Remix number three is off to beta!

\o/

I think this one has my fingerprints all over it even more than the first two do, which is really saying something.

Now I can turn my attention to summergen (due 8/1) and my birthday story (due 7/15). Whew. I have ideas for both, I just have to give them the attention.

And, of course, whatever pinch hits come up that I can handle myself. I am going to be good and farm out as many as possible, since I have other obligations, but still, sometimes under the gun, I feel better doing things myself.

45 remixes are in! The deadline is *does some math* 59.5 *fails at math* 81.5 hours away. I know all y'all are gonna get your stories in, right? Right.

*deep breath*

I was up late last night writing (there was a fire engine parked right in front of my building - no sirens, but the red lights were going a mile a minute for a while, so it's not like I was going to sleep anyway, with that flashing in my bedroom) and now I am a little punchy. I have a couple of work things to do (including re-re-rescheduling a conference call from hell. well, not literally from hell, more like Albany, but you know what I mean), but mostly I am going to try to answer comments (who knew so many other people had opinions on the LJ rich text editor?) and write. We'll see how that goes.

And maybe I will take a walk at lunch and get myself a sweet tea from McDonald's. I don't eat the food - I haven't eaten McDonald's (or BK or Wendy's or White Castle) since October 2001 - but I really like the sweet tea, and it's only $1.08 for a big sugary cup full of caffeine and sugar. Sure, I feel a little dirty every time I have one, but what are you gonna do? The sweet tea beckons.

My life, so exciting.

***

Criminal Minds

( spoilers for tonight's repeat )

This episode has just increased my burning desire for a (gen) SPN/CM crossover! Also, I need a Prentiss icon. Or a Prentiss-Garcia-JJ icon. Hmm...

***

So I realized this evening that nearly everything I write this month will be posted anonymously for some length of time. Sigh. I hate anonymous. Must kill anonymous.

Also, I feel like things are going much too well on the remix front. I am waiting for it to all fall apart in the next three days.

Meanwhile, I will keep pushing on with this remix I am writing. I like how it is coming so far.

***

I am a touch cranky this morning, for no real good reason I can discern, except that I have to be at work when I would rather be home, writing, reading, and watching dvds.

Have a list:

people who irritate me, iteration 432938572:

• people who call at 8:58 am or 9 am exactly on the dot. I like to settle into my morning, because I am not a morning person. Expecting me to be ON right at 9 is cruel.



• people who use the rich text editor in LJ for their remixes - this means I can't easily fix a small thing like a borked cut tag (and also that their formatting is almost always weird and annoying and can't be fixed with style=mine). the rich text editor is of the devil! I do not understand why people use it, when the html used in LJ posts is SO EASY. Yes, it is. Take five seconds and learn < em > and < strong > instead of using a crappy tool to do the job. (also, it apparently cuts down on how long a single post can be? I've seen people complain that their 4K word story is "too long for one LJ post" but I've fit 10K word stories in one post, with headers and notes, so I don't get why their 4K word story needs to be split into two posts, and they are clearly using the rich text editor because they have hard-coded fonts in the entry. WTF?)



• people who want you to read something but don't provide a link. Also, if you're posting a story in multiple parts, link the next part at the bottom and the previous part at the top (or both in both places, to be really helpful) because having to return repeatedly to the memories or tag page or whatever is irritating and I will probably wander away from your story after the second or third time and never come back. There's only so many hoops I'm willing to jump through to read a story.

I kind of burned out my righteous indignation on the rich text editor, so I can't remember what else I was going to complain about.

Maybe I will try to answer comments write work now.

***

So I was rewatching the end of Ocean's 13 the other night, and I'd forgotten that it ends with Sinatra singing This Town, and it made me crave some FRANK.

You may not know this, but my iPod is named Frank after Sinatra. When I was in college, our long nights of drinking and rocking the jukebox usually ended with one of us putting on Summer Wind and the rest of us singing along, and it remains one of my all-time favorite songs.

And now I kind of really want a Sam'n'Dean vid to Well Did You Evah? (and surely someone's written a J2 Philadelphia Story AU, right?). I could go for a whole series of SPN vids to Sinatra: That's Life, One for My Baby, the aforementioned This Town and Summer Wind. Also (and these I didn't upload), "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Luck Be a Lady," and "The Lady Is a Tramp."

I would also LOVE an AU/flashback/whatever episode set in the 40s, where they have to wear suits and fedoras. Possibly involving the mafia. (Like the Moonlighting episode. You know the one I mean.) (I might have to write this. Hmmm...)

You should get on making that happen for me.

(Um, I don't need to make the obvious joke do I?)

*

Things (or thighs, as I first typed) and also stuff:

• so I had three days off during which I could have lazed around doing nothing (and mostly did), but my period decides to show up the day I go back to work. Stupid body. So I was a bear of very little brain yesterday. I hate that feeling. Today is better.


• 32 remixes are in! only 200 left to go!


• also, on the remix tip, it is key that people tag their stories, especially with the "original author" tag, as that is how I keep track of what's been posted and what's missing.


• I am wearing my cute red sandals and of course, I can't get "(The Angels Wanna Wear) My Red Shoes" out of my head. I should have a shoes icon. Hmm...


• My birthday is next Wednesday, and if you are interested in writing something for me, here is a list of my bulletproof kinks. It's an old list, but everything on it pretty much holds true. I don't think it's on the list, but I also love crossovers.
  
  I like a lot of pairings, so it's probably easier to tell you which pairings I really don't like: Dean/Castiel, Snape/anyone, Max/Logan, Kirk/Spock, Spike/anyone, Mal/Simon, Mal/Jayne, Mal/Inara, Jayne/River, Nate/Eliot, Hotch/Reid, Reid/Morgan, Alexander/Bagoas.
  
  My big squicks are non-con, infidelity, humiliation, pain, mpreg, parent/child incest, and extreme chan. I am also squicked by water sports, scat, roman showers, bloodplay, and character bashing. I am pretty vanilla - give me some banter and some necking and I'm happy. I also like gen a lot - in Firefly and SPN and STXI, I tend to prefer it, actually, especially if it is crew-focused. Comedy is always a good route to my heart. And zombies. Comedy with zombies in would be aces.


• there were probably other things, but the phone keeps ringing, so I'll leave it there for now.

***

These days, I seem to be only able to work on one story at a time. It's very weird. Part of it is the deadlines - remix and summergen - but part of it is being busy at work and not having the focus to do a lot of writing at night when I get home. I am used to having four things open and being able to write here and there as I am moved and then homing in on one thing when it starts to click. Doing it one after another instead of all simultaneously is weird (I think I wrote one story at a time for my first two months of writing fanfic; by month three I had two or three things on the go and have worked that way ever since).

Right now, I am revising the second remix, which I like better now, having put it away for a couple of days (and also having been reassured by luzdeestrellas that it doesn't suck). I mean, I didn't dislike it, but I felt like there was something missing and I wasn't sure how to fix it. So I am throwing more words at it and hoping that works. *snerk*

I'm also contemplating this pinch hit remix, trying to figure out how to make it different from the original story in interesting ways. The first things I came up with won't work for various reasons, so now I am looking at structure. I like structure - I like numbered sections and drabble pyramids and stories built around poems and stories that are told backwards or out of order for a particular reason - so I am contemplating what might work in this case.

When you are stuck on a remix, when you think maybe the original story works and doesn't need to be told from a different POV and doesn't really have any missing bits to be filled in or whatever, pulling it apart structurally and rebuilding it can work. Rearranging the order of events - or the order in which the events are told - taking flashbacks and making them the narrative present, or inserting flashbacks to expand on something mentioned in passing, shifting the focus from the A-plot to a secondary theme, taking a drabble and making it ten sections of 100 words instead of one... all of these are potential remix strategies. It's just a question of looking at the original story, pulling it apart, and seeing how to put it back together again. I mean, that's the strategy for any remix, but I think it's a lot less conscious when you do a POV shift or a "wait, there's this paragraph here that could totally be a whole story in and of itself" - there, the remix possibility slaps you in the face and you go (clearly, you means me in this paragraph), whereas with the structural changes, it's more of a "huh, I could totally take that three-line flashback and make it the first (or last) section of the story" etc.

It's always an interesting process to me, to work with someone else's outline; in some ways it's easier, because the beats are already there - I just have to find and hit them. In some ways, it's harder, because there are beats I would never have come up with in a million years, and I have to figure out how to play them.


***

I just picked up a remix pinch hit, and I still have to write my summergen, so of course I've spent the evening rewatching Middleman. And then I continued my so-far fruitless search to discover what kind of car he drives and the website I was on wanted to upgrade Quicktime, so that happened and tied everything up. Sigh.

Does anyone know what kind of car it is? (In the pilot it looks like a new Dodge Charger, but in the rest of the episodes it's definitely a classic of some sort (a Shelby Mustang GT500 maybe?))

*

So that was some match this morning, huh? For a little while I thought Roddick might actually be able to pull it off, so I was a little sad he didn't.

You can tell it was an intense match by the fact that my dad stopped switching over to golf every five seconds. *snerk*

*

Two thumbs up for the poached plums in brown sugar syrup, though if you do as I did and triple the recipe, it takes a bit longer to make.

*

I posted fic yesterday, in case you missed it, what with the holiday and all:

A Good Day
Five ficlets on the theme of fireworks. 2,270 words.

one: Federation Day | Star Trek:XI | Kirk/McCoy | pg
two: Unification Day | Firefly | Zoe, Mal, River | pg
three: Guy Fawkes Day | Harry Potter | Remus/Sirius | pg
four: Independence Day (observed) | Friday Night Lights | Eric/Tami | pg
five: The Fourth of July | Supernatural | Sam and Dean | pg

The funny part is that I originally just wanted to write Danny and Rusty down the shore for the fourth (my dad and I watched Ocean's 13 on Friday night), and then they didn't end up in the thing at all. Funny how that works out.

*

I can't believe it's Sunday night. Feh. Sunday night. At least my boss is on vacation this week, so I will hopefully get some writing done.

*

This is so not what I was supposed to write today.

A Good Day
various fandoms; various pairings; pg; 2,270 words; warning policy
Five ficlets on the theme of fireworks.

For the West Wing title project. Happy Fourth of July.

~*~

A Good Day

( one: Federation Day | Star Trek:XI | Kirk/McCoy | pg )

*

( two: Unification Day | Firefly | Zoe, Mal, River | gen )

*

( three: Guy Fawkes Day | Harry Potter | Remus/Sirius | pg )

*

( four: Independence Day (observed) | Friday Night Lights | Eric/Tami | pg )

*

( five: The Fourth of July | Supernatural | Sam and Dean | pg | vague spoilers through the end of season 4 )

~*~

Feedback is always welcome.

~*~

First draft of remix number 2 is done! \o/

It needs some work - I fear it is all tell-y and no show-y - but at least the shape of it is there, and a lot of the meat.

Revising it will be a project, but I can turn my attention to birthday fic and summergen (at least until the remix pinch hits start rolling in - speaking of which, if you are going to drop out, earlier is better, but in any case, notifying the mods is necessary; if you don't you're banned next time [if there is a next time]).

*

Today I made coffee granita with homemade whipped cream. Man, it was good, though the recipe suggests it as breakfast (and I will definitely do that tomorrow morning), we had it as dessert tonight (without the brioche, which I felt was unnecessary), and possibly I will be up all night because of the caffeine.

Tomorrow, I will be attempting these poached plums with brown sugar syrup. Doesn't that look fantastic and tasty? And I really do love plums, so I hope it tastes as good as it looks (given that it's plums with brown sugar and vanilla ice cream, I don't see how it can't be, but sometimes stewed/poached fruit is iffy).

And I will probably be making banana bread again, as well.

I've missed baking. I enjoy cooking, but I really LOVE making desserts (as you can probably tell if you look at my food tag in delicious *snerk*). I didn't work the summer between high school and college, and at least once a week every week that summer, I made some new cookie or dessert (jelly rolls! chocolate mousse! chocolate thumbprints!) and my parents would come home from work and complain about how I'd had the oven on all afternoon and hadn't bothered to turn on the A/C (I like the heat now, but back then I really didn't mind it at all).

as much as I adore my apartment, the kitchen is not made for baking, so I enjoy coming out here and doing it.

I will report on the poached plums, as well as anything else I end up trying.

*

Yesterday, I started reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I've had it on my to-read pile for ages, but kept bumping other things past it on the list. Had I known it had canon sibling hetcest in it, it would have moved up a whole lot quicker! Canon hetcest! With babies! Flist, you FAIL for not informing me of this!

I don't have a strong recollection of The Virgin Suicides, but so far I like it - I am enjoying Eugenides' prose, which is always a plus.

*

two things:

1. so, uh, have any of you been to Graceland? And can I pick your brains?

2. will gmail ever add an "edit this message as new" functionality? it's the only thing the webmail interface is missing and I need it! it's really irritating to me that it doesn't have it (or I can't find it anyway).

3. dear god, this dog is never going to stop barking! my parents are babysitting Nala while my sister and her family are away, and they (my parents, I mean) have gone out and the dog has been barking ever since. And it's over an hour. Even letting her out didn't shut her up. I love the dog, but jesus, she needs to shut up.

Okay, that was three things. I can count. No, really.

***

I feel like I am writing a remix only T-Rex would love.

*sigh*

*

I am very sleepy. My alarm went off in the middle of a dream, and that always leaves me groggy for hours afterward.

Luckily, we are closing early today for the holiday, and we have tomorrow off. \o/

For the first time in years, I have nowhere to go on July 4th, since Mary's birthday party was last Saturday (her birthday is the 4th, so she usually has a birthday bbq on the day itself). I will probably sleep in, eat too much, and attempt to write. that is the plan, anyway.

*

Last night, R. and I had dinner and she caught me up on some BEMC gossip, and then we went to see Up, which I loved. I teared up more than once. That opening montage totally made me do the hand to chest thing that happens when I get really emotional. And Russell! How adorable was Russell? And Dug and Kevin! And of course, Carl. *sigh*

I loved it, though I couldn't help but wish for a movie about Ellie.

And okay, the thing about the princesses is this - sure, I wanted to be a princess when I was a kid - I wanted to be Princess Leia, who got to run around shooting things and argue with Han Solo, and I wanted to be Eowyn, who got left behind because she was a girl, but who then got to kill the Witch-King of Angmar (as a kid, her dereliction of duty didn't make an impression on me). So, you know, if we're talking that kind of princess, I can live with it, but jesus christ, where are the Anne Shirleys and Trixie Beldens and Meg Murrys and Jo Marches and Claudia Kincaids and Mary Lennoxes? Where are the girls who aren't princesses and who want to climb trees and have adventures and then okay, maybe come home and play dress up? Who like ballet and boys and baseball all at once? Why are they not in our movies the way they're in our books? Arrgh!

Then I came home and watched the Garcia-centric episodes of Criminal Minds. I did not know that Graham was in the same episode as Xander! ( spoilers, because I know at least one other person who's watching for the first time, like me )

*yawns and stretches*

Only three and a half more hours, and then I can go home and take a nap.

--
*they didn't used to call me Queen of the Xanderistas for nothing, you know.

***

I spent most of yesterday attempting to put together a trip that had multiple legs, one of which would go from Atlanta to Albany. Guys, Atlanta is a major airline hub and Albany is a state capital. Why does it take 16 hours and 3 stops to get from one to the other? That is INSANE. Dude. I mean, once it took me, like, 14 hours to get from Houston to Ozone Park, but that is only because there were thunderstorms delaying my connection in Atlanta (and also because my cab driver refused to take the Holland Tunnel as I'd requested and we ended up doing a 1 am tour of Staten Island because the Staten Island Expressway was closed for construction), and the only reason I wasn't on a non-stop then was because the tickets were bought, like, two days in advance and so to save money we had to make a connection.

Anyway, after wrestling with it for a few hours, I forwarded this conundrum to the travel agent and she came up with a decent itinerary that didn't cost $1200 or take 16 hours, so it should be fine.

But seriously. Albany! It is not off the beaten track! It should not be that hard to get to!

***

smilla02 gave me five words, and I have talked at great length about them:

( Fandom, reading, OTPs, food/cooking, Bela )

Wow, that really did get long. I hope it makes sense. Work interrupted numerous times and I have not reread for sense-making. *snerk*

***

How is it the end of June already? How is that even possible?

This means you've got a little less than two weeks to get your remixes written. It means I've got a little less than two weeks to get my remix finished, so I can be ready for pinch hits. Maybe it'll be like the first year, where I only wrote two!

What? It could happen!

And this means you've got about two weeks until my birthday, if you'd like to write me a story. And of course, it means I've got about two weeks to finish something off to post on my birthday, as I do enjoy doing that. This morning I had an idea that pleases me. I just need to find some time to fit it in between remixes and spn_summergen, which I still need to do some research and rewatching for. Oy. At least I have until AUgust 1 for that, and I have an idea so AWESOME that I'm rendered nearly speechless by its AWESOMENESS.

And last night while I was watching Criminal Minds, I came up with a great idea for a CM/SPN crossover, though I think it might have to be Gideon's POV, and I am not so sure I could pull that off. Then while I was thinking about that on my commute this morning, I came up with ANOTHER way I could write a CM/SPN crossover, one that puts Garcia right in the center of it, because you KNOW Garcia has totally read the Supernatural books (and has probably done her damnedest to track Carver Edlund Chuck Shirley down, using the full might of the FBI and her own hacker-goddess skills), and that she has totally written SPN fic, and Jesus, how awesome is it that those books make crossovers SO MUCH EASIER for, like, every fandom set in the modern day?

So I have added those to the list, along with the other epic crossovers of epicness (i.e., the SPN/Bones with the demonic ritual sacrifice, and the SPN/BtVS with the Aztec gods in LA [which completely ignores any comics/season 8 canon], once I decide whether that will be Sam/Buffy or Dean/Faith, because I can't have both). The other crossovers - the Dean/Veronica detective AU and the Dean/Wendy Watson+zombies, and the Dean/Cordelia are less with the epic, which you'd think would make them easier, but apparently not so much.

Plus, I still have all the other ideas and wsip I want to write. It really sucks that I still can't get into a good writing rhythm when I have lulls at work.

Which I guess is as good a lead-in as any to the monthly writing roundup:

June 2009 Monthly Writing Roundup

Daylight Won't Remember Her
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg; 11,505 words
Dean would rather be in California, ogling hot chicks in bikinis and drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, not broiling on the blacktop in New Mexico, looking for dead girls.

I really like how this turned out. In terms of plot, it's not exactly the story that was in my head when I set out to write it, but in terms of what it's actually about, it is pretty much what I was going for. I especially like that I wrote an OFC who feels real to me instead of like a plot device (and I kind of want to remix the story from her POV, but I doubt I ever will).

We Killed Yamamoto
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; spoilers through Lucifer Rising; pg; 1,775 words
"I got your message."

I like how this turned out, as well, though seriously, when they are half-naked in bed, it shouldn't be that hard to get them to snuggle, let alone kiss! Stupid boys! How is it when I have to write gen they want to shag like crazed bunnies, but when I want them to have sex they remain steadfastly chaste? WTF is up with that?

[mystery remix number 1]
about which I might have some things to say when all is revealed, but I can't right now.

I'd thought I'd finish more this month, but see above about not being able to write at work as much as I'd hoped. Possibly with various bosses going on vacation in the next few weeks, that will change.

*

Top 5 8 Songs for June 2009

8. Gravity - Vienna Teng
7. You Will Rise - Tom McRae
6. One Girl Revolution - Superchick
5. Can't Find You - Tom McRae
4. The Golden State - John Doe
3. Guided by Wire - Neko Case
2. Deep Red Bells – Neko Case
1. Leaving on a Jet Plane - Vienna Teng

*

I was productive today! My remix has doubled in size, and probably will again before it's done, I watched two episodes of Criminal Minds, and I did a recs update this morning:

unfitforsociety has been updated with 45 recs for June 2009:

* 17 Star Trek Reboot
* 16 Supernatural
* 6 Firefly
* 3 Dark Angel
* 2 Crossovers
* 1 Castle

Go me!

~*~

I've put up warnings on a few old XMM stories that needed them, but if you ever read anything of mine that contains on-screen sexual violence, non-con or dub-con and it's not warned for, let me know. And if there's something else that you think should be warned for, let me know that too.

I generally don't write anything these days that contains that stuff (or if I do, it is generally of the "an incubus made them do it" variety, or it is off-screen and referenced as part of a casefile), and I do consider listing Sam/Dean (or Simon/River) as a pairing to be an incest warning in and of itself.

I do not and will not warn for boyslash, girlslash, or het. (Again, the pairing gives that information and the rating [I generally only use pg or adult these days] indicates the level of explicitness.)

I'll label something as underage if a character under the age of 16 is having sex with an adult (though again, familiarity with the canon I'm writing in will often provide that information via the pairing/timeframe); I generally do not label sex between two teenagers who are the same age as underage.

I won't warn for canon death, but I will warn for spoilers for a few months.

Generally, I write fic for people who are familiar with the source texts in which I'm writing, and I take knowledge of those texts as given; people who read in fandoms they're not familiar with might be at a disadvantage (and will probably be missing things if they read a story I've written), but I feel that providing fandom, pairing, rating, summary and warnings if necessary, in addition to listing through what episode is being spoiled if that information is relevant, to be enough information to be going on with.

If you have a question prior to reading something I've written, feel free to ask, and I will let you know what is in a story, but if it does not have a warning line on it, then there's nothing in it that I thought needed to be warned for.

I think that covers my warning policy. I will try to remember to link to it when posting stories. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

***

In other news, if I could ban the use of the words "lover" and "lovers" from fanfic, I would. Certain exceptions might be allowed, depending on character [e.g., the Middleman] or timeframe [e.g., historical fandoms], but overall, if I never saw either term in a story again, it would be too fucking soon.

***

I just finished reading The Kite Runner and I really liked it. ( spoilers )

I don't think there are many surprises in the story, but I still found it moving and highly readable. And, uh, in light of the warnings discussion, this is a book that would come with numerous warnings, if books did, so if you haven't read it and you're the type who needs warnings, be wary.

***

On my trip home this evening, the metal hook that holds the strap of my bag to the bag itself managed to lodge itself into my pants pocket, and I cannot get it unhooked. *facepalm* I am going to have to transfer all my stuff to a different bag. Sigh.

***

In other news, 723 words on remix number 2. I know how I want it to go in my head, so hopefully I can get it all down on paper soon. That way I can be ready for pinch hits.

***

My dad's computer seems to be dead, which, as you can imagine, caused quite a bit of drama. He's going to call the geek squad, and he has it all backed up on an external harddrive, but in the meantime, I have to teach him how to use the tiny white laptop so he can check his email and his bank balance. I'm pretty sure this is not going to go well.

I love the tiny white laptop, but I don't find it easy to write on (the keyboard is still weird to me; not because of the size, necessarily, but because sometimes strange things happen and I don't know why*) and I'd been hoping to get some writing done.

Also, there was some kind of weird glitch with remixredux09, and it is displeasing to me.

Otoh, I am full of food and cake and raspberry Smirnoff ice from Mary Ellen's 40th birthday party (it was a surprise, and I think they actually managed to surprise her) and sleepy with all of it.

Maybe I will just read for a little while and then go to sleep. that sounds like a plan.

--
* like I will be typing and all of a sudden the window I'm typing in will minimize and I will be in a different window, for no reason I can discern, or the cursor will jump to a different spot on the screen, or something will suddenly be highlighted. it is very strange, and I don't know what combination of keys causes it.

***

Oh my god, you guys, imochan put up a REMUS/SIRIUS LOVE POST, and you know, I have shipped a lot of pairings and loved a lot of pairings and written a lot of pairings, but I think when push comes to shove, Sirius/Remus will remain the OTP OF MY HEART. (I even like that the pairing sounds right with either name first.)

It just hits SO MANY of my bulletproof kinks*, and there were just so many different stories to tell in so many different eras - MWPP-era, post-Hogwarts/pre-Azkaban, Remus's lost years, GoF-era, Lie Low at Lupin's, OotP-era, and Bring Back Black.

I remember I started reading fic in it in late winter/early spring 2003, so it was before OotP, and I was convinced, CONVINCED I TELL YOU, that I had found my OTP of Delayed Gratification and Growing Old Together in the Cotswolds. I mean, the subtext had practically become text when Dumbledore sent Sirius off to lie low at Lupin's, and then there was the joint Christmas present and the infamous, "Sirius, sit down." and and and then there was that STUPID FUCKING VEIL, hands down winner for DUMBEST AND MOST POINTLESS DEATH EVER and they became my OTP of EPIC DOOM AND TRAGEDY**. Sigh. Otoh, that did let me indulge my love of stories about grief, and also eucatastrophe. Joy through sorrow. BRING BACK BLACK.

TRUE LOVE IN A SHACK!

theirloveissocanon!

I miss writing them sometimes. Sometimes, I miss it a lot.

So that post made me happy, and you should go share the love.

*draws a million sparkly hearts around them*

--
* things like, as shaggydogstail says here, That Sirius Black, who is so beautiful you could cry, thinks there's nothing more gorgeous in the world than plain, ordinary-looking Remus Lupin. Because no-one falls in love with someone because they are beautiful - they're beautiful because you love them., or the way they could FINISH EACH OTHER'S SENTENCES even though they'd been apart for nearly THIRTEEN YEARS, or how they reconciled with half a sentence after so much betrayal and heartbreak. Fumbly first time boysex and awkward thirtysomething reunion sex and thank god you came back from the dead don't you ever die again sex. Oh, and also, BOYS IN EYELINER AND BLACK NAIL POLISH in the SEVENTIES. SIRIUS IN A COLLAR. REMUS PLAYING BASS. SIRIUS HAD A FUCKING FLYING MOTORBIKE, FUCKERS. And though I never personally warmed to David Thewlis as Lupin, he was still Harry's gay uncle on smack, and the movie brought us CRAZY GARY OLDMAN as SIRIUS FUCKING BLACK and you can't top that.

**I have quite a few of these. Sigh.

***

I spent this morning in a very interesting meeting with delegates from China's family planning commission. Did you know that the IUD is the most common contraceptive used in China? And that there the official policy isn't exactly one child per family (per the early 1980s); they do encourage most people to have only one child, but there are regional variations and other exemptions etc. Also, that teenagers who go on prescription birth control must have parental consent, but they don't need parental consent for condoms.

They don't really have a nonprofit infrastructure providing population and family planning - it appears to be mainly govt funded and run, but they are apparently looking into having more NGOs provide the actual care.

So that was interesting.

They invited us to come visit, and my boss and I are like, sign us up! We'll come whenever you like!

Also, for those of you in the US, tomorrow is National HIV Testing Day.

***

On the warnings thing, seperis has an interesting post here talking about all the other information headers give you, and as I said in the comments there (and in my own earlier post on the subject), I think readers have to take all that information into account, in addition to whatever warnings are provided, and especially in cases when warnings are not provided.

Even, as Jenn mentions in her post and I in my comment there, when in canon a story is set can tell you a lot. If you post an SPN story set during Mystery Spot, I imagine Dean is going to either die in many hilarious horrible ways or he is going to be dead through most of the story and Sam is going to be crazy. If you post a BSG story set during the Pegasus arc and it's about Sharon or Gina, I'm probably not going to read it because it will probably deal with rape or attempted rape and the aftermath. Not every story will have that label, of course, but quite a few will - generally episode codas written during the course of the season will say, "Spoilers through Resurrection Ship Part II" or "episode tag for Mystery Spot" or something like that.

I wrote a pair of Sirius/Harry stories featuring creepy-molester!Sirius (or, really, creepy, confusing Harry with James!Sirius) and the one with the explicit abusive/dub-con situation has the summary, "It takes Harry a while to notice that no one leaves him alone with Sirius." That, coupled with an adult rating and a Harry/Sirius pairing label provides, imo, a fairly clear picture of the type of thing that is going on in the story (it is not labeled AU or Bring Back Black, so it seems clear that it takes place before Sirius dies, so Harry is 15 at most). I will, of course, be putting a "consent issues" label on it to make that explicit, but good headers should provide pertinent information.

Unfortunately, many of us are bad at summarizing our stories, so they don't always provide the best information possible. I swear there are times I look up my stories on delicious and see someone has come up with the perfect summary and I'm just like, "man, I wish I'd thought of that!" especially since I don't like doing rote plot summations, because generally speaking, in my stories, the MOTW or whatever is the last thing the story is actually about.

So authors are not always going to be your best bet at getting the best information about a story via the summary. Which is where having some kind of explicit and separate "warning/may contain" label in addition to the pairing/rating/summary lines of your headers comes in. Which is why headers are important.

Hell, even moving away from the warnings debate, if you list a John, Jack, Sam or Dan in your pairing label and don't identify the fandom you're writing in, who the hell knows who you're talking about*? But that's a personal pet peeve. I personally don't need warnings, but I choose the stories I read based on pairing, author name, and fandom.

--
*Yes, I realize that you can usually tell by the other name in the pairing, but still! It's damn confusing sometimes, with all the Jacks, Johns, Sams and Dans running around.

***

Crap, I actually have work to do. At least I get to leave early. Yay summer Fridays!

***

Holy crap!

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have both died!

And LJ is down!

Craziness!

edited to add links

*

Had a lovely fangirl dinner last night with dotfic, innie_darling and tenaciousmetoo at Caffe Reggio. The panini were good, the coffee shake was delicious, and they let us sit and talk long after we were done with our food, which I really appreciate.

*

So far, seven remixes have been posted! I think that's a record for this early in the process. Last night, while I was not-sleeping, I realized that I've written about 30 remixes since we started this crazy thing back in 2003 (including the Remus/Remix) in, um, 10 fandoms. I panic a lot less now about the writing part of the program. *g*

*

I have mostly stayed out of the warnings debate, though I am really appalled at some of the awful behavior from people I'd previously considered reasonable and even, in some cases, admirable.

In no way, shape or form is it okay to tell someone who has been sexually assaulted that they're acting from a place of privilege granted to them as a victim when they ask for your consideration, nor is it okay to imply, infer, or flat-out state that they're exaggerating or lying and should just get over it. What the fuck is WRONG with you? (And no, that is not a call for you (generic) to defend yourself in my comments, so don't.)

While I don't think there is or has ever been any kind of fannish consensus on this issue (or we wouldn't keep having to have this argument, and getting more than five fans to agree on one thing at any given time is like asking the Pope and Dan Savage to be friends, so there are always going to be issues with terminology etc. even if everyone agreed to actually warn for certain things), I do think the reader and the writer both bear some responsibility for shaping their personal fannish experience, and contributing to the experience of others who belong to the same communities (as to whether fandom itself is a community... I think that is too complicated to get into in an aside). And I think this round of this debate, as contentious and full of fuckwittery as it's been, has educated some people on what the difference is between a squick and a trigger, which can only be a good thing. I know I've certainly learned things (some of which I wish I hadn't).

This isn't just someone bitching about an uncut casting spoiler or being annoyed that the story she was reading morphed into surprise songfic, you know?

amadi provides some excellent code to show you how to do a warning which is blanked out (so it can be skipped by people who don't want to be warned) but can still be read on both Macs & PCs, and also by screen readers.

On a less general level, I would like to think that on the rare occasions my stories have contained consent issues, I've warned for them, though I don't think on my website I have. Hmm... I should go back and fix that.

I have on occasion warned for underage sex, though when I say in the summary that a story takes place during, say, Order of the Phoenix and it features NC-17 sex between Ginny and Sirius, I don't think I actually need to tell you that Ginny is underage.

Otoh, I looked back at the pair of Sirius/Harry stories I wrote and though again to me, the pairing would suffice as a warning, to people who actually ship that pairing, it would not, and they might be in for a surprise when they discover that there are certainly consent issues in play. So I will probably spend some time this weekend tracking that handful of stories down and doing some kind of "Warning: consent issues" relabeling.

On the third hand, these days, I write a bit of consensual sibling incest and there, I feel the pairing label is the incest warning, and the sex I write is generally pretty vanilla, so I consider the rating the warning in that case.

I also like the idea I've seen around (kanata and ranalore spring to mind) of linking to a general warning policy in fic headers if you are not a person who wants to give warnings. Just saying, "I don't warn, so be wary," is fine, but make it part of the regular story headers so that people who don't know you or who come in via links can find it easily (also, this is why I hate when people link to something with #cutid1 on the end of the URL so I have to scroll up to see the headers, and also why people shouldn't put story information just in the cut-tag text and not in the post proper, because if you're linked directly, you don't ever see it).

[eta] winterweathered has created a community called ficsafezone, the purpose of which is to help people who have specific triggers vet stories without warnings (see community profile and sample post. I don't know how or if it's going to work, but it sounds like it could be a useful resource. [/eta]

Now I should probably go and do some actual work-related work, but I'm sure you were all just waiting with bated breath for me to weigh in on the topic.

***

copracat asked me some questions:

1. Oh, Cordy. Why? How would you have finished her storyline?

I would not have had her ascend, first of all - I don't mind that the whole thing was a big bait-and-switch - I thought that made sense, but even though I can't come up with anything AWESOME myself, I am sure there are at least fifteen hundred other ways for her story to have gone that didn't include "return as an evil old one and have a second demonic pregnancy and then go into a coma and die." Feh. I wouldn't have even minded her going evil for a while, as long as it was HER, you know? And, huh. I just had a thought only tangentially related to this, so I will talk about that below.

2. Snoring: dealbreaker in selecting a honey or not?

It's not a dealbreaker, but it's something I'd avoid if at all possible.

3. If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Unreal places most definitely allowed.

I would live right where I live, except that the Second Avenue Subway would already exist, and I would own the apartment so I didn't have to pay the exorbitant rent.

Alternately, I would live on a houseboat that docked for a large part of the year in the US Virgin Islands.

4. What's your favorite fictional library?

The Dream Library in Sandman.

5. Mixtapes why?

I will let Nick Hornby speak for me here:

To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. [...] A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.
~High Fidelity, Nick Hornby, p. 88

Also, I really liked the control, the unexpectedly cool segues, the personal constraints of almost never allowing an artist to have more than two songs on any given tape (and almost never back to back), the balance of choosing things you think the person doesn't know but might like with things you know they know and love... seriously, CDs and playlists cannot come close, mostly because it gives the listener too much control over the order the music is listened to.

***

Speaking of Cordelia, you know, we've compared season 4 Sam Winchester to s6 Willow and BtVS s4/AtS s1 Faith, but maybe there is a lot of AtS s3 Cordelia in him, as well. ( spoilers for both shows, I guess? ) But there are definitely similarities, I think.

Possibly I might have to work that into the Dean/Cordy, since it's still languishing unfinished on my harddrive, and I'd already planned for her to give him a speech about avoiding getting knocked up by ancient evil.

Also, I had this terrible thought this morning, comparing Dean with Lee Adama because ( minor spoiler for SPN ep 4.20 )

And it's not even that I dislike Lee, though I did for a long while. It's more that I didn't want to feel that same annoyance towards Dean, after all he's been through. (though in some ways, for some of the same reasons, it's probably warranted, and maybe someday I will have the coherency to post about why; it's not for that particular scene, though.)

***

Man, I need to eat lunch.

*is hungry*

***

Things that are awesome:

1. one remix off to beta! one down, one* to go!

2. today my boss told me she was, and I quote, "delighted" with me and my work in the four months I've been at NNP (that's "New Nonprofit" for those of you joining the broadcast in progress). She asked if I was happy and I said I was and that I hoped she was too, and she said she was delighted. And I said, I figured I'd know if she weren't, and she was like, "indeed." Let's hope this state of affairs continues indefinitely.

3. ( casting spoiler for s5 of Supernatural )


--
*I'm trying not to think about that unspecified number of pinch hits I'll have to write this year.

***

Last night I dreamt that Alec got Max pregnant, but there was another clone/twin (X5-495? I don't think it was Ben) who kept trying to claim the baby was his and Max and Alec were not having with that at all.

I, you know, I don't even know. (Clearly, I just want Jensen Ackles' characters to start knocking women up.)

On the upside, at least I wasn't the one pregnant, nor did I wake up going, "oh god, the baby!" which is usually what I do when I dream about pregnancy (usually because I'm the one suddenly pregnant).

***

I have this AWESOME idea for my second remix, but I am afraid I am not going to be able to pull it off. wah! I guess I will try it, and then if it doesn't work, I will... try something else. *snerk*

***

One day, I will have the brain to do something other than post memes. Today is not that day.

From regala_electra:

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on at least three of my unpopular opinions related to that fandom.

If you ask about a fandom I'm not familiar with, I will make something up!

***

I have had that awful heavy-headed sleep-deprived feeling all day. Stupid Sunday nights. I was in bed by 11:15! I should not feel this way! Of course, I was up every two hours, so it wasn't exactly a restful night's sleep. I am pretty sure that around 10 or 11 tonight I will perk right up. Stupid circadian rhythms.

***

I am pretty sure copracat gave me interview questions, but I can't seem to find them in the mess that is my inbox. Um. I will get on that soon.ish.

Meanwhile, also from my darling Vera, a meme:

List 10 (or however many) platonic male/female relationships in fiction that you enjoy. My attempt at rules:

1. They interact in canon, preferably in a significant (apply your own interpretation of such) way.
2. They are not related. They can, however, view each other as surrogate family.
3. Neither has confessed or implied romantic love for the other in canon.
4. They have not dated, been married, had sex, or made out in canon, on purpose, and of their own free will.
5. A popular fanon ship is ok (though preferably not your ship) but a canon pairing you wish were just friends is out.
6. Try to avoid using the same character or series twice.
7. They don’t have to be friends.

Since I ship best friends pairings, this is hard for me, because of course I am always wanting to add the romance in. But I will try!

In no particular order, except that which I thought of them:

1. Starbuck & Helo (Battlestar Galactica). Because Starbuck needs someone who grounds her without getting sex involved, and that has always been Helo, who loves her for her and not what she can do for him, or who he thinks she is or might be or might become.

2. Original Cindy & Alec (Dark Angel). I really wish the show had done more with these two, because Original Cindy was AWESOME and she helped mediate between Max and Alec when it was needed and Joshua couldn't be there to do it, and there were hints that she and Alec were on their way to becoming friends aside from the relationship with Max.

3. Mal and Zoe (Firefly). This is Mal's most significant relationship, the one without which he would be rudderless and adrift (it's not for no reason that Zoe* is the one who's injured in "Out of Gas" when the Serenity herself is injured, and it's Zoe who speaks up about profaning the ship in the movie, and it's Zoe who says that though she's been tore up plenty, she'll fly true in the aftermath of Miranda). Zoe doesn't need Mal as much as Mal needs Zoe, but I think he gives her things that she would otherwise feel the lack of. (Admittedly, post-movie, I do kind of ship them, but I also love their relationship in canon just as it is.)

3a. Kaylee & Wash (Firefly). ♥

4. Olive Snook & Emerson Cod (Pushing Daisies). Itty Bitty and Big Poppa! Snook & Cod, Detectives! Two great tastes that taste great together!

5. CJ & Josh and CJ & Sam (The West Wing). She calls them the Idiot Boys. She's like the AWESOME big sister Josh lost and Sam never had.

6. Dan & Natalie and Dan & Dana (Sports Night). here, Dan gets to be the middle child, where he gets the benefit of Dana being like an older sister, and he gets to act like Natalie's big brother.

7. Wendy & the Middleman (Middleman). Okay, so I kind of totally ship them, but they have a lovely relationship in canon that is not sexualized. (I am also very fond of Wendy and Noser's friendship).

8. Prentiss & Morgan (Criminal Minds). They start out a little awkward, but then they become friends and it is like a commingling of AWESOME with AWESOMESAUCE on top! (Note: I have only seen the first two seasons, so I don't know if things change later on, but for right now, they are friends! And I like them that way!)

9. Buffy & Giles (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). ♥

10. Sarah Connor & Derek Reese (The Sarah Connor Chronicles). This is another relationship canon didn't really do much with, when it should have, but they do have some really interesting scenes together. (and I totally wanted them to have angsty mad hot sex, but whatever, canon.)

11. Harry & Hermione (Harry Potter). I love love love their friendship and the way it grows over the course of the books.

12. Veronica & Wallace (Veronica Mars). I love Veronica and her brother from another mother! They are such awesome BFFs - Wallace always had Veronica's back and Veronica did understand and appreciate Wallace's value, though she didn't always know how to show it. *heart*

--
* Yes, yes, Zoe's injured because Gina Torres was off getting married that week, but my point stands.

***

Half an hour and I can go home and veg out on the couch. Woo!

***

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

This morning, I baked banana bread for (with) mine. It turned out really well and was really easy (and when you make it, you won't have my dad standing over you offering "advice" so there's a plus).

Oh, and I lent him my copy of The Yiddish Policemen's Union after I finished it and he is already halfway through. I knew he'd like it, and it does have a really compelling narrative momentum going for it.

We went to my sister's for a barbecue, and while Alyssa and I were teaching Nicki and Tricia how to play May I, the boys were playing kickball and I got hit in the face with the ball. Sigh. This is so typical.

I feel like there was something else I was going to say, but I am sleepy and I have writing to do, so I guess not.

I can't believe it's Sunday night already. Stupid time, passing so quickly.

***

Guys, I know this may be shocking, but when you have two guys in a threesome with a girl, and they're getting off on the other one being there and on watching each other have sex and stuff, even if they're not touching each other, they are engaging in homoerotic behavior. You can claim it's not boyslash (and technically maybe it's not, since girl parts are involved), but it is definitely homoerotic. And that's okay! You should embrace it, even if your characters are in denial!

And if those two guys happen to be brothers, you are really stretching the bounds of credulity by claiming that it's not an incestuous situation, even if there is technically no actual brother-on-brother sexual contact.

Own your words, people. Seriously.

***

I broke 1000 words on one of my remixes! \o/ It's all downhill from there. *g*

I also appear to be writing a sequel to a girl!Sam story I haven't even finished yet. *facepalm* I don't know why this surprises me anymore.

I did finish reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union last night, and wow. Just. Wow. I loved it even more than Kavalier & Clay, which I thought went off the rails in Antarctica and then ended abruptly. This, though, probably because of the genre, was tight and compelling from beginning to end, full of the sharp, vivid, muscular prose that makes reading Chabon so awesome. I wish I could use words the way he does, and the story he's telling here is one that draws you in deeper and deeper, like the best noir and neo-noir - no one is innocent, but there is always at the end someone willing to stand up for what's right, at least in some small way.

Detective novels - especially hardboiled detective novels - are possibly my favoritest genre of literature, and so this was like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. I'm not sure how the alternate universe world-building actually holds up, but I didn't really care, because I felt like Landsman and Bina and Berko were real, and I could picture Sitka District (possibly being a fan of Northern Exposure helped some?) and its denizens fairly clearly, which is not something I can always do, as my imagination is not very visual.

Highly recommended, if you haven't already read it.

***

You know, I get that many media fans are not sports fans, and really have no interest in the major league American team sports, but jesus, mary and joseph, baseball does not have halftime! Hockey does not have quarters! American football is played from September to February! You can't just throw in a random jumble of sports terms and the name of a team and hope it makes sense! Especially not if you are making one of your characters a sports fan (or sports anchor *cough*).

You do research about other aspects of your story, don't you? I mean, it's one thing if the character isn't supposed to know anything about sports, but if you're making one of them, say, a Cubs fan, then you should know that the Cubs play National League baseball (and yes, it is different in some ways from American League baseball, most notably in the fact that the NL does not use the designated hitter except in interleague play taking place at AL ballparks) in the city of Chicago.

This is like having a character be a big music fan and then completely blowing the music references! (Which I have also seen in fic. Which. Dean would know the track listing on Zeppelin II! And it's not like there's a lack of Zeppelin discographies on the internet!)

It's one thing to have your characters blather on about fake arcane things like transporter beams or poltergeists or mutant powers - my suspension of disbelief is pretty rubbery and can withstand a lot. But small details are where verisimilitude lives, and making sure you've got one or two right ones, instead of a handful of wrong ones, will make your story a hell of a lot better. And I say this as someone who I'm sure gets things wrong when they're not things I know about (see: all my HP fic set in the UK), but I at least try to do a little research when it's something a character has some expertise in, even if it's just asking my dad about engines or whatever.

[/rant]

Whew. I feel better now. That one's been building a while.

***