Off the prompt "cuddles."

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I've been dealing with an ongoing sense of TONY STARK HOW SO DAMAGED from both other people's fic and how he behaves in my head in fic I might be writing (note to tony: no steve is not pissed off about you maybe banging lady gaga because he is jealous; I promise you that is not it, tony). Both niqaeli and I keep retreating to the Losers for sanity because THOSE guys are so much less damaged. I am not kidding and wow what.

I have been poking around in the back of my head for Ivan, who went to ground months ago and keeps jumping fandoms to avoid me. After the time I found him in New York, I decided not to ask at all when I tagged him in Chicago. Ivan Vorpatril is the most active, independent character in my head, and pretty much the only one who recognizes my presence as a writer and to be slunk away from.

Anyway, I hunted him up and begged him to come back because omg less damaged than Tony fucking Stark and he looked around at my crop of plotbunnies and got pissed off at me because we have a plotbunny called the goddamn lunar base whose sole purpose is a Tony without damage for me to use to block regular Tony out. All the things I've done to Ivan but Tony gets a happyverse? And I said we'd sort of done that for, well, not for Ivan specifically, but for Vorkosiganverse, we have a massive AU where we fixed the Escobar war and stuff and Padma is alive and Ivan had both parents growing up (and no need to mention That Time He Was Emperor for 5 minutes) and is a diplomat and engaged to René Vorbretten!

And Ivan looked right at me and said, "You're not nice."

Muses.

SIMON ILLYAN WANTS ME TO LEARN GREEK.

CLASSICAL GREEK.

AND THEN ALSO MODERN GREEK PLUS ABOUT A MILLENNIUM OF INTERSTELLAR DRIFT.

Asshat.

ImpSec had to essentially regard Bothari as an extension of their own protection of Miles, or surely they would have come after Miles at Tau Verde much sooner. Because he slipped ImpSec but good on Beta Colony in Warrior's Apprentice.

A fun-filled weekend of fun has been had! And it's still a holiday tomorrow!

On Thursday night after niqaeli got off work, we drove out to LA to visit echan and jetpack_monkey. An all-night trip; we hoped to get there before the morning rush so I left 21 minutes from the end of the first episode of BBC's Sherlock, which traykor had put on while niq was still at work. Because those 21 minutes might actually matter to whether the freeways were totally clogged or just impenetrably labeled. Never mind spoilers, imagine being 3/4 of the way into any iteration of any Sherlock Holmes story and having to walk away. We arrived on echan's doorstep and despite being dead tired, I asked if we could put it on (I figured we'd watch it from Netflix, turns out they own the DVD). So we did. I have now seen Sherlock. Whoo.

On Friday, niqaeli and I slept in weird bits on and off but not at the same time as one another mostly, and echan came out as genderqueer on the internet, which I had known about for some time and niqaeli hadn't and wow, it was a relief to be on the same page as my braintwin finally. (jetpack_monkey's reaction, which echan IMed me about a couple weeks ago, was an adorable sleepy "Not that surprised. Still my echan." *heart* He is a sweet husband.) Also on Friday, we went out for sushi! At some point, we watched the Tik Tok vid for vampire Nikola Tesla from last year's Club Vivid and I explained in detail what was going on for echan, who has seen about five Sanctuary episodes, out of order. There was dinner from their favorite 24-hour delivery service because apparently most things in downtown LA close at like, six (including Starbucks! I've never known a Starbucks that closed that early!). Then the household (which also includes diannelamerc and lizbetann) decided to watch Being Human UK while niq and I variously went to sleep and passed out. Naturally, having fallen over before midnight, I woke up at about one in the morning and put some Dresden Files on (I watched three episodes! I remember what happened in some of them! I laughed at Netflix's description of Harry as ethics-challenged, because he seems to have a fairly strong personal ethical code to me! but maybe he fails it up later? who even knows).

On Saturday I did not wake at six in the morning like niq, who had fallen down and stayed down instead of Netflixing in the middle of the night, but I did manage to pull myself out of couch for trip to Little Tokyo with her and echan. I had a honeydew melon smoothie, then we went to bookstore and niq got lots of origami paper, then we had enormous bowls of noodles and niq forgot that my tolerance for alcohol is significantly lower than hers, so yes, half a bottle of sake will get me tipsy.

After that we went to Santa Monica: I had expressed interest in beach (any beach) and niq wanted to go to British import shops/a restaurant for tea in the area. Both beach and tea were lovely. Like, half an hour on the freeway + forty minutes finding parking + a good ten minutes of walking across the deepest beach on the coast to dunk myself in the ocean for fifteen minutes (priceless). Neither niq nor echan came in more than knee-high with me (though I full-body hugged echan when soaked to hear zir squawk), both feeling that the water was much too cold for my shenanigans, and it was cold? but I'd been expecting it to be cold and had sort of over-anticipated it so it wasn't as cold as I actually thought it would be? So for me it was pleasant. And wave-diving is fun. Mostly if you dive under waves right it rolls over you and you come back up behind it a few seconds later. Once I hit my dive wrong and got tossed around in the turbulence of the breaker a bit more and came up laughing in glee, so much so that I startled a woman nearby that I hadn't known I'd washed up next to into laughing with me. I, I sometimes forget other people are there when I'm staring out at the wild, wide ocean. On a wading beach, no one much comes out as far as me (you have to be waist-to-chest deep to get waves big enough to dive under), and also I have sort of um. Great transcendental fierce pagan joy that possibly puts me in an altered state with the ocean? Although part of that is wave-diving related endorphins. Even when you do the dive right, you end up with sore shoulders, and when you're standing there letting the little ones hit you waiting for the big ones, you end up with sore thighs. The ocean's like, big. It's all-encompassing and humans are so tiny and you get a bit battered. Endorphins: apparently I was kind of stoned for tea.

(For the record: it is possible I am not a traditionally sane person. Don't try this at home?)

I have always thought I would like to live by the sea. I think I must be part selkie. And I currently live in a desert and my families of blood and choice both live here so I don't know if I'll ever leave, really. But we fantasized about everywhere we would have residences if we won the lottery during tea and I think having a villa on the Mediterranean would be nice.

After that, we went to see My Chemical Romance. Apparently people had been standing in line since like, noon, and so we got there after the line had gone in, around eight, resigned to standing nowhere near the stage but frankly okay with with having done other things besides camp out for the show. echan noted that the mass of people in front of the stage was very tightly packed and not moving at all, no one leaving for drinks or food or bathroom or anything, fairly completely impermeable. Then during the opening number Gerard Way went crowd-surfing and I yelled in zir ear, "Now you know why." They'd been waiting for their opportunity to touch him.

Since I am apparently incapable of not snarking to the internet, I tweeted a fair amount during the show. Er, so I have a twitter account? It is decontextual, I um. Never mind. Here:

[Re the opening act] "Get that girl up onstage, I'm gonna eat her!" "Performance would probably be improved by onstage cunnilingus."
Friendly fans. At top of stair letting people coming up pass before I go down. A dude hugs me and says I smell nice. Seems stoned not scary.
The song "the only hope for me is you" sounds slightly less creepily psychotic when sung in concert to fans.
As per your request: you're a bad bad bad bad man, G-way. #mcr [I actually like House of Wolves a lot, but hahahaha I just. Watching him crawling all over the mic stand...]
"you ready *mumble*" is part of the song permanently in performance??? #mcr [re "Vampire Money"]
E says re Destroya: they burned the dictionaries first? #mcr
Okay sometimes I enjoy them unironically. #mcr [Re Teenagers]

Lost my bet on what their encore would be; they went back to Black Parade to close out the show rather than pulling out Sing.

We tried to go to a bar with food after the show, but that didn't work out well. We ended up getting food from Famima!! which I wish we could have in Valley of Hell, but wiki says they closed like half their test sites and now exist solely in downtown LA. Then we fell down.

Come Sunday morning, brunch was delivery, much hugging was hugged, and niq and I got on the road about 1:30. We plotted many terrible things to do to Ivan on the way, which also involved doing terrible things to Gregor. Having Illyan in my head is oh, my God, a trip and a half. *flail* I cannot even describe. Eventually there will be fic. I hope. The shortish snippet I was going to try for wants to be about 8-12K because Ilyan's going to cross-reference everything. Cry. Yay. Something.

My calves, my thighs, and my shoulders are all sore and tired. When I lay down I can feel my legs vibrating. When I get up it hurts. Muscle aches everywhere. I mean, I was expecting this? Walking, walking in sand, swimming, more walking in sand, more walking, standing at a concert for two and a half hours, then driving several hours will do that to you. (Interestingly my legs didn't hurt while I was driving, only when I stopped. Yet I kept stopping to stretch them out, because I was afraid they would like, calcify in driving stance.) Also that whole paragraph up there about endorphins is pretty hilarious to me now. But I've almost entirely gotten my hearing back after only a day! (Concerts. Concerts are loud.)

Plotting for future trips in both directions proceeds apace. OCEAN. In related news: I am interested in becoming a touring fangirl and driving to visit people I have met on the internet. Contemplate this entry and imagine all the fun you could have with me!

I, I think my fannish brain is back online? My finals are all over except the waiting (the only class that hasn't graded stuff yet is the only one where there was any question what my grade was, DAMN IT). But I am out from under stress mountain in terms of needing to do stuff and not feeling guilty for sleeping for the first time in like, two months.

In the interest of getting some fannish (& house) stuff done, I am making myself the following daily to-do list for the summer. I will spend a minimum of one hour a day on the following, in this order of priority:

--homework, unless I'm absolutely completely caught up on homework, nothing available to get ahead on
--housework (cleaning, sorting, unpacking)
--plotting the music video (writing, storyboarding, budgeting, scouting, building the land sail)
--writing fanfiction (an hour or 300 words)
--vidding

In other news, fannish things in my brain lately:

Vorkosigan. I probably won't be writing the White Collar/Vorkosigan time travel story, but there's a chance reference to it may fall into Secret Agent Ivan 'verse, because Illyan turned The Vanishing Man into a psych test problem. In the fast-penta interrogation Neal said he was a time traveler, by which the interrogators concluded he was delusional, but fairly high functioning, since he hadn't tried to claim it without fast-penta. Then he vanished out of a cell without a trace. The psych test is to ask the testee how he did it, hand them any data they want, and see how long it takes them to get to, "Well, maybe time travel is possible?" Too fast, and they're too credulous for ImpSec work. Too slow, and they're too inflexible. Miles is the only one who came up with data to ask for that ImpSec had not actually collected. Ivan got handed the problem unofficially when he was fifteen or so, and later on when he was tested for Service aptitudes officially at the Academy he blew threw it a little fast. Later Illyan asked him if he'd forgotten how the test worked or was just trying to fake incompetence. And this is Ivan. It was totally to fake incompetence.

Ivan-muse is annoyed with me for brainstorming about wee-him, it's harder for him to weasel out of. *grin*

Today the "Diplomatic Relations" bunny woke up in my head, which is the one where Serg's mother survives childbirth but sadly her mothering doesn't actually make Serg saner since her life has made her kind of shit at connecting, so thirty years later she kills Serg personally, thus bypassing the necessity whole Escobaran War fiasco. So when Aral meets Cordelia, under similar circumstances to Cordelia's Honor, the War Party is still banging the gong for war but without really having the most influential member they did and not having the emperor handing the rope to hang themselves, so Aral feels free to say "fuck it" and just open diplomatic relations with Escobar. My brain was running around "what would be marginally different about Aral and Cordelia's meeting" and the answer is, he's afraid this is a succession thing. With Serg no longer in the picture, an attempt on Aral's life is much more likely to be related to Imperial Succession. He's also kind of terrified that when they get back to civilization there'll be news that the boy Gregor has been killed and he needs to go wrest power back from whoever was trying to kill enough people close to the throne to get in. So he's actually laughing his ass of in relief when it turns out to be a War Party thing.

Sanctuary. I have an active Sanctuary plotbunny and an active Sanctury vid. The plotbunny is *facepalm* terrifyingly idfic, wherein ( s1/s2 spoilers )

Okay, everyone raise you hand if your get why this is idfic. grey_bard didn't, because he's not using his power for evil, right? Hilariously, niqaeli is so telepathic with me that not only did she get it right away, she started telling me his stance on powers before I had gotten to it.



I'm also working on a vid about Helen's exes/stalkers. It's to a JoCo song, and last night I became concerned that the visuals were not over the top enough for the song. On close review, it would appear Nikola is totally over the top enough, but I may need to hunt for more Johnny. echan told me he comes off looking reasonable aside from the murders, which makes Helen look judgmental for rejecting him. Ha. Haha. Oh my god. Fannish logic, you guys.

So I put all the bits of V60 I've written in one doc and outlined the scenes in between that still need wrote and came up with a current total of ~8300 words. I think that means I still have a long way to go, but it feels less terrifying now that I can identify all the scenes. On the other hand it feels more terrifying that I identified places where I was like "if Matt knows X AND Y, why has he not pennydropped on the whole grand scheme yet?" and also: I can't figure out the order their fates get decided in (Matt, Danny, Harriet, Harriet's baby, Harriet's husband...probably reverse order, except Matt still comes before Danny).

At some point I guessed the whole thing would be about 30,000 words, and I think I'm still right, based on the ratio of what I've written to what I still need to write.

I realized that only one scene I've written is from Danny's POV, and I'm trying to figure out if I want to correct that by swapping over some other scenes or by dropping that scene and having Danny tell Matt about it later. The second sounds easier except for how there's one more scene later that's Danny off doing stuff that Matt doesn't know about, that I don't know how I'll deal with. Maybe he knows Danny went to see Count Vorkosigan but not what came of the meeting, because he's too involved with the Appalling Secrets eating his brain?

I feel like the ending needs some kind of bow tied on top. I don't know what that could be yet.

All of the stuff with Count and Countess Vorkosigan is yet to write. In case you were wondering, Cordelia continues to inflict total awesomitude on Barrayar despite its pleas for mercy. She has a plan to sneakily slip past the Council a bill that would essentially provide a way for any woman on Barrayar to get access to a uterine replicator on the Imperium's dime. Matt is quite impressed when he figures that one out. Also it's probably going to result in marriage law reform. *cough*

Then there's foodness and cluebat to write, and I never did find a place to fit in the detail about Byerly, but it may not be relevant. Also I have to find a way for some detail of Danny's family backstory to tie into the thing Matt is solving as an inspiration, like a "right, Barrayarans are fucking backwards! got it" moment or something, so I can have an excuse to insert that backstory. Maybe what constitutes a mutant at different classes--Danny's family kept his sister, whereas Harriet's mother-in-law killed her daughter.

Okay, after I get the fifteen minute scene out of the way, I'm going to write fic. That will be my reward for being like... halfway done.

In theory I was going to write White Collar (and maybe Vorkosigan) quickfic to try to qualify for Remix but um, my brain is producing non-qualifying plotbunnies. LIKE IVAN MEETS NEAL FOR NO FUCKING APPARENT REASON, DEAR MUSE, REALLY? But in the interest of writing being my reward, I will damn well write whatever makes me happy.

E's Otherwise
07-Ghost
Galaxy Railways (2?)
Gintama
Darker than Black?
Sakura Wars?
Planetes

So I'm um. Constructing vid source for a book series out of anime. At present I am actually mostly shopping uniforms; I have a sufficient number of soldier characters to cast that you know, I really ought to get them matching? Later I'll look for other things. Anime Characters Database unexpected boon--you can search by like, hair and eye color.

I seem to be gravitating towards the pointy chin, tiny nose, ENORMOUS EYES anime style. Galaxy Railways looks like it might be too realistic to match other footage, but it has SPACE, so I'm hanging onto it for now.

I am trying to walk the line between "so rare it's impossible to find copies" and "so popular even I've heard of it and viewers will recognize it and get thrown out of constructed reality."

Um. Yes.

ETA: okay, going nowhere in vid, but I am totally adopting this lady as the illustration to philomytha's story Grey. And then Ivan's head exploding a lot.

I have no compulsion to be prosaic and coherent about it. Have a chat log.

( Read more... )

In other news, the Bel in my head, the one who was foolish enough to marry Miles, has gotten stuck explaining to Nikki that one-night-stand with Ivan and differing sexual mores of Barrayar and Beta whilst avoiding Ekaterin's hairy eyeball. To my amusement and Miles's, the point at which Bel is like, "Okay, we're wandering out of kid-appropriate territory" is regarding, um, motivations. Miles is like, "huh?" and Bel snaps back, "Would you explain to a kid about your black moods?" Miles is sort of shocked to find that anyone else ever has black moods. Ekaterin and Nikki are mostly just confused. Somehow (I'm thinking Nikki) Ivan hears just enough about this conversation to confront Bel about "wait, just what kind of self-flagellation was I functioning as for you?" And then Bel facepalms a lot.

Remix Redux, the challenge wherein we sign up to have our stories remixed/are assigned a writer to remix a story of, is currently deciding qualifying fandoms--fandoms for which participants can sign up if they've written enough stories for them. If you're thinking about participating and want Vorkosigan to be a fandom you can sign up for, go comment on this entry to say so. The more people who comment, the more likely they'll add Vorkosigan to the list.

(x-posted to vorkosigan, where I thought it might be rather relevant.)

I currently only have three completed Vorkosigan stories but I really want to sign up for Vorkosigan and if the fandom gets made a qualifying fandom, I will be HIGHLY motivated to finish another couple of pieces quickly.

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 ( violence against women )

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. ( my thoughts on this week's episode )

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?

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.

So I'm trying to title the Ivan Vorpatrial, Secret Agent story--looking at Bond titles to parody I've come up with:

Three Worlds Are Not Enough (there would have to be some kind of expansionist plot involved)
License to Stun (oh god, this one's a groaner)
On the Emperor's Secret Service (eh)
From Barrayar with Love (I like this one a lot, but the $placename in the original is the enemy's home, not the hero's home, and From Cetaganda with Love just doesn't have the same ring--the Barrayar, so Russian crack)

Alternately, there's ideas like:
The Man From Uncle Simon (very silly given where Illyan's name comes from)
26.7 (this might be too subtle?)


...anyway.

Still need titles for Lady Bel Thorne Vorkosigan, Ivan-and-Gregor, and effing Vorkosigan 60.

The inside of my brain has decided to list a great number of insults and slurs applied to Betan hermaphrodites throughout the nexus. Because if I'm going to write Bel, apparently I should know.

(Bel's attitude is that yes, this is societal problem, but by and large, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, at this point no one's calling Bel anything Bel hasn't heard before. So occasionally I'm introduced to new ones when Bel turns on sarcastic bastard mode and says stuff like, "Yes, I've got the combo pack" or "oh yeah, herms'll get you coming and going.")

There appears to be a French graphic novel adaptation of Warrior's Apprentice.

YOU GUYS. VISUAL SOURCE.

SOMEONE KILL ME IN THE FACE NOW.

ETA: I MAY HAVE PURCHASED IT. AND ALSO A COUPLE OF THE NOVELS IN FRENCH. DAMN YOU AMAZON.FR. Because what I really deeply need is to reacquaint myself with a foreign language by reading books I've memorized, for a ridiculous I don't even want to talk about it price.

I will say I like a lot of the French covers better. OH MY GOD I DO NOT NEED TO COLLECT THE SET.

OH MY GOD I hate using the "it" pronoun for thinking persons, regardless of the established syntax of the canon, but I can't get a single sentence into writing about Bel without needing to use "it." DAMN YOU BUJOLD.

AIM just went down on me, but I feel Az's account of a Bujold Q&A is relevant to some of our interests.

So all month and maybe longer I'll be posting scenes of this Vorkosigan fusion fic I should really find a title for; per the results of this poll I'm making a WIP access filter. If you can see this snippet you're already on the filter. If you're not and you'd like to be, ask here. (If you are and you don't want to be, yell at me here.)

I have another data point.

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

I just got to the end of Cryoburn. ( is a reaction a spoiler? )

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.

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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.

I don't have enough plotbunnies (ahahaahha ahem) so today I'm taking prompts in limited fandoms--

Supernatural
Good Omens (do not bother asking for crossovers, it is meaningless, SPN is GO fanfic)
Vorkosigan

Sorry I'm not up to more fandoms right now, but if it helps at all, you can request specific AUs in progress (ie, V60, Rubyverse, the John and Ruby Show, etc).

The more specific you are, the more likely you are to catch my fancy! (Unless you're so specific I'm like, "or you could write it yourself." All things in moderation, even specificity?) I ship clusterfuck for Supernatural and will write most pairings, with a handful of exceptions you're unlikely to hit unless you're trying to get up my nose.

So! Who wants fic?

I am vidding, so of course I think I might like to do some writing now.

Things what I have watched recently:
Being Human
Logan's Run
Zero Population Growth
Dark City
1984
Raines
DS9
Enterprise
(and have read) Vorkosigan

Anyone have requests for fic?