Off the prompt "cuddles."

ETA: For more recent work, see houseoftorres.

27 October 2008: Industrial Strength Tranquilizer, Eureka vid to the Austin Lounge Lizards. Wedding present for niqaeli. Premiered at vidukon 2008. 24.1MB avi.

18 August 2008: Highway Café of the Damned, Stargate SG-1 vid to the Austin Lounge Lizards. Co-vidded with niqaeli. Premiered at vividcon 2008. 24.6MB avi.

13 August 2007: Tokyo Sling: Remix, Weiß Kreuz vid to Smashmouth's Waste for keelieinblack and the vividcon 2007 Auction. 26.5MB avi.

4 September 2006: Miracle and Wonder, Star Wars original trilogy to Paul Simon's Boy in the Bubble. Blind remaster of baby's first vid. Wedding present for the high school best friend. 27.1MB avi.

16 August 2004: Change, Fight Club to the Getaway People. For cadetdru. Premiered at vividcon 2004. 30MB avi. There is also Commentary, 22mb mov, as of Nov 07.

16 August 2004: Shot in the Head, Touching Evil (US) to David Bowie's Seven Years in Tibet. Mostly done because the source was damn pretty. Premiered at vividcon '04. 13.5MB avi. Or

27 May 2003: Rain, Farscape to Paul McCartney's Mamunia. A serendipitous shift in the weather. For ysobel. 8.4MB avi.

11 March 2003: American Tune, Andromeda (the downfall of Rhade) to Paul Simon. My least favorite of my own vids, but I know that it works for some people, so. 30.8MB avi.

17 February 2003: I Want You, Witchblade (Irons's obsession with Pez and the blade) to Elvis Costello. For boniblithe. 54.5MB avi because it is an effing six and a half minute vid, but I have to say, this encode gets the luminosity to viewable levels.

15 November 2002: Kryptonite Andromeda (Dylan/Rhade) to Three Doors Down. First vid that saw web (remastered for the bits that weren't out on DVD yet originally). Premiered at vividcon '04. 30.5MB avi.

Does anyone have any recipe recommendations for scallops?

...ooh. Maybe I'll do the lemon pasta recipe with scallops as the meat. (originally called for shrimp.)

So it's about 8 hours to my exam, I have had about 4 hours sleep, and all the parts of my brain have voted no on sleep, but this has left me wrung out and not very awake, so I'm giving up on being productive today and am basically letting Loki and Darcy have free run on the hamster wheel.

I am trying to figure out what to do with my tumblr (julstorres); I broke down and made a personal one a few days ago on the theory that I wasn't using the Specific Purposes one for its Specific Purpose and I might if I just had a personal one to personally stare at all the pretty pictures with. Right now I am mostly reblogging things that make me happy. You will be shocked to know this includes Chris Evans grinning, fanart of Lady Captain America, and Loki and Darcy's actors hugging each other. I would ask tumblr what I should do with my tumblr but niq is the only person who follows me so it seems a bit silly.

(Complaint about tumblr: I feel like many of the common phrases that have cropped up out of tumblr culture like "all the feels" and "because reasons" are terrible because they let people be lazy about expressing themselves. Also because they're frequently grammatically grotesque, but I've decided to assume that the E in "crey" is in fact the missing E from tumblr and necessarily had to go somewhere.)

The Loki and Darcy fic has done such weird things to my fannish interactions. In the first place, holy crap what the fuck I've touched kinkmemes with a ten foot pole (ie, rp socks). In the second place, somehow people keep asking me for prompts. And by "people" I mean "two of them" but it's VERY STRANGE SOMEHOW.

God I want a nap. I am so terrified of taking a nap.

I should call work. And the electric company. And my dad. Those--those are calls I should make today. The rest of everything can wait, really it can. ETA: okay, have done 2/3, not in prime time for 3 yet, and also I may cry now, I asked my dad to be my back-up bang on the door get me to the exam alarm./ETA

Tomorrow I will have cope.

669 words.

( so this probably qualifies as the first scene of the plot-device-turns-Steve-into-a-woman story, fair warning for medium asinine Tony )

avengers_bang

Sign-ups are until Jan 1, so I have time to think about this but--

The word count is only 15K, I am pretty damn sure I will hit that with the Assembly Con story (and if I don't, I could start writing Part II: The Wedding? but I'm pretty sure I will, have I mentioned the outline + first scene is 11,000 approximately, jfc), I actually think it would be super awesome to get some art for this story (there's fanart mentioned in it that alas I cannot draw, though I was tempted to gamely try), and if I don't just... write the whole thing in a surprise word vomit in the next month, having a deadline a few months down the line might get me to stick with it.

(Is there any ethical issue about signing up for a big bang with something you've already started writing? Although to be fair, I didn't start writing it until after sign-ups were already open...)

Advice?

ETA: So that's not happening, because grey_bard will be continuing to dork about on the kinkmemes.

So um.

You may or may not be aware (god, do you people read me at all *G*) that there is an awesome fic about Darcy and Loki writing on the for-them-RPF Avengers kinkmeme for which I asked if I could write more fic for, because fanfic for fanfic about meta fic where they write fic about themselves is THE BEST THING EVAR AMIRITE? And the author told me yes so I've been indulging this bunny about Loki and Darcy going to a convention together.

Well naturally it's not enough just to write it, grey_bard and I needed to make LJs for Darcy and Loki.

So! Who has an LJ they still use and wants to be Darcy's friend? She is onthenose and as long as you're not Phil Coulson, she'll friend you back.

(You can also friend Loki at 3791111 but he might just laugh at you.)

I just attempted to select "Tony Stark" as a mood rather than an icon. *facepalm*

Okay, I have no idea whether this particular story will ever see the light of day so I just need to complain, COPIOUSLY, that TONY STARK IS FUCKING INSANE. At one point Steve ends up eavesdropping on Tony and Pepper gossiping about him and *flail* them, how things are going between him and Tony (the sex is apparently not as exciting as Tony would like, but on the other hand he does acknowledge that Steve HAS actually put people through walls literally and that would probably be something to avoid, no matter how much he likes the idea of getting fucked through the wall. or floor. or mattress, if you're going to be vanilla. Oh fucking Tony, what is even wrong with you).

When Tony realizes Steve's been listening, he doesn't seem embarrassed or bothered (other than by the fact that Pepper was planning to take Steve out to lunch where Tony couldn't use JARVIS to eavesdrop on them gossiping about him) and in fact he's like "Well, of course you'd be interested" and tells JARVIS to set up a subscription feed basically, to drop surveillance audio in Steve's inbox anytime Tony talks about him. And Steve facepalms, because WHAT DO YOU EVEN, and Tony is like, "What? I mean, I did it for you because you wouldn't know to ask, and that's not fair, I could be pulling all your conversations," but the thing is, he's not actually? Like, yeah, he totally wants to hear what Pepper is going to tell Steve about him, but on a daily basis, no, he's not actually that much of a stalkertastic spy boyfriend. And when he did it he was being halfway sarcastic and halfway serious and Steve can't actually figure out if Tony means for him to listen to all these files or not because what sane person would do that.

(In a related incident, Pepper tries to give Steve her privacy override with JARVIS so he can have time not under Tony-accessible surveillance; Tony is like, "No, that won't work, that's keyed to your voice signature. JARVIS, generate a full set of overrides for Steve and send it to his inbox." This whole time is really weird for Steve and his burgeoning affair with email.)

But so for ages Steve gets just random snippets in his email of like, Tony asking JARVIS where Steve is in the house or if he's already had lunch or whatever, that he doesn't feel any guilt about listening to because it's not like eavesdropping on gossip but it does kind of make him smile, how often Tony thinks about him and checks on him when he's in the middle of other shit down in his workshop or whatever. It's like when you save that one voicemail that's just something dopey like "I'll see you there at 8, love ya babe" because you want to have it in your phone to listen to whenever, except that Tony is inadvertently leaving Steve about fourteen dopey voicemails a day, and I say inadvertently because Tony doesn't think about it at all, pretty much totally forgot he did that.

So then later in the story they undergo kind of a sea change in their relationship and there's a phone call to Pepper where Tony flails about everything--commitment, identity, the sex, the fucking sex, Steve continues to be a little bemused at how frank Tony is about his sex life, with his ex. And this whole phone call lands in Steve's inbox and this is the first time since that time he was sitting on the stairs eavesdropping that he feels like maybe he's listening to something he's not supposed to be listening to. Except--Tony did this, right? Tony means him to hear this. Is Steve supposed to respond? He really feels like he should respond to Tony's freak-out, even though it wasn't at him directly.

Steve ends up trying to talk to Tony, to apologize for some of the stuff that Tony was freaking out about, but to Pepper and not to him, and Tony realizes pretty much immediately why Steve knows all this shit and is like, "Huh, I didn't think you were listening to those files," and Steve's like "Do you want me to stop, I'll stop," and Tony's like, "No, whatever, I know how to use the privacy override," and pretty much he means it, he means he'll adjust to if he really doesn't want Steve to hear something he's saying he'll block him and the rest of the time, well, he'll be expecting Steve to hear.

Only Steve pretty much figured that was weird, he shouldn't have been listening, Tony didn't expect him to be listening because who does that, and he should really stop. So he does. I think possibly he can't quite bring himself to tell JARVIS to stop the feed, because, you know, even if he's not listening to them it's sort of nice to see the stack of 15-second files from Tony checking on him all day, but yeah, he's not opening any of the files.

So naturally this is when Tony expects Steve to be listening to everything and doesn't understand why Steve is IGNORING all the important EMOTIONAL STUFF he figured out talking to Pepper (because Pepper is totally the sane one). And, just. His wibble. And getting more pissed off at Steve and not saying it to his face and expecting Steve to find out why he's annoyed from him venting to other people and Steve is still not listening to the fucking surveillance audio because he doesn't think he's supposed to because who even does that, and he never should have been in the first place.

I am not sure at what point Tony figures out WHY communication has broken down, or if Steve gets it first once Tony gets pissed enough to say something to his face, but jesus fucking christ on a balloon. I just. TONY, WHAT IS EVEN WRONG WITH YOU. I cannot say this enough. WHAT IS EVEN WRONG WITH YOU, TONY. WHAT.

So. Yeah. I just needed to get that off my chest. TONY. WHAT.

Astonishingly, I have posted a yuletide letter in a timely fashion. Like, before assignments go out, even!

This year I requested a bunch of books--Dancing Meteorite and Stolen Law, which are YA scifi, Perilous Gard, which is YA historical fantasy (a retelling of Tam Lin), and the Harbinger Trilogy, which is RPG tie-in scifi by Diane Duane, who makes everything she touches awesome.

All my requested characters are female characters this year! And all my fandoms are tiny, some to the point of non-existence! Although I saw someone else had requested Dancing Meteorite and Stolen Law when I was checking the list for what to offer, doing my sign-up. So I am kind of excited that someone knows what the hell those are and there's an outside chance of two stories for the fandom!

juls: *reading fanfic* Sometimes metaphors are just painful.
niq: nay, tortured?
juls: "Steve's dick is like a brand against his hip, desire a burning coal in his belly."

I don't remember how large swathes of this conversation even WENT, we were laughing so hard. But I do know I noted that the first half could have been okay except for the second half, that was just too much fire, and if dicks were on fire I didn't want them anywhere near me. niq went to the smell of burning flesh place and I replied that bbq was not sexy and she asked, "What about bbq sauce?" which. Look you have to know us, okay. Oh my god. What was that *even.*

Anyway, that is a sexual experience I want no part of, and I am trying to figure out if I can ignore that sentence and read the rest of the fic or if I just need to stop now and cut my losses.

ETA: This, I think this is the relevant link. Either that explains everything or nothing about us, I can't even tell.

So the other day Steve tweaked me about something, and I said, whoa, wait, what?

For the longest time, Ivan Vorpatril has been the only character in my head who's had enough independence to have his own opinions, and notice and respond to me, and it was largely a function of what his personality is--he's a slinker, so what I noticed was he kept trying to slink off and hide from me. That and the intelligence.

The Steve in my head has apparently woken up enough to have... similar independence. And I didn't notice for the longest time because he didn't try to slink off--but that's not who he is. He's nice! He's a sweetie. Unlike Ivan, he doesn't hate me. So I didn't notice that his compliance wasn't the moldable plasticity of the ordinary kind of character I shape until he got comfortable enough to drop his sense of humor on me. It's subtle! Kind of wry. Usually self-deprecating. Except if he knows you well enough he'll nudge you the way he'd nudge himself. (See also: "Don't do anything stupid until I get back" "How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you.")

Seriously, most of my characters don't talk back! And Steve doesn't really do backtalk, but, he's decided he's hung out in my head long enough to start teasing me for my foibles. So that's apparently a thing now.

*laugh* I was talking to niqaeli about it and the differences between how the Steve in my head and the Ivan in my head behave towards me, and we rapidly concluded that no shit Ivan runs for the hills when he can and Steve doesn't feel the need--we do hilariously awful things to Ivan because we delight in watching him squirm, whereas we do cute, fun things to Steve because he grins like a loon and it's fantastic. This icon, this icon is TOTALLY the world I keep writing for Steve. The future is awesome! I keep introducing him to interesting people. Some of them are robots! Or centaurs! Or his soulmate! Why exactly would he run away?

Somewhere in my head Ivan is sulking, because there's a new chewtoy as independent as he is, who has somehow drawn a better lot in plot bunnies and has no interest in coming to hide in a corner with him.

So I signed up for that. I'm less concerned about how will I manage to write something for it given that my dear santa letter hit 2K. I, I kind of want to post it. As an illustration of my own ridiculousness.

On the other hand: it is entirely probable that I'll have a plotbunny run away on me and try to hit 10K. Won't that be fun, kids!

I enjoy playing the google ads game, where I look at what ads google puts on fanfiction I write myself in email and go "I don't see how this connects unless it is a rather unlikely plot suggestion." Today's plot suggestion: I think gmail is rooting for Stephanie Rogers and Natasha Stark to get married, as there was an ad for Women-Marrying-Women weddings. I've read that story, Google! I could link you!

awesome, standard curse of the light pants

Is there a Steve/Tony or just general Avengers holiday fic exchange?

Does anyone want to talk about the how is this even my life fucking epic plotbunny of Steve/Tony BDSM soul-bonded AU I got saddled with last night that I have already written 1200 words of, while at work, FML, I do not even know, it started off ridiculous but Tony has ISSUES, seriously I think I wrote emoporn, how did I even? It started off with this story, which is a cute little BDSM soul-bonded AU PWP with the summary "As soon as they meet, Tony and Steve imprint on each other as dom and sub. Steve doesn't know what to make of this" and practically off that one line I spawned this whole thing about who's the dom and who's the sub? WAIT, WHAT IF THEY CAN'T AGREE? CLEARLY THEY WILL HAVE TO SPEND FORTY THOUSAND WORDS COMPETING FOR TOP DOM. (I ended up emailing the author asking for permission to remix. Which she granted nigh instantaneously. Oh my god now I have no excuse not to write it. Other than my burning shame.) Also I have already had deep thoughts on Tony in a BDSM context and he's fucking ridiculous, I know this about him, he doesn't feel like he's doing it right unless there's all kinds of props and shit. Which is not entirely Steve's scene. Also I've decided that in BDSM AU land, Steve is a switch but in the past has only subbed for women. There may possibly be cross-dressing in this fic, why do you ask. (Wow. Pepper is totally Steve's type. Steve would totally be on his knees for Pepper if he didn't have a fucking soul-bond to Tony.)

If this is something you think you might want to hear more about, tell me your IM (I can do AIM or gchat) and I'll come find you.

ETA: so nobody? basically nobody. Okay! Good to know that the audience for this fic will be approximately ZERO when I ever get around to posting it. FML.

ETA2: No, I know, I'm being dramatic because I cannot even believe I am writing this.

ETA3: Ooh, I should check Marvel wikia to see if there's a Kinkworld. I mean, probably not? Comics Authority and all? but I should CHECK.

While I am not formally participating in festivids, I was song-hunting for *cough* never you mind just now, all will be revealed later, and I found oh my god I want someone to make me this vid:

Johnny Saucepan by Moxy Früvous: I want an Iron Chef America vid to this song so bad. Food! Kitchen Stadium! Blast chillers! The Chairman doing backflips! Alton Brown salivating! Tell me it wouldn't be awesome.

So um. If you had some spare time, and stuff. Also I could totally hook you up with the song if wanted to hear it.

So, okay, you know how Marvel Movieverse, aka Earth-199999, is: Iron Man, Thor, Cap, Hulk, Avengers, but not X-Men or Spider-Man, those are not getting the tie-in Phil Coulson in your movie?

It was bothering me that searching Marvel movieverse or Marvel movies pulled up everything, including lots and lots and lots of XMFC, which, you know, weren't tagged Marvel movieverse, they were tagged X-Men First Class, but they got wrangled in. I submitted a support request about it, and AO3 responded by creating a new tag:

Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, which of course no one has used yet, but if you tagged for the individual films in the series, it sorts in. So I guess--keep tagging for the individual films, or use their new Marvel Avengers Movies Universe tag, but know that "Marvel movieverse" is going to continue to be treated as a general catch-all and not be separated from the X-Men or Spider-man series in AO3 wrangling.

(I would vote using Earth-199999 or Marvel 199999, since I know people do use 1610, 616, and 3490 at times, but um, apparently most people didn't go geek out at the universe numbering system like me. And no one has tagged 199999 on AO3 at all. I AM A GIANT GEEK. MOVING ON.)

Touring fangirl mode engaged for February; niqaeli and I have tickets to and hotel reservations for Escapade, upon the invitation of our dear friends jetpack_monkey, echan, diannelamerc and lizbetann, who were like, "You'd want to come with us, right?" when I visited them last month (my god, was it just last month, it feels AGES ago).

But *plaintive whine* is the, will the, while the Escapade site has the 2012 dates up, nothing about programming or um the vid show looks like it's current. Or even for last year's. So um. Where does one find out about that sort of thing?

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )

fan_eunice did a "tell me about your WIPs!" post and I um, may have written an astonishing amount about Miss Hornblower, who I still do not expect to actually write out, but I figured I'd post this amazingly long comment here for interest and archival or something.

I am currently watching Hornblower (short fandom introduction if you don't know it: Age of Sail emomoppet attains admiralty, to own surprise. Series of books covers his whole career, series of like 8 A&E movies covers midshipman to some of his captaincy, and he is played by the pretty Ioan Gruffudd, with Jamie Bamber and/or Paul McGann for a sidekick) for comfort and I've woken up three-year-old bunnies about Miss Hornblower.

Miss Hornblower is a very rash thing Hornblower did to get his men out of a scrape when he was, oh, approximately an acting lieutenant. I have read entirely too much about Regency women's clothing (the style was high-waisted dresses, essentially empire waist, which meant nobody was really corseting, there was no emphasis on distorting the actual waist. Women's most restrictive undergarment was the short stays, which usually didn't even have bone and people I'm reading keep comparing them to the corsets in HOW MIRACULOUSLY UNLIKE THEY ARE when as far as I can tell what short stays actually were, were bras. In the pre-elastic underthings era. I mean, yes, you had to have some way to fit it on, so there were like 3-4 holes worth of laces, but honestly tightening the laces on short stays? in nooooo way like doing it on a corset. LUCKY HORATIO, I DID NOT WANT TO WRITE CORSETING ANYWAY). Anyway I think his men are slight a-croggle at his get-up and he is like "How is this different from other forms of subterfuge we have employed" (because Hornblower has on at least one occasion taken a French ship by sneaking up on some French soldiers and stealing their uniforms; and on another occasion on a ship they'd had captured "forgot" to take down the French flag until after he'd shot up three French ships attacking his captain's ship--neither of which are strictly fair play) and Styles--probably Styles, the films have Matthews and Styles as men who serve under him for the whole series, which is more character continuity than the more realistic books had--Styles says that is perhaps a bit different! And Hornblower snaps that it is only his dignity on the line so perhaps they can shut up and let him get on rescuing them.

What scrape he is rescuing them from is still rather nebulous in my head. I am just a-squee at Hornblower in a dress. I am thinking it is an intrigue of some sort, rather than an out-and-out military action. And then their captain, Pellew, shows up--and then, I wrote a lot about this at the time, it went approximately like so.

But then there's more. Because Pellew keeps "corresponding" with Miss Hornblower by handing his young officer missives to send to his "sister." Somewhere I have a note about Hornblower having invented internet anonymity via pink stationery. Just. Facepalm. It is... sort of... an... unacknowledged, unconsummated affaire de coeur? That somehow never gets past the bounds of impropriety because in the back of his head Hornblower is always semi-chaperoning his "sister," watching Pellew for behavior he would, you know, have to insist Pellew desist or do the honorable thing if there actually were a sister. I mean, this is complicated by the fact that as well as Miss Hornblower not actually being a woman or having an existence beyond the few hours Horatio spends in character now and again, Pellew is married. With children close to Horatio's age. (It never comes up in the films and I don't know if it does in the books but Sir Pellew is a real historical figure. Who named his son and heir "Pownoll Bastard Pellew" and damned if I wouldn't like an explanation for THAT. I imagine either the dates of his naval service conflict with dates of pregnancy, or it was a very odd comment on the character of his own mentor, Philemon Pownoll, after whom he presumably named his son.)

But I have this whole thing built in my head where only three or four intensely loyal people are in on Horatio's occasional bouts of drag when they are in a port where plausible deniability can be applied to Miss Hornblower dining with Pellew. Until Horatio is getting married (a thing that was more or less a disaster in canon, not least because he was pretty damn married to Bush, his XO) and Miss Hornblower tries to have an encoded conversation with Pellew about 'her' impending wedding and how she can no longer have dinners with admirals and Pellew can't get a direct answer about how Miss Hornblower feels about her fiancé(e) (because does Hornblower love Maria? or have just a vast sense of duty? it is unclear and kind of failboat) and Pellew is understandably CONCERNED and trying to ask if there is some reason (Miss) Hornblower is COMPELLED to wed without breaking the illusion of talking to the sister and not his officer and Hornblower just gets even more upset about it, because my god here they are admitting to INAPPROPRIATE FEELINGS FOR ONE ANOTHER, OBLIQUELY AND BY IMPLICATION, IT IS SO TERRIBLE.

Hornblower's angst is sort of epic and tragic and ridiculous. *nails hand to forehead*

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )

I am looking for music videos (like, the ones the bands make, not the ones we make) involving fantasy imagery (fairies, monsters, unicorns, swords and sorcery, vampires, or even potentially nonmagical period costume dress). You may assume I have already seen all of Lady Gaga's (mermaids! deathsheads! monsters, unicorns, and so on.) Recommendations, please!

---

unrelatedly, i have more steve and tony bunnies (my life, seriously). like, one where steve finds out about steve/tony fanfiction and keeps sending tony links that are like, my list of recs/anti-recs, but from steve's pov ("In this one you're a vampire! and I'm an asshole?" "Oh my God we are both morons in this one, it's actually kind of creepy how stupid we are" "they made you a supervillain! but they gave Pepper an Iron Man suit, which is awesome, really") and tony's reaction is to link steve to a youtube of 'the internet is for porn.' and possibly not on youtube actual sex tape(s) of tony. other hilarious corners of the internet steve could find: apparently in the porn business non-fanfiction side of things, cap/wonder woman is a... reasonably popular pairing. dude I don't even know don't ask how i found it, i burned the browser history. and steve's complaints are "she's a fictional character! and we're both in full costume, how do they think we could.... do it?" oh steve.

also if things keep up as they have been in my personal life, i'm going to be inflicting the wonders of modern dentistry on steve as displacement or catharsis or something.

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )

From decontextual

( tweets may contain spoilers, coarse language, echo bazaar, etc )