friends

Regardless of your political views, it's important that you see this video.

heh

(link 'borrowed' from morgandawn)

his mama couldn't recognize him

[Sep. 7th, 2008|10:19 pm]

[	Current Mood	\|	sleepy	]
[	Current Music	\|	Mets v. Phillies on tv	]

OMG Joe Morgan, STFU!

I was telling

esorlehcar earlier that being a sports fan prepares you for being a media fan, because so often the stupid fuckers (i.e., your team of choice) just break your heart.

On the plus side, the Mets are currently winning. Hopefully they can hold on.

Man, Johan Santana is pretty.

*

In other news, here are some pics of Jared and Jensen from the Red Bull race thingy. Adorkable.

*

he got every bit of it

[Sep. 7th, 2008|01:20 pm]

[	Tags	\|	my flist knows everything, writing: pov	]
[	Current Mood	\|	curious	]
[	Current Music	\|	Jets v. Dolphins on tv	]

Okay, hit me with your tips for writing a third person omniscient narrator. I have never successfully managed it for a while story.

*

1 comment|Leave a comment

but you got my soul

[Sep. 6th, 2008|11:10 pm]

[	Tags	\|	music	]
[	Current Mood	\|	anxious	]
[	Current Music	\|	Sadly Beautiful - Tom McRae	]

M's baby shower was today. the food was excellent. We sat in the back while the gifts were being opened, and we kind of didn't really pay attention, and so got yelled at by one of her in-laws for not paying attention. It was kind of hilarious.

anyway, I feel like I should be writing, but that is apparently not happening tonight.

In the meantime, have some music. It's a random assortment of stuff in a folder - nothing I haven't uploaded before, but maybe there's something you don't have. I don't know.

***

1 comment|Leave a comment

packing

[Sep. 6th, 2008|05:50 pm]

cmshaw

[	Tags	\|	life	]
[	Current Mood	\|	hopeful	]

putting things in boxes: even better than whitewashing fences! anybody fancy joining me for this partytime? i'm going to be packing this sunday and next saturday afternoon, and -- as if the putting of things into boxes weren't enough -- i can even offer food and vid-watching too!

4 comments|Leave a comment

Various and Sundry Recs...

[Sep. 6th, 2008|10:47 am]

A few Alec Hopkins (young!Snape) youtube links: first a little comedy interview from the summer of 2007, and then one where he talks about OotP/HBP from September 1. (And as an added bonus, a strange little video of young!Snape visiting Diagon Alley filmed with a young lookalike.)

***

In other news, one of my very non-fannish sisters (wife, 'homemaker,' and mother of two), emailed me the other day to tell me that Edward (from SMeyer's Twilight series) is her new boyfriend (displacing Mr. Darcy, apparently) and ordering me to read the 'wonderful books' a.s.a.p. so that we can bond over them. In a fandom context, I have no problem saying "Eek, no! Never in a million years!" (based, admittedly, on little more than reading two chapters, plus skimming the various MST'ings of the series), but with my sister, it's...more problematic, since we have so little in common to begin with and she knows I'm a vampire fan. *sigh*

Speaking of vampires, though, I have no problem reccing the following to fellow vamp fans:

Evernight by Claudia Gray (contemporary YA book that crosses over easily. Smart and with utterly believable character voices. One odd plotting decision, but as the story progresses, that ceases to matter.)

Matters of the Blood by Maria Lima (A very unusual backdrop for the supernaturally-tinged events that take place in the first of Lima's mystery series. Great atmosphere.)

The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (eight books, all set primarily in northern Louisiana in a Alternative Universe where vampires have "come out of the coffin." Like...okay, kind of like the Anita Blake books, but only if Anita hadn't turned out to be such a damned unappealing character. Eight books in and I still love Harris's Sookie Stackhouse. This, by the way, is the series that's the basis of HBO's new series True Blood, which starts on Sunday)

(Note: two of the authors above are fans. Obviously I'm not linking their fannish names here, unless they write to say it's okay, but...they're us)

Oh, and a non-vampire rec:

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. (Alternating povs between an experienced supervillain and a novice super-heroine. Very, very clever. And please note it was written before Dr Horrible when you're reading it. Joss...my eye is upon you.)

5 comments|Leave a comment

Gender Roles

[Sep. 5th, 2008|06:01 pm]

rushlight

[	Tags	\|	musings	]
[	Current Mood	\|	contemplative	]

I was having a conversation earlier this week with a real life friend who's aware of my passion for writing m/m fiction but doesn't really understand the reason for it, and a couple of thoughts came to mind. I know this is a topic that's been discussed to death in slash fandom, but I thought I'd share my random musings here.

First, I thought of my own experiences as a single mother, and how being the only adult in the house has changed the way I view my own gender role. For example, the other day RJ found a scorpion on the floor of our kitchen. When I was married, my response to such a situation would have been to climb on top of the nearest chair and yell for my husband to come and kill it. But because I was the only adult there, my initial response was to calm RJ down, then to go out and find a decent-sized shoe so I could squash the thing myself. Then I picked it up and flushed it.

None of which really has anything to do with why I write slash, but it raised some interesting thoughts about traditionally accepted gender roles and how easy it is to fall into them. Men are the "protectors", women are the "nurturers", etc. That's a tremendous hurdle when writing about two individuals of opposite sex involved in an intimate relationship. When writing m/f fiction, gender roles have to be taken into account even if they aren't addressed directly, because societal and cultural influences are so very powerful. You can certainly write a story where the princess rides off to rescue the knight, but the assumption of most readers is probably going to be that it was written solely to make a statement of some kind. :/

But that goes away when there are two men (or two women) involved in a relationship together. It's like having only one adult in the house.... Without someone of the opposite sex there to force the other character into certain preassigned roles, there's more freedom to focus on how Character A would interact with Character B, instead of how a "man" would interact with a "woman". If that makes any sense?

All of which is a huge oversimplification, I know. I'm sure there are as many different reasons for writing m/m fiction as there are people who write it (one of which is that reading about two men together is just darn HOT ^_^). But I do like the thought that choosing those two characters to focus on gives a writer more freedom to explore the intricacies of their characters, instead of getting bogged down by gender "politics".

4 comments|Leave a comment

to hit something and make it hurt

[Sep. 5th, 2008|12:16 pm]

[	Tags	\|	dreams, poetry	]
[	Current Mood	\|	sleepy	]
[	Current Music	\|	commercials on the radio	]

Last night, I dreamt my sister drew some fanart for one of

kassrachel's stories, and I was just like, "But you've never made fanart for me!" (My sister actually is a talented artist. She is not at all involved in media fandom.)

Then I dreamt that

luzdeestrellas joined me and my friend Lee (and Lee's sister Ann) at the shore house we were renting (this is the same house where I once shared a sofabed with three other girls and this guy named Brian, because Lee's stepsisters and their friends showed up the same weekend Mary and I were there, and there weren't enough rooms for all of us), and the weather was rainy, so we were kind of stuck in the house. We ended up playing cards and drinking beer and watching a lot of MTV (which is actually what we used to do when it rained, well, minus the card playing - we were actually down there once during a hurricane - and I remember waking up the next morning thinking I would never ever get the taste of stale beer and Doritos out of my mouth, even though I'd brushed my teeth, like, four times trying to. That was also the trip where I learned to put one foot on the floor to stop the bed from spinning. Ah, youth.), which actually was playing videos, something I don't think it actually does anymore. We even had the old school remote that was still wired to the television - it was flat, like a box, and you moved the channel selector up and down the board.

***

I am having thinky thoughts, but I can't quite articulate them yet, so have a poem instead. I found this one while I was looking for something else. It made quite an impression.

Benevolence

After my older brother died and I had punished
the migraines with enough codeine
to sleep through the night I walked out
into the backyard with the moon illuminating everything
like an antidepressant and threw a rock
at two feral cats who seemed bent on fucking or killing
each other. It was not a mystical moment,
or a therapeutic one,
I did not link the feline fight of wills with my own, it just
felt good to throw something.
The fact that I missed
is not a telling sign of my own benevolence or a metaphor
for the inaction of violence,
it only means that I have always sucked at baseball. That I
couldn't throw a ball into a glove
if the ball was in my right hand
and the glove in my left. That I preferred to be
standing in the outfield where the grass had grown tall
and the clouds formed a menagerie
of animals above my head. Standing there
with only one wish:
that no one would hit the ball hard enough to reach me.
But the weight of the rock
and the sound of it ripping through the trees,
crashing against the fence,
was enough to make up for all the Little League humiliations
I had garnered through my intense fear
of physical injury. The time I actually dove
out of the way, the ball sailing beyond the dugout. The time
I could have scored if I had slid into the dirt
but instead, walked as if I had nowhere important
to be. Even as I watched my older brother
skin knee after knee, break bone after bone—
always surviving, always
being able to bite down on what
the world had given him, what he had made
of it, and still walk along the bases, the streets, the rugs
of countless therapists, still swallow
the glowing pills humming in the bottom of countless paper cups,
his arms bound to the bed by cotton straps,
the razor he once slid along his arm like a beam of light—
I couldn't manage the smallest cut,
the most laughable bruise. When I walked out
into the backyard and held the rock in my hand
I wanted so badly not just to throw it, but to hit something and make it hurt.

~Matthew Dickman

***

DS/US Politics: A Ficlet

[Sep. 5th, 2008|11:52 am]

shayheyred just issued a challenge for somebody to write a Due South/Sarah Palin crossover, and I...well, maybe I did it and maybe I didn't. :)

( In which Ray Kowalski has political opinions / 270 words )

10 comments|Leave a comment

Plagiarism Update

[Sep. 5th, 2008|06:02 am]

rushlight

[	Tags	\|	plagiarism	]
[	Current Mood	\|	relieved	]

Thank you to everyone who's given me the news.... It looks like the story I had plagiarized has been removed from fanfiction.net, and the person who posted it's user account deleted. It's not clear whether ff.net did the deleting or if the thief deleted it herself, but the important thing is that it's gone.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment in the story's reviews chastising her for stealing the story, and/or sent in an abuse report to ff.net. No matter who was responsible for eventually deleting the story, I'm positive the support I've gotten from all of you has had everything to do with it. I think it's absolutely awesome what fandom can accomplish when it pulls together like this.

It's worth mentioning that I got a letter (thank you

mysticsong for passing it on to me) from the beta who was thanked in the plagiarized story's notes to apologize for her part in the whole thing. It doesn't look like she was aware the story was stolen, and felt terrible once she found out about it.

EDIT: It looks like the user account is still active, so she probably removed the story herself.

8 comments|Leave a comment

so i turn my collar up and face the day

[Sep. 4th, 2008|10:24 pm]

[	Tags	\|	fannishness, flove, tv: dark angel	]
[	Current Mood	\|	headachy	]
[	Current Music	\|	The Smashing Pumpkins - Thirty-Three	]

Oh dear god, I have the worst headache. It's probably partly the weather, and partly the amount of time I spent this afternoon arranging a bunch of meetings with people who are apparently booked solid forever. I left work right at five (I work until five-thirty) because the pizza I had for lunch did not agree with me, and I was rapidly becoming more unwell than I like to be in places that are not my own home. I was vilely ill for a bit, and I am just aghast that the PIZZA I had for lunch hurt me. I mean, I kind of knew something was not right while I was eating, and I didn't eat it all, but I ate enough to make me unwell. Sigh. The last time I was sick, it was a cheeseburger. IS NOTHING SACRED?

***

Oh, god, the Giants are going to kill me. Stupid penalties, man. Stupid, stupid penalties. And also, no rhythm to the offense in the second half.

***

So I posted a story this morning:

The Trick Is to Keep Breathing
Dark Angel; Max/Alec; adult; 3,065 words
"I come here to be alone." "So, no different from anywhere else then, huh?"

( babbling about the story, and some rambling about Max and Alec )

Anyway, I like how it turned out, and I'm glad other people like it too. And now I can cross that title of my list; it's been on there a while.

I still need to write the Alec woos Max with heists fic, though. If only I could write caper fic.

***

I posted fic today because it's the eighth anniversary of the first story I ever posted, way back in the days of mailing lists. I reread that story the other day, and it's... it's actually not bad. There are things in it I would never do now, that make me wince, but for a first effort, well, it doesn't suck. I remember sitting somewhere outside in Washington DC, waiting to go into a meeting, scribbling it down on my notepad. And having it betaed, like, 18 times by five different people. I was new, okay? I know you won't believe this, but I used to be SO SELF-CONSCIOUS OMG about showing my writing to other people. I was coy and precious about it and it makes me sick to think about now.

Anyway. Including drabbles, ficlets by request, kisslets and other commetfic type things, I've got about 750 stories in my delicious, in 47 fandoms (there are 48 tags in the fandom bundle, but one of those is for crossovers) and a bunch of pairings. The het/boyslash is split pretty equally, and gen is slowly creeping up there, thanks to SPN and Firefly.

I've been in fandom for nearly eleven years, and I've learned a lot - about writing. about gay sex. about British slang, Japanese mourning rituals, the shaving habits of ancient Greeks, and the 1967 Chevy Impala. About how to be a person.

I've had a few rough patches, but mostly it's been awesome. Thank you for that.

♥ ♥ ♥

***

Should You Vote for Obama or McCain?

2 comments|Leave a comment

[Sep. 4th, 2008|09:25 pm]

titti

I was bored, because we all know that 4th quarter means a lot of commercials and McCain won't go on until the game ends so he can have network coverage, which leaves me with quizzes. I think only

shezan will appreciate this one. *g*

Your Issue Profile: 32% Obama, 68% McCain

When it gets down to it, you tend to best match John McCain. But he's not the perfect candidate for you, and you may not be sold on him yet.

Obama shares a good number of your views too, so you might want to give him a second look.

It all comes down to which issues matter to you the most.

Posted while waiting for McCain's speech to raise my blood pressure....

[Sep. 4th, 2008|07:40 pm]

Some very interesting responses to Governor Palin's sneering "community organizers" comment (and how coded that phrase is) over on Making Light today.

26 comments|Leave a comment

fic: The Trick Is to Keep Breathing (Dark Angel; Max/Alec; adult)

[Sep. 4th, 2008|10:50 am]

[	Tags	\|	fic-dark angel, max/alec	]
[	Current Mood	\|	awake	]
[	Current Music	\|	One = U2	]

Since it is the eighth anniversary of the first time I posted fic, I bring you a story to celebrate!

The Trick Is to Keep Breathing
Dark Angel; Max/Alec; adult; 3,065 words
"I come here to be alone." "So, no different from anywhere else then, huh?"

Thanks to

athenejen for the speedy and thorough beta. Title from Garbage.

( The Trick Is to Keep Breathing )

~*~

Feedback is adored.

~*~

2 comments|Leave a comment

RNC

[Sep. 3rd, 2008|10:26 pm]

titti

I'm trying to stay away from most political debates, but...

God, I love Rudy Giuliani.

That's all.

the universe speaks. i hear.

[Sep. 3rd, 2008|10:08 pm]

[	Tags	\|	tv: bones	]
[	Current Mood	\|	shocked	]
[	Current Music	\|	Martina Sorbara - Once I Was Mighty	]

Bones

( spoilers )

***

2 comments|Leave a comment

this love of mine will never die

[Sep. 3rd, 2008|12:07 pm]

[	Tags	\|	links, the boy/boy melodrama, tv: bones, you should totally write that	]
[	Current Mood	\|	amused	]
[	Current Music	\|	And I Love Her - the Beatles	]

New Bones tonight! Two hour season premiere! Yay!

To celebrate, have a link: 17 Pop Culture Questions for David Boreanaz. He's kind of dorky and kind of toolish at the same time, and I kind of love him for it.

***

So on my commute this morning, I was thinking about the characters I tend to be drawn toward, and how alike they are in some ways, and I was thinking about how Dean and Xander would probably get on like a house on fire, and then I clicked a link off the

spnnewsletter and lo, and behold, it was a story about Dean and Xander being friends during Xander's sojourn at the Fabulous Ladies' Night: No Power on This Earth by

redrikki - Dean and Xander being dorky together. *glee*

Really, I would like a much longer story where they debate about comics and perv on Uhura while watching ST:TOS and argue about the best way to get bloodstains out of denim, and maybe Sam gets slowly drawn into the conversation and he and Xander start arguing about D&D, and there is a lot of mocking and also some pirate-talking, and then they go slay some vamps, and go out for pizza and beer afterward.

And Dean visits Xander whenever he's in Cleveland - maybe they go weapons shopping together or something - and they email each other stupid youtube links and are basically BFF.

How much would I love that? You guys, someone should write this for me! You know you want to!

***

who all of a sudden is struggling with his control

[Sep. 2nd, 2008|08:42 pm]

[	Tags	\|	technology is not my friend, tv: supernatural: squee	]
[	Current Mood	\|	aggravated	]
[	Current Music	\|	Mets v. Brewers on tv	]

Jesus, these fucktards at host dime tech support are really working my last nerve. I pasted the error message into the ticket, I attached fucking screencaps of the error message, more than once, and they're like, "well, we haven't seen any evidence of problems when we log into the account." Like I am making this shit up for fun or something. Jesus fuck, I hate people sometimes.

I did manage to delete a lot of email, because they told me that maybe the problem was because my inbox was 76% full (which I think is bullshit, but whatever), so if you don't get a response to a comment in the next few days, you probably won't at all, and that is probably why.

***

On the upside, I got my SPN S3 dvds, plus my toy Impala (2-door instead of 4, but what are you gonna do? Do they even make 4-door matchbox cars anymore?). I just watched the gag reel again, and also the Impala featurette. I am seriously tickled that there is a five minute featurette on the car, because I love the car, which you may or may not have noticed. Also, they talk about the weapons cache. *heart*

Is it September 18th yet?

***

FIC: The Measure of Wolf and Man (HP)

[Sep. 1st, 2008|11:29 pm]

rushlight

[

Tags

fics: hp

]

Title: The Measure of Wolf and Man
Author: Rushlight
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Rating: G
Summary: Order can easily be found out of chaos, if only you know where to look.
Author's Notes: I felt the need tonight to write something short and kind of quiet to match my mood, and since Moony/Padfoot seems to be my comfort pairing, this is what came out. With gratitude to Thoreau for the quote.

*
( The Measure of Wolf and Man )

i'm not enabling your sick habit

[Sep. 1st, 2008|10:08 pm]

[	Tags	\|	links, monthly writing round-up, movies, ust a typical prototype	]
[	Current Mood	\|	lazy	]
[	Current Music	\|	SPN: Houses of the Holy	]

I am a little surpised the Mannings even made it into double digits on the poll. Hee!

*

So I came home and booted up the laptop and it said there were mandatory upgrades from microsoft - service pack 3 - so I downloaded it and set it to install, which took for-fucking-ever - and then it said it couldn't install because some external attachment didn't work (which, what?) and then it spent an hour uninstalling itself. And now everything is moving r e a l l y s l o w l y. Gah. Anyone know how to fix this?

So since I couldn't get online while that was going on, I watched Inside Man, which I quite liked. I mean, what's not to like? Denzel! Jodie! Clive Owen! the dude from Serenity whose name I can't spell! Christopher Plummer! It was very clever. What I really liked about it was that the people in it felt like New Yorkers, which is probably partially because it was filmed in New York and directed by Spike Lee. I also really liked Denzel's hat, which made me think of Frank Pembleton, and that is never a bad association for a detective to make in my mind.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much, it made me want to watch "Nightshifter" again, so I did. Oh, Henriksen, how are you so awesome?

I am planning on stopping by Best Buy tomorrow night to get my S3 DVDs, so I can then remove all of the eps from my DVR in anticipation of the new season. Yay!

*

esorlehcar has put up a fannish misogyny bingo card, and the sad thing is how many of the arguments (and the ones that didn't even make it onto the card) I've seen used in fannish discussions (that would be all of them at one point or another).

*

August 2008 writing round-up

I Got Some Beer and the Highway's Free
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; pg; spoilers through 3.16; 10,700 words
Sam couldn't help but grin, wide and happy, all frustration melting away at this sign that Dean was here, even if he wasn't all the way back from there yet.

I really can't say enough about how happy I am that this story makes other people happy, because it makes me ridiculously, stupidly happy. I am definitely the kind of fluffy puppy who would write almost 11K words of comfort with no hurt.

Paul Newman and a Ride Home
Supernatural; Dean; g; 2,365 words
Five books Dean Winchester has read more than once.

Again, I am really happy with how this turned out, and that other people like it as well.

My

spn_summergen was posted in August, and I also wrote a pinch hit for

spn_summergen, but I can't reveal them yet, so I guess they will go in the September round-up. Again, if you think you know which stories are mine, feel free to guess, and I will let you know when the author names are revealed.

I am hoping that now that I am sort of settled in the new position, and have figured out how to use Google reader, I will be able to manage more writing. In fact, I try and should do some now.

*