I spent far too much of my day reading old xkcd comics and spamming my friends at work and walkawayslowly with my favorite ones. This is all my friend S.'s fault, for linking me to this one yesterday: The Race, Part 1 (Make sure to read its sequels, too!)

That one is directly related to my extreme delight over Firefly, which I still have one episode left of (plus Serenity). Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd, is kind of my hero. Tragically a lot of the math jokes go right over my head, but that does not stop me from loving the stuffing out of it. He has awesome things to say about everything!

Driving is fun: Google Maps

The truth about Han Solo: Improvised

The Klingon language is everywhere: Impostor

(Speaking of the Klingon language, I did not mean to end up on a forum that was discussing the likelihood of Klingon getting you laid, but um. Apparently that happened. MOVING RIGHT ALONG.)

"Now you just put on that shark suit, Jimbo, and you see if it hurts when they bite you": Outreach

And finally, things we have all experienced: Bored with the Internet

And how very sad and true that is.

I also recommend just hitting the Random button and reading everything ever, because they are pretty much all hilarious.

ETA: I suck and forgot to mention this -- walkawayslowly also made icons, including this one, because she is awesome!

Today I said to my roommate, "I have officially lost all respect for myself," and she said, "Does it have anything to do with Klingons?" And when I had to answer that yes, it did, I lost even that tiny last bit of respect I did not know I had in reserve.

But but but. The linguistics of Klingon is really INTERESTING, okay. I'm a total linguistics nerd; this is not news! I should just probably . . . think about directing that interest toward something else. That is not Klingon.

Epic sigh. Here, cunningly I distract you with a rec:

How to Avoid Kicking Puppies and Other Valuable Lessons in Leadership by sparky77
gen with lots of UST all around | R | ~2,000 words
I was amusing myself by imagining Kirk attempting to be an authority figure and this is what happened.

I'd been forlornly trolling the LJ waters for days in search of fic that hit on the way the movie does truly hilarious banter, and this is that fic. It's gen, but a) it's short, and b) everyone wants to bang each other, you can tell.

Also, it is one of very few fics I've seen that has approached the kind of characterization of Kirk that I loved so much from the movie, which is to say, a Kirk who has hints of truly awesome leadership skills down there somewhere, but is also like:

KIRK: You know what my favorite thing is?
MCCOY: Boobies?
KIRK: I was going to say pissing Spock off, but yes! Boobies.

Read it, it's awesome.

I've been reading a lot of Merlin fic, as one does, a good bit of which has been modern day AU. I really love modern day Merlin AUs. (There are four fics in particular that I love like burning; two of them are still WIPs, though, so I think I'll save that rec post till they're done.) And I've been thinking about other Merlin AUs I would want, and there is one that I have not seen and am pretty much dying for.

I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how much I would love to have a Merlin footballer AU. Normally if I were dying for something I would at least consider writing it myself, but since in this case I know shit nothing about football, I am not even close to the person who should be writing this. Clearly someone who knows football should make this happen. Arthur the international man of mystery football star! Merlin the . . . sort of incompetent keeper who manages to make these saves out of NOWHERE and it just doesn't make a damned bit of sense and maybe he is slightly magic! (This is another thing I love -- when Merlin's still got magic in modern day AUs.)

I don't have a fully fleshed-out plot or anything, and just in terms of not knowing British/football culture I do NOT feel like I should be writing this -- I think it would be a much better and richer story written by someone who does -- but anyway, the idea was inspired by this blind item on Dlisted a while back*:

Which star athlete is having an affair with one of his teammates? In the macho world of sports, homosexuality is rarely discussed. However, these two teammates - one much more high profile than the other - have been practically joined at the hip for the past several months. Both are married, and both of their wives are in for a nasty shock if they find out. Team managment does know, and is seriously considering trading the lesser player to prevent a full-blown public scandal that might diminish their star’s reputation and ticket sales.

*How much do I LOVE Michael K, btw? SO MUCH. Never has anyone managed to gross me out so consistently in so many new and hilarious ways.

I would cut the line re: the marriage and the wives, and just leave it as "Arthur is the huge star and Merlin is the teammate," but anyway. If this kind of AU already exists and I just missed it, clearly you need to link me now. Otherwise, fly free, little footballer AU idea! Fly free!

Oh and here, have another couple of ideas for stories in other fandoms! Two first lines for stories I am never going to write:

Sam/Dean: In Stone Creek, Alabama, on a night when it's too hot to sleep under the covers, Dean pulls Sam's boxers down and licks up the length of his cock.

John/Rodney: Not that Rodney was opposed to being bathed in milk and honey, exactly, even when the milk came from cacti and the honey was the secretion of a creature that looked a lot like a yak. The women doing the bathing were all kinds of hot, and in the next tub over Sheppard definitely looked like he was enjoying himself.

I don't care if you credit me for anything above, but do shoot me a link if you do anything with them, so that I can see these stories actually existing in the world. ESPECIALLY THE FOOTBALLER AU.

And okay, hopefully this won't be confusing: now for some stories I AM writing!

Post a single sentence or two extract from each WIP you have (or as many as you want to pick). No context, no explanations.

Some original fic, some fanfic. A couple of these are rather less in progress than more, but they're all in some state of partial completion. And again, these are the stories I'm currently writing myself, so these ideas belong to me (and in one case, also to walkawayslowly). They are not up for grabs! (Although personally, I think the stuff above sounds way more exciting. FOOTBALLER AU.)

1. The rental house sprawls over its beachfront lot. It's a Cape Cod, two gables, cedar shakes and a widow's walk; it's not a beach house, it's a mansion.

2. Charlie's proximity brought me great comfort. And there were other benefits, too, to this arrangement, beyond the warmth.

3. An army is only as strong as its weakest man. Uther had drilled this into Arthur's head repeatedly, until it stuck; until it was the only thing Arthur could think about when he was on the training pitch until supper each night—that he would not be that man.

4. So Jared tells him about the dining hall, and then he remembers that he never got to tell Jensen about last night either, so he backtracks to tell Jensen about that, and then goes back to the dining hall, and ends with knocking over the trays and having the dining hall lady glowering at him as he knelt in the middle of orange juice and left over eggs.

5. The taxi dropped Jared off on Jensen's street before, but the West Village is a rabbit warren of streets.

Oh, little Merlin story, be done already.

First, and most importantly, today is notthequiettype's birthday! I think we all know I love Ash, but in case that was not clear: I LOVE ASH. Hope Disneyland was fabulous. <333

Inexcusably, I forgot to mention ignited's birthday a few days ago, what the hell was that about. I love Stef toooooo!

I finally finished the Gossip Girl RPF! Jagged and Endlessly New (JC/Chace, Chace/Ed), which is the sequel to Some Surreal Country (JC/Chace). About damned time, too! It's really disconcerting to have your brain eaten for a couple of weeks by a fandom you are in no way in and that does not, in fact, really exist.

Now I can actually write Merlin fic instead of just scribbling notes down about it at work while watching the series from the start . . . again. It's Colin Morgan's ears, okay. They make me do crazy things.

Today I also, ahaha, started watching the Christian/Olli clips from Verbotene Liebe, aka That German Soap Opera With the Gay Boys. I told myself I was doing this because I can feel my German getting worse every day that I am not actively using it, and because last night, while well into the third pitcher of beer at a dive bar with my roommates and their tiny gay friend from college, I spoke very earnestly about wanting to move back to Germany (and also about wanting to marry a lawyer and/or Irishman, whatever, I blame the drink!). So clearly my German needed work. Also there are like 29837473 years of gay angst. I kind of wanted to stab myself in the eye about half of the time I was watching parts . . . 1-35 of 130-some, omg, but the other half of the time there were boys being really in love and freaking out about it, and who doesn't love a good gay freakout?

I was looking through my works-in-progress folder the other day, as one does, and discovered an Entourage recs list I put together back in, like, JULY, and never posted. What the hell! Let's fix that.

( seven Entourage stories I put on this list back when, and one crossover I'm adding to the list right now )

A number of random things!

1) If you are ever on the Lower East Side and looking for French brunch: ( Cafe Charbon, 170 Orchard Street at Stanton )

Prix fixe was $14.95 with a mimosa or a Bloody Mary, $11.95 with coffee, and every single thing my friends and I ate was 100% delicious. Also, the maitre d' was French and cute and saucy. I am not a fan of the tiny mustache, and yet it WORKED for him. Especially when he smiled and flirted.

2) Possibly I might have mentioned that Merlin ate me. I blame this guy:



HI COLIN MORGAN. Can we talk about how very much facial hair is REALLY, REALLY WORKING FOR YOU? (From here, and you should totally click that link because there are two other pictures there that are really vital to your existence.)

Also there is a big fat Colin Morgan picspam/lovefest going on at franticsga's journal, here, which contains even more things that are necessary like BREATHING.

3) I have recced this before; I will rec this again.

Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock
Arthur/Merlin | NC-17 | lots of awesome words | modern day AU

If you are in Merlin fandom at all, eight pages of comments say you have probably read this already, but let me just mention that I convinced my roommate to read this story, and my roommate has not been in fandom of any description for YEARS. You know why she is reading it?

Because it is just like The Prince & Me if it were better, hotter, and gay. Also this story has GOSSIP BLOGS. You do not need to be in Merlin fandom to read this story. You just need to be ALIVE.

I should say, because this is a fairly frustrating point for people who get really into stories and want them to be perfect, that the pacing gets a little wonky at the end. Regardless, I have a whole lot of trouble caring, because it is quite possibly the best universe ever. Have I mentioned the part where Arthur is the GAY PRINCE OF WALES yet? Because oh yeah. He is.

4) This is a placeholder for the massive Merlin recs post that I obviously need to make, because Merlin fic is pretty much how I spend all of my time. Yikes.

5) walkawayslowly is out of town and mostly internetless for approximately 982734 years, and it is driving me a little crazy. We were talking about how we missed each other, were getting very sappy, etc. and I said she'd better freaking call me soon.

causeways: Otherwise you'll come back and find me gnawing on my own leg and writing 24 gen fic out of desperation. If only Merrin had been there to stop her, they'll say!
walkawayslowly: Haha!! My aunt just asked me if I like 24. :) There is no reason to turn to 24 gen! Or I'll start adding some h/c into our Big Bang. That'll be the whole plot.
causeways: HORRIFYING.
walkawayslowly: Haha!! Don't threaten me with 24, missy.
causeways: JACK BAUER DOES WHAT JACK BAUER WANTS.
walkawayslowly: THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR THE HURT/COMFORT.
causeways: JACK BAUER CAN BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HURT/COMFORT.
walkawayslowly: AND THEN IT WILL COMFORT ITSELF.

So if you open our college AU in June/July/whenever and it is nothing but 40K of Jared being hurt and Jensen comforting him or whatever, you will KNOW that I am bound and gagged somewhere while Merrin gleefully took the fuck over. SEND HELP.

6) If I post again before finishing the fucking Gossip Girl RPF, slap me around a little, 'kay? AND NOT IN A HURT/COMFORT WAY.

I have had two goals for this week.

Goal #1: Finish watching Merlin.
Goal #2: Finish writing the JC Chasez/Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick/Chace Crawford fic that's been rolling around in my head since September.

I have completed one and a half of these goals! The one: I watched the last episode of Merlin earlier and, well. I enjoyed myself. I'm not the most in love with the show itself, but I think Colin Morgan is SUPER CUTE, and I am DEFINITELY all over the fic. And the writing of the fic. I have big plans for the writing of the fic!

(But not until walkawayslowly and I finish our J2 college AU for Big Bang! Which continues to move right along nicely. Jared knows he's gay now! PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE.)

The half: I thought the above-mentioned fic was one fic. It was not. For the three of you who care about how JC and Chace got it on and all the blogs knew it, Some Surreal Country (NC-17, 3,125 words). Yay! And for the other three of you who care about how Chace and Ed actually for serious live together in TriBeCa in a den of love, that fic will be here ALL TOO SOON.

The other thing that has eaten my brain, in addition to Merlin and totally random fic-writing? THE EXTREME ATTRACTIVENESS THAT IS JORMA TACCONE.

This past Saturday's SNL was one of the best I've seen recently, like, pretty much EVERY skit was dead-on hilarious. I spent all day at work on Monday quoting lines from "I'm On a Boat" in emails with my brother. Anyway, this led to me watching "Jizz in My Pants" repeatedly as well, and MAN, Merrin thinks I am super lame for this, but I don't even care -- JORMA TACCONE. IN THAT VIDEO. A++ WOULD DO IMMEDIATELY.

I know I am not the only one! rawkin_ur_sox agrees! The shirtless dancing is kinda bizarre, but it's not getting in the way of my love.

ETA: Hahaha, also. I have sort of combined AU modern-day Merlin and Jorma Taccone's "Jizz in My Pants" character in my head, like, Merlin's wearing pretty much that EXACT outfit and living in London (I need a few things from the grocery / doing things alone now mostly) and Arthur is very attractive, etc., and basically what I am talking about is how you should all go read Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock if you have not already. It is amazing! And the rest of it will go up this weekend! I am BEYOND THRILLED.

In 2008 I:

- graduated from college
- got a full-time job
- decided I actually like my job
- spent the entire month of November at my job, frequently to the exclusion of sleeping
- drove cross-country for the second time
- wrote far less than in 2007
- had far more ideas for stories, and better ones
- lost some very close friends
- made some better friends
- met up with some fandom friends (multiple times!)
- moved to New York
- worked in three states and lived in a fourth
- yelled from the roof of my apartment building on Election Day
- yelled from the streets of Lower Manhattan on Election Night
- kissed someone in an elevator
- bought the first decent bed I have ever owned
- fell a little out of love with SPN
- fell a lot in love with Entourage
- rediscovered board games
- discovered that I have an inner '50s hostess
- frequently decided that walking a mile and a half cross-town in the cold was a better choice than riding the train one more stop. Note to self: wrong.

2008, you were weird. Mostly good weird, but definitely weird. Overall I'm happier than I was this time last year, though, so 2008 can count for a win.

Oh! Haha! In 2008, also, I watched Twilight.

Unpopular fandom opinion time! I think Twilight kicks The Christmas Cottage's ass to hell and back. Both of these movies are pretty freaking atrocious! But Twilight is absolutely the sort of atrocious that is so bad it is also AWESOME, and it sinks its teeth into you and holds on for dear life and you LOVE IT. (YES YES. I KNOW ABOUT THE PUN.)

There are some pieces of fanfic that I have very similar relationships to. I shall call this multifandom recs list:

( Those stories you should really stop reading because the rational part of your mind is screaming for mercy and yet you cannot stop, ever, even if there were a pack of rabid dogs at your heels. Or beautiful, sparkly vampires. )

Regardless, the point of this is, Twilight! Really bad, but deeefinitely the kind of really bad that comes right back around to sort of totally amazing. I hear the books are extra awful, and Stephenie Meyer makes the universe cry, but I'm going to go read them now anyway. YUP.

So it's official: flights from my hometown back to NYC? They don't exist.

Flying TO Virginia has worked out just fine for me on multiple occasions, but coming back, not so much. At Thanksgiving I had to take an overnight bus back, and on Sunday night my flight got canceled because the seal on one of the windows was messed up -- which, hey, this is a good reason to cancel a flight! I am in favor of not dying. Regardless, I have pretty much given up on expecting flights that say they will take me to New York to actually follow through on that claim.

It was okay, though: my roommate's family was driving up for New Year's anyway, so I caught a ride with them. I owe my roommate's family at least half of my soul at this point, especially because they just took me to dinner at L'Ecole, the restaurant of the French Culinary Institute. Amaaazing food. It's cooked by students, yes, but these students know more about food than I probably will in my entire LIFE, and for $42 for a five-course meal in New York City, yeah! Life is pretty great.

I'd say this was the third most hardcore food coma I have ever gone into in my life. The runner-up is when I ate at Fat Canary in Williamsburg as a college freshman (also amazing!), but the first place prize absolutely goes to the first time I ever had Indian food (not until I was a college sophomore! my life was so empty before this!) and I ate two enormous plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet and then lumbered back to my dorm and passed out for three hours.

This post may or may not have had a point to it.

Oh! It totally did! And it has nothing to do with food!

A few weeks back, walkawayslowly and I were tossing around fic ideas, as one does, and she said, "Hey, so I have this idea for a J2 fic. J2 twelve days of Christmas!"

And we talked about it, and it was totally adorable, and oh, guess what, it is happening!

The First Annual Padalecki-Ackles Christmastime Extravaganza by walkawayslowly
J2 | NC-17 (eventually) | thirteen parts of varying length (each part links to the next one)

Ever since Christmas, and continuing through January 6th, Merrin's been posting one a day -- so if you don't read works-in-progress, you don't have long to wait until they're all up. But you should definitely check it out once it's done, regardless, because it's adorable.

ALSO because I drew shit for it! Where by shit I mean "lovely perfect pieces of art genius." Obviously!

I'm heading home for Christmas tomorrow evening! Woohoo Christmas Eve travel. I didn't take any extra time off for Christmas or New Year's, so I only get the days off that my company gives me -- which is to say, Christmas Day, Dec. 26th, New Year's Day, and Jan. 2nd. This is okay, though, because I can carry over the remainder of my vacation days (three!) and save them up for the summer and the BEACH. Or possibly the summer and SWITZERLAND. There is a slight chance I will get to go to Switzerland with work this summer, and if so it will be the most delightful thing in the entire world.

I really, really love traveling. I also am very into packing light. I remember winter breaks early in college when I would drag home two enormous suitcases and a lacrosse stick, and now I am like . . . but WHY? Granted, I used to have a month at home instead of four days, but the principle still stands. I pretty firmly stand by the idea that if I'm doing anything short of MOVING somewhere, carry-on luggage is plenty.

I'm a little bit in love with chowburger's fashion blog, Vulgar Moon, and this post is a perfect example of why: How to Have a Stylish Holiday with Less than 10kg of Luggage!

From rather extensive experience I can say that the best way to travel is with a backpack that's light enough that you're happy getting lost in a city for two hours while wearing it. (Seeing as that is what I do, accidentally or not, upon arriving in every place ever.) I have gone lighter than that, even: memphis86 and dark_reaction can vouch for the fact that this summer I traveled with enough clothing for five days in an oversized purse.

In spite of all this, I have huge lust after a classy little rolly carry-on suitcase. Smallish, probably dark-colored, very business traveler. I have visions of my classy business travels. As I've told walkawayslowly, I sincerely hope I do get to go to Switzerland this summer, so that I can justify the purchase of said suitcase.

I am very taken with this whole idea of being a fancy business traveler. I also very much want to work in Europe at some point. There's a possibility that I could work in Germany in a year and some change -- I'll know more about just how possible this is after performance reviews in January -- and if that can happen, I'd be all over that shit!

I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I finished college, and so I briefly considered working for the Foreign Service. There was an article about the Foreign Service in the NY Times earlier, and how they're now hiring and stuff. I pretty well dismissed the Foreign Service at the end of senior year of college, because I just didn't think it was for me, but the article today had a quiz about that very topic: Is the Foreign Service right for you?

What the heck, I figured, and clicked on the quiz. And the first part is all, these are the awesome reasons you should work for the Foreign Service!!! And I was like, eh. Not that appealing. I was so right not to apply.

Then follows the second part of the quiz, which reads: However, the fantastic features of Foreign Service careers also have downsides that can be unpleasant and stressful to some people. It is very important for your career satisfaction that the upsides outweigh the potential downsides.

So I looked through all of that, which is like, are you willing to live abroad forever? learn foreign languages? work a ton of hours in high-stress situations? And I was like, FUCK YEAH. That all sounds either AWESOME or JUST LIKE MY CURRENT JOB, WHICH I LIKE. I could be all over that shit!

I crack myself up.

Oh! Other big news of the day! I am finally caught up on Entourage!! ( MAN, I love that show. )

I also saw Slumdog Millionaire last night, which is a BEAUTIFUL movie. The colors and filming are fantastic, and the music was awesome, too. It's a fairy tale of a movie, but with some definite Brothers Grimm elements mixed in with the Disney. I'd say it's definitely worth checking out.

I was just reading lyra_wing's post where she mentioned Little Women and WHY did Jo and Laurie not get together? And then I was reading wendy's post mentioning Unwind, which I have not read but sounds all kinds of intriguing (YA sci-fi -- excerpt on Amazon is here). And suddenly all kinds of things are pinging in my head, about YA and love stories and books, and so: book recs, in no apparent order.

1) The Giver by Lois Lowry. (YA, sci-fi) This is one of my all-time favorite books, largely because it has to do with one of my all-time favorite themes in literature: happiness vs. contentment. I can't stand the idea that we should strive to be content and that contentment is enough -- that having all of your needs satisfied should be considered enough, that wanting more than that is dangerous -- which is a whole different post than this, I think, and plays into a lot of what I'm currently thinking about my life, my job, etc. (and also probably has to do with the fact that my basic needs are already satisfied). Suffice it to say for now that I disliked Walden II by B.F. Skinner all the way through, but I began to INTENSELY dislike it at the point when the narrator goes to a woman who lives in this commune and says to her, "Are you happy?" and she looks at him like he's got two heads and then replies, "I haven't thought about it in years! I suppose I must be. Does it really matter?"

The answer is, YES. YES, IT FUCKING MATTERS. According to me, anyway. I guess I won't spoil you for Walden II any more than that except to add that I HATE THE WAY IT ENDS, BTW.

Anyway. To counter the anti-rec, and to get back on track: The Giver freaking rocks. Summary from Amazon:

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy.

Read it read it read it. And if you already have, come talk to me about how, when you were twelve, you thought Jonas was the hottest thing ever, 'cause I sure did.

Continuing with more of the utopia/anti-utopia theme:

2) Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. (Adult, sci-fi) This book is freaking terrifying, in the sense that it's way, way too easy to imagine this being our future.

In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland. Snowman (a man once known as Jimmy) sleeps in a tree and just might be the only human left on our devastated planet. He is not entirely alone, however, as he considers himself the shepherd of a group of experimental, human-like creatures called the Children of Crake. As he scavenges and tends to his insect bites, Snowman recalls in flashbacks how the world fell apart.

I never really love Margaret Atwood's books while I'm reading them. I LIKE them, and I know they're awesome, but I'm not sitting there going THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER, I CANNOT PUT IT DOWN. And yet I think about her books for ages and ages after I read them, and occasionally have nightmares about them, and I think that says a whole lot, because I'd rather read books like that than books whose details slip out of my memory as soon as I've finished them.

Speaking of terrifying visions of the future:

3) Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. (Adult, fantasy) This is book four of the Dark Tower series, which I've read in its entirety and all of which I like (some books more than others), but this is my favorite (followed by The Drawing of the Three, which is one of my favorite titles of a book). One of my college friends was the exact opposite -- she hated this book, loved the rest -- and it has a lot to do with the fact that the bulk of this book is a love story told as a flashback to when the main character, Roland, was fourteen. I have never shipped ANY PAIRING as hard as I shipped Roland/Susan. (Oh wait, except for the pairing in the next book I'm reccing.)

One thing I really, really love in books is knowing, going into a story, that characters are doomed (see: any and all HP stories about the Marauders), and the flashback in Wizard and Glass is all over that shit. I read the Dark Tower books all out of order, and even without any background beyond the first hundred pages before the flashback starts, you KNOW that Roland is older and hardened and definitely alone, and the rest of the book is all about finding out how it happened. I don't love the writing in this book as much as I did when I first read it, about ten years ago, but the story is still really freaking good.

Oh, so that the "speaking of terrifying visions of the future" thing makes sense with regard to this book: the Dark Tower series is Stephen King's vision of a bunch of worlds, one of which is more or less our own world, another of which is Roland's, in which a world very much like ours has gone through a nuclear holocaust long in the past. And they're all connected, and the whole Dark Tower series is about Roland's quest to save the entire fabric of the universe from falling apart.

Um, to sum up many thousands of pages in a paragraph.

Final rec:

4) The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds. (Adult, fiction) One of my friends was in an English class that had to read this senior year of high school, and I randomly lifted it off her and read it in one sitting until three a.m. OH MY GOD.

[cutting out a long paragraph that can be summed up as: "This book takes place in a crazy-ass religious community deep in the South."] Such talk of damnation weighs heavy on the mind of Ninah Huff, the 15-year-old* narrator of Sheri Reynolds's second novel, The Rapture of Canaan. To distract her from sinful thoughts about her prayer partner James, Ninah puts pecan shells in her shoes and nettles in her bed. But concentrating on the Passion of Jesus cannot, in the end, deter Ninah and James from their passion for each other, and the consequences prove both tragic and transforming for the entire community.

[*Ninah is fifteen by the end of the book. At the start of it she's like . . . twelve. So if you're going to get badly squicked by a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl falling in love with her fourteen-year-old prayer partner, this is not the book for you.]

I shipped Roland/Susan hard, right, but I shipped James/Ninah like BURNING. Buuuurning. Their relationship is not really the whole point of the book by any means, and I need to reread this one very badly because I definitely read the book for the James/Ninah rather than for . . . the whole book. Which should be remedied.

Anyway, this book hits, like, every single forbidden love kink that I have. And it's awesome.

*

I feel like this post has gotten less coherent by the moment. Whatever. Have you read any of these? Want to talk about them? Want to rec me random novels about horrifying visions of the future/epic doomed forbidden love?

Dudes, dark_reaction wrote me fic!

The Fortress of a High Mind by dark_reaction
Jared/Jensen | hard R | 12,384 words
Jensen and Jared are seniors at an elite private boarding school, competing for the same girl, and they can't stand each other.

She also says: "This story was written for causeways, I don't actually remember why. That's how long this story has been in the making."

The best part of that true statement is that I DON'T REMEMBER WHY, EITHER. Apparently once upon a time I managed to convince Lauren to write me prep school J2, and I am awesome for having done so, but I have no memory of the event at ALL.

Anyway, my random blackouts are not the point of this post. The point of this post is, J2 boarding school fic, GO READ IT. Jared wins Jensen's love with a sandwich! High school rivals! Angsting about college! It's awesome.

ETA: Okay, okay. I'll admit it. I plied Lauren with alcohol and various illicit deeds. My secret, it is out.

I stayed up waaaay too late last night reading fic in fandoms I'm not even in, so I was still awake at three a.m. when luvplatinumbaby posted podfic of Lingering in the Golden Gleam, aka the Family Man J2 I wrote nearly a year ago. (And swore there would be a sequel to nearly a year ago. Ha ha! Don't rush my ~creative process, okay.)

I didn't have any particularly strong feelings about podfic, but I figured, hey man, somebody wants to make a podfic, have at it! Good times!

And then I opened the file and my reaction was basically OH MY GOODNESS SOMEONE RECORDED MY STORY WITH ACTUAL VOICES, THIS IS THE COOLEST SHIT EVER. EVER! Again, it was three a.m., I was too tired to listen to the whole thing, but I repeat: COOLEST EVER.

luvplatinumbaby's post (with both streaming audio and download links) is here. Check it out!

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Also, in my effort to avoid going in to work (yes, it's a Saturday, gross that I have to work, but at least it's only for a couple hours and it's going to make Monday suck infinitely less) I finally got around to uploading a bunch of music I've been telling walkawayslowly I was going to upload for her ages ago. Plus some other stuff. This is a really friggin' random mix, consider yourselves warned.

( Track listing behind the cut. )

I had a lovely weekend involving all kinds of lovely people, and also lovely food and alcohol. I really kind of enjoy rainy weekends, because then I don't feel at all guilty about lazing about during the day and, say, reading nine million fics about how John McClane has to reconsider his sexuality because of a kid young enough to be his son. Oh, Die Hard fic. HOT.

I think I first started reading it because of dodificus's recs, even though when I saw the movie I was like, "Good GOD, they are gay for each other." And today she recced a story here that sent me running in search of more John McClane/Matt Farrell.

And I'd read the first couple parts of poisontaster's Die Hard fic before, but damn, I found Save As today, and it is so friggin' good. SO good.

I'll rec the first fic in the 'verse first, since it's excellent and a good place to start:

Connectivity (Five Meals John McClane Didn't Plan to Have) by poisontaster
John McClane/Matt Farrell | Mild Adult | 3,118 words | spoilers for Live Free or Die Hard, references to Die Hard
John gets home after midnight with his head aching and a taste on his tongue for the whiskey in his kitchen cabinet. The person sitting on his stoop steps has his head down, and for a moment John starts to go for his gun, but then it passes and he recognizes it as the kid. Farrell.

There are links at the bottoms of the first three fics or so, but the fic I really want to rec is:

Save As by poisontaster
John McClane/Matt Farrell | Adult | 23,733 words | vague spoilers for all Die Hard movies | part of the aforementioned 'verse, but stands alone well
Save As - the moment of deciding if this is something you want to keep and what to name it.

The first thing you should know about this rec is that I rarely rec (or read) established relationship stories. This is the kind of story that makes me wonder why not. The McClane family dynamics are so on here, and the uncertainty in McClane and Matt's relationship makes the story engaging all the way through. It's just awesome.

Wow, LJ tells me that today is basically everyone's birthday. Happy birthday to jamesinboots and deirdre_c and most especially to my favorite person on LJ, walkawayslowly, who is currently off leading teenagers through Romania and therefore isn't around to read anything I write about my ridiculous amount of schmoopy love for her.

BUT I'LL WRITE A LITTLE ANYWAY.

I'd sort of stalked Merrin a little last summer after she wrote Demons Made Me Spill My Guts Like a Girl, which I possibly never should have admitted to, since I've gotten all kinds of crap about it since. (The number of times I've heard, "Ahaha, LOSER. You used to stalk me!" . . .) And I had NO idea how hard I was going to luck out when I friended her after chatting a little in the comments of Costarfucking. The answer: SO HARD. We crack ourselves up more than anyone else on the PLANET, and we're exponentially funnier and more awesome together than when we are apart, and also she's a phenomenal writer (*cough* What Remains *cough) and ALSO I love her to itty bitty pieces, and shortly there will be fic involving Merrin and someone whose name starts with David and ends with Cook.

Oh yes.

On a totally unrelated note, ahaha, I just discovered Entourage fic. Much like that time a couple years ago when I spent about a week reading nothing but The O.C. fic (Seth/Ryan! Seth/Summer and Ryan/Marissa on the way to Seth/Ryan! Seth/Anna and Ryan/Anna on the way to Seth/Ryan! Various other permutations thereof!), I have been gorging on every little bit of Eric/Vince I can get my hands on. Unlike with The O.C., where I'd at least watched the show sporadically, I have seen exactly none of the Entourage canon. But but but. Vince/Eric OTP! I feel like that needs about eight more exclamation points, and I am restraining myself.

I sort of want to type out this whole big meta thing of, like, how Entourage is hitting a bunch of the same buttons for me that non-AU J2 used to, except that it isn't marred by any of the wank or by the breakup and also it's 100% fictional (in spite of being loosely based on Mark Wahlberg's own entourage, blah blah whatever). Also it's got a GREAT cast of supporting characters (Drama! Turtle!) AND it has Ari Gold. ♥ ARI ♥!

It's like taking everything I love about J2 and putting them in the best (very minor) AU ever. Childhood best friends falling in love and being really, really gay for each other! In Hollywood! With big movies!

Tragically, unless there is a secret huge Entourage fandom hiding from me somewhere, there are like three good writers in the whole place, and I've already read pretty much everything they've written. The amount that I've loved everything fourteencandles has written is rather ridiculous, but this is by far my favorite:

Boys Will Always Break Your Heart by fourteencandles
Eric/Vince | PG | 14,500 words | outsider POV (!)
The boys are back in town, with their mothers watching out.

walkawayslowly is the person who really sold me on outsider POV as an awesome, awesome thing (read What Remains for why!), and this fic totally nails that. It's narrated by Eric's mom, which I would not have thought I'd like at all, and yet, omg. Eric, Vince, and the guys come back from California, aaaaaaaand Eric and Vince come out to their mothers. IT'S AMAZING, OKAY. I've basically been reading Entourage fic as original fic, since, again, I've never seen the canon, but really, this fic is phenomenal. Outsider POV and coming out fic in the same place.

Uh, I can hear you all hitting that defriend button already, so let me just add: there is no way in this world I have the time or the energy to actively get into a new fandom at this point, so I'm sure that, like my short-lived The O.C. phase, this too shall fizzle out. Unless there really is a secret huge fandom of which I am not aware, in which case, no promises, yo.

Whee, I'm twenty-two! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I had work today in spite of it being my birthday, because I was seriously not on top of things this year and just totally forgot to ask for the day off (d'oh) but work was not bad at ALL, and also it was a totally gorgeous day and I got some good beach time in in the middle of the day, too, so YAY.

Okay, totally different topic! Do you ever judge people in connection with their writing? Example: There was a girl in one of my creative writing classes whom I liked a great deal but whose writing was just not that good. Like, her ideas were excellent, but she tried to pack too much into too little room: a whole novel's worth of characters, details, and dialogue in twenty-five double-spaced pages. It was EXHAUSTING. And we would workshop her stuff and tell her, "This is good, but CUT THE EXCESS," and she would smile and nod and take notes and then, when she had a chance to respond to our feedback at the end of the workshop, it would always become clear that she intended to take NONE OF OUR SUGGESTIONS WHATSOEVER, and it was super frustrating. I kept wanting to be like, "Take that potential and USE IT. If ten of us are saying something needs changing, that is PROBABLY BECAUSE IT DOES."

Anyway, I don't judge people solely based on their writing, obviously. That would be dumb. But if I already like someone and then their writing turns out to ALSO be fabulous, hi, bonus points. Lots of them. I bring this up because a very cute boy I only really started talking to at the end of college just sent me a screenplay he finished writing, and omg. I SO BADLY WANT IT TO BE GOOD, you guys have no idea. SO BADLY. But, as I was just telling my mother, eighteen pages in aaaaaand IDK about this. Both in terms of reading and in terms of writing, I like my stories (and screenplays and movies) to be STORIES primarily. I utterly despised No Country for Old Men because it was COMPLETELY not a story. It was very pretty! But NO STORY. And a couple of my more philosophically inclined friends were like, "DUH, it's not supposed to be about a story! The point of it is that there IS no point! It's GENIUS." That's lovely; it's also not my thing. On the other hand, I just finished reading A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer, whose writing style and characterization are not totally fantastic, but whose storytelling, omfg, AMAZING. So I loved it beyond belief.

The point of this rambling is: I am afraid that this boy's philosophy degree is showing in his script, and it's making me go NOOOOOO. I want to like his writing SO VERY MUCH. Maybe he'll pull it off after all. Here's hoping!

Okay, dudes. So I haven't read a whole lot of Big Bang fics outside of the ones that I've betaed. The fic I'm reccing here IS one of the ones that I've betaed, and you're welcome to think I'm biased all you want, since if you've been on my LJ at all you probably know that I think walkawayslowly is the awesomest girl around -- but nonetheless, I'm reccing Merrin's BB, because this fic is SO FRIGGIN' GOOD.

What Remains by walkawayslowly
Dean/Sam, Bobby, OMC/OFC (bear with me, people) | NC-17 | 39,500 words | post-S3 amnesia fic
This is the one where Dean loses his memory and himself, and Sam has to find both.

I should start by saying that I am INSANELY picky about Wincest these days, and that while there's a lot of lovely post-S3 fic out there that deals with Dean being in Hell, that's not anything I hugely want to read right now -- happily, this story is 100% post-Hell, and contains nothing but allusions to it! It's also amnesia fic with two fantastic POV characters (one who is Sam and one who is not) and, oh, really awesome first-time Wincest.

Also, I understand that a lot of people are wary of O.C.s, but seriously? PLEASE do not let the mention of original characters here turn you away from this story. It's pretty fucking amazing to get to watch the development of the Wincest both from inside the relationship and outside it.

Oh yeah, and Sam likes to be all angsty, but there's plenty of schmoop to balance that right out.

Seriously, GO. Read it. It's AWESOME.

I really don't want to say a lot about these two fics because I don't want to give anything away, but first you should read:

Me and the Devil Blues by britomart_is
Sam/Dean | R | 2,200 words
It’s been nine months since the hellhounds dragged Dean into the Pit, and Sam drives along the coast highway with an empty passenger seat beside him. He hums along to Black Sabbath in the tape deck—Dean’s music, not his, but Sam learned to make concessions a long time ago.

And then you should REALLY REALLY REALLY read:

Burn My Body Down By the Highway Side by britomart_is
Sam/Dean | NC-17 | 3,500 words

That second one won't make a bit of sense without the first, and the first one is totally awesome, but the SECOND, omg, I can't even deal. Seriously, I don't want to say anything else at all. Just. SO GOOD.

OMFG. Okay so, reallycorking has been one of my favorite fanartists for approximately a gazillion years. She's been drawing pretty much exclusively (if not exclusively!) for HP for quite a while, but dudes, it's so damned awesome. And literally two nights ago I randomly spent a couple hours making walkawayslowly look at a bunch of RC's art (Merrin was all, "I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE MAKING ME LOOK AT HP HET. And yet I cannot STOP.") like this, and this, and this, and OMFG THIS.

And then TONIGHT reallycorking posted SAM/DEAN FANART. Seriously, I DON'T THINK I COULD BE MORE EXCITED ABOUT THIS IF I TRIED. SO MUCH AWESOME. GO. LOOK.

Drunk!Sam and Dean

EEEEE.

The authors just got revealed over at the spn_gleeweek [guess the author competition], so I get to claim my story!

Title: In the Telling
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 1,391
Disclaimer: Belongs to Kripke, not to me!
Summary: After Sam gets him out of the deal, Dean fucks a lot of girls.
Author's Notes: Thanks to memphis86 for looking this over!

( In the Telling )

I sort of want to insert a long paragraph of blah about warnings and how I hate them (this is related because in spite of the fact that Dean sleeps with like a dozen girls in my spn_gleeweek fic I would never, ever warn for het in it), but I think I'll save that for another day.

Right now, I want to point you over to girlmostlikely's [accidental schmoop meme] where I got coerced into writing ~400 words of Sam/Dean, gruffness, the giver being more surprised than the receiver. Coerced, yup. Writing that was REALLY PAINFUL, let me just tell you. *g*

And speaking of the accidental schmoop meme and of the GtA competition, have some shortfic recs!

Jared/Jensen, off-season, missing each other by dontyouwaitup
PG | 565 words | from the accidental schmoop meme
I love the matter-of-fact-ness and also their banter SO MUCH.

Sam/Dean, taking a bath together by memphis86
R-ish | 556 words | from the accidental schmoop meme
My comment on this was something along the lines of, "I just made a happy noise so high-pitched that ONLY THE DOGS HEARD IT." First time Sam/Dean in a BATHTUB.

The lady of the right hand by fleshflutter
pre-series Dean-centric gen | PG-13 | 1,789 words | from spn_gleeweek
Dean's last night in New Orleans with that voodoo gig.
This is one of those fics that makes me wonder why I don't read more gen than I do. Or maybe it's just that fleshflutter's really awesome. Dean and a TOTALLY FANTASTIC original character.

Joie de Vivre by memphis86
Sam/Dean | PG-13 | 1,906 words | from spn_gleeweek
This is just a really cool short fic that TOTALLY MESSES WITH YOUR MIND. I'm a big fan of that. Sam in the South of France!

The Eyes Have It by __tiana__
Jared/Jensen | PG-13 | 1,200ish words
This isn't actually from either the accidental schmoop meme OR from the GtA entries, but it's short and also all about Jared realizing that there are 28374 pictures of Jensen staring at him like he is COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH HIM, so I really don't see how this could not get included.

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I haven't actually read all of the spn_gleeweek fics yet, so there may be a part two to this after I get my act together. And now back to doing . . . whatever it is you do at your internship after you are already finished researching replacement refrigerator parts. Writing fic?? We shall see.

Here, have yet another candidate for the Pile of AUs That We Are Too Lazy to Write Ourselves, But That Would Be Really Awesome!

For vague context: walkawayslowly and I have been calling Rodney/John 'McSheep' for approximately 9287374 years (give or take), due to the fact that we kept accidentally typo-ing in that extra 'e'. For specific context: we were talking about Heightmeyer, whom we hate rather more than would really seem necessary:

walkawayslowly: i want to hit her with a stick.
causeways: we should beat her with sheep!
walkawayslowly: yes! and potatoes.
causeways: i bet sheep!rodney would bite her on the bottom, and then be like, "ewwww now i have that taste in my mouth, WHERE IS JOHN."
walkawayslowly: sheep!john would kick her shins. nawww, sheep!
causeways: they are even in love as sheep, it's true.
walkawayslowly: AHAHAHA, okay, FOR LIKE A SECOND. i pictured RONON as a sheep.
causeways: AHHH!
walkawayslowly: and he was dirty and, like, BEDRAGGLED. and his poor little wool was all GNARLED and DREADED. because he has been on the run! from another flock! wolves killed his family!
causeways: . . . OMG.
walkawayslowly: he's just looking for some peace!
causeways: SHEEP!AU.
walkawayslowly: AHAHAHAA. and, like, teyla is from another herd nearby, over a couple of hills, but she likes rodney and john's herd a little better, so she visits a lot. and zelenka was a runt, so he's kind of small and they never shear his neck/head area right, so he's got a bit of wild growth.

This could be TOTALLY GENIUS, am I right?

Ahaha, I just realized: this was really the next logical step after 1ightning's sheep hustling AU (No Puns Please -- John/Rodney, 4,300 words, NC-17), wasn't it? Rodney doesn't steal sheep anymore! He IS a sheep! ANYWAY.

I sort of hate how very good walkawayslowly and I are at coming up with GENIUS IDEAS FOR STORIES. Same with me and memphis86, that ho. Our overwhelming laziness/lack of time is SO TRAGIC.

&jensen/snowshoes;