Off the prompt "cuddles."

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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Tonight I will make lists

Thu, 12 May 2011 04:19:39 GMT

Lists are almost as good as doing things. Because lists help me figure out what to do.

house
--cooking food. I've decided the cooking of food, esp for immediate/next day eating, counts as doing things around the house. Relatedly, the dishes
--taking books back to main library (since this will also clean up the back room a lot)
--laundry
--building the CD shelves
--taking trash and/or recycling out
--mopping/vacuuming
--mending clothes

stab the cat
--go to bank and set up checking account
--go to camera place to look at potential equipment
--budget spreadsheet
--clothes sorting for costume budget
--lyric writing and storyboarding
--pulling the particle accelerator .wavs for sampling
--location scouting
--building the landsail

writing
--I don't know what to put here other than writing. It just needs to get done. I mean, I could list stories, but that doesn't seem useful
--although I was considering writing up things about my yuletide fandoms now as I reread them. btw this year: all out of print books. And possibly Girl Genius as the safety

vidding
--get lyrics and music to n and d for glee vid
--video n and d singing glee vid for lip sync reference
--get clean copies of Enterprise blooper reels for T'Pol adorbs
--...possibly reacquire Enterprise vidding copies. damn it
--force self to rewatch Adam Worth episodes
--finish cleaning the TV ads out of the s1 Sanctuary clips
--and also I just have to sit down and vid

homework
--NOTHING RIGHT NOW
--although possibly I should talk to my advisor. DNW.

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Song lyrics

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:00:55 GMT

Have you ever been listening to the radio and suddenly felt like the song was written for you personally for five seconds? When I was putting together this list I found myself realizing how much it says about my psyche and maybe also my generation. Like, I almost wish Imagine or something was on here, it seems loftier than *cough* some of these, but I grew up with Imagine, I never had a paradigm shift on it, it was just always there for me. These? These were really personal moments of impact.

Three song lyrics that meant the world to me:

I was made to believe there's something wrong with me, from Cold War by Janelle Monae

This was the line that made me want to write this entry. I wish I'd heard this years ago. I wish I'd heard it years before she even wrote it. I wish I'd heard it in high school. I don't know if I would have understood it, if I would have had the objectivity to get it, but this was something I struggled with, as a queer girl growing up: the sense that there was something wrong with the way I was, that didn't actually come from something being wrong with me but from something being wrong with society, that society was telling me you don't fit, you're a broken cog but it wasn't true, it was society being a broken machine. It's hard to see it the first time but it's so liberating when you do. If I could send this song back in time a dozen years to tiny me, I would.

I'm Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance

Okay, don't laugh at me, you folks.

I first heard this song--saw the music video, actually--during Lost Year II, The Flunk Out of Every Institution in the State Remix. We'll call it the Geographically Challenged Year. It was bad, but not quite as bad as my Lost Year, and part of the reason was this song.

I have chronic clinical depression. The Lost Year was the year I just went under to it, the Geographically Challenged Year was the year that I could admit--to myself, if no one else--that something was wrong. I burned some bridges figuring that out, but. It was better. A little.

You see, clinical depression is, 95% of the time, invisible to other people. You're tired or you're cranky or in a bad mood or whatever, you should just buck up and get over it. (You can't get over it, it goes on and on.) And it's so ingrained in our culture that the answer to "How are you?" is "I'm fine" at the best or "I'm okay" at the worst. If you say "I'm awesome!" people look at you kind of pityingly, like "I'm so sorry your company is asshats, at least they don't also make you wear flare?" If you say "I'm terrible," you really had better be bleeding to death, and even then, the temptation is to brush it off as "Just a flesh wound." And if anyone has any reason to suspect you're not really okay, that you're just giving the socially acceptable response, the thing to do is in fact to promise, to assure them that you're okay. Even more for women, I think, there's a negative stereotype of a the woman who complains, what a nag, what a hag she is, and no one wants to be that, right?

So for ages and ages I told everyone including myself that I was okay, when I wasn't, because I didn't know how to say anything else. It seems like such a small thing that this song deconstructs but I don't think any more sweeping statement would have had the same impact--if they had said "I'm depressed, my life sucks," well, that would have been the sort of sentiment you can get away with in emo music, right? But "I'm not okay, I promise," takes the thing you're supposed to say, with all its trappings, and says, "That is a social fiction. That is a lie."

Seven years later I can admit to myself when I'm not okay, and sometimes even to other people.

Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears, from The Cool, Cool River by Paul Simon

This is off The Rhythm of the Saints, which may be one of my favorite albums of all time. What this line encapsulates for me is how the creative process comes out of deep emotions--for him, it's music; for me, it's fiction or film. You don't know how many times I've been jarred to realize that I'm putting myself down on paper at the safe distance of a character in a story. Sometimes it's enough, sometimes you can work through your issues at that distance and write something that's interesting to other people and we call that being inspired. And sometimes it's not enough, sometimes putting things at the safe distance of fuel for the creation engine is putting them too far away, sometimes the only way you can actually process is to own it in yourself. Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.

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What day is it now?

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:36:37 GMT

Nearly had a screaming meltdown on--late Friday night, early Saturday morning? I think? I've been at niqaeli's since then, aside from a brief run by my house for textbooks. I should probably think about going home. I have a small spot of homework to do in the next twelve hours, and I'm thinking about sleeping.

I want to be creative. I fired up Final Cut but that didn't really go anywhere; I opened up googledocs and thought about writing Sanctuary fic--I'm all caught up and have this ridiculously detailed plotbunny in my head about the intersection of the sexcapades of Helen Magnus and Vampire Nikola Tesla (with other people) that I'm actually kind of ashamed of, oh my god, the things that live in my head, I don't even.

But what came out was more Echo Bazaar fic. I'm sort of... I don't even know, this fic can't decide whether it wants to be game-play fic or narrative fic. At least it's settled on first-person for the narrative sections.

There's a few things I could tell you about myself: that I'm a singer in a music hall, that yes, it's the kind of singing where I don't wear very much yet the feathered fans keep you from seeing very much, but no, it's not the kind of singing where you get to follow scarlet stockings to the back room after. I could tell you that I have a flat in Spite, over a smoky tavern a few streets away from where I sing, that I have a battered grey overcoat I wear to walk between, which had a few slippery bits of deep amber in the left-hand pocket when I bought it and made me wonder if it was cursed or haunted like Fourth City rags, because usually people will shake these things out and strip them for everything they're worth before selling them on, unless something's wrong that they don't want to touch. It's never brought me anything but luck, though, and the amber was worth a few rats on a string in rough times.

Or I could tell you other things about myself, like that my Connected: Bohemian is almost as high as my Connected: Criminals, even though I'm shockingly Austere, which keeps my Scandal down, that I have Nightmares about Death by Water so I keep a Cheerful Goldfish and drink far too much of F.F. Gebrandt's Superior Laudanum.

What kind of story would you rather hear?

I really want to have some art in the story, it feels wrong not to have art in Echo Bazaar fic. I sent a message to someone asking if I could use some of the beautiful stuff I've seen go by on my droll (*waves*), I sort of flailed and dorked around incoherently a lot so you know, hopefully I don't come off as completely illiterate. *facepalm*

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A meme. From somewhere on my network, i don't even know.

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:05:49 GMT

Ask me a question about one of my stories or my approach to writing in general. It can be absolutely anything in any fic/general writing experience and I will tell you the honest-to-god answer. Don’t hold back. Anything. Whatever you ask, I will try my best to answer.

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i feel like there should be some catching up in the fannish doings of me

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:32:14 GMT

My festivid is a hit. I am refraining heroically from answering comments, which are awesome. (I also keep seeing my gift, the awesome Marion from Indiana Jones vid, on recs lists, which brings me glee.) niqaeli is collecting an entry of quotes from the vid mines that I wouldn't let her post at the time because they're spoilery, but the schedule on festivids is so stretched out that we're reaching the point of losing context. "Why was [char] a vampire?" I found myself asking regarding one of the quotes that was hilarious at the time. I remembered eventually. It's spoilery.

Today I discovered a new portmanteau for niqaeli's favorite SPN pairing: Casquatch. We died and died of laughter.

Last week we went to see Red at the dollar theater--that being the flick where aging ex-spies (Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren) are on somebody's hit list and being pursued by up-and-coming spy (Karl Urban). We found it hilarious and adorable. It almost but not quite passed Bechdel. I'm not sure I would find it as charming on second viewing because I figured out exactly what scene was omitted from the narrative to make Frank's (admittedly well-intentioned) kidnapping of Sarah palatable: the part where he tied her up and duct-taped her mouth. Or at gun-point made her duct-tape her own mouth. Really no scenario I can think of makes that potential scene watchable, because if she didn't resist, why did he tie her up and shut her up? And if she did resist, the whole scenario is ugly to contemplate. Made uglier by the line later about how it wasn't her worst first date, which as niqaeli pointed out in the theater, implies she survived date-rape in the past.

Watched the last two episodes of White Collar. My memory for the one last week is full of holes. Oh wait, it's coming back to me. Burke's Seven. Right. Did you know niqaeli and I have a pet theory that El totally was a con and Peter figured her out in a way he couldn't arrest her for (among other things I like this theory for decreepifying the surveillance photo courtship: it was legitimate case surveillance!) and either she knew Neal and lets Neal think Peter doesn't know this for hilarity or Neal has only recently discovered her shadowy past and recognizes her reputation and is all OMG HOW WHAT YOU WERE SO AWESOME I DON'T EVEN. Anyway, with that theory, most El scenes get an extra twenty points of sweeeeeet.

So the most recent episode had the potential to joss the vid I'm working on, and I've been expecting to be jossed since--okay, no, I was expecting to be jossed last November but I've since given up on it (my attitude at this point is SHOW, PROVE ME WRONG! JOSS ME!)--but far from jossing me, this episode provided more fodder for the vid. Hahahaahah Jeff Eastin finally figured out what Neal's backstory was and had to share RIIIIIGHT NOW. This from a man who originally swore NO FLASHBACKS. Oh my god. I'm so glad the frame was there because so much of that was bullshit and it's good that Eastin left himself the hole of "ah but how honest was Neal?" if he needs to change anything later, and left fanwriters the loophole too so we can make some of that shit make a little more sense.

I should clarify--I enjoyed the episode. I laughed my ass off. I also think you could drive a Mack truck through the plotholes if we're meant to take that straight. If Kate wasn't a grifter before she met Neal, how did she adapt to the life so easily and maintain it even after she broke up with him (and arguably with greater skill than he did, since they never caught *her* and she was able to hide from him so well?). And let's discuss the fact that she'd pulled a disappearing act before the stunt with the prison visit. That, that, it, now I want an explanation for why the fuck she was visiting him in prison every week if they were for all intents and purposes broken up with prejudice before he got caught and he only found her because Peter laid a breadcrumb trail and not because she decided to see him again or even made an honest mistake in her hiding?

Also: were the origami flowers on Kate's dad's grave a message from Alex or is the only-Alex-does-origami thing a giant retcon? (For that matter Neal does origami, and while I'd buy Alex turned him onto it, it does mean that Peter going "origami with a current receipt means Alex had to be here, no one else would do it!" is a little wtf, because um, Neal.)

But yeah. The intersection of "everyone in the show first got together DUE TO THIS FLASHBACK" is ridiculous and hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing. I do not think that was what Eastin was going for. I take my joy where I can. Speaking of joy from hilarity, the wine bottle was from MOZZIE? That makes the superromanticization of it more hilarious than ever. Also, dear Eastin, you are hilarious for answering the nit about the shape of the wine bottle. Pat pat.

In other news, Ivan quietly went under and waited out Yuletide and Festivids and this week resurfaced. Bits of three of my four active Vorkosigan novellas of last year are once again taking over my brain (and the fourth is waiting for Bel to come out of hibernation). And I haven't even reread the books again or read any fic lately (except for dira's this evening, which made me cry at the sweet, and I would link but I'm on bit and I can't be bothered to deal with the annoying screenness to hunt down the URL ETA http://dira.dreamwidth.org/561801.html /ETA). So I decided to try for 300 words a day all year on one of those four plot bunnies, which at this point in the year would give me 100K by December 31, and hopefully enough pieces to string together a whole postable story or two and a lot of hilarious outtakes. Those of you on my WIP filter will get to watch me muddle through out of order!

Work: my hours are getting cut stupid low sigh.
School: I have another nominee for the "film class from hell" tag.
Cope: Hahaha what is that. At least I am still to some extent getting shit done?

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facepillow

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 07:29:45 GMT

HEY EVERYONE HOW'S YOUR YULETIDE GOING?

Are you at bears? Is it bears all around?

I am writing. A STORY WHICH IS NOT MY YULETIDE.

If you have already finished your yuletide, congratulations! I am not sure I want to talk to you right now.

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in which niq and I mock each other lots and lots and threaten to kill one another out of love

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 06:48:56 GMT

So niq has this ongoing plotbunny about Ezar's empress, Yuri's sister, named Griselda for our convenience, and the horribleness of her life and times under Yuri's rule, and how she gave Ezar-Piotr-Xav et al the palace during the civil war.

Having explored her characterization thus far, we then posited what would have happened if she had not died in childbirth with Serg but had lived to see him go mad. Answer: she would have killed him, as soon as Gregor was born healthy, her own damn self because if it was her they could call it Yuri Redux and not start a civil war.

And then the war party would have had the legs cut out from under it not having Serg as a figurehead nor Ezar using it to kill them all, and so when Aral (who would still have been on punishment duty at Sergyar since the Komarran conquest fail predates Griselda killing Serg) deals with the mutiny he then decides to fucking open diplomatic relations, damn the war party, full speed ahead, and sends Captain Naismith to the Escobarans with messages of peace and offers of trade.

The Betan Astronomical Survey? Totally trains for this eventuality. There is a non-trivial chance of a blind wormhole jump landing you in previously charted territories. Diplomacy IS part of Cordelia's training and mission. And when the Escobarans hear the Butcher of Komarr is on the other side and Cordelia keeps going "but he's really a decent fellow!" she gets stuck with that diplomatic duty longterm because nooooo one else wants to deal with him.

And Ges (introduced as "my creepy ex" instead of "And now, a rapist!") will totally turn "diplomatic relations" into obscene slang. And Cordelia's anthropological study of Rules of Barrayaran society include a whole subset of "and this is how it works with Ges," because he is totally different from everyone else. And Cordelia's considered opinion of him is that he badly needs some therapy. And Aral is like "Do you think if we shipped him off to Beta, they'd take him?"

I WANT HER TO WRITE THIS FOR ME. MY CURRENT THREAT IS THAT I WILL FINISH WRITING VORKOSIGAN 60 AND HOLD IT HOSTAGE UNTIL SHE WRITES THIS FOR ME. She has laughed and laughed at the idea that I could write a novel-length story and not immediately started soliciting feedback from everyone I know. In fact she's suggested that she will make me wait on this story just to see how long I COULD wait. WHEN SHE COULD JUST WRITE ME A STORY BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME AND SHE'S SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME. When I explode of impatience I will murder her in her sleep.

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wacky, out there notion

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:36:20 GMT

So I'm going to try to go to sleep while it's still night time, because I'm tired, so it might work!

If I wake up before six, I am going to force myself to do laundry until I want to fall down again. Hopefully the mere idea will send me back to bed (although I could stand to do some laundry).

If I wake up before eight, I shall open up a window and start writing any of the like, eight scenes cycling through my head.

If I wake up before ten, I shall clip an episode of my festivids source.

If I wake up after ten, I really should head directly to my family's for Thanksgiving cooking.

...it's sort of scary that I am planning my sleep/wake schedule so regimentally. Sleep, something I have to work at.

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the status of me

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:07:24 GMT

So: I'm tired and depressed. Not depressed in the way that impacts my ability to enjoy the things I can do, like read novels and hang out with niqaeli, just depressed in the way that keeps me from getting things done, like writing or computer repair or dealing next semester or family or laundry. I should probably write another to-do list and have a go at it. My uterus finally rebooted anyway; note to self: five months is a little long, and since you KNOW you skip when you're stressed, you should probably have taken the hint and dumped some stress sooner.

I have not finished clipping for festivids.

I have not started writing for yuletide.

I have a lot of scenes of the (oh god) four semi-nano stories in my head, but very little is filtering down to the keyboard.

There is a kitten. Her name is Mia.

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aha

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:26:29 GMT

I have another data point.

How long does Miles typically last between seizures? Post stabilization in Memory.

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Hahahah oh dear.

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:21:12 GMT

There's only two weeks between the vote and the wedding? No wonder Alys was pissed off about the invitations.

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welcome to insomnia

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:34:47 GMT

The "you went to bed early? that's a punishable offense" edition.

I think I am doing better. I got up early, went to class, though I didn't make anything up, and I wrote--I can't get any of the Glee crap out of my head, which is too bad as I am starting to annoy my nearest and dearest retelling them bits, but I wrote down some of Amita in space (on a hunch; the empty page was staring at me and wouldn't take ink for the stories of in-many-ways-normative white dudes, so I started writing Amita and got like, four pages down and only stopped for time). It's been a while since I wrote, this is good. Also I made a cheesecake and used up four of our multitude of apples (two more for the topping when I get around to it).

And that was my day. I am back to putting "going to class" in my list of accomplishments, which sucks, but I hadn't been doing it and I did it, which is good.

And: quiz due by 2:30 on Friday. Very doable.

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oh glee

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:24:52 GMT

So I caught up on the last couple of episodes of Glee I hadn't seen, and they bumped my "what the fuck was that" meter even higher. Like, I don't even, the moronic, it burns, but even the dumb ones are capable of being manipulative and conniving? And there are no smart ones. The entire world of Glee is divided into the dumb and the mean, because the mean at least have wit.

Anyway I'm writing fic that will be AU in 36 hours and applies the handwave that makes Schuester less of a moron but really writing is sort of an exaggeration. I've written eight words of outline and a partial set list (Lennon, Bad Religion, Avenue Q, Bowie, MCR).

By the way, niq, if there is ever an MCR episode I really want someone to sing Teenagers. It might be most hilarious from Sue.

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gremlins in the night

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:41:32 GMT

I am afraid I am not good enough to write this story. Specifically I am afraid I am not good enough at novel-length writing to write this story. But you only get better by doing so I don't know anything else to do but write it, except it's going to suck, and if I get it properly ripped-to-shreds beta'd I will cry myself to sleep and it'll never see the light of day because I won't be able to deal with it; so instead I'll post it with only a cursory typo beta and years from now when I have the experience or distance to pinpoint all the flaws, it will make me cringe with shame.

May writing this out exorcise the demons; may this prove phantom and not prophecy; may my skill stretch, with work and guidance, to meet the needs I bend it to.

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Meme time

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:35:15 GMT

If you could chain me to a laptop and make me write any story you wanted, what would you choose?

If you could chain me to a laptop and make me vid any vid you wanted, what would you choose?

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I'm awake

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:32:50 GMT

I'm considering writing. Or watching more Numb3rs.

I am taking LJ load times as a sign that there's some wank I'm not meant to read.

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Fanfiction: The Epistles of @mishacollins

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:34:17 GMT

The Epistles of mishacollins by jmtorres. Also on AO3.

This story is RPF/Supernatural as told via Misha Collins's twitter. It contains 37 tweets, 3,442 characters, bizarre pairings, dead animals, tentacles, pegging, twitter users both real and imagined used herein in an entirely fictional fashion, and the angelphone.

Wow you guys sacrificed 117 goats to me, so I can bring back an extra one and one third people. Who do you want? Vote now.
1:16AM June 9th via Ubertwitter

I don't require burnt offerings. What a waste. Have a BBQ! I recommend curry goat, it's delicious. Or goat reverse cowgirl. #mishaluvsgoats
9:22PM June 8th via Ubertwitter

#goatsformisha apparently getting censored. Damn you Mr. Twitter! Try #mishaluvsgoats. Because I do.
10:17AM June 8th via Ubertwitter

Midnight Detroit time. Between Tuesday and Wednesday. WTH time zone is Detroit in? We've been driving 14 hours.
7:43AM June 7th via Ubertwitter

Only 50 goats needed, there's like 60,000 of you, so no problem! Network via #goatsformisha to set up community sacrifices.
8:19PM June 6th via Ubertwitter

The devil says he will send me back if I can prove I am worshipped in my home universe by sacrifice of goats. Midnight Tuesday okay?
8:17PM June 6th via Ubertwitter

Kitten was alive until we fed it to @tallwinchester. That guy's a fiend for kitten blood.
4:32PM June 5th via Ubertwitter

Off to kill God with an ice pick, a ball of twine, and a kitten. Back later.
1:57AM June 5th via Ubertwitter

I knew I should have paid better attention to that reality snuff thing. WTF is a windiego and how do I stop it from EATING ME?
8:13PM June 2nd via Ubertwitter

Damn it when did @tallwinchester start reading my twits? He's so pissed off he kicked me out of shotgun. Doesn't he know he's my minion now?
4:48PM May 30th via Ubertwitter

Duh, of course angels have tentacles. Cass needs the coat to hide them all so he can go buy burgers without the cashiers noticing.
4:42PM May 30th via Ubertwitter

Gabriel slid his suckered tentacles up Sam's ass. Sam moaned as Gabriel deposited his eggs. He couldn't believe he was getting off on this.
4:26PM May 30th via Ubertwitter

Hey, I read a fic where this worked for Sam. Anyone know how to kill a hobgoblin? I'll write slash mpreg tentacle porn, pairing your choice.
5:06AM May 28th via Ubertwitter

@nurubyfan no, she was pegging Dean. Dunno why Sam has a bug up his butt about it. You'd think if anyone would be sore...
3:19AM May 25th via Ubertwitter in reply to nurubyfan

How do you say "donkey anus" in Enochian? Would google it but Sam banned me from the laptop. He hasn't forgiven me for the Ruby pegging fic.
3:02AM May 25th via Ubertwitter

@jumblejim I'll have to find the link again when I get home, all the RPF here is Dean/Sam. But they love you too. No accounting for taste.
11:26PM May 24th via web in reply to jumblejim

Oh I am totally on the top. Except when I'm on the bottom.
11:17PM May 24th via web

Yes we ARE hawt. Even her. What's with all the haters?
11:12PM May 24th via web

@angelloverbaby no, Dean/Cass fic, not RPS. Unless the idea of me reading RPS bothers you, in which case, Misha/Jensen/Genevieve/@jumblejim.
11:08PM May 24th via web in reply to angelloverbaby

In Cass's pockets: 22 burger wrappers, dead minutes card, bottle of aspirin, 4 condoms (ribbed), ball of twine, 2 spoons (1 used), 1 kitten.
11:06PM May 24th via web

Cass's trenchcoat is magical in its own right but has never been worn by the pope.
10:52PM May 24th via web

Now I understand why everyone flips when they get Kripked. You'd think fanfic come to life would be exciting, not uncomfortable and wet.
10:43PM May 24th via web

Dean also freaked out by my facial hair. While it is not a full Spock beard, I am concerned he suspects my plans for world domination.
5:20PM May 24th via Ubertwitter

Seriously people just get out your DVDs and watch the last scene of 401.
3:24PM May 22nd via Ubertwitter

No, I will not hand out the angelphone number so you can listen to me say Castiel Angel of the Lord. Who do you think I am, @levarburton?
3:17PM May 22nd via Ubertwitter

Dean is officially pursuit. Yes, exactly like that. Get your minds in the gutter, people.
2:05PM May 22nd via Ubertwitter

Fixed Cass's voicemail so it actually has his name. Used my own voice to throw off pursuit.
12:37PM May 22nd via Ubertwitter

I can, of course, dodge bullets. Salt's a little harder to duck. Stings like a mf too.
6:22PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

Dean has like fourteen guns on his person alone. Of course he can shoot at me.
5:38PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

It's like canon vs cannon. It's a phenomennon if it can shoot at you.
5:19PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

There was a comet crossing Jupiter or some other cosmological phenomennon and I ended up in the impala explaining why my name is not Jimmy.
5:03PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

It is not a prop. Dean bought it for him at a gas station but Cass upgraded it.
4:27PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

@samlicker Of course it's fully functional. Are you implying the angelphone needs viagra?
4:08PM May 21st via Ubertwitter in reply to samlicker

Yes, i am twitting from Cass's phone. Yes, the angelphone IS awesome.
4:02PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

PS did Cass go to con for me? Did anyone think to tell him they were keeping God in their back pocket? or bra? pics of the groping, please!
3:49PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

Sorry I was away, lots of "out of service" errors-i don't have interdimensional on iphone. But the angelphone works! Take that, Steve Jobs!
3:45PM May 21st via Ubertwitter

Con sent scary cosplayer to pick me up at O'Hare. http://tinyurl.com/2dc8mcv Plastic surgery to get Ackles lips I understand, but frackles?
2:10PM May 13th via Echofon

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Um

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:14:29 GMT

I need a beta for RPF/SPN mishacollins fic.

ETA: Or not. I DON'T NEED NO STINKING BETA. *impatiently posts*

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My day

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:58:35 GMT

echan and jetpack_monkey's apartment flooded, so half their stuff is at my house right now. I am tipsy. I have homework, but I feel like writing fic instead.

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WIPs, looking for icon ideas

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:31:35 GMT

I want a new default/writing icon. Thoughts/requirements: female character in a current or enduring fandom of mine, preferably in the act of writing or drawing, although I am also considering the thought of text tattoo (text need not be English/Latin alphabet, though I would like to know what it says). Studio 60 is in my brain a bit, so I thought about Matty at his computer (an icon saying "I am eating it" would crack me up) but fairly rapidly determined that no, I really did want a woman, and none of the women from Studio 60 speak to me emphatically enough for default icon material. Then I considered Supernatural and I went poking for Ruby and spell diagrams or devil's traps or something but I think most of that is elided out. I have a reasonable shot of Anna and a blood sigil, but a) Anna makes my brain hurt and b) she looks really freaked out, which is non-ideal. I'm halfway contemplating an icon of Pam looking over her shoulder laughing at Dean about her "Jesse forever" tramp stamp, but a) I dunno what I think about using, for this purpose, ink that outlived its purpose, and b) I'm not that big a Pam girl. I remembered Lady Gaga has a ton of ink, but curiously the cinematography in her videos doesn't fetishize it. (For instance, I am not sure I will ever figure out what she has on her left shoulder.) I am most interested on the long German text she has on her inner arm, partly because I'm mostly likely to get it in frame with her face, and partly because of what that text is--a Rainer Maria Rilke quote, "In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?"

Okay, so far, images I'm considering (that I would probably want to add text to)--
http://jmtorres.dreamhosters.com/images/jesseforever.jpg
http://jmtorres.dreamhosters.com/images/germantat.jpg
http://jmtorres.dreamhosters.com/images/recliningtat.jpg

Any thoughts on other characters that might suit my criteria, or other places to find images of the strong contenders that might suit my criteria?

All of which is in aid of (because one must have the appropriate icon for the post):

I feel like my brain is roiling with epic WIPs lately and I want to note them all (and give anyone who wants opportunity to um, encourage anything they like).

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Vorkosigan 60, which really ought to get a proper working title for the story as opposed to the 'verse. I went back looking for records of ever talking about this, and I don't think I managed to properly explain it to my journal any time in the three years I've had the bunny. See, back in... early 2007, I think, is when I broke and let niqaeli show me Sorkin's meta RPF crack, there were odd bits about how Danny ran the show like, um, the whole machiavellian control freak manipulation of the focus group data to make Matt start fighting back about politics in his writing, and the exchange regarding intermittent power outages caused by a palm tree:

Danny: How much do I wanna know about this?
Cal: As little as possible.
Danny: 'kay.

So I had this thought that had me literally on the floor laughing, and if I remember right niqaeli ended right there with me while the boys of the household sort of... eyebrowed at us. That thought was that Matt and Danny would be good ImpSec officers.

That is basic concept of the fusion. Details have sorted out thusly: Danny's Barrayaran, a captain, in Galactic Affairs. He trains up agents to work as responsibly as if there is no safety net by attempting to convince them he is not actually paying attention to anything they do--so they'll get shit done because if they don't, it's not getting done. Illyan threw him mediocre agents to sharpen up in this manner. There's a fair number of agents who recall Captain Tripp with... fond terror. Matt is Komarran, Danny went to college on Komarr, met him, and sort of dragged him home. Matt is Danny's pet analyst and his specialty is spotting domestic assassination attempts using galactic resources. He sort of chews on invisible problems from both ends and then says "There, that shipment of phlebotinum, so and so's using that for this plot." It's a... heavily intuitive pattern recognition thing. He couldn't tell you how he picks out what's important, but once he's at the conclusion, he can point to all the data points that got him there, and he's right. It relies hugely on having reams of accurate, seemingly trivial data. The first time he gets really fouled up is circa Civil Campaign, because one of the reports he mines regularly for currents in high Vor society is Byerly's, and Byerly started falsifying/leaving many things out of his reports. Not that Dono was a mystery that would have concerned Matt much, just that Byerly's reports got sparse while he was covering for Dono.

There's two main plot threads to the story I'm writing--one is that Matt and Danny get split up, which neither of them copes with well. Illyan had some patience for their special partnership but management has recently changed at ImpSec, and not all the personnel details came to Allegre intact. And also: without yet knowing why he's off (Dono not yet revealed, the hole in the data not yet obvious) Matt has been off, so the apparent efficacy of his and Danny's partnership is tarnished. So Matt's getting transferred and Danny's trying to pull strings to get him back, which is... you don't go around department heads in ImpSec, really, you don't. You most certainly do not go to the retired former head of ImpSec and ask for a social introduction to a potential patron who could somehow intervene on your behalf with the Emperor, because that's who you have to go to if you're going over the current head of ImpSec. You don't do any of that. Unless you're Danny Tripp and completely co-dependent to the point that it uh, interferes with your judgement.

The other main plot thread is the mystery that Matt's trying to unravel with no good sense of what pieces he's missing. It centers on Harriet Vorhayes, née Vorrutyer (which is part of the reason Byerly's inaccurate reports are so crucial here; he's stopped reporting family gossip). Matty has been inappropriately hung up on the married Vor lady for a long time; not involved, just, Danny really wishes he would... not attempt to socialize with her. So while Danny indulges Matt's requests for more data about her, because Matt's hunches pan out nine times out of ten, Danny is also quietly headdesking about stalking goddamn Harriet of all people. (Harriet's family history is... of import, so out of not spoiling the nature of the plot Matt uncovers, I will not go into it here.)

The eventual intersection of the Harriet mystery and Danny trying to climb the Vor for a patron lands squarely on Gregor being Gregor at them. Gregor being quietly, intensely Imperial is quite possibly my favorite thing in the entire Vorkosigan universe, so naturally that's where the whole story I'm writing is aimed at. So that's what Vorkosigan 60's about. Heh.

---

The Haunting: A Comedy of Spirit is, approximately, an AU of season 6 of SG-1. (This is the season when Daniel was dead.) In this story, ascended Daniel just never leaves Jack alone. Jack is bitchy about this, Sam and Teal'c are concerned for Jack's sanity, Skaara would like to not have to be the one to break it to Jack that Jack and Daniel are kind of dating, and somehow Jonas ends up obsessed with vampires. I've written a chapter and a half and about two thirds of the outline, and that much story is twelve thousand words, seriously, what, how. I posted the first chapter two years ago, and I really would like to finish it. I started rewatching season six with my brother toward this end.

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Kryptonian Neal, who needs a better working title. This is a White Collar/DCU fusion inspired by this image of Matt Bomer in Clark Kent glasses and some of Neal's more alien behavior--seriously, every time I watch the scene at Maria's house in "Book of Hours," where she leans in and he doesn't kiss her for like, two minutes, and in fact does not kiss her at all in that scene, despite her continually leaning right into his space--yeah, this is clearly Kryptonian touch taboo at work. *nods vigorously* There are two relevant entries where I discuss this story: a snippet about Neal's Kryptonian criminal record and a solicitation of which parts of DCU I should draw on.

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Rubyverse, my AU of season 4 of Supernatural, which is actually two fucking epic stories, paired:

The first is primarily about Sam and Ruby's summer vacation. Its working title is something along the incredibly clichéd lines of "To Hell and Back" because the primary AU feature of this part of the story is that Ruby actually assists Sam in attempts to get Dean back from hell, up to and including storming hell via the devil's gate in Wyoming. They also do other dumb shit like call up the crossroads demon and fail to deal (almost exactly as shown in canon) and call up the Trickster and ask him to turn back the clock again. But the main feature is the trip to hell--the preparation for it, because they have to get the colt from Crowley to open the gate, and because it's a long journey requiring provisioning (I think they spend nine months under hill, which works out to like, two and a half days topside) as Sam can't eat or drink anything he didn't bring in with him, or he'll end up trapped there. Ruby leaves her body topside and in hell becomes apparent as the image of how she was when she died, which leads to interesting bits of backstory coming out (which conflict with other parts of backstory she tells to other people at other times, unless you know what I know, and you won't, because the one POV that will not be present in this story is Ruby's). Ruby feeds Sam a metric fuckton of her own blood in hell, to the point that he can black-eye voluntarily, in an effort to allow him to pass as demon to casual inspection, so they can travel in hell without getting caught. (Sam remains altered by this after they get out, and Dean gets out, much to Dean's dismay; however, the manner of blood-drinking matters a lot, and this Sam only drank Ruby's freely offered blood: he didn't slaughter unwilling demons or kill a nurse or even take of Ruby's unconscious host, because Ruby left her body topside and fed Sam direct from herself in hell. He was also not trying to gain the strength to control or kill demons, and intent matters. So Sam ends up with an uncomfortable amount of power that is not tainted the same way it is in canon.) They eventually do not break Dean out because Sam snaps and busts a few hundred damned, tortured souls out and draws the attention of who Ruby terms "the scary motherfuckers": fallen angels, of whom there are not that many, but they run hell, and really the only thing to do is flee. I know this story is told out of order and I'm playing with something as simple as the framing device of telling Dean what happened while he was down, interspersed with a short run of events immediately after they get him back (Ruby fucking with Dean, the process of figuring out who Castiel is, and Castiel meeting Ruby and being extremely baffled by her, because interrogation suggests that not only is she trying to prevent the apocalypse, she has feasible plans for doing so). The ending is where Sam and Dean meet Ruby-who-is-not-Ruby: the coma girl woke up, and Ruby vacated her body.

The second part is going by the working tile of "Janie, and Other Lost Lambs," and is about, among other things, just-awoken amnesiac coma girl, who goes by Janie, as dubbed by Ruby, short for Jane Doe. Janie makes a go of life away from the Winchesters and the apocalypse while Ruby rides a proper corpse (male, just to mess with Sam and Dean's heads). But Janie... she can't remember anything about her own life at this point, but she remember parts of what Ruby did in her body (so most of part 1, except for the actual in-hell bits, during which comatose Janie was left in Bobby's care, I'm pretty sure). And she ends up calling Ruby, because Ruby is all she knows. Eventually demons hunt Janie down and try to take her apart to figure out what the fuck Ruby is doing (not unlike what happened to Jimmy Novak), and when the boys and Ruby ride to her rescue, Ruby ends up riding Janie again on a more permanent basis, with permission and certain protections. Janie gets more involved in Ruby's plan to stop the apocalypse, which at this point involves fucking with the seal count to buy time. I have a handful of seals I know they mess with that I swear are not all designed to get certain rarepairs I want (Ruby/Cas, Janie/Jo, Cas/Janie, what have you...) and there is ongoing back and forth between Ruby and Cas about how possession functions (and the fact that Jimmy is so totally Cas's sub) and how seals are constructed and deconstructed. Janie's pre-coma identity is eventually determined, and it's relevant, but mostly as a thing Janie gives up when Ruby offers her the out again and Janie chooses to stick around to be part of the fight instead. Ruby makes the guys train Janie to fight in case Ruby herself is ever out of commission, which becomes useful sooner than Ruby was expecting when they need a Trickster and Gabriel's reaction to the curiosity that is the Ruby/Janie partnership is to poke hard and damage Ruby in the process. Crowley pops up again. Among my primary clusterfuck (Ruby, Janie, Sam, Dean, Cas and Jimmy) blood and sex get exchanged in various lines. Tattoos are acquired. There is a too clever plan about Lilith, and a less clever back-up plan that Ruby is not admitting to herself she is setting in motion, although Cas and Janie back her on it. There is noncon snuggling. Many people well-meaningly ask, with varying degrees of tact, Janie if she's okay being Ruby's host. The answer sort of fluctuates, but Janie chooses Ruby over other options again, and again, and again. Ruby pushes her, but Ruby offers her the out, too, because it's important that Janie choose--particularly because Ruby is a demon, and there are things she can't choose, and needs Janie to agree to choose for her. I am sort of dancing around not blowing the ending on this one, so I will sum up thematically instead: it's about the limits of free will and the power of choice.

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*sits back and stares at screen* I've been working on that for four hours, and by the way, those are only the epic stories in my head. I have a ton of smaller bunnies, up to and including the wtf how did I end up with this one Misha/Dean twitterfic. I also have plans this weekend to bang through my prompts post, though I have decided for the sake of getting things flowing that for those prompts I will write what I'm inspired to write and not worry about whether it fits the prompt exactly or might not be what the prompter intended. I feel kind of guilty about it, but it wasn't a secret santa prompt collection and the point was to get me writing, so get me writing we'll do.

And now it might be time to sleep.

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Now, if I'd used this icon, that would have been a clue.

Sun, 30 May 2010 21:18:29 GMT

The story I wrote for Remix was One Time Sam Went Dreamwalking (Have You Any Dreams You'd Like to Sell?), a pre-series Supernatural story. The original story posited Sam had a dreamwalking ability and showed up in Dean's dreams frequently; I thought Hmm, but if it's not just Dean... and sent Sam off into John's dreams. *grins*

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Prompts

Sun, 23 May 2010 08:53:05 GMT

It's been ages and ages since I did a proper prompts post with like, multiple fandoms on offer, and also very long since I've written anything off a prompts post.

My goal is to write maybe ten scenes off prompts at a thousand words each; please recall that the last time I set out to write a thousand word fic, this happened, so a) I may not get to everyone and b) someone may get a surprise epic. But MY GOAL IS to write ten or a dozen roughly thousands-word stories. PS whoever asked me for "Ruby is Dean's mother" THAT FILE IS STILL OPEN AND MOCKS ANY WORD LIMITS I TRY TO IMPOSE ON IT.

FANDOMS ON OFFER:
--Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
--Vorkosigan Saga
--V60 (aka, Matt and Danny from Studio 60 work for Impsec on Barrayar... it's a whole thing)
--Iron Man movies
--Roswell
--Glass Houses (epic Weiß Kreuz AU, I'm around chapter 130 on reread at the moment, YAY BRADPARENTS)
--White Collar
--Supernatural, although I should warn you I haven't watched the last three episodes so depending on prompt, you might get STRAWBERRY JELL-O.

I will consider other fandoms you know me to have consumed in the past. For instance *glances at grey_bard* just last night I became enamored of the idea of a HL/SPN crossover in which the boys know perfectly well about Immortals, they're just like FUCKING SEACOUVER, LET'S NEVER GO THERE. *grins*

I work best with prompts that are specific but brief enough to capture in ten words or less.

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fic: meanwhile, in van nuys

Fri, 21 May 2010 11:48:24 GMT

Meanwhile, in Van Nuys

Notes: This is a Supernatural 5.22 story. While I have been spoiled extensively for 5.22, I have in fact only seen about 15 seconds of it. Also, this is crack. Squick warning for grossitude.

385 words. Also on AO3.

"Assbutt."

Sammifer snapped his fingers, and where Cas had been standing there was suddenly an explosion of gooey red disgusting grossitude. It splattered everywhere. Dean was fairly sure he had some on his face. Bobby's side looked bathed in it.

But there was something--off.

For one thing, there was a distinct lack of shredded trenchcoat in the mix. For another, even if Sammifer had for some reason removed the trenchcoat to preserve in a serial killer-esque collection (Dean would not put it past the creepy little asshole), there was just something... inadequately meaty about the red goo. Dean had dealt with his fair share of living, beat up bodies and dead, gross bodies, and really, the goo was just goo, there was no muscle striation in it anywhere, no sign of bones, whole or fragmented, no elastic-y bits of skin. People didn't puree this neatly, even at the devil's fingertips.

Also, the goo smelled like strawberries.

Bobby licked his finger.

"Oh my GOD," Dean protested. "That's sick."

"No, it's jell-o," said Bobby.

"So," Sammifer sneered, "you think you can tell processed horse from processed people?"

"Yep," said Bobby. "Definitely jell-o. Idjit."

Only Bobby would call the Lord of Hell an idjit.

"You bastard," Dean said, clutching at Sammifer. "What did you do with Cas?"

Sammifer looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then he declared, "SOMETHING EVEN WORSE THAN BEING BLOWN UP."

Dean gasped.

"Really?" Bobby asked. "What's worse than being blown up?"

Sammifer's eyes narrowed. Glaring, he announced, "HEARTBURN."

Meanwhile, in Van Nuys:

Cas moaned in pleasure. He stuffed another burger in his face. "Mmm," he said around the half-chewed meaty, cheesy goodness. Behind him, one of the paintings had transformed into a version of the Last Supper in which Jesus was gnawing on a lamb shank and reaching for the rolls. Cas was on his sixth cheeseburger now. He pushed the wrapper off and forced it into his mouth, moaning, "Ommmm nom nom nom nom."

Somewhere in the back of his head, Jimmy said, Uh, hey, Cas? Isn't there some sort of apocalyspe thing you're supposed to be stopping?

It's ongoing, Cas replied shortly, because honestly, if the apocalypse was going to go on for two years running, surely he was entitled to a snack break.

Hey, said Jimmy interestedly, is that In & Out?

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what

Mon, 17 May 2010 10:50:47 GMT

I appear to have written 1950 words of Iron Man (movie 1) fic, and show no signs of stopping.

Is anyone awake to audience?

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