I went to the supermarket yesterday.  There were fairly long lines with the pre-Thanksgiving crowd and the cashiers were hauling whole turkeys over the scanners. 

 

I was very grateful not to be working in a supermarket anymore. 

 

In fact, the market was always open on Thanksgiving and I started working there in September of 2006 so this is going to be the first Thanksgiving since 2005 where I won’t have to go to work. 

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1. Eli Sunday (There Will Be Blood)
2. Rose Tyler (Dr. Who)
3. Claire Bennett (Heroes)
4. Gwen (Merlin)
5. Kozue (Revolutionary Girl Utena)
6. Tohma (Gravitation)
7. Major Henry West (28 Days Later)
8. Donny aka the Bear Jew (Inglourious Basterds)
9. Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
10. Sansa Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire)


( 15 Words Meme )

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Validation
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Claude
Summary: Set during season 1. There was more to Peter than Claude was willing to see.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 1185
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex, violence, elements of D/s.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.


( Validation )

Author: Bitterfig
Title: To Hell With the Right Thing
Fandom: Mad Men
Character: Salvatore “Sal” Romano
Summary: Sal reflects on his lifelong discretion and where it’s gotten him.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 519
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some sexual content. Spoilers for season 3.
Author’s Note: Set after the season 3 episode “In the Wee Small Hours”.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.


( To Hell With the Right Thing )

Title: Entangled

Fandom: Inkheart

Pairing: Dustfinger/Silvertongue

Summary: For hours Dustfinger had lain awake on the narrow bed, surrounded by towering boxes of books, hoping for and dreading Silvertongue’s arrival.

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 885

Rating: R

Warnings: Sexual content

Author’s Note: Set early on in Inkheart at Elinor’s house before Capricorn’s men arrive.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.


( Entangled )

Author: Bitterfig

Title: Unlucky

Fandom: Inkheart

Pairing: Mo/Dustfinger

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 200

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Author’s Note: Written for slashthedrabble prompt #230: Curse.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Unlucky

Mo never thought of his ability to read people and things out of books as a talent or a power. To him it was a curse. A curse that had cost him his wife and made him a hunted man, forever running to stay one step ahead of Capricorn.

Dustfinger was, even more than Mo, the victim of this curse, trapped in a strange world, away from all familiar things. Mo would have given anything to put things right, to read the fire-eater back home but he couldn’t. He read aloud from Inkheart until his throat was raw and he was so exhausted the words danced on the page.

Nothing happened. Dustfinger was still there.

“Use your powers, Silvertongue,” Dustfinger pleaded. “Send me back where I belong.”

“I’ve tried,” Mo croaked in his ruined voice, then he broke down. He wept for his lost wife, for his motherless child, for Dustfinger, displaced from all he knew and loved because of Mo.

Dustfinger took Mo in his arms, gently stroking his dark hair.

“I thought you were a powerful sorcerer who’d done this to me,” Dustfinger finally said. “You’re not, are you? You’re just as lost and unlucky as I am.”

Nobody's added Count Cain/Godchild/The Cain Saga to AO3, yet, so what name should I add it under? I know it's on the Yuletide master list as The Cain Saga, so that's probably the name I should use, but nobody in the fandom calls it that, and the story I need to upload is actually in the Godchild timeframe. Preferences?

Also, I try to remind myself that there is no reason to get as gleeful about submitting bug reports as about inputting a new fandom or pairing (Yami peeps, you get a lot more choices now), but that doesn't stop me from doing it. It's a bug and I found it! Whee!

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID. messages in bottles recovered.

Author: Bitterfig

Title: Father Figures

Fandom: Torchwood/Dr. Who

Character: Jack Harkness with mentions of the Doctor 9-11, Rose and team Torchwood.

Summary: Father figures tend to let their children down.

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 228

Rating: PG

Warning: Spoilers for Torchwood Season 2 and Children of Earth.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.


( Father Figures )

This is about using the various labeling fields on AO3.

( Scroll on by if it's not a topic of interest )

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID. messages in bottles recovered.

Author: Bitterfig

Title: Copperhead

Fandom: Crossover Revolutionary Girl Utena/Kill Bill

Pairing: Juri Arisugawa/Elle Driver

Summary: If the girl wanted to surrender her ego, to learn to live without pride, Elle was more than willing to accommodate her.

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 500

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Violence, suggested sex.

Author’s Note: Written for slashtheimage prompt #27.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

( Copperhead )

Just added all my CSJH stories thus far to AO3, and I am writing up a post about my personal tagging system in terms of relationships. I also just added my Highlander/The Good King stories to the archive. The Good King as in Wenceslas, as in the Family Channel Movie based on the Christmas Carol based on the life of a guy who would actually do better with one of those bloodtastic gruefests that are all the cinematic rage. Really, the scene where he's knifed down by his brother and his brother's friends as he heads to Mass in the snow (not a scene that happened in the Family Channel version, more's the pity) is the sort of thing to make shock-value directors giggle themselves to sleep with sheer macabre glee.

Be that as it may, the movie we actually have is considerably more schmaltzy than gory, so I fixed it with a nice dose of one of the Four Horsemen from Highlander. Also, this fandom is too obscure for Yuletide (by fandom, in this case, I mean has at least one story, and this one has two, and they are both mine). I'm weirdly proud of that.

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So you know how you hear those stories about computer crashes that inevitably take place during holiday fic exchanges and those stories are held up as examples of why you should back up your writing files to two different places at least once a week?

It's a good thing I back mine up every morning these days, 'sall I'm saying. Well, that and my new laptop is named Trinity and she is wee, slick, badass, and so fast that she will shoot you in the head faster than you can dodge.

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Last night I had a dream that was backstory for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. I was a young girl in a very wealthy family and the Basterds were using our decrepit summer estate for training. My mother cautioned me very strongly against associating with the Basterds but I think I sort of had a thing for Donny (aka the Bear Jew) who I referred to as a Golem.

I just finished watching season 1 of the television show Heroes and I can honestly say I’m a little obsessed. It’s not a great show but it is totally my kind of show, a sort of sprawling mishmash of elements from X-Men, Watchmen and the Manchurian Candidate and post 9/11 paranoia with lots of grandiose themes, moral ambiguity, family dysfunction and general angst.

I find myself particularly fascinated by the relationship between Peter and Nathan Petrelli. They’re brothers—Peter is a hospice nurse and Nathan is a lawyer running for Congress—but the intensity of their interactions makes them seem more like lovers.

I always wonder where stuff like (i.e. homoerotic and/or incestuous subtext) this comes from, is it intentional or just a quirk of chemistry? In some cases it’s conscious (on the DVD commentary for 28 Days Later for instance, Danny Boyle acknowledges that yet, Major Henry West is acting in a seductive manner towards Jim) I always wondered if while he was making Reservoir Dogs Quentin Tarantino told Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel to play Mr. Orange and Mr. White as a romance or if it just happened.

Some actors I’ve noticed just seem to have a particular gift for getting all over their male co-stars in a suggestive way. Viggo Mortensen (see him with William Hurt in A History of Violence or Vincent Cassel at the end of Eastern Promises) and Peter Stormare (Constantine, Prison Break, the Brothers Grimm) immediately come to mind but there are definitely others.

And speaking of slashy goodness…

Now that I’m done season 1 of Heroes I’ve started watching season 2 of the BBC show Merlin. Amusingly the season premiere starts off with scenes of Merlin rushing to a shirtless Arthur’s bedside and later Gwen doing the same for Morgana. In this series, I definitely think the homoerotic subtext is very conscious. There’s too much of it for it to be anything else.

I have mixed feelings about Merlin. On the one hand it feels like a rehash of the first couple seasons of Smallville in a medieval setting. Of course originality isn’t everything, but there’s a certain stagnancy to the show. It seems to tread water, never moving forward. Each episode seems to return it to a status quo. That said I do enjoy watching it because it’s so well done and beautiful to look at. The costumes and scenery and production design is wonderful. I’ve never seen a show with more vivid use of color. Katie Mcgrath and Angel Coulby, the young actresses who play Morgana and Gwen are absolutely exquisite. I could stare at Colin Morgan’s (Merlin’s) cheekbones all day and Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is wonderful and magnetic as the very ambiguous King Uther.

I’m feeling much better than I was when I posted back on the 9^th. 

 

My health insurance finally came through so I’m taking my medication at the proper dosage once again.  I’ve also taken steps to get my daily calorie intake up to a level where I’m functioning instead of just surviving. 

 

Other positive things—

 

After a couple weeks with nothing promising on the job front, about four positions have come up in the past few days that I’m going to apply for.  Maybe something will work out.  Not that I’m terribly eager to get back to work (because let’s face it, its work) but I’d feel a bit more secure with a steady income and some reliable health insurance coverage. 

 

The weather is wonderfully mild for mid-November, temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s this last week. 

 

I’m getting back into the habit of writing everyday, which is great.  When I’m not writing I always feel sort of directionless.  Practicing and honing my craft gives me a real sense of purpose and accomplishment.   

 

I find taking care of my grandmother really rewarding.  Since I moved in with her, I’ve taken over changing the bedding every week and yesterday she thanked me for that and was telling me what a terrible time she used to have doing it by herself and how much easier having me around made life for her.  It really makes me feel good knowing I’m helping her even if it is in a very small and simple way.

From the AO3 support team:

It's likely you're having difficulty with your threesome tags because each indivdual tag may only contain up to 42 characters. This is noted on the upload form, but a lot of people do miss it, and we're reviewing the way this information is displayed to users as we continue to get feedback.

For threesomes, we suggest using last names instead of full names to fit within the 42 characters per tag restriction.

I can work with those guidelines for everything but DBSK, for which I will put first names in alphabetical order, and CSJH, for which I will put stage names in alphabetical order, because they just do not go by their surnames. Well, and Anyband, none of whom have surnames in-character except Jin Bora. But Hisoka/Tatsumi/Tsuzuki is now in the system as Kurosaki/Tatsumi/Tsuzuki, for anyone who needs to use it.

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I just got to submit a support ticket for AO3 asking how to tag stories for threesomes and moresomes (I mean, there's Multi and Other, but I need to be able to put in the pairings). And then there's that whole "implied X" or "past X" thing.

...

*\0/*

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID. messages in bottles recovered.

Author: Bitterfig

Title: Iris, Messenger of the Gods

Fandom: Firefly/Serenity

Pairing: Inara/Saffron

Summary: Set post-Serenity. Inara was delighted to gain the attention of Ariel’s progressive new Prime Minister, the mysterious Iris.

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 860

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Mild sexual content.

Author’s Note: Written for grdnofevrythng’s femslash porn battle for the prompt “Firefly, Inara/Saffron, trade secrets.”

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Author: Bitterfig

Title: Tarnished Gold

Fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena

Pairing: Touga/Nanami

Summary: Years after they have parted, Nanami writes her Big Brother a letter.

Beta Reader: Fedink

Word Count: 434

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Incest, sexual content.

Author’s Note: Written for the porn_battle prompt “Revolutionary Girl Utena, Touga/Nanami, don't leave me a witch.”

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Fully Integrated
Fandom: Fight Club
Threesome: Marla/Narrator/Tyler
Rating: R
Warnings: Sex, language.
Word Count: 159
Author’s Note: Written for drabble_a_trois challenge #39: Crack
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.