Consonants and vowels all together, equally

I decided, in terms of the tagging thing, that the biggest thing that I can't really do is try to perfectly anticipate how other people might want me to tag that will enable them to do something that they're not telling me they're doing. So I'm going to go on as I have been, for the most part, on both AO3 and tumblr. I am VASTLY GRATEFUL to everyone who replied here or on twitter, as talking to you all helped me to think through how I felt. THANK YOU.

I was going to do a meme about the tv shows I'm watching right now, but I'm finding the questions annoying so here is a free-form blurb on each of them, and if you're watching any of them you should let me know! This list is mostly sitcoms because I'm on a very long tear of watching light things, which likely isn't ending anytime soon.

( HIMYM )

Castle: I spoke about my love for this show in a previous post.

( Glee )

( Suburgatory )

( Happy Endings )

( New Girl )

( Justified )

( White Collar )

( Top Chef )

( Community )

( Parks and Recreation )

( Up All Night )

( Pan Am )

Probably going to watch Smash. Definitely going to watch The Voice. Will also watch Suits when it returns this summer. Oh, and I keep meaning to watch that new Don Cheadle show, even if it did get mixed reviews.

So anyone watching any of these shows?

In which I'll start with some yammering about my icon-fixation of the last week and a half or so, and then talk a bit about television now that shows are starting up again.

Those of you who have talked to me recently will be very glad to know that the whole icon-fixation is over! I've deleted old icons, uploaded new ones, finally got DW in sync, and changed most of my icon keywords. I know it means a lot of comments and posts will revert to my default icon, but I've deleted a lot of icons over the past few years so it was happening anyway. I'll just go back and fix all the fic posts.

And this was all done so I could upload a bunch of Avengers icons; more on that when I've properly caught up on the movies. But in short: Pepper/Natasha and Clint/Coulson.

Okay let's talk about the two American crime dramas I've been watching, Hawaii Five-O and Castle.

( Hawaii Five-O )

( Castle )

Anyone else watching these shows? Thoughts?

Next time, sitcoms, because I am watching a metric fuckton of them this year.

So! I'm really sorry, DW-types, that I haven't been as diligent this fall about letting you know about the fics I've been posting! Let's start at the end.

All Around You Now by clio_jlh
The Voice RPF written for Yuletide! My recipient requested Blake and Reba, something about his crush, and it ended up being about the love that's all around us, Reba's wise advice, and Blake fucking Miranda up against a wall. (Also at LJ and DW.)

( three jim and bones stories )

Backchannels: Kirill(Bourne Supremacy)/Bo Barrett(Bottle Shock), 3800 words, NC-17
It should be weirder to be standing in the middle of West Berlin and watch a car appear out of nowhere with the man you've dreamt of since you were a boy behind the wheel. It should be weirder to travel back in time almost 30 years and wake up to see the angel who's been protecting you for decades. But what's actually weird is how completely not weird it feels. (Written for the Worlds Collide Crossover Challenge at jim_and_bones.)
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive Of Our Own

I finally wrote the sequel to EWFS! Hurrah!

The Trick Is to Keep Breathing: Pansy/Parvati, Harry/Hermione, Draco/Ginny, Ron/Padma, Seamus/Dean, 56,000 words, R
Three years on, the second war still casts a long shadow. When facing challenges like a compulsive addiction, a baffling mystery, a life changing event, an impending career shift, or simply moving in with your boyfriend, maybe the best strategy is to lean on your friends, put one foot in front of the other, and let the saving-the-world bit take care of itself.
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive Of Our Own

( three parvati/pansy stories )

I got femslash for Yuletide!!

Always There Whip It! Bliss/Pash, 1600 words. Perhaps the love Bliss Cavendar had been searching for had always been there for her all along …

Super great, super fun, super satisfying. I am well pleased. Go, read!

I've spent the past few days reading other Yuletide fics and will put up a rec post hopefully later this week.

In the meantime, I'm organizing my fics during my week off and I'm adding some freeform tags to my stuff on AO3. What tags have you found work for you? What tags are you using other than the ones you're prompted to use?

Here's some that I figure I'm going to be using:
( tags cut for your reading pleasure )

I admit I'm nervous about the female/chromatic/LGBTQ character tags; I always feel like people are looking for something that's more specific than that, or using it to mean something other than what it literally means. I hate excusing myself with the letter-of-the-law excuse, but does just having a female character as a big part of a fic qualify for the tag? Can you only label gen fics as "friendship"?

The thing is, I write a lot of ensemble fics, especially for HP, so I hesitate at the term "main character"; I rarely write long fics about one or two characters. It's entirely possible that my hesitation on all of these "does it count" matters is predicated on the insistence of something being a "main character" or a "main plot" when I honestly feel that the HP stuff has 8-10 main characters, roughly equal in their POV scenes, and therefore lots of different ship types, etc. Hopefully I will not get angry comments!

Earlier this year I'd embarked on a project of writing a birthday drabble for each of my fellow jim_and_bones mods based on the Elton John album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The fall got a little busy and there were some changes in personnel, but I had plans, man, and I follow through.

Hence, I have finished the project! A drabble for every mod, and for every song on the album including a b-side bonus track! I posted the final four drabbles this week for pixelmayhem (admittedly a bit late), blcwriter (though she's since left our Bridge Crew), norfolkdumpling (the newbie) and lindmere (even though she doesn't tell us when her bday actually is).

Below, links to the series as a whole. Enjoy!

Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive Of Our Own

I don't exchange presents with anyone so I thought I'd make myself a reminder list of records I meant to buy this year and didn't and perhaps will in the new year as a present to myself:

• The Light of the Sun | Jill Scott
  
• Stone Rollin' | Raphael Saadiq
  
• Night of Hunters | Tori Amos
  
• Undun | The Roots
  
• Chamber Music Society | Esperanza Spalding
  
• 50 Words for Snow | Kate Bush
  
• James Farm
  
• Good Days at Schloss Elmau | Gwilym Simcock

Other suggestions?

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First, THANK YOU. I think of Yuletide as more of an opportunity to write something a little different than request something to exacting specifications, so whatever you write is more like a totally awesome bonus than the entire reason I'm participating. In other words, NO PRESSURE. This, and my comments on the assignment, are really just suggestions in case you'd like some.

The most important thing really is no deathfic and I prefer a happy ending. I don't mind working for the happy ending; angst that ends well is splendid. Downer endings, though, kinda bum me out. I do tend to read and write romances, and smut, but that doesn't mean I'm expecting that here. Gen is fantastic too, as I'm thinking about my love for the characters and their interaction; I've written genfic myself for Yuletide. However when it comes to smut I do love dirty talk and an equal balance of forces.

Don't think that my prompts are there to guide you in any particular direction; they're more like thought starters and you can feel free to ignore them. I'm not a freak about plot—in many of the stories I love nothing really happens except maybe an internal change in a character or an emotional realization. Characters are always more important to me than plot and I adore great conversation. So feel free to have them just sitting around drinking coffee and talking about great Heart songs, or have them find a way to Save the World from Certain Destruction, or anything in between!

Specifics:

( Community )

( Rear Window )

( Unstoppable )

( Whip It )

My recs on delicious and here on LJ aren't that extensive and right now are mostly Star Trek and Rymon. I do write what I like to read, which has been centered on Harry Potter, Idol RPF, and lately Star Trek, plus a pile of one-offs.

Mostly, thank you in advance; I know that anything you do will be awesome, because it will mean more fic for one of these fandoms, and isn't that the whole point?

Author: Clio
Title: April Is Over
Pairing: Janice Rand/Christine Chapel, with James Kirk/Leonard McCoy.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: An AU set among American expats in 1920s Paris. In Janice Rand’s experience, lesbians don't fall in love, so she puts her passion into her paintings and finds physical comforts where she can. Christine Chapel, a recently divorced socialite and accomplished hostess, hopes to recapture the magic of her first love without its problems. When their best friends become a couple, bringing them much together, the two are forced to confront their assumptions about romance, which leads them to a conclusion neither had anticipated.
Warning: None needed. A romance.
Length: 28,000 words
Notes: For the startrekbigbang.
Title from the F. Scott Fitzgerald story "The Sensible Thing." Dick and Nicole Diver borrowed from Tender Is the Night, also by Fitzgerald. The story of how Kirk and McCoy meet is a true one; thanks to bhanesidhe for telling it to me. And as always, very special thanks to my beta and cheerleader, ali_wildgoose.

fic: Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive of Our Own

art: at Livejournal by kymericl

mix: at Livejournal by sullacat

So here's a great thing that happened today.

On a post from The New Yorker's book blog, The Book Bench (which I highly recommend) I was linked to a post on Hairpin called "How to Write a Romance Novel." And I thought, "oh dear."

Now, Hairpin is the sort-of lady-cousin to The Awl, with which I have a complicated relationship as a reader. A pal writes for them sometimes, and at the start I gave them the ol' college try; I have a login there and everything. But I soon realized that their way of talking about things is pretty much opposite to mine, so I stopped reading. Which means, I had every reason to think that this blog entry would be not just annoying and snarky and superior but also the exact same annoying, snarky, superior blog entry that you think it's going to be.

And it was terrible and, which is worse, entirely unoriginal!

Now, usually I don't read comments on these kinds of things, and I'm not sure what led me to them, but part way down there was a comment from "Yahtzi": "I'm going to assume that we're all smart ladies who know that romance novels are actually fucking awesome (and many are well-written), so I'll save the screed." Following this comment was a long string of comments from people proclaiming themselves not just romance novel readers but (wait for it): fanfiction readers! And saying the sort of things that we would say, basically: that sure, a lot of it isn't great, but if you know where to look, there's a bunch that is better than a lot of published fiction.

It's here that I want to note that my aforementioned friend, in writing a post on The Awl that referenced fanfiction, was not entirely dismissive of same because she had some friends who wrote it, including me, and wanted to be respectful. And I felt respected. Now folks are coming out in the comments and saying, "me too!"

My heart, you guys. I feel like we're not so strange after all.

First, thanks to everyone for the good wishes the other day. It'll take me a bit to reply to them all (talking is a little hard right now) but reply I will! It's going to take a while before I'll be bouncing back, and while I'll try not to be negative (because it makes me feel worse) I might not be as positive as usual in the meantime.

In the meantime, a meme! I'll post the working title of a story, and the first sentence, for my most current WIPs. No pairing or summary info. Though for nearly all of these stories, the pairing is given away in the first sentence anyway, and my working titles are all the pairing or the summary, basically. But! First lines! All femslash, mostly multiracial.

1. “Scared?” Quinn said, making a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I’m terrified.”
   
2. "So tonight," Pansy said, "no sneaking into the club bathroom, no getting yourself off secretly—"
   
3. While their friends moved into perfectly sweet little three-bedroom family homes (well, and Malfoy Manor), Pansy and Parvati thought, penthouse.
   
4. Divorce Granted: Roger Korby and Christine Chapel Korby, filed by Mrs. Korby on grounds of mental incapacitation —The New York Times, April 20, 1920
   
5. The shopping started, as so many things did with the cousins, with Annie Weasley-Wood.
   
6. Christie was talking about the hospital wanting to send her to Boston to help with some training, which, fine, it was only two months and Diana would run up on her days off—that's what trains were for.