the wrong end of the telescope

I meant to go to bed after taking a bath, but I realized I'd forgotten to do something. '

I have an offering up for help_japan here.

I'll write fic of at least 2000 words, in bandom, BTVS, Veronica Mars, DCU, or Vampire Diaries. Crossovers are always okay, as are other fandoms if you can think of one I haven't covered here.

There are a lot of fantastic offers over there, in categories ranging from graphics to food to "items of interest" or something. ♥

Reveals are up! I haven't read much yet this year, what with working a lot during the past week, so I have one million rec posts in tabs from before the reveal and am expecting to do some reading over the next week.

First things first: again, a million thanks to elementalv for writing The first time..., the Bliss/Pash figuring-it-out fic of my HEART. I loved it so much; I love them so much. Go read and tell her she's awesome. I've reread that story at least eight times and I start quietly beaming to myself every time. So much ♥ (And if you haven't seen Whip It, any of you, oh my god, DO SO IMMEDIATELY.)



Secondly, I wrote Journey To Make, Horizon To Chase for metonymy, which was Narnia/Tam Lin and Susan/Caspian. I just--I don't think I can properly explain how much I loved writing this. I'm going to babble some more about it below, with spoilers for the central idea behind the story.

( you know when you get a prompt and you immediately start to smile? )

I'm getting a little tired, is the thing. Because I'm not fond of reading fic and being blindsided by the only woman appearing being an evil doctor or a shrewish girlfriend or, for that matter, the understanding girlfriend who gets out of the picture in order to further the love of our two heroes. Or the only girl dying. Or--you know. (Note: none of these examples are taken from a specific story. That's actually part of the problem--they're tropes. And I keep seeing them and many others and I'm so, so tired.)

I realize that it's hard. I realize our culture premiers the Stories of white dudes. I realize fandom is prone to writing m/m, and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm not asking for everyone to start writing femmeslash, no matter how happy that would make me. No, I'm asking for something much smaller.

As usual, I'm fine with being disagreed with: these are my opinions and I'm definitely wrong sometimes. I would ask that discussion is polite and respectful, with all that that implies.

( questions to ask yourself about your female characters )

*peers out from under her thesis-shaped rock* So I hear there's a volcano? In Iceland? Doing things? This is nuts, you guys. It doesn't seem like anyone has died, and I hope I haven't gotten that wrong. All planes are canceled in Stockholm and the air space is closed, because apparently it's incredibly dangerous to fly through volcanic ash. Here's hoping it stops soon, because danger and chaos and the ashes being potentially lethal for people who are seriously ill and they're coming right at us, guys, they're already over Sweden. CRAZY. Also, I'm supposed to leave for the US in a month and I want to see my little sister graduate. It's an extremely minor concern in the grand scheme of things, but I love my sister a lot and I want to be there. And compared to the Haiti earthquake and the Chile one, this is decidedly minor. Obviously. Still, a little nuts.

So. I would like to offer ficlets, because I want to think about other things. I'm going to do the first five prompts I like, which may or may not be the first five that appear, because what I can write right now is a little limited.

Theme: post- or pre-apocalyptic scenarios WITH HOPE. Interpret that as you will. Pairings or gen are fine. Bands/fandoms I can write: Mikey, FOB, Bob and Brian (they're a subset of fandom, right?), The Like, Panic/The Young Veins (even if my Jon voice is nonexistent), MSI, others possibly. I can also do Veronica Mars, DCU or BTVS, though the last two feel like cheating since it's not like they've never done the apocalypse thing before.

Prompt away!

ETA: I am done! Five, er, seven ficlets.

There is so much snow here. So much. Today we skied for two and a half hours, through a forest where the silence was only broken by us and the occasional bird chirping happily in the distance. It looked like--well, the Canadians among you probably know what it's like, cross-country skiing for hours through the woods covered in snow and quiet. I don't know how to describe it except to say it's like a fairytale, a strange land that bears no resemblance to the normal forest.

We came to a clearing where you could see the ocean (the cottage is on an island) and you can't see any water right now, it's just miles and miles of ice straight out into nowhere. So I stood there in the sun, thinking about everything and nothing at once, the future and my thesis and impending plane rides, two boys and a girl running away to find the underground rebellion but mostly finding another girl on the way, happy endings and open endings and holding on to what is right.

I thought about love, a little bit, trying to coax my muscles into working better. I thought about my brother and his pianist's hands that are finally getting back to where they were before he strained his right hand, and how much I hope Bob's wrists are still letting him play drums at a professional level. I thought about dreams, about how sometimes my dreams look like books on a shelf bearing my name, and sometimes I'm in a classroom and I get to talk about what I love as much as I want. Despite how wonderful those pictures are, the future scares me. All kinds of futures scare me. But it's easier to think about them when you're sliding through those sheets of white, endless miles of white, the kind that catches you when you fall. (And fall I did, because my new skis are faster than me, sometimes. My mother fell and that was much scarier, what with her hips and her knee being what they are, but she's fine.)

I'm learning to crochet. Pulling at yarn, my fingers take over from my head and it gets a little easier to see patterns, to hear rhythm. I forget to count sometimes and then I get lost, like a beginner in dance, losing her way among the steps. There's a metaphor in that, but I suspect it's a little obvious. It's about finding your own way, your own rhythm, the one you can't lose. So I'll tell my stories, and then the cards can fall as they may. Be still my beating heart, be calm my worrying mind, for I will make things alright.

Happy birthday airgiodslv! You're an incredibly wonderful sort of gal, darling, so so sweet and supportive and bright and such a fantastic writer and—I'm just glad you're in my life, okay? I meant to have fic, but I wrote Bob/Brian h/c in lieu of all the other things I was meant to write this week, so here, have a drabble set in the same verse as that story I wrote for you, accompanied by your favorite icon of mine:

( home with you )

Name your 15 favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms.

Do I get to name my own weird crossovers? No? Fine, I'll play nice. (If I did, Veronica/Bob and Lyn-Z/Mac would be on the list for sure.) Also, this list is only true right now--I make no promises about next week.

1. Bob/Brian - bandslash
2. Willow/Tara - BTVS
3. Dick/Babs - DCU
4. Howl/Sophie - Castle in the Air
5. Birk/Ronja - Ronia, the Robber's Daughter
6. Veronica/Logan - Veronica Mars
7. Steph/Cass - DCU
8. Charlie/Zoe - West Wing (if I named two from WW canon, the other one would be Josh/Amy)
9. Elizabeth/Darcy - Pride and Prejudice
10. Mike/Tracy - The Philadelphia Story (this would be paired up with Dexter/Liz)
11. Aziraphale/Crowley - Good Omens
12. Zoe/Wash - Firefly
13. Ash/Kaisa - Ash
14. Jack/Elizabeth/Will - POTC
15. Hermione/Pansy - Harry Potter

Tropes, why we use them, h/c, and on knowing what you're doing when you're doing it. I don't mean to imply that I'm some kind of an authority on the topic, and I'm not interested in indicting stories or fandoms that get it "wrong." I do, however, reference stories that I think do it well. Born from a need to talk about why women die in stories.


Warnings: this post discusses character death, and as such it contains discussion of stories where people die and the aftermath and the accompanying grief. It quotes a song that briefly references suicidal thoughts as a result of said grief. It also contains spoilers for synecdochic's Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose, lyo's Not Dead, Only Sleeping and her Can't Stop Dropping Things. It also contains spoilers for who died on the first page of my big bang from last year.


( it starts with a song )

I'm going to start by I rec the one lyo wrote for me, Space Where We Meet Is Different From The Rest, because it is a girl!Mikey/Alicia and a boarding school AU, and it is sweet and achy and sharp and fair to the characters and god, I love it so so much. She captures the confusion of figuring out your sexual identity when you're a teenager so well, and how pressure to conform can fuck you up, and I fell more than a little in love with her Mikey. Go read, go read.



This post is also a belated no_tags reveal--not that it is all that necessary, because as at least three of you guessed, I wrote the one that had talking fish and Lyn-Z being a Real Girl. *grins* There were two things I wanted to do: one was to not write anything too over-the-top (my contrary self wanted to see if I could make them kiss in a way that actually wasn't super-romantic, even if the story was clearly heading toward a place where they fell in love), and the other was to make damn sure I didn't reduce Lyn-Z to a muse (that was mostly an ending problem, feel free to tell me if I managed). Mostly, I had so much fun writing this story, especially because I cunningly figured out that it was for wasoncedelight (it took no great stealth, her photobucket name is somewhat revealing) and therefore got to write for a darling of mine, at the same time as I could be reasonably sure she would like it. So, dear all, here is a story about Gerard and a mermaid. Sort of.



Title: See You In The Morning Light
Pairing/Prompt: Gerard/Lyn-Z, based on this photo.
Rating: PG
Warnings: No warnings needed.
Summary: What would you do if a strange girl washed up on shore and demanded a kiss?
Notes: Written for no_tags, originally posted over here. Thanks to anoneknewmoose and novembersmith for looking it over and making me fix the ending.

( It was dusk when Gerard got to the beach. )

I get a little silly around Christmas. I end up in this state of mind where I bawl at Christmas songs, write very heartfelt messages for my family on all the presents, and just generally feel like there is an epically important point to the day that gets missed a lot. We mostly don't miss it; I don't have a perfect family by any means, but we do manage to celebrate Christmas in a way that is mostly not stressful and succeeds in being sweet and light and wonderful and nondenominational.

For the most part, anyway. (Let's not talk about the time last year when my dad was lying underneath the tree, trying to hold it up while my sister attempted some complicated feat of engineering that would allow the tree to keep standing up straight.)

But I'm thinking about meaningful moments, anyway. So that's the theme--give me a setting, a pairing or a friendship or two acquaintances, and a moment when things change. It could be a first kiss, a revelation (when so-and-so found out about x), a break-up, etc. Fandoms are bandom, BTVS, DCU, Veronica Mars, and anything else you've seen me write in. Crossovers are totally fine, rare pairings are encouraged, outlandish AUs are lots of fun, etc. You know how I roll. This time, though, I'm only doing twelve. One of those is airgiodslv's, the other eleven are open.

And I love you all. But you knew that.