Yesterday I made the mistake of watching about five minutes of Disney's adaptation of The Black Cauldron from the 1980s. I'd heard that it sucked of course, but...

SO BAD SO VERY VERY BAD.

Fflewddur Fflam's an elderly moron, Gurgi looks like a Shih Tzu, and Eilonwy is blonde and has no personality whatsoever. The Fair Folk are flying, glowing fairies that are around the size of fireflies.

Disney, you bastards!

I’m working a lot on revising today, both original work and fan fiction. So clearly, the best thing to do is take part in a fan fic meme! (Not like I don’t already have 20-plus other ideas for stories to write.) I got it from such_heights.

fifteen word stories

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or fewer for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

Seriously, try this meme. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

Author's Notes/Source Information
--"The Rake's Song" is from the album "The Hazards of Love." Listen to it on YouTube. The lyrics sum things up pretty well. Nightmare fuel, ahoy!
--Charlie is female (short for Charlotte)
--Austin is a one-eyed cat
--Minor spoilers for The Long, Hot Summoning by Tanya Huff.
--More Author's Notes at the end

( These pairings are all insane )

Guidelines: Post 10 things you like beginning with a certain letter. I wasn't sure how you ended up getting assigned a letter, so I rummaged about in the Scrabble bag and ended up with A. (For such a "common letter," it was more difficult than I'd expected. I'm sure to remember another interest the moment I post this.)

Apples
My favorite apples to eat are those smallish, light red ones because they crunch nicely. As well as the taste, I'm interested in all the symbolism. You have the Garden of Eden, Paganism and Avalon, the name really being related to apples. Also, they have seeds and grow into such lovely trees, and everybody knows that I'm just about addicted to gardening. We had a family daytrip to Chimney Bluffs/Sodus Bay this summer and drove past enormous apple orchards on the way. We're almost technically in autumn here, so it's truly apple season now. (Don't forget about cider!)

Andersen, Hans Christian
I adore reading Andersen's stories and now wish to travel to Denmark, after reading a biography. My favorite story of his is "The Snow Queen." He was a bit more insecure than I'd like (if we knew each other I'm sure I'd often tell him to stop being so emo) but Lord, that man could write!

Andalusia
Al-Andalus. When I was in Spain our class took a three-day trip there. It wasn't long enough! We had about a day each in Seville and Granada; and only a few hours in Cordoba. Simply put, it was enchanting. As far as cities go I liked Seville more than Grananda but I couldn't get enough of the Alhambra, even though it was filled with hundreds of other tourists. Granada does have dozens of cave-like tea shops, which is where I had decent tea for the first time since getting to Spain. Cordoba was small but I think we should have been there longer. Me? Obsessed with medieval Spain? Not at all!

Anthropology
I had a minor in Anthropology in college and if they offered it as a major, I probably would have done that (even though it would be less practical than my English major). It's all about stories of people around the world, really. My crowning glory is that I was able to get away with spending an entire semester researching and writing about mermaid stories.

Academia
I've been graduated from university for about four months and I miss it already. Apart from the social aspect, we had such fun discussions in some of my English classes. It kept me improving Spanish as well. I worry about my mind getting rusty. (Not to mention missing my school's library!)

Autumn
Like I said earlier, we're almost there! I'm in love with every season as it arrives. In Autumn we have changing leaves, Samhain, apple cider, farmers markets with pumpkins, Indian corn, ghost stories, acorns, and the Robber Girl from "The Snow Queen." I shall have to live somewhere that has every season, for I would miss the changes so much.

Amber
I love amber jewelry. It has such a glow and sometimes things are frozen in it. I bought an amber ring in Istanbul (the shopkeeper literally pulled out a plastic bucket of silver-and-amber rings, and we dug through it until finding one that fit). There's a shop in Valencia specializing in Baltic amber, even though the Mediterranean and the Baltic are nowhere near each other.

Arabian Nights
There are so many translations, it's hard to decide on which to read. The story-within-a-story format is fantastic. When you think about it, the story's beginning is rather over-the-top: a man's wife cheats on him, so he decides to marry a new woman each night and kill her the following morning because no woman can be trusted. If you get a chance, watch the 2000 TV miniseries.

Atreyu
No, I'm not talking about the musical band. How can anybody not enjoy The Neverending Story? Poor Arteyu really does have an impossible journey throughout the first half of the book but he manages. And he's green! A pity they didn't go through with that in the movie.

Achren
I don't like Achren, per se, but I'm interested in her. She's one tough villian, acting superior to everything and everyone to the very end. If you ask, I'm fairy certain that Mr. Alexander based Achren on Arianrhod, and that she and Gwydion Have A Past.

Lloyd Alexander died May 17. I'm not sure what I'm more upset about--that he's actually dead, or that it was almost a week before I found out. I'll be over there in the corner, either crying or re-reading The Prydain Chronicles.

I was going to write him a letter this summer. I wrote him for the first time when I was little and he responded. Such a nice man.

Just now I was poking about in mythology some more. There's a Celtic myth called "The Tragic Story of the Children of Lir" (there are several versions of the title). It's rather long, but the main part is that Lir's (a king) four children (two sets of twins) are turned into swans by their stepmother, Aife. She curses them to remain in this form for 900 years. The ending is rather sad. (Let me know if you don't mind spoilers and I'll add that part.) Eilonwy's introduction interested me. This is a scene in The Book of Three , when she and Taran are talking:

"'Is--is Achren your mother?' Taran gasped and drew back fearfully.

"'Certainly not!" cried the girl. 'I am Eilonwy, daughter of Angharad, daughter of Regat, daughter of--oh, it's such a bother going through all that. My ancestors,' she said proudly, 'are the Sea People. I am of the blood of Llyr Half-Speech, the Sea King. Achren is my aunt, though sometimes I don't think she's really my aunt at all.'

"'Then what are you doing here?'

"'I said I live here,' Eilonwy answered. 'It must take a lot of explaining before you understand anything. My parents died and my kinsmen sent me here so Achren could teach me to be an enchantress. It's a family tradition, don't you see? The boys are war leaders, and the girls are enchantresses.'" (70)

I have no proof at all that Lir and Llyr are at all the same person but it's still an interesting idea. Also, the third book in the series is titled The Castle of Llyr . Makes me wonder if Eilonwy has cousins somewhere who are currently swans.

There is no such thing as loving stories too much.

Found another interesting  bit of information. It's an excerpt from An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs. (An excellent person in the field of folklore; too bad that she is dead. She had published several other books, if you're interested.)

"Tarans
"In the north-east of Scotland the spirits of babies who have died without baptism are called 'Tarans.'"

I very much doubt that this has to do with Lloyd Alexander's Taran but it is interesting, seeing as how he is an orphan and dying without being baptized could be considered a form of abandonment.