Off the prompt "cuddles."

not dead yet

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 23:05:24 GMT

all evidence to the contrary i am not dead yet. I know a couple of people dropped me in their annual prune of inactive journals so I figured i would say that much even if I don't have the energy for a longer entry right now. *waves*

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fullmetal

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 23:28:29 GMT

made a status update about my personal life, one bit was about how I've watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 2.5 times in as many months. brought the fannish blathering to a public post.

FMA/B is currently my primary fandom! I've been reading a ton of fic--mostly Roy/Ed, although I also read some Riza/Roy when it came up in the 'bottom Roy' tag because lolyes. I have two main plotbunnies I want to write--one is a specific idea about Roy being FTM and getting an automail dick (at Ed's urging, because Ed is an automail evangelist) with lots of headcanons about how automail works and is installed. The other is like, the kitchen sink plotbunny, where Roy is extremely poly and the polycule includes almost everyone in the conspiracy to make him Fuhrer, and also Roy semi-accidentally catches Hughes's soul in the phone system and Ed helps him grow a body to put it in, and also Ed is working through being grey-ace and agender and trying to have a relationship with Roy while Roy is trying to very gently ask him what he even wants, because so many mixed signals. The automail dick plotbunny is pretty firmly in the FMAB continuity but I love FMA '03 a LOT and have been working with a frankencanon for the kitchen sink story (fitting? the canon is also a kitchen sink?).

Features of the frankencanon: yes, Roy did kill the Rockbells, because angst. Also Ed killed Greed 1.0, because angst. Ed and Al met the Hugheses earlier and delivered Elysia on Ed's birthday because I love that story and it's weird to me that in FMAB Hughes didn't meet them until Ed was 15. Also keeping the assessment duel from FMA because it amuses me. Roy was raised in a brothel and studied alchemy under Hawkeye's father, because yessssss backstory.

Decided, randomly, Martel (who died in BOTH versions canonically) gets to live in frankencanon because Dublith went down more like FMA but Ed and Al at Liore with the nastiness with Bradley and Archer that resulted in Martel's death in that timeline--instead they went to Briggs and no one was ever stabbed and bled out inside Al. Trying to decide which set of Kimblee's chimeras Martel would get along with better. Maybe she ends up chilling with Heinkel and Darius and Team Greedling--maybe after the unfortunate incident with lizard friend, Ling convinces Greed *not* to kill snakelady friend and uses her to help Greed get his memories back.

Probably going with Father and Xerxes over Dante and ???? but like, I'm super sad about losing backstory for Lust and losing the existence of bb!Wrath. One of the unanswered questions I had (to everyone who says that FMAB answers all the questions where FMA doesn't, lolwhut) was what DO you get out of the gate when you try to raise the dead, if it's not the person you were trying to raise? And I have a theory about that, that uh. Might lend itself to the possibility of bb!Wrath, although he'd need another name, he wouldn't properly be one of the sins at all. Deeply undecided about the two major aspects of Ed's status at the end of FMAB for the purposes of post-series fic (ie, the alchemy and the automail) but I have noticed that many writers are like "Ed still has an automail arm because I say so" so like lol I don't even necessarily have to think that hard, although if I'm playing with bb!Wrath then straight up Ed's arm might not be available (or even if he got it back in the fight, he might be guilted into giving it back to bb!Wrath and living with his automail, since he's used to it). There's also parts of Promised Day that will go differently based on the way the plotbunny is shaping the timeline, ie, Roy has been working on bringing Hughes back so he's technically already accessed the gate and is a full sacrifice on Promised Day, not just a sacrifice candidate; also less obsessed with making Envy suffer extensively because he gets Hughes back.

I also have a couple of vid bunnies! one is the resurrected vid bunny I had back in 2005 about Roy after Hughes's death, to Green Day's Holiday, which could easily work to either canon. or both. or i might *yet* make a constructed reality AU vid about Roy's attempt at human transmutation. The second is a crossroads deal with the devil song that I wanted to vid about how Ed ends up working with all these people who were or should have been enemies on Promised Day, up to and including the Thing in the Gate itself. I started listening to the band that wrote the song a fair amount and now I'm gravitating to vidding a different song of theirs, called Hangman (although it contains some.... possibly Latin, possibly gibberish parts that the band's fandom's translation of makes little to no sense, which might make it hard). But it's such a good atmospheric song for the epic tragedy of it all.

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more fannish stuff

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 01:08:03 GMT

I got obsessed with Murderbot back in May when the new novel came out (some relevant tumblr posts, because I've been posting more there: exploding with feelings about ART and Murderbot and how they misunderstand each other, and a conversation about usage of names and pronouns by artificial intelligences in Murderbot); I want to vid it because of course any book I love I'm like "I want to vid this now lack of video source be damned." Anyway I have a huge collection of space/robot/cyborg/AI movies and shows I've been watching with an eye to collecting material for a Murderbot vid.

Gravity: tbh i spent a good 2/3 of this movie pondering what heist the Ocean siblings were trying to pull in space. also i am SO DEEPLY OVER "woman takes off space suit, wanders around in tank top and underwear." what a weird pointlessly objectifying trope. (Is it older than Alien? I mean, I remember it very vividly from Alien.) Also she's supposed to be wearing NASA space suit and like, that has specialized temperature-controlling full-body long underwear under it. Yes, this movie did make me spite research astronaut underwear. Also, did you know it takes like 45 minutes to get a spacesuit on, with help, it's practically impossible to get one on without help, so that scene where she goes outside in time for the space debris shower in under 7 minutes is just a bit beyond credulity.

Ad Astra: needs more Ruth Negga. There was a bit when she had just been introduced and some lackey is like "you can go now we're talking about things above your clearance level" and i was just like excuse you??? you're not even credited??? Parts of this were just headdesk. Like Brad Pitt's character (how did Rusty get separated from Danny and Debbie anyway? poor guy) sneaks onto a mission he's been banned from and in the first five minutes manages to ACCIDENTALLY kill everyone onboard. I was just like. Wow. I cannot make myself care about you. I had a really hard time figuring out when this was supposed to be set, and I finally decided it occurred approximately in the present but in an alternate timeline where basically every space probe or robot we sent out was actually humans/colonization. Mars was colonized when we sent Curiosity and Sojourner and Spirit and so on. The mission Brad Pitt's dad was on? Basically Voyager.

Edge of Tomorrow: funnily enough I didn't know about the time travel/loop element of this and was highly entertained! Also there is a chance I will end up casting Murderbot as the back of Tom Cruise's head because he's been in a fair amount of high-budget schlock and likes to do stunts that would be more readily attributable to someone with construct strength and speed.

Europa Report: I'd already seen this but decided to rewatch it, and I freaking love this movie, highly recommend if you've never seen it. It's a faux documentary of a mission sent to Europa. They encounter a lot of technical difficulties (parts of it are kind of space horror, a lot of characters die) but they are incredibly dedicated to scientific advancement and learning new thing and have this joy about finding life on another planet/moon.

Tau: Netflix movie wherein a dude is kidnapping like homeless people and sex workers (your basic serial killer move of going for the disposable people) so he can map their brains to make AI. There's a back of the neck glowing implant that's useful to my purposes. The kidnap victims stage an escape and most of them get killed (including the black guy, OH MY GOD) so the rest of the movie is a weird power play thing between Scientist Kidnapper and Attractive Blonde Girl. Tau is the name of an AI the guy already built, but finds imperfect, so it's limited to running his house and isn't allowed access to information. Scientist Kidnapper routinely puts Tau in charge of his prisoner so of course she bonds with Tau and gets it to help her in exchange for telling it about the world outside the house and looking up answers to things it wants to know and isn't allowed to read for itself. Ends in satisfying explosions.

Falling Skies: post-apocalyptic series about a semi-official militia of survivors of an alien invasion, starring Noah Wyle as scruffy hot dad protagonist. I'm about 2 seasons in (they're short seasons) and it's actually a lot more frequently about humans fighting amongst themselves than about humans vs. aliens. The mechs might be useful to me (combat bots?) so I keep skimming for big battles. The aliens enslave teenagers with a biotech slug they attach to their spines; unfortunately it is waaaay too big and organic looking to work for what I need, although the kids who have been freed and just have spikes sticking out of their backs might be useful to me. I have a complaint about an antagonist from like the second episode--the plot of that episode was a scout team gets caught by a post-apocalyptic gang of assholes who are like "society's over let's just rape and kill our way to the end" and I was like, oh no, they cast the leader of the gang too pretty, they're gonna keep him aren't they, and sure enough IMDB says he's in 48/50 episodes. I keep being like GOD why do they think they can make the murdering racist rapist a likeable character? And then I remind myself that I do know of post apocalyptic fiction where the good guys just don't put up with that shit: in Meg Elison's Road to Nowhere series, of which I've read Book of the Unnamed Midwife and Book of Etta, there's a lot of post-apocalyptic rape gang bullshit, but the town of Nowhere basically just decided they weren't having it. When people come to trade and offer to sell them their rape slaves, Nowhere executes the rapists and frees the slaves. People who responded to the apocalypse by enslaving and raping other people don't get any passes, they just get dead. So sometimes I watch Falling Skies and think to myself how if the pretty gang leader had showed up in those books, he'd just be dead. "well he saved so and so's life" he's a rapist, shoot him in the head. "he can cook!" don't care he's a rapist kill him. no excuses.

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yard sale

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 04:48:49 GMT

Ordinarily this lot would go directly to Goodwill and that was my plan before everything got shut down but we've had this box sitting in our room for a month and a half now and echan asked me to do something with it, so here's a handful of stuff that if you want it, I will send it to you for the cost of shipping + $1-5 per item, whatever we agree is reasonable. Obvs you should be careful with incoming packages and wash all clothes you order online, but no one in our household has been sick, if you are concerned about that.

Clothing (of various adult sizes, because echan and I are shaped very differently):

Ododos brand leggings, size US 2XL (per their size chart, waist 38"), in a black-with-white streak pattern. polyester/spandex, secret pocket. New enough to still have the tag on.

Ododos brand yoga pants, size US L (per their size chart, waist 32"), in a black-with-white streak pattern. polyester/spandex, secret pocket.

Amazing Sports brand leggings, no size info on label, waist about 35" unstretched, space/constellation/nebula pattern. polyester/spandex.

champion knit workout pants, size M, waist about 32" unstretched. Black with grey edging. Cotton/spandex.

unlabelled knit capri length workout pants, appear to match the champion ones above. in black with grey and light green edging. waist about 32" unstretched. Pockets.

Star Wars pajama bottoms, size large, waist about 30" unstretched. patterned with faces of Chewbacca, Yoda, a stormtrooper and Darth Vader on a navy background. 100% cotton.

Merona brand polo t-shirt, size small, in wide horizontal black and grey stripes. 100% cotton.

champion reversible racerback workout bra, black and grey. Small.

champion reversible racerback workout bra, black and abstract blue scale. small.

lane bryant/livi brand workout bra, size 26. lavender blue nylon/spandex. Wore a few times, has been washed.

lane bryant/cacique brand bras, "lightly lined t-shirt no-wire" according to their label. Smooth, firm foam cups for shaping/support. Size 44H. Nylon/spandex/polyamide/elastane. Have several of these, wore them 1-2 times, have been washed. One each of the following colors:
--Navy blue
--cafe mocha (tan)
--pale blue with white stripes and lace
--darker grey-blue with white-green lace

Bags:

orange tote-style purse made out of recycled plastic. 17" wide, 13" deep. snap closure, brown interior fabric lining with zipper pocket on side.

the tiniest fanny pack you ever saw? a Nathan brand running belt: small blue zipper pouch on a stretch strap with a buckle.

Targus brand laptop bag, has been around and is a bit dusty. 18" x 14" x 5", multiple zippered compartments, shoulder strap. Black and grey.

Miscellaneous:

Exploding Kittens: A Card Game for People Who Are Into Kittens And Explosions and Laser Beams and Somtimes Goats. recommended for ages 7+, 2-5 players. Still in original shrinkwrap.

Booklet: Yamaha You and Your Motorcycle: Riding Tips, Motorcycle Skill Test Practice Guide. 81 pages.

USB to micro-USB cable (ie standard charging cable for many android etc devices). black, 4 ft long.

Please reply with your zip code so I can calculate shipping (I can send outside of US but it will probably cost more than you want to spend?) and which items you are requesting, for what $$ offer. Comments are screened.

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Sun, 15 Mar 2020 23:53:39 GMT

people are ... following me today? is there like a meme or something?

(just confused because I hardly ever post and most of the times these days it's locked personal shit not public fannish shit)

hi? did you want to read about my locked personal shit? it's mostly school, depression, and meds?

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why i don't talk to people at parties

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 08:26:44 GMT

i was, for a variety of reasons, in the general locale of a party tonight. I sat most of it out listening to an audiobook in the backroom, but at one point I came out to bring dirty dishes to the kitchen and got hugged and drawn into a small circle of drunk people for a few minutes. the friend who had hugged me wandered away, and I ended up talking to this guy who I guess was drunk enough that it was controversial opinion time, or else was just talking to two other guys in the kitchen with the subject boundaries guys draw amongst themselves and didn't register that a woman was present until I objected.

so this guy owns a gym/studio and instructs and performs in a sport where people routinely practice in tights, or other similarly form-fitting garments that would in other situations be construed as underwear. He was describing an incident where a woman instructor he knows at the gym he owns slapped his ass, and he said, "hashtag metoo!", apparently as a joke, and the woman got offended and no longer touches him. The point of this story was that he finds it IRONIC that women demand equality but don't think anything about objectifying men.

"You can't really joke about #MeToo," I said.

He proceeded to explain to me that it was a joke because he's very touchy-feely, a super huggy person, and was not at all actually bothered by her touching him, he just wanted to point out the hypocrisy. And she got OFFENDED, what was that about. Irony, right?

so like. look. i tried to meet him halfway. I responded to the way he'd first told the story. I suggested he had set a boundary, and she was no longer touching him, so she respected the boundary. "It's hard setting a boundary," I said.

He insisted he was not in fact bothered by being touched. He just wanted to point out how IRONIC it was that women in the gym could be waving around his junk like it was no big deal, but if he waved his hands around their boobs, it would blow up.

"Look," I said, "it doesn't sound like you want to wave your hands around their boobs, it sounds like you want a personal space bubble for yourself."

"I have a mom and sisters and i grew up in the midwest where everything is totally about white dudes and I understand that things have not been equal and are not equal now," he said. "I just want to point out the IRONY."

I tried to wander after my friend at this point, but couldn't catch up with her, so I gave up and retired back to the back room.

Here's the things I wish I'd said to him:

#MeToo is not JUST about someone slapping your ass. #MeToo is about being raped. Lesser inappropriate touching comes up in the context of, someone in a position of power did this to me, I don't know if he'll escalate, I don't know if he'll rape me, I don't know what I'll do if he does because position of power. I said you can't really joke about #MeToo because #MeToo is about rape. Do you understand why you can't joke about rape?

When this woman slapped your ass, was that typical of your touchy-feely huggy relationship with her? If yes: that's definitely why she got offended when you accused her of sexual assault. (If no, but you were being honest when you said you were in no way bothered by it, then accusing her of sexual assault was pretty fucking over the top, my dude.)

When this woman slapped your ass, in the gym you own, where, if I understood the story correctly, you employ her, did you feel threatened? Were you afraid she was going to do something else to you? Did your position of power as a man in American society and as a business owner and employer escape you? I mean: there are reasons you might have felt powerless. Maybe you have trauma. Maybe you have a history with this woman you didn't bring up in your story. If you had genuine fear that this woman might touch you in ways you weren't okay with (though you insist the butt slap itself did not bother you) then your "hastag Metoo" comment was appropriate. It also wasn't a joke. And I'm glad for you that she listened and has stopped touching you. And you should stop telling this story the way you're telling it. If your point is actually "men can also be assaulted," go watch some videos of Terry Crews and stop acting like you were joking.

If you didn't have that fear, if you really weren't bothered by the slap, if you were secure in the privilege of your position the entire time, then saying effectively "you sexually assaulted me!" was a pretty shitty thing to do and not remotely a funny joke and you should consider apologizing to this woman. When you understand what you actually did.

If what happened was somewhere in the middle, if maybe you didn't feel fear of assault but you weren't completely unbothered, you felt objectified or uncomfortable, consider setting boundaries with something other than "you sexually assaulted me!" Consider finding your goddamn words and saying, "Hey, that's not okay, I don't appreciate being touched that way. I'm fine with hugging, and with sport/performance-related touching, but that was gratuitous and inappropriate and I didn't like it." the more specific you are, the more likely you are to be able to have the relationship you want. It's pretty unlikely she would have gotten offended if you'd just told her you didn't like her slapping your butt. It's not too late to do this. You can tell her you didn't really think through the implications of what you said to her, and you didn't actually feel sexually assaulted, but you didn't like getting your ass slapped and that's all you really wanted to ask her to stop. If you throw in a legitimate "sorry" she might stop being offended and consider hugging you again.

---

I'm tired of thinking about this. Maybe now that I've written it all out I can go the fuck to bed.

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fic: Catch Lightning in a Bottle

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 19:23:08 GMT

I posted some fic last night! Yay!

Catch Lightning in a Bottle, on AO3, by jmtorres
Fandom: Good Omens
Word Count: 1632
Rating: E
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Additional Tags: PWP, Crowley Grudgingly Has A Penis Today, just a coupla queer masc nb angels, neural stimulation, neural sex, psychic sex?, making an effort sounds like work, Aziraphale has an Idea, Dom/sub Undertones, Crowley is a somewhat uncommunicative submissive, Overstimulation, Forced Orgasm, grey-A characters having complicated feels about sexual body parts, sexy sexy physiology, Coming Untouched, A Tiny Bit of Praise Kink
Summary: Crowley's not that into manifesting genitals, but Aziraphale's really into giving Crowley orgasms, so he works on a compromise.

just some light ethereal/occult sex experiments for your casual reading

"Make yourself some parts," Aziraphale suggested. He sat on the edge of the bed while Crowley sprawled across it, ready to nap if Aziraphale let him, but available to touch if Aziraphale decided he wanted that instead. "Something you like. Something you'd wear if I asked you to come for me."

"You do it," Crowley muttered, predictably, lounging back so his head dipped deeper into the pillows and his pelvis, blank, jutted slightly towards Aziraphale.

"Yes, I have an idea about that, but for this time I'd like you to," Aziraphale told him.

Crowley regarded him thoughtfully, folding one arm behind his head, elbow sharp. "What's your idea? You'll make them for me if I show you how I like them made?" With his other hand, he rubbed at his thigh briefly, and then he was manifesting a penis, one that matched his human shape for once, instead of prickling with serpentine extras. It was soft, the foreskin covering the head, and it looked pale in its nest of flaming curls.

"Mm, not exactly," Aziraphale said. He reached out but before he touched Crowley, he added, "May I?"

"By all means. I did it for you," Crowley snarked at him, gesturing expansively.

Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley's belly, lightly resting. He didn't have to be touching Crowley for this, but it was easier; easier to reach out with otherworldly senses by pressing skin to skin and linking flesh to flesh. He traced the form Crowley had appended to himself with his perception, checking for completeness, for sensitivity, for function. Aziraphale had asked him for genitals he'd use to come, but he didn't quite trust Crowley not to short himself on that and make purely aesthetic ones instead. But no, Crowley had followed his directions. Everything was hooked up, from the coiled tubes of seminal fluid to the vascular spaces waiting to fill with blood to the fine nerve endings Aziraphale needed for his experiment.

Carefully, gently, and above all, slowly--he knew it could be jarring to activate everything at once--Aziraphale began stimulating those nerves directly, rather than touching Crowley's offering physically. He watched the process intently, how each neuron spilled over its chemical spark to ignite the next, where the chain joined the more permanent parts of Crowley's corporeal form, riding up his spine and into his brain.

Crowley's body reacted; his cock rose with the tide of sensation Aziraphale provided. His thighs were tense, as were the muscles of his abdomen under Aziraphale's hand. Aziraphale heard, distantly, an indrawn breath. These things were only peripherally relevant so he paid them little mind until Crowley grabbed his wrist.

Aziraphale eased up and tried to pull back his hand but Crowley wasn't letting go, though surely the tightness of his grip was a request to throttle down his attentions. Crowley had pushed up on that sharp elbow, staring at him, lips parted. "What are you doing?" he asked, voice harsh.

"I'm going to make you come," Aziraphale said. "Is that all right?"

"Like that?" Crowley asked, breathless. "Only it's so--" He couldn't seem to find a word. He shook his head, mouth a pressed line.

"Invasive?" Aziraphale suggested.

"Yeah," Crowley said, shakily. "Kind of."

"Is it more or less invasive than it would have been if I'd miracled the cock onto your crotch?" Aziraphale asked him. "Or a vagina, what if I'd done that?"

Crowley frowned at him. "Are you trying to teach me a lesson?"

"Not exactly," Aziraphale said. "I do have an idea. If you'll trust me."

Crowley studied him, biting at his own lip with a pointed tooth. He loosed his hold on Aziraphale's wrist and spread his legs a little, seemingly trying to sink into the mattress. His hand brushed the outside of Aziraphale's thigh where he sat next to him. "It's not that I don't trust you," he said.

"If you don't want me to, I won't do it," Aziraphale replied. He flexed his fingers, stroking Crowley's stomach. "It's not a lesson. I promise, it's just what I said. I want to make you come."

Crowley didn't say anything, so Aziraphale withdrew his hand. "That's--" Crowley reached out and caught his hand again, but fingers to palm this time, instead of tight around the wrist. "Could you do both? Touch me, and... the other thing? Or does that ruin your idea?"

"Touch you?" Aziraphale murmured. "I'd be delighted to touch you, Crowley, but this," and he lifted his hand from Crowley's to run a finger along the underside of Crowley's desultory cock, "doesn't feel like you. You're so reluctant to bring it out, it hardly seems you're even interested in it. So can you blame me if I'm not either?"

Crowley lifted his chin, leaning up toward Aziraphale. "What do you propose?"

Aziraphale slid up the bed so he could cup his palm around Crowley's waiting jaw. "How about if I touch you here?" he asked and bent down to kiss him.

A few moments passed, sweetly, and Crowley pulled back from the kiss long enough to say, "Yeah, all right, that could work," before lifting his face back to Aziraphale's.

So Aziraphale kissed him, and stroked his throat, his chin, his collarbones, and tenderly, painstakingly, made all of his nerves sing. He wasn't sure what it would feel like to Crowley, if his body would interpret the signals as pressure, some phantom touch, or only as pleasure. He was pretty sure he had it down cleanly enough none of it would come through as pain. Although this was Crowley; he might appreciate a little pain. Aziraphale decided to handle that notion physically, nosing along Crowley's neck, choosing a spot to bite and suck at his skin as he groaned.

"Do you like it?" he asked softly, whispered in Crowley's ear, between rough little kisses.

"Mm," Crowley answered agreeably, if not particularly specifically. The arm he'd had behind himself to lean on, he brought up to wrap around Aziraphale's shoulder, sinking further into the pillows and drawing Aziraphale with him. Just when Aziraphale thought he wasn't going to get any more words out of Crowley, he added, "It tingles, kind of? That's not it, exactly. It's sort of... shivery? It's like, like a vibrator stuck on the most sensitive spot you have, and you can't shift away from it, except it's just everywhere."

"Do you want to pull away from it?" Aziraphale asked. "Do you want me to stop?"

Crowley shook his head, face pressed into Aziraphale's throat. "Make me come, like you said," he pleaded. "Do it to me."

"Are you ready to come?" Aziraphale asked curiously. He didn't think he'd been working on Crowley for that long, and when he checked the internal physical indicators, Crowley didn't seem to be on the edge.

But Crowley repeated, "Make me," and Aziraphale understood: Crowley wasn't close, but he wanted Aziraphale to overwhelm him, to manipulate his body more harshly, more intensely.

Aziraphale kissed Crowley and pressed his shoulders down so he'd let go, and then sat back up so he could focus properly on controlling Crowley's synapses. He put one hand on Crowley's belly, where he'd started, and the other on his face, across his cheek, intimate but also close to the brain.

Almost immediately after Aziraphale increased his stimulation, Crowley's cock began to ejaculate. "That's a neat party trick," Crowley said, entirely too unruffled, and Aziraphale amped up his efforts. Crowley's breath drew in sharply, and Aziraphale's hands couldn't hold him down when he curled in on himself, turning onto his side. He ground his cock helplessly against Aziraphale's hip, and hugged Aziraphale's thigh with both arms, and pressed his face into Aziraphale's knee. Aziraphale rubbed his back, fingertips along his spine, watching and directing that flow of nervous impulse while Crowley whined and sobbed blessings against him.

"Do you like it?" Aziraphale asked him, stroking at his hair. His cock had spurted out its last few drops of fluid but was still jerking.

"Fuck you," Crowley groaned.

"Fuck you, stop, or fuck you, please?" Aziraphale said.

"Nkgh," said Crowley, which was ambiguous enough that Aziraphale started to ease off, but then Crowley clutched at him harder and said, "Please, it's please, angel, fuck," so Aziraphale gave him the rest of it, as much as he could take, let him shudder splendidly until he was too exhausted to hold onto Aziraphale anymore, and could only spasm involuntarily.

After, Aziraphale kept his hands on Crowley's back, on the nape of his neck. Crowley twitched, and breathed heavy and slow and ragged, and went flat between his legs where he was still pressed to Aziraphale's hip. That was all right. Aziraphale had gotten what he needed.

When Crowley's breathing had smoothed out some, Aziraphale asked him, "How are you feeling?"

"You're a bastard," Crowley said, muffled by how he held his face mashed to Aziraphale's knee still.

"Was it too much?" Aziraphale asked, a little worried now.

"Ha. Fuck. Dunno," Crowley answered. Another breath. "I didn't want to cry mercy," he admitted, turning his head a little to speak the words more clearly, to look up at Aziraphale.

"You took it very well," Aziraphale told him. And, because Crowley shone at that, added, "I'm proud of you."

Crowley's face relaxed beautifully, his eyes slipping half shut. "What was your idea?" he asked.

"Oh," said Aziraphale. "My solution to your distaste for presenting. You don't have to if you don't want to anymore, not even to let me pleasure you. Now that I've closely observed the neurological process, I can get your body to do it again without the parts."

"Orgasms on demand," Crowley murmured, rubbing his face against Aziraphale. "You'll be the death of me."

"Only little deaths," Aziraphale promised, tangling his fingers in Crowley's hair.

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radio good omens

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 02:40:23 GMT

i listened to the 2014 radio adaptation of Good Omens; some variations:

–so radio’s solution to all the important stuff in the narration was to cram it into dialogue, mostly. Crowley talks about himself ALL THE TIME because how else would you know he has a watch that can tell the time in 20 cities and also Hell. He casually tells Aziraphale about the time he slept all century including the part where he got up to go to the lav in 1832. (I am just picturing Aziraphale’s … face.) Also he talks himself through like all of his actions, from watering his plants to getting holy water out of his safe.

–in order to get Aziraphale’s rare Bible collection out of book narration into dialogue, he and Crowley quote the Buggre Alle This Bible at each other, including the bit about “where is the flaming sword I gave unto thee” which Crowley takes great glee in Aziraphale’s embarrassment about

–Agnes Nutter takes on part of the narration (and actually talks to Adam at one point). Also the opening bit about when the earth was created, those are Aziraphale’s notes in I don’t know what monograph he’s writing but, *snicker*

–Aziraphale has caller ID?? so there’s a bit where Crowley calls him (I forget which phone call it is; he doesn’t call from the road about Armageddon at the beginning, he just shows up at the shop the next morning). anyway Aziraphale answers the phone, “Crowley,” and Crowley asks how’d you know it was me, and Aziraphale snarks at him about his longstanding ability to anticipate his age-old enemy, and also that he has caller ID. (I’m so doubtful. I’d be more likely to believe Aziraphale never gave his phone number to anyone but Crowley, so Crowley is literally the only person who ever calls him.)

–their Arrangement seems much more “we do stuff with each other all the time, we’ve basically blown off Heaven and Hell entirely, we literally state our goal is to maintain the status quo” like there’s much less of the….? like? reticence/denial that shows up in the show. i mean also the huge chunk of how their relationship across history was expanded in the show was not in the radio version, because it’s not exactly spelled out that way in the book either. but like, Aziraphale needs much less convincing to go in on plan stop the antichrist, and weirdly their motivation about loving the world seems much more selfish?

–Aziraphale and Crowley spot the Dowling household’s ads in the paper for nanny and gardener, and Aziraphale dibs gardener. Crowley complains about “have you ever seen me in a dress” and Aziraphale replies “Culloden, 1745” so there’s a new one for the femme Crowley fan artists (please?)

–if you are into Nanny Ashtoreth/Brother Francis and/or how they basically raised Warlock, listen to the first episode at least! they are SUPER terrible at staying in character and just like directly bicker with each other over Warlock’s head

–Crowley is smart/pragmatic enough to just drop the ansaphone tape with Hastur on it into the Ligur-holy-water puddle, so no more Hastur

–Crowley complains about Hell not telling him the M25 was more than like, vandalism. he was not expecting it to burst into flames me thinks

–the other four horsepersons are in the radio adaptation, if you were missing them from the show. as far as I recall the book (having listened to it twice recently, lol) their scenes are very faithful.

–oh hey you know that scene in the book when Aziraphale is trying to find someone to possess before he finds Madame Tracy, he ends up in a televangelist talking about rapture and is very judgmental about that? crowley hears his broadcast interruption on the radio. it’s kind of sweet. (you have to assume the Bentley is just tuned to Aziraphale, because how else does its radio randomly pick up live tv from America.)

–Pepper gives Adam the pep talk that helps him overcome Satan! It is about choosing things for oneself and how she chose to be Pepper and not Pippin Galadriel Moonchild. It is super sweet.

–the audible version I listened to has a gag reel attached, including Crowley-actor’s completely inability to pronounce Crowley with the long-O sound as gneil intended.

cross-posted from tumblr

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as usual, posting fic with tongue firmly in cheek

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 06:38:32 GMT

I posted a Good Omens fic! It is silly.

The Thousand Natural Shocks That Flesh Is Heir To by jmtorres
Fandom: Good Omens
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: Mature
Additional tags: just a coupla queer masc nb angels, kinky-ass humaning, the lube/not lube game
Word Count: 1379

Summary: It's an experiment they talked about; teased each other with, once they realized they were both a bit turned on by the thought of the restriction. To be human, limited and mortal, and to experience sex that way, fully embodied.

Explanation: ariaste posted an essay on lube in Good Omens fic that made me ponder under what circumstances Aziraphale and Crowley might actually need to think about lube. The answer I came up with was "kinky-ass humaning."

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good omens series/book observations

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 21:59:24 GMT

I saw the whole series with stariceling a... couple of week ago? And also I watched half the series with my family on father's day before leaving my prime logged in on their roku so they could finish it. and also I watched a bunch of it with niqaeli. Also I listened to the book on the drive to and from visiting niqaeli, which was interesting; the series is a VERY faithful adaptation to the point that I've started filling in things from one to the other and was startled upon rewatch that certain book bits were not in the show. There's a bit at Warlock's 11th birthday party where he gets ahold of one of the secret servicepeople's guns, but thankfully someone miracles it into a water gun before he fires it; my brain absolutely produced footage of that for the show. There's a bit--oh, I'm mixed up in my head, because I know the episode 3 cold open is not in the book, but there is a scene where they're both in Rome, one to to influence Caligula, the other to influence Nero; the Rome scene in the show instead has Aziraphale in town for a restaurant, but Aziraphale being a foodie is I think more emphasized in the show. The book has Crowley getting holy water out of a nuclear materials safe with huge PVC gloves and tongs to use on Ligur, but doesn't say anything about where he got it, and of course the show took the opportunity to do some very shippy stuff with that bit of backstory. In the book, the M25 was not just on fire, it was glowing infrablack and either 700°C or -140°C (or rather, both at the same time, but all the thermometers read one or the other). In the show, Adam rewrites the world with a very specific statement, that Satan is not his father and never was; in book Satan doesn't actually make it out of the volcano to be addressed, and it feels like Adam spends a lot of time personally thinking about what he wants to fix (despite specifically announcing that he's not fixing anything because if he did no one ever stop asking him to fix everything, and everyone has to be responsible for their own actions and not mess things up in the first place). I don't particularly have a preference for one version over the other but that might be because my brain seems to be classifying them as the same thing, essentially.

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Mon, 10 Jun 2019 10:55:31 GMT

headache today, which fortunately waited until after I was done with homework to descend. It feel sinusy? except the parts where it also flashes into my scalp and the hinge of jaw sometimes? a little bit migrainey, noises and the sun were not helping it. nsaid didn't do much about it. suspect it is a rexulti withdrawal headache, despite my desire to attribute it to other things I could more immediately treat.

now that I have high hopes of getting an A in the class, I am having some of the old anxiety about the subjective part of the points, ie the discussion questions. the prof gave me full points on the last discussion question so I felt like I had to Live Up to Expectations or something? that was getting in the way of me working on it at all. I had to remind myself that it is okay to half-ass stuff, half-assing an assignment is better than not doing it, it's okay if I don't get full points on this discussion question, it might not even prevent me from getting an A if my test scores stay high.

it's after two in the morning which is about when I've been getting the sleep the last few days--last night I tried to go down at midnight but belched with GERD for three hours. Mind you now that I'm trying to write an entry I'm yawning my face off. I would like to shift my sleep schedule back so I could have actual mornings, but I am relieved that the current trend is ~8 hours a night instead of the 11ish when I was taking rexulti or the the like, 17 from a few bad days of the withdrawal.

I have an Audible account and enjoy listening to audiobooks, but I have a bad habit of buying a bunch of things during sales and then not listening to them until almost the end of the return period, which is a year. So right now I'm trying out a bunch of titles I bought last June and groaning to myself over my sale lots from july and august as well.

Stuff I've chucked back:
--The House of the Spirits, Isabelle Allende. When I bought this I had just binged all of Jane the Virgin, but I'm not longer in that fannish headspace? Because it's a year later. I did listen to about ten minutes or so to see if it would grab me, but it did not, and also had mention of someone in a cage encrusted in his own filth within that first ten minutes, and even assuming things would get better for that character, that just... wasn't quite working for me.
--The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester. I knew very little about this but I occasionally expose myself to classic sci-fi just because, like, roots? This edition had a forward talking about the history of science fiction and how it ages, by Neil Gaiman I'm pretty sure they said, and the forward referred to the protagonist of this book as a predator, a killer and a rapist. Welp, that's very clear, thank you for the warning label, I said, and noped out.
--Existence, David Brin. I actually listened to several hours of this while driving to Phoenix recently, and I wasn't originally going to chuck it because nothing about it bothered me, but I also realized nothing about it grabbed me, either? There were it seemed like a dozen viewpoint characters and I didn't care about any of them, so.
--Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead, Christiana Miller. I listened to the first few chapters and was super uncomfortable with how rac(ism) played in a confrontation between the white wicca protagonist and her latina Catholic landlady. Also the best friend was kind of painfully stereotypically flamboyantly gay.
--annnnnnnd safari ate half the entry because I went out to twitter to find a link so the rest of this is going to be much more abbreviated than it was before.
--The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman. I disliked the narrator, who made it sound as if every sentence ended with three exclamation marks, but I enjoyed the book when I checked out a hard copy from the library.

Stuff I'm keeping:
--The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker. Rocky start, as before the Golem became conscious our viewpoint character was the creep who wanted to buy a golem for a wife, but he died very immediately and now she's a free golem with no master to give her orders, and I am excited to find out what happens to her next.
--The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley. I am a sucker for time travel stuff and this loops interestingly. The final piece of causality I did not see coming, but it fit neatly.
--Fortune's Rising, Sara King. I only listened to maybe half an hour of this, but I liked the scifi premise it set up, colony world finds brain-enhancing drug, suddenly their entire economy is producing the drug and sending it back home.
--Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, Jessica Townsend. I listened to the whole book and bought the sequel because I couldn't put it down. 11-yr-old protagonist but apparently coming of age/kid's adventure is still a favorite genre of mine.
--The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
--The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Meg Elison. Apocafic with plenty of dark stuff but like, queer characters EVERYWHERE. the narrator is gender-nonconforming and bisexual. I bought the sequel.

Stuff I need to listen to soonish:
--Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard--Aztec murder mystery if I recall correctly.
--Cold Magic, Kate Elliott. this one and the de Bodard were recced to me when I asked twitter for alternate history novels where Native Americans/First Nations peoples weren't colonized but were instead political players among world governments.
--Apocalypse Nyx, Kameron Hurley--I think this is short stories in the Bel Dame Apocrypha universe.
--A Perilous Undertaking, Deanna Raybourn. Sequel to A Curious Beginning, which I liked--a young Victorian lady figures out the socially acceptable way for her to Do Science and Travel and stuff is to study butterflies. There's also political intrigue.
--The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
--Grass, Sheri Tepper
--Dreamer's Pool, Juliet Marillier
--Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
--Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
--Android's Dream, John Scalzi
--Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi
--Agent to the Stars, John Scalzi there was a sale okay. I recognize I'm going to have to figure out how much I actually like John Scalzi in the next couple of months.
--Imajica, Clive Barker
--Soulless, Gail Carriger
--Broken Monsters, Lauren Beukes
--Vicious, VE Schwab

That's the list through September anyway. Tell me what I should listen to soonest (after I finish the ones I'm in progress on).

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vidding

Fri, 24 May 2019 05:39:40 GMT

need to remember not to catch up on tumblr before sitting down to vid, because I need something to do while rendering occurs.

fcp crapped out on me about an hour ago and so far has opened the project 20% of the way. I had hoped to see before bedtime how much of my progress the crash ate. Grr, argh.

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vid updating

Sun, 19 May 2019 23:26:29 GMT

It's taken me nearly three months but I have managed to update all of the links to all of my vids from my journal and on ao3. (I think. I mean, tell me if you find a broken link now!)

full listing of vids on ao3

i've made a lot of vids. frankly more than i had realized. it's that whole passage of time thing...

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blast from the past

Sun, 19 May 2019 04:24:35 GMT

coming to you from circa 2000 CE and 2000 BCE, a Highlander vid.

This is a vid I started making in 2003 with a song I got from an SG1 Daniel Jackson vid about his delusions of world domination in Absolute Power by Rhian, which you can find on their website even after all these years, and with footage captured from SpikeTV Highlander reruns (I was not in the fandom in the heyday of its broadcast airing. I came later). It's about Methos, Cassandra, the Four Horsemen, rape, change, time, parallels, stuff. In 2004 I took it to vividcon for critique and advice in Vividsection. I never finished the vid, though I made a stab and incorporating some of the suggestions I got about long shots and talky faces when I recut the bulk of it with DVD rip footage sometime in, *checks file dates* 2009.

I've been updating my vid links and posting old vids to AO3 as I've made them available, and I felt like, this was such a high percentage of a vid I'd like to go ahead and post it. I'm gonna post two versions--the Neat version and the Dirty version.

The neat version, which is the remastered major part of the vid, is viewable on its own as a complete vid in and of itself. The dirty version is most closely related to the version that went to Vividsection, with all the SpikeTV logos but also with the remastered version coscreened for comparison. There's over a minute extra of footage, some of which I am very proud of technically (there's a long sequence of things divided on the overlaid line of Methos's blue facepaint), especially considering the first cut was in iMovie, and I think the dirty version is metatextually interesting. But I suspect the reason I never finished remastering the clean version to longer than it is is that that section of the vid is a strong, tight vid by itself, and *checks calendar* fifteen years ago the main thing I was suffering from was the idea that you had to use the entirety of a song for a vid or it was cheating, when cutting it was the right thing to do. (the song is about 30 seconds longer than even the dirty version, and has a long fadeout, the worst kind of ending to fight with for a vid. it's no wonder I could never fill that timeline.)

It's a vid!
Ordinary Boy (neat)--the standalone version with clean footage, 39.3MB MP4
Ordinary Boy (dirty)--an unfinished WIP mess, presented for interest in vidding technical details, 53.6MB mp4
Fandom: Highlander
Song: Ordinary Boy by Adam Pascal
Vidder: jmtorres
Warnings: like, nothing that's not in canon, but this is the two-parter about when Methos and his fellow horsemen were raping and pillaging their way across Mesopotamia, so, a fair amount of violence, some of it sexual.

Cross-posting to houseoftorres and AO3.

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Sun, 28 Apr 2019 03:46:26 GMT

spent this week ping-ponging back and forth between writing fanfic and doing homework. Usually after a lot of homework my brain is too tired to write, so I gave into the temptation to start writing early in the day and blow off homework a few times. Then did four chapters of homework in one day on Friday to catch up.

I have over 4000 words of fic written and it's getting long enough that it's starting to be a pain that I'm using the notes app on ipad, because scrolling. Also it's getting long enough that I want to post it and have feedback (well, more feedback than enemyofperfect, who is an excellent alpha reader and has been squeeing line by line) but it's definitely not a whole story yet. Like I'm not even to the main part of the story based on the rough outline I have in various chat logs. Like, even if I decided to chapter it and post it as a WIP, which is a terrible idea, I want to be able to revise it as I get further along, I think I currently have a prologue and about half a chapter. I am bursting at the seams to be able to share this fanfic and I can't write fast enough to satisfy the urge. creativity is hard.

There is a test that opens tomorrow and closes May 5th, and niqaeli will be here for much of that time so I'm arguing with myself about my weekend as a weekend vs studying a lot tomorrow to take it before she comes and not have it hanging over my head. Realistically I won't want to be studying while she's here, and I won't have a lot of time after she leaves either, I have another social engagement, a screening of Amelie with jetpack_monkey on May 4th.

Also I want to be vidding. I feel like the Magicians vid I have half of on the timeline has a very limited shelflife and I need to get it out soon, but I haven't actively worked on it in weeks. Because school, and writing, and the show itself being a big downer.

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Wed, 24 Apr 2019 06:04:05 GMT

so i clicked on a thing on tumblr in a sort of "why the hell not" gesture and now I have an actual invite (non-transferable, they want govt ID, good thing I used my wallet name email) to a She-ra screening at Dreamworks in two days but you know, just me, not me and a friend, even if I had friends who weren't like, at work on a Thursday.

I don't know how to go alone to fannish/promotional events, I will now have an existential crisis about this purely optional thing I signed up for.

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Thu, 18 Apr 2019 05:10:37 GMT

so i'm contemplating working on that magicians vid about how it's like getting punched in the face,,, I need to look through footage and see if there's ever a shot of Kady's fist just coming at the camera

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Sat, 13 Apr 2019 20:06:02 GMT

so I was binging Magicians just as s4 was starting, and I had the incredible experience of surfing a wave of fannish zeitgeist with the peaches and plums thing. And I'd been working on this vid that encapsulated that experience, and then this last week in Magicians fandom happened seemingly negating the slash pairing everyone was so excited about by putting a het pairing back together. and like, I went welp I'm checking out of Magicians fandom this week I don't even want to hear the wails.

except I didn't? Like I basically went to all the fannish social media I normally do, just prepared to be really detached. and the weirdest thing happened, I didn't see anyone being mad or betrayed or heartbroken about the episode, not in a pure sense. I saw a bunch of people reacting like their feeds were full of that, but all I got was the world-weary "I knew this wasn't going to last, and you should've known too."

(I'm not sure that's true? This show has already done several things with fandom's fave slash pairing that wouldn't have happened on TV ten or twenty years ago? Like, no, I didn't know it wasn't going to last, and I'm not being naive to be hopeful about an astonishing trend continuing.)

anyway I'm,,,, kind of meh about working on the vid now. I am Quentin Coldwater ranting at the plant of Fillory love about how it just isn't enough. Like, I don't want to capture the experience of being swept up in the moment and then let down; but I also feel like the time for the vid just about being swept up in the moment has passed.

anyway, I don't know, maybe something will happen in 4x13 to turn things around; my personal experience of this show has been so foreshortened and immediate that if it takes until next season to fix things I might not be here anymore. But i still have my fingers halfway crossed for another barrage of peaches and plums next week. I don't want to know better.

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Fri, 12 Apr 2019 04:22:57 GMT

it is incredibly difficult to tell the difference between "I'm sick and don't feel like doing anything/should rest until I recover" and "executive function has not switched on for the day"

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i made a fic

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 06:03:20 GMT

suprisingly myself possibly the most of everyone, I started writing a story about a week and a half ago and like, kept writing on it the next day and the day after that and like, finished it? please congratulate me on my successful brain function

anyway,

Title: A Mass of Cells
Author: jmtorres
Fandom: Star Trek (like.... which one? i know okay)
Pairing: Amanda Grayson/Sarek
Rating: idk I picked teen on ao3 because like, there's no on page sex but there is dialogue acknowledging the existence of sex, its relation to pregnancy, and certain scandalous things a vulcan and a human can do to each other
Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405278

Or you can read it below the cut.

"So," Amanda said to the Vulcan pharmacist, "you carry everything now, yes?"

Spanek stared back. "We do, yes, now stock a wide range of human medicines, from reliable suppliers. As I assured you, the import issue with the Andorian captain has been resolved and we should have no further problems acquiring anything you should need."

No one at the pharmacy had ever apologized to her for the mix-up that had kept them from filling her prescriptions when she'd first arrived on Vulcan; they had staunchly closed ranks and blamed the Andorians. Inadequate quarantine protocols, mislabeled manifests, attempting to bribe incorruptible Vulcan customs officers: all the fault of the transport ship, not the local pharmacy.

"Do you currently have in stock," Amanda asked, "a pregnancy test?"

Spanek the pharmacist produced the requested item with stony silence and extremely judgy eyebrows. Amanda bought it and got the hell out of there.

She went home. She took the test. She sat on the toilet with her underwear around her knees waiting for it to process. She stared at the result in disbelief, then pulled up her pants and thought about death.

"So I might be pregnant," she said to Sarek without any preamble. Vulcans tended to prefer that you just get to the point, and while Sarek seemed to like listening to her wander through subjects in a more human way, for a serious conversation direct was probably best. So she should probably spit out the other half. "Or I have cancer," she said. "I read once that there's a specific type of cancer that can give a false positive on a pregnancy test. That's probably more likely. I mean, sure, I got a pregnancy test because I missed my period and the customs delays meant I was off birth control for three weeks but, let's face it, the chances of your sperm fertilizing my ova are pretty low."

"Please," Sarek said, catching her nervous, fluttering hands between his. They were alone, of course; Amanda wouldn't have broached the topic if they hadn't been, but the romantic intimacy of his fingers had her checking over her shoulder that no one would catch them like this. "Begin at the beginning. I lack some context, I think."

Amanda took a few deep breaths, one right after another but making herself slow down. He breathed with her; she wasn't sure if he was doing it deliberately to try to calm her or if it was some remnant of mind-meld, rekindled by the hand-holding. "Okay, so—pregnancy. That's a concept that translates, yes? Vulcans don't lay eggs?"

Sarek's eyebrows were very high, but she didn't feel judged with him. She thought he might be amused, in a mutual way, since she had made a joke, more or less. "Bearing embryonic young within the body until they are developed enough to survive separately?" he asked, asked, as if he thought verifying definitions was a good idea.

Oh boy, thought Amanda, if we're really getting back to basics, what else should I confirm? "And the way you get pregnant is sex. Right? Please tell me that's true for Vulcans too." She suddenly had a pang of fear in her chest that Vulcans didn't do any such thing and Sarek had only been humoring her, marveling at human absurdity.

"Sex is also a social behavior," said Sarek, and he sounded uncertain. Oh, this was not good.

"I mean, yes, of course it is," Amanda said, although she might well have questioned whether Vulcans in general engaged in it without the logical purpose of reproduction. "But if you put gamete-producing organs in close enough proximity with each other, pregnancy canhappen."

"If the gametes are species-compatible, which as you point out, ours should not be," Sarek said.

"So I kind of took an illogical leap," Amanda admitted. "You see, it—I missed my period. I know I told you I get one every month, but the general rule is actually, human women in the childbearing age range have a period every month they're not pregnant. So missing one can be an indication that you are. That I am. And the hormone pills I take, they're called birth control because one of their purposes is to prevent pregnancy. So I had a symptom of pregnancy when I'd been off medication that prevents pregnancy and definitely had been having sex which, in the right configuration, can cause pregnancy, so I thought: maybe I should take a test to see if I'm pregnant."

Sarek's brows had drawn together. "Or had cancer. What does the test measure, exactly?"

"The level of a specific hormone in urine," Amanda said. "Look, I was expecting it to be negative. I was expecting to get a result that confirmed what I logically knew, that I wasn't pregnant, that you and I can't make a baby."

"Which would mean—" Sarek waited a moment for her to take the prompt and when she didn't, went on, "—what, exactly, regarding the symptom you had observed?”

"That something was wrong with me," Amanda said, "but like, not cancer in particular, I was thinking maybe nutritional deficit that I'd need to take some more supplements for. Or some kind of reaction to environmental change."

Sarek considered this a moment. "So, in any case, some more serious than others, you should see a physician."

"Yeah," Amanda agreed. "For pregnancy too, even. Not that I am, of course. I just."

He bent forward to touch his forehead to hers, and she felt a tear slip down her face and realized he must have seen it before it fell. "Did you want to be?" he asked her, with surprising insight.

"I would say it would have been less scary than cancer, but I'm not sure that's actually true," Amanda said. Just talking to a Vulcan made you break things down in details sometimes. It was funny that he was getting her to do it with emotions. "Pregnancy is risky for humans, especially if there's potential health issues for the baby. But it would have been—a condition with a time frame, and with a potential positive outcome, too."

"Let us not assume it is cancer," Sarek said. "A human living long-term in the Vulcan environment is an untested circumstance. It could be as you suggested, an issue with your diet, or some other aspect of your life here."

"What if I can't live on Vulcan?" Amanda asked him suddenly.

"Then I shall seek a posting on Earth again," Sarek replied simply.

They went to the doctor. Amanda went through the entire explanation again, including admission of the illogic that had led her to take the pregnancy test for whatever dubious diagnostic value that data might offer. (Sarek hastened to add that her irrationality was not a symptom of illness, merely part of her human state of being.) The doctor, T'Lark, did not offer any theories or reassurances, instead merely said that she required more data and ordered full-body scans.

As she came back to the waiting room to sit with Sarek again, Amanda passed an intern in the hall. She found Sarek looking perturbed. "They wanted a cheek swab," he told her.

"Oh, God, it's the human kissing," Amanda said, half in jest, falling back in her seat next to him. "Your saliva is deadly to me! You should have warned me, husband."

"Had I but known," Sarek sighed, allowing her to lean on him, resting his face on her hair momentarily.

After a time, Dr. T'Lark came back in; by then Amanda and Sarek were decorously sitting solely in their own seats, close but not touching. T'Lark pulled up a hologram of Amanda's body to illustrate her findings to them. "Given your concerns," she said, "we did a focused search of your reproductive organs. We found a small mass of cells, which we compared to human references to determine what stage of—"

"A tumor," Amanda whispered, closing her eyes. She reached for Sarek's hand, found his wrist in his sleeve—good, that was borderline acceptable for her to touch in public. She realized T'Lark had stopped talking and warily opened her eyes again.

T'Lark had her head cocked and was wearing an expression that Amanda had learned to recognize as meaning roughly, "Obviously, my Vulcan hearing is acute enough to have heard your remark, but I cannot tell if you meant me to hear it, and therefore cannot be certain whether it is socially appropriate to respond to it."

"Just tell me," Amanda pleaded.

"An embryonic mass of cells," T'Lark amended gently, "which we determined to be approximately ten weeks old by human references, or six weeks if it is following Vulcan development. Do you know the precise date of conception?"

"The precise—no," Amanda said, blushing. Eight weeks ago—eight weeks and two days ago they had been married on Earth, and a day short of eight weeks ago they had taken up residence on Vulcan: someone was sure to accuse them of a marriage of propriety for the child's sake, she thought giddily. Her heart was hammering probably loud enough for both Sarek and T'Lark to hear. She couldn't quite hold the idea in her head, she'd been too certain she was ill or even dying. And instead, the absurd thing, the thing she hadn't believed possible, was true? "How did this happen?"

"Is there, could there have been," Sarek asked, "some exposure to human spermatozoa?"

"What? No," Amanda said, blinking at him in surprise. She couldn't tell if he was actually asking her if she'd slept with a human man, or if he thought there could have been some accidental contamination of the pharmacy goods. Her hygiene products? He didn't seem upset enough to be thinking she had betrayed him, just querulous, confused. Those damned Andorians, she thought. She was scattered, the whole thing was too big for her to think about. She squeezed his arm where she held it. "Sarek—"

T'Lark held up a hand. "We thought that was the most likely possibility, of course, but when we examined the embryo in detail we found several uniquely Vulcan traits." She let her hand drop, returning to a serene posture. "That is why we estimated its age from both human and Vulcan referents. It seems to be a true hybrid and is genetically similar to your profile, Ambassador."

Sarek's other hand came to rest on top of her wrist, mostly separated by her sleeve, but his fingertips brushed her knuckles. Amanda felt a rush of comfort, and knew it was only partly her reaction to his seeking to touch her; he was also lightly leaning on the link between their minds. He did not look at her, as if perhaps he could disguise what he was doing from T'Lark by avoiding acknowledgement. "Is it viable?" he asked.

"I do not know," T'Lark admitted. "That the development has progressed this far without aid is remarkable. I suspect we will need to perform interventions as the pregnancy progresses, and I would like to monitor you closely," she said to Amanda. "If you wish to proceed on this path, that is. There are severe risks to your health if the embryo develops certain Vulcan traits; your body could reject the pregnancy as too foreign."

"Oh, I know," Amanda said, grateful to be addressed and overwhelmed by possibility and so incredulous it made her flippant: "Ordinary human pregnancies can get screwed up if the rhesus factor doesn't match." T'Lark looked impassive, so Amanda tried to explain: "It's such a minor thing, a variance in blood type, but it can trigger an allergic reaction—"

"Yes," T'Lark agreed. "That is an example of the sort of problem we hope to anticipate."

"It doesn't seem like it should be possible, though," Amanda said, her emotions circling back. Had she gotten a logical answer, actually? "How could we have been compatible? How did this happen?" she asked again.

T'Lark looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I have a theory, but its utility may be limited. The mechanism of action is not known, as the phenomenon has not been adequately studied due to social stigma. Did you mind-meld during sexual intercourse?" She addressed the question to Sarek while pointedly not glancing down at Amanda's hand on his wrist and his, in turn, on hers.

"Yes," Sarek said.

"And she was capable of receiving the mind-meld, despite the lack of human psionic abilities?" T'Lark seemed a lot more invested than appropriate for a topic with such social stigma, but then maybe she was more interested in collecting data than in enforcing social order.

"Yes," Sarek answered shortly. "You believe this is relevant?"

"It is known that mind-melding can increase the probability of conception," T'Lark replied, "if not why that is the case." Amanda would have been willing to bet she'd personally pitched a study that had been shot down.

Then her brain zinged back to the personal. "We mind-melded a baby," she said to Sarek, her voice breaking with delighted laughter.

"It is not yet a baby," T'Lark said sharply. "It is an embryo, approaching—"

"Human imprecision," Sarek waved this aside. "They have grammatical categories for using one type of word to mean another related type of word. You'll have to learn to parse such expressions if you are going to be working closely with my wife during this pregnancy. In this case, one can determine what she meant with a simple tense change. We mind-melded that which will become a baby."

"May," T'Lark objected.

"Does it have your permission?" Amanda couldn't help but snark back.

"It is not a matter of permission, but of how many things could yet go wrong," T'Lark replied. "Do you understand this? Even if you proceed with the pregnancy, I cannot guarantee it will result in an infant. Or even if it does, that the infant will survive to become a child. You indicated that risks were known to you but your, your, emotionalism suggests—"

"Attitude," Sarek corrected. "They can be overcome with both negative and positive emotions; it is, in particular, her positive attitude to which you object? I must tell you, if there is difficulty ahead, you will much prefer a human with a positive attitude than a negative one. Do not berate her for the manner in which she chooses to find strength."

"Vulcans always prefer it when humans are sad, as long as we're not crying," Amanda told T'Lark. "The way sadness changes our affect, it looks to you as if we're giving everything due consideration and thinking about it seriously. Sometimes that's even true. In this case, I came to you sad and afraid: I came to you for a diagnosis of disease, thinking the most logical outcome was that I would be getting a death sentence today—oh fine," she said at T'Lark's expression, "not a sentence, a statement of inevitability. In the near term. In that sense I have already considered and faced the risks you want me to take seriously and the part that's new, that I'm reacting to, is that in addition to the chance of death or illness or hardship, there is the chance of new life. Don't you think that's worth celebrating?"

T'Lark unbent enough to say, "I do not think it is worth celebrating at this stage of development, but I do find it fascinating. I take it you wish to proceed with the pregnancy?"

"Yes," Amanda said immediately, and looked to Sarek.

And Sarek said softly, "Of course, beloved," and he used the Vulcan term, that meant the other half of me, that was considered too emotional for common use.

"I feel like I should warn you," Amanda added, to Sarek, to T'Lark as well, "that human expectant mothers are perceived, even in our own society, as getting more emotional. You're going to have a lot to put up with."

T'Lark said, "I will bear it in mind." Her face was stoic, her chin raised a little. She was probably telling herself anything was worth getting her hands on the raw data of a mind-meld hybrid fetus.

Sarek said, "I will be prepared to support you." His eyes were gentle, and Amanda thought he was almost smiling.

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woes

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 18:49:49 GMT

my wrist still hurts, making typing (and command keys) a pain. fortunately it's my offhand so i can still take notes for class without it bothering me (I just don't want to).

I woke up in the middle of the night with a toothache. Only, when I gave up on ignoring it and went to the bathroom to stare in the mirror tapping teeth to figure out which one it was (the one that's getting replaced with an implant? or the one that just got a crown? or a nearby one just ruining everything?) it went away? so i'm thinking it's sinus, because positional changes affecting level of pain. I had it again this morning and it went away again when I got up. I mean yay but also wtf why.

So i have 2 vids in 2 fandoms competing for headspace right now, and I picked one to work on on vacation based on not needing the entire series it was in to do it--it's a Killjoys vid about Pree, and in most of three seasons he's in about 2 scenes per episode, and cutting just his scenes means my source base is small enough to fit on the ipad for an attempt at imovie vidding. I am now up to s4 in vidding and he's in a lot more scenes but like, not doing anything, just providing reaction shots. Which might be useful for my vid, but are a lot more annoying to hunt down. Considering just taking the first three seasons' clips with me and seeing how far I can get on the vid without season four.

anyway, because I've been focusing on clipping Killjoys, I had a brilliant inspiration about the Magicians vid that I am definitely not vidding while away from the desktop. I mean, I wrote it down? It's not like I'm going to lose it in that sense. But the feeling, that's going to go away by the time I come home again, and damn it, I really wanted to ride that feeling to approximately oh look i made 3/4 of a vid I'm almost done. Instead I'm being a responsible graduate student and taking an exam, sigh.

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vidding

Sat, 23 Mar 2019 18:33:56 GMT

so I had this idea to see if I could vid in imovie on my ipad so I could take it on vacation with me. not even getting into the gesture based interface, I fully expected getting clips in to be the biggest pain in the ass. I was not wrong.

so far:
--my agéd imac, which I am using to prep files, cannot interface with any kind of cloud, operating system and browsers are too old and unupdateable
--so currently my file transfer system is put the files on a USB drive, then plug that into my chromebook because it actually has a USB port, and upload from there to Google Drive
--imovie on ipad WILL import mp4s from Google Drive, successfully tested this with some vid files
--but it does not like the straight episode files. i mean, MKV, okay.
--plan: use quicktime on the old imac to cut clips of episodes, save as .movs
--obstacle 1: season 4 cannot be opened by anything on my imac. I gave it to echan and they were like "well here's your problem" turns out s4 is encoded in a codec from like, last year. agéd imac cannot handle. echan transcoding files for me!
--obstacle 2: quicktime on imac has cried foul on transcoded files (invalid sample description??)
--currently running transcode from VLC to see if that will help???
--obstacle 3: the .movs I saved of clips and laboriously sneakernetted to Google Drive will not open in imovie in the imac
--may have to transcode those after all
--have not conceptually proved I can get clips into imovie on ipad at all
--I should really go do some homework since I didn't get any done yesterday and that burns my spare day and the library closes at 5pm again today. time for wearing pants.

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homeworking

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 21:58:12 GMT

as my break activity between bits of homework, I have been updating the links to all my vids. this is brilliant because: as an activity on its own I would get bored with it and not finish it, but as a break activity, it means I want to go do homework so I can do the break thing. I think I've collected all my finished, posted vids to update, although I had a couple of scares--Bad Kids is not in my extant files, although I discovered that the fact that I uploaded it to youtube means that copy is available to me to download, so I have the good-enough-for-web file even if I don't have an uncompressed version or the final cut timeline.

but i should really get back to this consolidated financial statements lecture

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something like a plotbunny

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:40:09 GMT

so back when I was contemplating the ill-advised threesome without knowledge of later events, episodes, seasons, I was thinking to myself, what if Alice's reaction was different? Could you spin it into poly, like, the show knows the concept? What if it was something like, "You know, my mother thinks I need a whole group of people to really get me. I don't think I'm that complicated, but maybe you are. 'A lot,' was what she said about you. And you are, you're carrying around so much baggage, Quentin, maybe you need more than one person to deal with all of it. So--so, fine. They care about you, you needed them. I can deal with that."

And then the relationship name would have been quaaludes, for quentin/alice and dudes (Margo is totally one of the dudes).

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Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:06:55 GMT

last night was the first night since the surgery that I adjusted my sleeping position in my actual sleep as opposed to waking up and shifting the pillow; as a result my leg was not elevated the whole night, and actually I slept facedown part of the night which is ?? seems to indicate the surgery is healing well enough it doesn't bother me to have the site be in contact with things, we'll take that as a positive, I guess? beginning to be resigned to the fluid reservoir bulge, which seems pretty constant even with elevating and icing. If it doesn't wreck my patella, I don't care. I wish I could walk for long enough distances to make determinations about how the patella's gonna float, hopeful I'll get permission to go back to normal activity after my post-op appointment tomorrow. I have a scar just above my ankle from an old car accident that's been hurting lately, can't figure out if this is related to the knee surgery or the lack of walking or what.

I want to do some cooking and baking and am trying to decide how much standing in the kitchen I am really up for.

I read a comment about the queer/sexual/romantic identities of Magicians characters that got me thinking. The comment I read said most recent canon is not news on the Quentin is bisexual front, he's been bisexual. And I was contemplating that and the meta problem of fictional characters' self-identities. Like by his behavior alone: yes Quentin's bisexual, he's done sex with persons of various genders. But like, if he were a real person you couldn't make a declaration like that, Quentin's identity would rest on his own perception of it rather than purely on his behaviors. And I can't decide the extent to which that matters with a character, but we do have some indication of how the character reads his own identity--in the flashback to the mosaic episode postscript, when Eliot is noping out, one of his arguments is Quentin is not [fill in the blank. this is an interesting blank actually? is it "gay," is Eliot's perception of himself "gay" despite occasionally having sex with women like occasionally having Thai food? is it "bi" because arguing Quentin is not is a bit harder? is it "queer," ie, any non-straight identity?] and Quentin asks does it matter rather than insisting that he does identify as queer in some flavor, which would suggest Quentin agrees with Eliot in seeing himself as straight, a straight person whose exceptions include a whole lifetime of wing jello*. That doesn't mean that Quentin's conception of his own identity might not be evolving. People do change how they perceive themselves over time. But people also shorthand; I say I'm a lesbian because it's exhausting to enumerate the specific circtumstances under which I might find a male person attractive, and because I don't think I'd ever be with a guy, so I think lesbian is more accurate than bisexual, and probably queer is the most accurate.

I could see arguments for all kinds of characterizations over the timeline of Quentin's character. Maybe he thinks of himself as still mostly straight, but maybe like, heteroflexible. Maybe he's like yup I'm bi now this is me. Maybe he always knew he was bi (in which case why didn't he argue with Eliot about not being fill-in-the-blank? Unless he thought Eliot meant "gay" and thought there was a significant gap between the experiences of gay and bi people? like you could MAKE that argument, but). Maybe he's like "welp, gay for Eliot anyway."

And I'm torn between wondering does it matter what the fictional character thinks his identity is, his behavior is bisexual therefore he's queer representation; vs, you know what, wallowing around trying to figure out what your identity is is a really common queer experience, especially if bisexuality or pansexuality is in play and both straights and gays are expecting you to "pick a side," so it would be neat if the show went to the place of Quentin trying to figure out which words are his words, what identity he wants to claim.

*"wing jello" is how i pronounce the fairly terrible old trope, we're not gay we just love each other (WNGWJLEO)

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