuff and not-thinking-enough-the-stuff-I-should, seeing old movies in theaters (which is why I can't leave Seattle), driving (when I can), hiking (when I can), and involved conversations. I'm much more cheerful in real life than I often come across online, because I feel less inclined to crow about feeling good and more needy about whining when I feel bad. I'm also funnier and sillier than this post would suggest. Promise. lettered will tell you. Maybe I just take myself too seriously?

11. ... Anything you want to ask?

Comments

[stultiloquentia]

I just popped over to myspace to listen to your bands. They're really nifty! I like "The Kid's Gotta Learn" especially.

You have good taste in...stuff.

And a "guide to my fanfic" post would be excellent. I want to read some of your Phantom fanfic, but I've never read the book, just seen the musical and recent film adaptation and part of that crazy 1920s film you linked to a while back. What should I consume, or at least, do I need to know?

[my_daroga]

Aww, thanks for listening/reading/commenting! If you're interested in any of the albums, let me know. I mean, yeah, we ostensibly sell them but no one's really buying and we've got hundreds. But no pressure.

As for POTO, let's see. I will do a fanfic post but I guess what you need to know is that the musical and the film are much further down the "romance" road than the original, on which much of my stuff is based. That is to say, the original Phantom character had a name (Erik) and was much more a villain--a sympathetic villain--than a romantic lead. And a lot of my stories deal with just that idea--the fact that he's been appropriated by those who think that a kiss will redeem and that he's "not that bad." He's also much, much uglier than in the movie; he's described as a "walking corpse" in Leroux's book.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a major character from the book has been left out of just about every adaptation since: The Persian. No, he has no name. He's the one my username is for (he's also called "daroga" but that's a title) and despite the inherent fail in Leroux's use of the mystic Orient he's the voice of reason, the one who observes, the one who knows and chronicles and has a clue. I focus on him a lot. All you have to know for that is before Erik lived under the Opera, he traveled widely and was, for a time, at the Shah's court in Persia. The Persian was basically set to watching over him, but an uneasy friendship developed which led to the Persian risking his life to let Erik escape when things got too hot. The Persian was exiled, and ended up in Paris years later, where he discovered Erik's presence and was instrumental in rescuing Christine from him. It is he who leads Raoul to the cellars, and he often expresses an ambivalence towards Erik: he fears and is fascinated by him, and is compassionate until he feels Erik has gone too far.

Most of my stuff is really short, too. I'd start with Kissing the Frog, which is my reaction to the "whitewashing"/romanticizing of the story. Some of the other stuff deals with minor characters you may not care about since you don't know who they are; they're just little fill-in, p.o.v. vignettes. But the slash is probably easy to understand, and while they're not really related (as in, I didn't write them with the others in mind) I'd read them in the order I wrote them if you're going to read them all: Comfort to the Enemy takes place before the events of the book/movie, Infidel is during the book/movie during the period where Christine and the Phantom are seeing each other, and The Conjurer's Trick revisits the backstory with another theme.

Then there's West of the Moon, which I wrote for lettered and which deals with Raoul returning to see Erik after Christine has died, some years after the events of the book(/movie).

Looking at this list, it strikes me just how inexplicable my fic is for someone not familiar with the source material, so I shouldn't blame you if you don't make it. But thanks for your interest! There are a few non-POTO pieces, if you're familiar with Narnia and/or X-Files of all things. Oh and I just realized I gave archive links for the POTO stuff. Argh. I should just make a post!

[stultiloquentia]

Now I'm even more interested in your POTO fic. (I keep seeing POTO and trying to attach it in my mind to a school of theory like poco or pomo...post...topographical?) I already knew that Leroux's novel was much less romantic than Hart and Stilgoe's libretto, and that the Phantom was rather fouler, but I couldn't have listed any of the secondary characters -- even the ones in the musical.

As a general rule, I am more interested in thinky, not-so-whitewashed fanfic (though you'd hardly know it from the fluff I've been writing lately!). The Persian sounds like an awesome focus character. I will try to read, and see how far I can get on your summaries.