| someone take photoshop away from me! |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|02:44 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | karl urban, picspam | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  despite still feeling ill | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Glee - My Life Would Suck Without You | ] |
DO YOU SEE WHAT THIS MAN DOES TO ME? I spent an hour working on this because I was not satisfied with how it was coming out. I finally just stopped because I was making it worse. THAT SMILE. THAT LOOK. *DIES*
Also, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) eumelkeks is awesome. BECAUSE I SAID SO. *cough* ;p |
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| yuletide recs: fantasy literature slash |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|11:59 am] |
First, a new pairing. I'm a big fan of Discworld, and I've even read and recommended a couple of pieces of fanfiction for it in the past, but I not only didn't know of the existence of this pairing, it had never really occurred to me. Drumknott/Vetinari! It does make sense, though, and both the pieces from this Yuletide (although both are UST, and one leaned all the way over into potentially innocent friendship) were impressive and just really wonderful. I went looking for more at once, but there's very little of it out there (in fact, the only person I could find who'd written it was kindkit, and she was also the recipient of both these pieces. My heart goes out to her: it's such a drag to have a fandom of one. Hopefully many other people will have their attention caught by the pairing this Yuletide like I did, and more fic will eventually result.)
- Like Clockwork. Discworld, Vetinari, Vetinari/Drumknott, gen/UST. This is an exquisitely crafted, wistful little story. Using Vetinari's POV works incredibly well for it, too. It's so disciplined and restrained, even in the length of the story; everything is said with very few words and large portions of what it says it doesn't actually say at all, but leaves to be inferred.
- A Place Like Home. Discworld, Drumknott, Drumknott & Vetinari, friendship/UST. Another extraordinarily well-done little piece, but this one is all Drumknott. A Sunday off work with his sister's family, a gift for his geeky nephew, an awkward conversation with his sister, and his character really shines through it all. Drumknott's confidence and his ... unexpected closeness to the Patrician is just so sweet, calm, and understated. The whole piece is a cosy, heart-warming delight.
Since there is only one other piece of Drumknott/Vetinari that I was able to find, it seems appropriate to rec it here as well.
Midwinter by Kindkit. Discworld, Drumknott, Drumknott/Vetinari, mature, 16000+ words. Set during and after The Truth. A long, delicious, leisurely, exquisitely-executed slow piece. Drumknott's POV is fantastic, and there are lots of hilarious little details that make the narration sound like canon. Especially at the climax(es), the writing is just perfect, tense and dramatic and really touching. The really astonishing thing about this story is that it moves out of UST like the two Yuletide pieces into, well, sex, and actually carries it off for a pairing where such a thing is necessarily tricky. What it does with the rest of the relationship is even more fascinating, though.
Another pairing that honestly hadn't occurred to me, but which I really enjoyed, was Bod/Silas from Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book.
- Home is the Hunter. Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman. Bod, Bod/Silas. A grown-up Bod, working as an architect, eventually moves back to his hometown to be near the graveyard.
I'm quite a fan of Richard/Marquis de Carabas fic from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I've seen it before of course, but it's a rare pairing partly, I think, because the Marquis is so tough to get a handle on, in such a way that it's much easier to write gen about him.
- A Very Big Favor. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman. Richard Mayhew, Marquis de Carabas, gen or debatably UST. This piece is funny, adventure-filled, and perfectly captures that slightly confusing madcap-quest aura of canon, while still allowing Richard to be more confident, and less clueless, than he was in the book. It's also got some really wonderful dialogue and characterization, to say nothing of the really delightful bits of London Below, and the details it added about the Marquis were instantly added to my personal canon. A really awesome story.
Lastly, another piece of Laurence/Tharkay from Naomi Novik's Temeraire universe. I have quite a soft spot for this pairing.
- A Voyage of Discovery. Temeraire - Naomi Novik. Laurence, Laurence/Tharkay. Three times William Laurence was oblivious on the journey to Australia. The slight sense of humor and the narrative voice in this piece were especially great, and Laurence's POV both believable and sympathetic. All three of the scenes are lovely.
Original post on Dreamwidth at http://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/2795959.html. Comment there or read  comments. |
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| Life, CONQUERED |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|12:10 am] |
"Victory is mine! Victory is mine. Great day in the morning, People, Victory is mine.... I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land." - Josh Lyman
So this morning had a rocky start (the two places close to my house couldn't inspect my car and then my desktop just stopped working) but since then:
* Car has passed inspection!
* Car has been registered! Finally.
* I have put the new plates on.
* I have set up the internet at my house despite the lack of desktop and now have a wireless network again.
* I have found a replacement cord for the fussy external hard drive. It's not working again but I think that's a different problem.
* I have picked up boxes at the post office for packaging presents.
* I have requested the electricity/gas/whatever be changed into my name.
* I have made dinner reservations for New Year's Eve. (I know, I know, last minute...)
* I broke down about 10 boxes (I shelved trade paperbacks earlier this week) and dragged them out to be recycled.
* I bought a labelmaker for further organizational pursuits.
Speaking of organizational pursuits, I have been carting around a copy of Quicken '98 that an ex-boss gave me when he upgraded...so that's circa 2000-2001. I looked in the box today and there's an instruction manual and about a dozen 3.5 inch disks. Yeah. Glad I saved that. *eyeroll* |
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| when you can't tell a bad joke, what can you do? |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|10:06 pm] |
I seriously, seriously loathe my period. I mean, it used to be academic? Like, I didn't really feel anything more than mild dislike, but apparently, I've never had my period when I'm in the middle of writing-farr--maybe it's never happened before, I don't know, I never put writing farr on the calendar before and matched up--and I keep losing my train of thought. And I'm at twenty pages a goddamn day right now and I'll lose my nerve and start wondering if I really want to use 'tortures cats' as a punchline for a joke.
...seriously, it is really funny, in context. I hope. God, what if it isn't? I could be basing an entire conversation on a punchline that doesn't work.
See what my uterus does? This is what it does. It makes cat jokes not funny. I hate everything. I'm really glad I shared this. |
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| Guess my Yuletide stories? |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|05:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | yuletide | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | chicago | ] |
| [ | music |
| | MST3K: The Starfighters | ] |
Mercury? Definitely in retrograde.
I barely had time to read Yuletide stories yesterday, and now I have to pack my suitcase again tonight. I won't be back from the land of no internets until after the author reveal. I don't usually play the guessing game, but my office is dead this week, and I wrote three full-length stories this year!
If you guess correctly, I'll write a drabble (or more) in your fandom of choice. (Provided that I know the fandom, of course.)
Story 1: Painfully obvious that I wrote it.
Story 2: Somewhat obvious that it was concocted by me.
Story 3: You'll never guess. Unless you somehow do. |
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| physics likes to be abused |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|03:07 pm] |
If this day slows down much longer, I'm petitioning for the Theory of Relativity to be downgraded to a hypothesis, lowercase; specifically, time dilation, unless there is a claim that the gravity in this room is strong enough to bend time backward which--actually wouldn't be a surprise, but I am saying the relative to me clock and the clock I am observing locally are both going slower and I think both suck.
I'm updating my understanding of special relativity by way of wikipedia. Do not judge me. Everything I know about physics I learned from Rodney McKay and Star Trek. Also, I have to do this pretty much every six months or I start losing arguments with Child and I just cannot face losing another dark matter discussion because I can't get wikipedia to load fast enough. I already had to concede time travel when I couldn't google fast enough to find the infinite energy requirements even if there are quarks that could be moving backward in timespace.
You know, every time I come back to physics, since I first learned gravity and murphy (both important laws and why isn't murphy's law taught as a science? It should be. I'm adding it here in protest), I'm always thrown by the fact that the first time it was explained to me, I was too young to quite get it (and to be fair, the person that explained it probably did not grasp it all that well either) and asked, "but what if the observer was lying about their local clock?"
I know! But it's still in my head. And so every time--every time--I get past the math and the concept of relative and absolute, time dilation, and everything, I always have this vision of my sister being Observer #2 and to piss me off totes lying about the speed of her clock and boom, I have to start at the first paragraph again or go think hard about why I shouldn't slash quarks, because physics is asking for slash, but I don't know if I really want to go there.
I mean--work with me here--my entire basis of understanding the building blocks of the universe, my basic comprehension of the way that matter and energy interact, why, the very fabric of reality as I understand it can be completely fucked up because my sister once lied about stealing my Barbie and now I will never believe Observer B about their local clock. She stole my Barbie. Observer B is a goddamn liar and scalped her. And lied about the clock.
Think about that one.
Yeah, they really need to give me something to do soon. I just found Lorentz transformation and this won't end well for anyone. I see modeling done in multiple colors and I have a weakness for that. |
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| Tuesday |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|10:30 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
Christmas was a good time. My sister gave me the Sony Pocket Ready (PINK!) which is now loaded with porn fictions. :DDDD
If you're looking for something to do New Year's Eve and are in the Houston area, feel free to join me and my plans:
Should be so MUCH FUN. |
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| 2009, getting its last kicks in |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|10:27 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pissed off | ] |
Can't get car inspected at preferred inspection point until tomorrow btw. Sigh.
Computer people! Despite working fine when I set it up in this house, now that I want to activate internet, my desktop compr has decided not to work. It turns on and emits several beeps before settling into running loudly, but not with the kerthunking noise one gets when the hard drive goes. However, the monitor doesn't seem to recognize that it's on - the light doesn't turn from orange to green and nothing comes up. I also can't get the cd/dvd drives on the CPU to open.
Any ideas? |
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| yuletide recs, theme: mysteries, cons, englishness. or something like that. |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|03:11 pm] |
- An Original Work (Authenticity and Provenance Debateable). St Trinian's, Annabelle/Kelly. Hustle crossover. A con job requires Annabelle to pretend to be Kelly's girlfriend.
- The Beginning of Wisdom. Poirot, Poirot & Hastings, friendship. Hastings comes home to England; Poirot has a Christmas plan all ready for him. Casefic... kind of.
- Just Rewards. Poirot, Poirot & Hastings friendship and/or smarm. Hastings gets ticked off on Poirot's behalf; Poirot counsels patience.
- The Mechanical Heart. Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson UST. This is clearly a pairing story in addition to casefic, but as nothing is explicit aside from Holmes's passionate concern for Watson's safety, and occasional whimsical concern for his happiness, it could actually fit quite well in canon - probably without shocking a Victorian readership.
- Of Events Past and Future. The Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer. Canon pairings, gen. Prudence and Robin, their father and their spouses beguile an afternoon around the fire with a tale of their past escapades (by which we mean 'cons') told by Pru. Which is bloody fantastic - hilarious, wonderful, exactly in the style of the original. Made me wish for a whole novel or four of sequels (well, prequels?), like a Georgian version of Hustle.
Original post on Dreamwidth at http://cimorene.dreamwidth.org/2795394.html. Comment there or read  comments. |
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| ku, what do you do to me? |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|01:19 am] |
Ugh. I feel like throwing up, so I'm going to bed early (for me, late for everyone else on the West Coast).
Before I do though, I'll just leave this gif I made, from a Price of Milk outtake I found on youtube. I find it strangely endearing. I love his poofy hair.
edit: so yeah, I made more gifs from the clip instead of sleeping. It's hard to sleep when your tummy is in knots.
( Read more... ) |
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| My day. Today. huh. |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|02:10 am] |
As I told my c-worker today:
"If I where to go home and shit my pants, it would feel fucking amazing compared to the rest of the day." |
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| an embarrassment of riches \o/ |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|10:55 pm] |
Guys, I have gotten so many presents I don't know what to do with myself. ♥
I have to start with one that I haven't had a chance to share before, amidst all my Yuletide insanity: these fabulous fabulous movie posters katekat1010 did for House of the Living and City of a Thousand Wonders:
(click for full & for the House of the Living pic too)
Besides this, I totally MADE OUT LIKE A BANDIT in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) yuletide \o/ and I have endless endless squee for all my fabulous stories YAY:
They Come In Threes, an AI RPF/Merlin xover with hapless-wish-granting!Merlin inflicted upon an unsuspecting Adam, with resulting hijinx and also awesome awesome Kris-from-the-future. ♥
Not Gonna Write You A Love Song, Adam/Dustin Lance Black (the fabulous screenwriter of Milk who gave that lovely speech at the Oscars and then had photos come out of himself barebacking with an ex-bf). This is seriously just a gorgeous happy-making romance story, even if you don't know who either of them are. (Granted, I don't know how you could be reading my lj and avoid knowing who Adam is at this point, I'm just saying!)
Black Belt -- Adam grows a tail! He has to -- okay, no, I am not saying anything more because I would spoil it. It is hilarious and also now I want a pic of Adam with a tail. <3
Just A Kiss -- an awesome Lambliff treat, all unlooked-for, because alas, Tommy was not yet on the radar when Yuletide signups occurred!
and last but not least:
Real Vampires Don't Sparkle, an awesome kitchen-sink-vampires treat where Alexander Lucard offers his opinions on an assortment of vampires from Twilight, Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, and Vampire!Adam Lambert (hahaha I love this bit especially).
♥ ♥ ♥
And I have ALSO gotten SUCH AMAZING KRADAM CHIBI ART OMG from dun but she has not posted it in public yet so I am just telling you this to TAUNT YOU until she does, I have seen it and you haven't, but haunt her lj and wait for it because omg LOVE.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth ( comments) |
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| Abject Failure is Abject |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|09:48 pm] |
The title of this post was supposed to be, "Life, Conquered!" in which I fixed the car problem, set up my internet, bought a firewire and ended world hunger. But then what would I have to write about tomorrow? Gotta build some suspense right? So:
I did manage to get a duplicate title from the Delaware DMV, which, to be honest, was the point of today's whole adventure. So okay, maybe not completely abject. But then I decided I'd just go over the state line to Elkton and get the car registered so it would be done. Except I got the inspection done waaaay back when the registration was originally expiring, at the end of September. So while that was still (barely) good, it also indicated that I had been in Maryland longer than the 60 days I had to register (which I spent, I should add, chasing this damn title around so that the MVA would let me in the door) so they would have to assess a 6% excise tax. Which came out to $703. Yeah. So, I left there and went to see about getting my car reinspected somewhere nearby so the date on it would be within 60 days. (Don't judge me - $700 is a LOT OF MONEY.)
I was going to have to wait 2 hours for the inspection so I called my mom to pick me up (actually I called her in tears with my ethical dilemma and she told me to leave the car to get reinspected and that she'd come pick me up) and we went to the mall for the afternoon. On the way back to pick up the car, the Meineke guy called and said someone else had come in with bad brakes and they just weren't going to be able to do the inspection that day. At least I didn't spend those five hours sitting in the waiting room but maybe then I would have left and gone elsewhere.
So inspection and registration are put off 'til tomorrow.
There's a bunch of other stuff: my computer won't recognize my external hard drive (I can't tell if it's failed or the connecting cord is bad - I meant to buy a firewire today and didn't get a chance), two boxes of Christmas gifts have yet to be mailed, I never made it back to MY house to set up the internet that is supposed to be activated today (I'm housesitting for my sister), my cat is probably a) starving and b) plotting my demise, and the only thing I tried on today that fit was a hot pink satin strapless dress with a giant rose on the boobs. There's going to need to be some exercising come 2010.
There may be a lot of things I should be doing right now, but instead I going to read "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett. I have never read the Discwold books before and my sister thought I might enjoy that one more than the first two. Also, I'll need something to read while sitting in the DMV tomorrow. That series just might be long enough. |
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| QUICK |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|09:38 pm] |
SOMEBODY POST HOT PICTURES OF JOEL MCHALE IN THE COMMENTS STAT. IT'S A NATIONAL EMERGENCY. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|08:12 pm] |
Not to like, bribe y'all or anything (except for how I totally am), but the last of the undermistletoe stories just got posted for Mystery Weekend - people should go in and guess who wrote what and try to win the STUNNINGLY* AWESOME** prize package that I will send youuuuu.
It's ANYBODY'S GAME RIGHT NOW, so go check out the how to play post, read the stories, and guess who wrote some stories, yo.
* Sadly, Matthew Bomer is not included in this prize package, in any way, shape or form.
**Your definition of stunningly awesome may differ from mine.
And of course, check out the rest of the work posted on the community while you're at it. *g* \o/ |
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