ABOUT ME: I am a black nerd and proud of it! I am also a huge bookworm.

My favorite books are Dune by Frank Herbert, anything by Tamora Pierce, the Sevenwaters trilogy by Juliet Marillier, the Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey, the Dark Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, the Mercedes Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, the Sword of Truth series, the Scarlet & the White Wolf trilogy by Kirby Crow, the Pern Chronicles by Anne McCaffrey, the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, Cold Magic by Kate Elliot, Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, the Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Caravan, the Last Herald-Mage series by Mercedes Lackey, Deerskin by Robin McKinley, the Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, A Ring of Endless Light by Madelein L'Engle, Le Comte de Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the Red Tent by Anita Diamant, the Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, anything by David Sedaris. I read mainly fantasy or sci-fi.

UPDATE: I used to be called "le-plume-beni," but I recently changed my name to "danceofflame7" to be consistent with my other fandom names on AO3, LJ, IJ, Delicious, and y!Gallery (which are simply "danceofflame").

MY FANDOMS AND PAIRINGS

In order of favorite fandom & in order of preferred pairing within each fandom.

Harry Potter (bottom!Harry *ONLY*)

- LV-TR/HP

- DM/HP

- SS/HP

- FG/HP

- JP/HP

- LM/HP

- RL/HP

- SB/HP

Merlin (bottom!Merlin *ONLY*)

- Arthur/Merlin

X-Men: First Class (bottom!Charles *ONLY*)

- Erik/Charles

Naruto (uke!Naruto *ONLY*)

- SasuNaru

- KakaNaru

- ItaNaru

Star Trek (2009) (bottom!Kirk *ONLY*)

- Spock/Kirk

GRAMMAR/SPELLING PET PEEVES

Widely common grammar issues or misspelled words that irritate me.

1. dominate vs. dominant

- When did this mistake start to become so common? I wish I knew the first person who propagated this mistake, so that I could send them a very rude message. Ugh. Dominate is a verb; as in "to dominate." For example, "Tim dominated him completely." Dominant is the correct form, as in "she is my Dominant" or "he is much more dominant than I am." They're not even pronounced the same - "dominate" is pronounced "DAW - min - eight" and dominant is "daw - min - UHNT." Therefore this is what I'm reading: "He was trying to impress his ['DAW - min - eight']." The noun versions are "dominance" and "domination." The differences are in nuance; dominance is one's power, influence, or control over someone or something, and domination is the exercise of that control or power over someone or something. It is the description versus the action. So "dominant" is from "dominance," and "dominate" comes from "domination." EX. "Exerting one's dominance" vs. "world domination."

2. There/their/they're

- I make this mistake when I'm writing in a hurry, so I'm more sympathetic about this one. However a beta should catch this one. "There" denotes places for the most part, ex. "Lisa is there" or "there is the remote!" "Their" is plural possessive, as in "That is their table." "They're" is probably the easiest but the hardest to remember when writing quickly. It is a contraction between "they" and "are." So if you can re-write a statement as "[They are] going to the store," then "they're going to the store" is correct.

3. It's vs. its

- "It's" is similar to "they're" in the sense that it's a contraction of "it" and "is," for example "It's raining." This is the direct opposite of when you normally add "'s" if you have a name such as "Ben's jacket" or "the dog's collar." The possessive form of it is "its," like "Its color was grey."

4. Lie vs. Lay (and their conjugations)

- A person lies down; you lay an object down (in present tense). Two easy, silly ways of remembering this are: "let sleeping dogs lie" and "lay it on me."

- It starts to get confusing when you conjugate them. The past tense of "lie" is NOT "lied" ("lied" is the past tense of "to lie," as in telling a falsehood) but rather "lay." So "Jared is tired so he lies down" becomes "Jared was tired so he lay down." The past tense of "lay" is "laid," so "They lay their pens down when they're done" becomes "they laid their pens down when they were done."

- And then there are the past participles (for a complete explanation of past participles, see Grammar Girl). For "lie," the past participle is "lain," so that "He lies down" becomes "he has lain down" in present perfect. For "lay" it is still "laid," so you can say "I haven't laid it down."

- I know it's confusing. The present and past tenses are honestly what I am primarily concerned with.

5. Your vs. you're

- "Your" is possessive. "That's your blanket" or "isn't that your mom?" Whereas "you're" is another contraction, this time between "you" and "are." If you can rewrite it with "you" and "are," then "you're" is correct, for ex. "[You are] in trouble" can become "you're in trouble."

6. The dash

- It's being terribly overused. Many of these dashes can be replaced with commas and parentheses, people. Variety is good.

I know I'm being a bit of a bitch, but these errors (that are mainly the responsibility of betas in my opinion) really take away from a story. The more I see them, the more I find myself editing the text in my head, and before you know it I've completely lost track of what's going on. Please bring grammatically correct English back to fanfiction. Or introduce it, in some fandoms. :-)

7. "Person X and I" vs. "Person X and me"

Recently I've been seeing grammar being supposedly corrected... incorrectly. For example, "If it weren't for me and Person X" is corrected by another character as "Person X and I." WRONG. The singular grammatically correct form is "If it weren't for me." If you are including someone else, the correct way to say it is "If it weren't for Person X and me." Now, if the singular statement was something like "I went to play in the woods," then adding another person would be "Person X and I went to play in the woods." There is nothing worse than when someone smugly corrects another person and is wrong.

8. Who vs. Whom

Who correlates with he/she/they/I; whom correlates with him/her/them/me.

To check, re-write the sentence (or hypothetically answer the query) with a pronoun. Ex. [Who/whom] should have done the dishes? — He should have done the dishes. Therefore, “Who should have done the dishes” is correct. Ex. 2. To [who/whom] does this coat belong? — That coat belongs to her. Therefore, “To whom does this coat belong” is correct.