The Flavour of Words

clairshadows — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:56:20 GMT

My stance on remixing any of my podfics: Go for it! No seriously, I record my favourite stories, but I can't help critiquing myself when I listen, so you if you are willing to rerecord my favourites I am behind you, hell I'll probably beta read for you. Just let me know so I can wriggle with joy.

clairshadows — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:56:57 GMT

Hello world,
I have conquered not one, not two, but three assignments worth 45% of my grade in the last two weeks. Yay to me!

Here are two podfic recs:

Fandom: American Idol
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Podfic: City of a Thousand Wonders by Astolat and read by 2naonh3_cl2
Found here: http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/city-of-thousand-wonders-audiobook
Why you should listen: First this is an amazing story where together Kris and Adam team up to fight monsters and have amazing sex :) Next 2naonh3_cl2 has an easy to listen to voice and is not afraid to put in the little noises that really make a story come alive. The recording and editing are excellent and at 1 hour and 23 minutes you can wash up and finish folding the clothes completely at peace with the world.

Fandom: Star Trek Reboot
Pairing: Jim/Spock
Podfic: Some days its not even worth chewing through the restraints by lazulisong and read by templemarker
Found here: http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/some-days-its-not-even-worth-chewing-through-restraints
Why you should listen: Sometimes you just need to laugh and at 7 and a half minutes this is a short and fun story that puts a light hearted spin on the aliens made them do it trope.

WIP meme

clairshadows — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:47:57 GMT

WIP meme
Most recent first

Original
Lesbian plant women one tattoo kink
Paul and Thomas

Sherlock BBC series/HDM
John as Harry's daemon one

Startrek Reboot
The one where Jim's mum takes him to Vulcan to avoid the press after Tarsus IV and Jim and Spock accidentally bond
The one where humans still have wings and Vulcan's have evolved out of theirs but Spock being a hybrid pulled some weird genetic throwback thing and gained wings like the Vulcans of old

SGA
The one where John has atlantis's baby
The one where Rodney is like a sex god and wins the trading rights to these really delicious fruit (this one actually kind of disturbed me and left me squinting at my imagination for days)
The firefly crossover one where Rodney in a bid to stop the wraith locked all life in the universe away (not his intention he swears) save Earth and Atlantis firefly crew wake them up thousands and thousands of years later and suddenly colonialists find themselves neighbours with some very strange/dangerous beings indeed. Kaylee has the gene :)

I would be grateful in the extreme if anyone wants to take over any of these WIP. Go wild.

Maths

clairshadows — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:52:43 GMT

Hello world. I am studying once more. More specifically I am relearning year 12 maths under the heading math120. To my own credit I'm not actually procrastinating despite my hate (6 out of 12 weekly assignments at least roughly completed. Go me!)

That said the short audiobook or drabble of your choice to anyone who can tell me 'why' the derivative of ln(sqrt x) = 1/2x ? Two weeks this has been haunting me and pages and pages of scribbled out equations in my notebook. My desire for this seemingly easy equation to die in a fire cannot be adequately expressed.

Writer's Block: Dream On

clairshadows — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:46:09 GMT

I dream of waves large enough to fill both horizons just curling as they start to crash down.

clairshadows — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:15:26 GMT

I had a dream and in my dream I was a dragon wings outspread flying past the walls of the ancient castle where I and the last of my kind lived. There were 30 - 40 of us and our numbers were dwindling falling to accidents that weren't.

I was in love with the human dark haired prince of the castle. He was cruel and conceited. My wings flare as I come in to land on the flat roof of the castle. My prince is there with a tall blond woman a virgin and two silent guards. The woman is fair and elegant and of the court and I feel jealousy bloom. I feel ashamed of my love for the prince who I have suspicions is behind the accidents to my kind, but I don't care. He is presenting this woman and wanting to bind me, when all I want is to be with him. He presents the small steel ring with it's heavy engravings and as I try to word the doubts in my mind one of the guards stabs the woman the knife coming clean through her front and she is falling on me the ring doesn't touch me, but it is too late. I am not bound, but the woman falls into me and I am pregnant deep into my third trimester and too heavy to stay aloft. In the panic I wheel away from the roof and start to plummet down the side of the castle old brick and moss rushing past me. I transform into human and manage to halt my fall clinging with hands and feet as a gargoyle prepared to spring away to one of the small window ledges. Trying to make my form small and still so that I wouldn't be detected. My world narrowed to the sounds of pursuit.

The weight of the baby within me and the betrayal of my prince follows me into waking.

clairshadows — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:37:47 GMT

Jason's Story:

You are in a field. It is night. The moon is covered by the thin veil of mist which has sprung up during the past hour. The land dips and rises around you in now unfamiliar fields and farms. You see what may be a house in the distance. The small forest is behind you and to your left and right the fields continue.

You don't know how to get home. You don't know how you got here.

You are wearing a dark black overcoat, boots that look like they came from an ex army shop and dark jeans. The clothes don't feel familiar.

Searching through your pockets you find the keys to your house, a lighter, a packet of cigarettes and a folded note.

What do you do?

[open folded note]

You open the folded note and read:

"Hey sorry about the clothes, yours were trashed. Call me 555-0606." The writing is feminine and loopy. You feel somehow disappointed.

[walk towards house]

You pick your way carefully across the field heading towards the light in the distance.

The light grows brighter and as you walk on it becomes larger than you can account for. After half an hour you can make out what appears more like a factory than a house.

Do you wish to continue?

clairshadows — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:36:53 GMT

What does your drawing say about YOU?

The results of your analysis say:

Your friends and associates should generally find you a dependable and trustworthy person.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

Yay me.

Fanficlet

clairshadows — Tue, 16 May 2006 13:33:06 GMT

I feel like adding something of my own to this board. The panic is not from pre-post but from a more undefinable source. Writing has mellowed it a little, but it's still there lurking.

The story I originally wanted it to be was a Sentinel Mpreg all light and airy where Blair was really a type of shape changer and half morphed during an important moment and well there are consequences to that type of thing ... and I had this image of Blair round and fat and his hair even curlier and of just happiness, but then this Daniel centered stargate story crept up.

All strange world and in and out and it's kind of fitting in this in-between confusing mood.

“Don’t break the window!” The high pitched child-like voices chanted getting faster and faster as the game played out; hands clapping against hands one palm up, one palm down, then chest to chest as if it was a game of balance then back to one palm down, one palm up. Daniel watched them play not entirely sure if they were real. One of them was drawing on the low stone wall that surrounded this place in coloured chalk, they looked like symbols, but Daniel’s mind skittered away from what they could mean. A small group broke off from the clapping game giggling, their smoky indistinct forms wavering as they shifted into a game of catch me.
The girl, he was sure it was a girl, it was wearing a simple grey dress, finished her drawing, dropping the chalk and joining the game of catch and Daniel watched as the small coloured pieces rolled towards him, a blue and purple piece brushing up against him and Daniel dazedly picked it up feeling faintly surprised that he could. It was hard to move his hand, but Daniel used the chalk to draw three careful circles at the apexes of an invisible triangle on his own patch of the small wall and connected them with a shaking hand. Aybados. He traced the symbol with his finger and curled away from the shadow children ignoring the pain in his side that the movement caused. I’m sorry. And it was easy, so easy to close his eyes and let consciousness slide away from him again.

When he woke the words were in Aybadonian and Daniel felt something inside of him crack he curled back towards them panting from the effort and felt blood begin to drip from his side once more, he was so fucking tired of dying. The Shadow children where singing ‘Eye’s all bright, skin so white, snatch you up and --- shhhhhhhh. The Aybadonian version of a nursery rhyme, there were hundreds of them and Daniel let memories of the cramped Aybados streets and its women and children’s high lilting voices overlay the nervous giggling of the shadow children. Sha’re’s warm voice lifted in song and how he would learn the words just to sing them softly to her at night and hear her beautiful laugh. Oh God he missed her.

“Are you alive?” a childish voice asked him as if the concept of alive was a curiosity in itself. Daniel looked up and strained his head back. One of the shadow children was sitting on the wall a little further along she/he it hopped down, He. Daniel decided it was wearing overalls cut off at the thigh, and crouched by his head. It was wearing crisscrossed sandals from Aybados.

“You’re red,” he stated and moved to touch his wound, Daniel sucked in a proactive breath, but he couldn’t feel the ghostly fingers and his body relaxed without him.

“You’re making a mess you know, you shouldn’t make a mess its wrong.” he said and Daniel heard the implied threat and tried to work up the words, but his throat was too dry to defend his side, he pointed at the cartouche of Aybados some vague plan of comparing purposeful with un-purposeful, but by then it was too late, cold indistinct fingers were reaching into him and Daniel screamed.

clairshadows — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 01:11:48 GMT

This is my After the glimpse story :) Author notes are at the end.

Author: Clair Shadows
Title: Wooden Horse (After)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Mckay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Siege (III)
Summary: Rodney hates his imagination sometimes.
(Author’s comments at the end)
Beta read by slashpile who is wonderful

The glimpse was

Wooden Horse

There's a photograph in Sheppard's childhood room. It's of a small dark haired boy waving a toy airplane while an older man in uniform holds him and smiles for the boy in his arms and the woman taking the picture. That photograph has been face down for a long time.

There are no photographs in Rodney’s childhood room. They’re packed carefully away in a box under his bed at Atlantis. Rodney’s always known he’ll never go back.

I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
A small white wooden horse
I'd been holding inside

Sheppard doesn't think of Earth when he flies towards the Wraith ship, doesn't let himself think of the things he will never see again, but he does let himself sink deeper into the controls of the Puddlejumper feeling her become more alive beneath him, more responsive and feels her correct direction minutely, feels her wanting to destroy the wraith just as much as he does. The wraith ship looms until it fills the view with its quiet menace and deadly darts. Sheppard splays his hand across the controls an offer of comfort and the Puddlejumper warms around him, giving him extra speed. If he did let himself think of Earth, think of what he would show his father it would be this: the ships that come alive beneath his hands. The city who comes alive beneath his hands. His home and that she loves him.

Rodney does not think of Earth as he watches the small blip representing the Puddlejumper blink its way towards the wraith Hive ship. He counts the ways Sheppard is going to die. Mass trauma on impact, blood and worse smeared across the pale blue controls. Incineration. Sheppard’s body turned to charcoal and dust over the twisted melted remains of jumper and Hive ship. Suffocation/freezing to death if the jumper tears on impact and there is enough time for Sheppard to be sucked out into vacuum before the whole ship goes up. Maybe the jumper will euthanize him, gas or carbon monoxide poisoning or maybe he would euthanize himself with a bullet. The thoughts flash in horrifying gory detail, but his worst thought is not the half a dozen horrible ways Sheppard will die. It’s that if Sheppard succeeds then he will have to stand here and watch this over and over and over again. Losing everyone. Until his own hands are guiding a doomed vessel. Rodney quite possibly hates Sheppard at this moment.

And in the night the walls disappeared
In the day they returned
"I want to be a rider like my father"
Were the only words I could say

Caldwell’s voice is the last minute reprieve Sheppard never once believed he’d receive. He’s seen enough men die to not understand how it goes, but by the time the Daedalus beams him down to the control room he’s calmed down enough to start feeling cocky instead of disbelieving a feeling which lasts all of the three seconds it takes Rodney to dress him down. Rodney’s hands shake as he finishes and Sheppard involuntarily thinks of Rodney’s hands sweat slick over the controls of a puddle jumper as a Wraith ship looms around him. He turns it into anger, I was buying you time, but they both know that he was buying Atlantis more time and that if it came down to it he’d do it again, sacrifice them both to her and they both know that Rodney would do the same.

And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive

When Sheppard finally collapses in his room it's three days later and the adrenaline has worn off leaving him overtired and morose. They’re alive, he’s alive, and there’s a party in the mess room celebrating this fact right now, but Sheppard lies there watching the colours flow through the pipes in his room and remembers Afghanistan and the failure that surrounded him. Imagines what it would be like if Rodney hadn’t saved the day, thinks of what it will be like when Rodney fails, the City dark around them, hurting. Thinks of Rodney, his heart beat slowing, his blood becoming darker as Sheppard fails him until it’s too much and he lets Atlantis's soft heartbeat whisper softly and lull him to sleep.

When Rodney finally collapses it’s under the gentle medication of Dr Beckett and the not so gentle hands of his staff preventing him from returning to his work. He does not know how much time has passed.

Sheppard dreams of showing his father a cricket bathed in Atlantis's glow, wanting to show his father the wings hidden beneath. He tries and tries and when his father finally glances over the cricket has become black and still, the wings hidden forever and Sheppard wakes to his father's disappointment and the bitter taste of having lost something beyond value.

Rodney dreams of warmth and home. Soft touches and spiky hair. Dreams of slow smirks and raised eyebrows.
Rodney wakes to Sheppard’s quiet voice interrogating Dr Beckett and remembers the hurt little boy look on Sheppard’s face after he had pointed out his abject stupidity. Remembers the look of pride, that he’d been able to protect the city. Remembers the warmth of his dream and counts the pointless ways it will never be his. Sometimes Rodney hates his imagination.

Alive
And I fell under
A moving piece of sun
Freedom

The day Rodney leaves the infirmary he finds Sheppard waiting in his lab with two chocolate bars and his laid back chocolate what chocolate? smile. Rodney blusters about not forgetting about kamikaze pilots, but he takes them and points to a new piece of ancient technology he wants him to touch and Sheppard sits down and coaches the blue glow out of the small spider-like device and Rodney feels his world settle for the first time since he’d watched a little blinking light blink itself out against a much larger light.

One month later a letter arrives from the Daedalus. Sheppard takes to carrying it around, pulling it out and turning it hand over hand while he thinks. There is no return address, but Sheppard knows who it’s from. He doesn’t open it. It's Rodney, six days later, who snatches it out of Sheppard's hand and tears it open. A photograph of a small dark haired boy waving an airplane falls to the ground.

Rodney picks up the photo, but it’s the look on Sheppard’s face, somehow open and vulnerable, which makes him hand it over. Sheppard takes it and Rodney watches silently as he walks away.

I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
I know I have this power
I'm afraid I may be killed

The email Sheppard writes back is the longest he's ever written and he doubts his father will see half of it, but the message will get through. John picks up the photograph and tapes it to one of the pipes on his wall.

Rodney stands outside Sheppard’s door going over and over words in his head. ‘Colonel, see I remembered.’ No, ‘John, sorry about the letter, well it was more like a photo. That’s not the point. Oh, you want to know why I’m calling you John?’ No, ‘John, I can take you higher than ascension’ Actually, that one had possibilities, ‘You have silly hair.’ Could he sound any more fourth grade? ‘John, about flying into Wraith Hive ships like a--’

“Rodney?”

John leans against the open door, watching Rodney rehearse.

Rodney stops and his eyes travel over John stopping at his wild, spiky hair.

“Your hair is. . .” messy, absurd, the weird hybrid offspring of an alien we’ve yet to meet, “pretty.” and Rodney feels the heat rush to his face. Oh God. Escape now. “Uh, there’s something I left in the labs. I’ll just be.” Rodney backs up half a step and John catches his sleeve.

Rodney can’t read the expression on John’s face as he looks at Rodney

“I. . .” and John’s hand is tense looking for words, and John’s ears are turning pink and Atlantis is glowing brighter around them and Rodney starts counting all the ways he’ll take John higher than he’s ever been before in wonderful graphic detail.

And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive

Authors notes:

When I read the song for the first time I saw the wooden horse as a toy airplane for John. And ‘What was wood became alive’ as a perfect line for how John interacts with Atlantis.

I saw the face down picture as a ‘Leave, and take nothing with you.’ command from his father for not following orders, for joining the Airforce instead of the Army, for just being him.

And I see this as something John doesn’t really think about, but it’s there if he could see me now he’d understand. The picture is an apology and at this point I don’t really see his father knowing anything about the Atlantis project other than it’s classified. That’s for John’s email.

When I saw the wonderful picture Threnodyjones gave me a glimpse of. The first thing I noticed was the coin in the back ground. I thought blind justice, but then I actually looked and it was the horn of plenty. My idea was to continue with the family theme. John too little, Rodney too much.

The first Rodney line was going to be

‘There are no photographs in Rodney’s childhood room. They’re out in the living room.’

and start from when the Daedalus arrives with this huge gaudy package from Rodney’s parents.

However I got stuck, the story didn’t seem to want to move further than the gateroom. So I thought about what the horn of plenty would really refer to in Rodney’s life and it was his thoughts. His intelligence. I used the first story as a frame and added in Rodney’s side trying to show that genius is not always a blessing and bringing both John and Rodney closer and closer time wise and relationship wise until John sticks up the photo and opens the door to see Rodney standing outside quietly freaking out and muttering to himself.

I then put it through beta and added two bridging scenes that were missing, originally each verse only had two paragraphs one for John and one for Rodney, condensed two verses into one and rewrote the immensely frustrating ‘three days later’ John paragraph and the ending more than once.

All in all I had fun :)
</div>

clairshadows — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:42:35 GMT

This is my Before the glimpse entry to the Wooden Horse Challenge at artword

Author: Clair Shadows
Title: Wooden Horse (Before)
Rating: PG
Pairing: none
Spoilers: Siege (III)
Summary: Sheppard and Atlantis
Beta read by Kat from WraithBeta

Wooden Horse

I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
A small white wooden horse
I'd been holding inside

There's a photograph in Sheppard's childhood room. It's of a small dark haired boy waving a toy aeroplane while an older man in uniform holds him and smiles for the boy in his arms and the woman taking the picture. That photograph has been face down for a long time.

And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive

Sheppard doesn't think of Earth when he flies towards the Wraith ship, doesn't let himself think of the things he will never see again, but he does let himself sink deeper into the controls of the Puddlejumper feeling her become more alive beneath him, more responsive and feels her correct direction minutely, wanting to destroy the wraith just as much as he does. The wraith ship looms until it fills the view with its quiet menace and deadly darts. Sheppard splays his hand across the controls an offer of comfort and the Puddlejumper warms around him giving him extra speed. If he did let himself think of Earth, think of what he would show his father it would be this: the ships that come alive beneath his hands. The city who comes alive beneath his hands. His 'home' and that it loves him.

And in the night the walls disappeared
In the day they returned
"I want to be a rider like my father"
Were the only words I could say

When Sheppard finally collapses in his room it's three days later and the adrenaline has worn off but not the heady escaped against all odd again feeling. They’re alive. He’s alive. He lies there watching the colours flow through the pipes in his room unable to turn his mind off. He recalculates odds and losses and mentally writes reports and letters home and realises anew just how close it all was and makes new contingency plans for if it happens again, better plans until Atlantis's beating heart whispers softly and lulls him to sleep.

And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive

He dreams of showing his father a cricket bathed in Atlantis's glow, wanting to show his father the wings hidden beneath. He tries and tries and when his father finally glances over the cricket has become black and still the wings hidden forever and Sheppard wakes to his father's disappointment and the bitter taste of having lost something beyond value.

Alive
And I fell under
A moving piece of sun
Freedom

One month later a letter arrives from the Daedalus. Sheppard takes to carrying it around, pulling it out and turning it hand over hand while he thinks. There is no return address, but Sheppard knows who it’s from. He doesn’t open it. It's Rodney, six days later, who snatches it out of Sheppard's hand and tears it open. A photograph of a small dark haired boy waving an aeroplane falls to the ground.

I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
I know I have this power
I'm afraid I may be killed

The email Sheppard writes back is the longest he's ever written and he doubts his father will see half of it, but his father will understand. He keeps the photograph and the Atlantis-made frame hums happily around it.

And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive

Alive.
</div>

clairshadows — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 05:26:10 GMT

testing tagging

stories, recommendations

Lonely Archive

clairshadows — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 05:37:06 GMT

I want to know why such a beautiful archive as the Dead Zone Archive is so empty, it has a clear format an open to anyone policy, automated upload, pretty pictures and no annoying ads, yet it only contains 6 stories. I've been looking in preparation of writing my own Dead Zone story as part of a challenge, but I'm stumbling because I've only seen half a season over 6 months ago and I don't live in America.

So if anyone would like to see what I'm talking about the link is below
http://www.intimations.org/dzfanfic/archive/quicksearch.html

pics

clairshadows — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 13:12:41 GMT

I got my first live journal pic :) Lanning Cook is wonderful.

Nothing much

clairshadows — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 09:31:16 GMT

I played my first game of soccer today for the 'Pink Team' aka 'The Village idiots' or 'Pink Bits'. It was exhausting, but fun. One member from the other team scored a goal from the center line, but a member of out team scored one from the side line so it came out even. I didn't get kicked or hit with the ball (a first for me) and we didn't lose, the score comming out 3 all.

On other news my recommendation for today is a Smallville one 'Over Coffee' by Lady Mondegreen.

Smallville is a tv series based around Superman's teenage years and for the most part Clark and one of his future enemies Lex Luthor are friends.

This is a PG story about two pages long of Lex talking to Martha and is one of the most interesting takes on Lex's reaction to Clark telling him of his origins, definitely humour.

My first recommendations

clairshadows — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:45:52 GMT

Hi all who wander unheedingly past my site.

I read mostly slash, but as The Sentinel is a fandom I've been reading for almost 6 years you'll find both Gen and Slash recommendations.

The Sentinel
Brief summary: James Ellison (Jim) is a cop with the Cascade PD he has a genetic advantage of having all five of his senses enhanced (The Sentinel). Blair Sandburg is a Anthropology Doctorate Candidate doing his thesis on Sentinels (The Guide). They make an odd-couple partnership and evil girlfriends and bad guys are conquered.

Recommendation:(Gen PG) If you have never read this fandom before I give you Dasha's 'Inheritance' at
http://www.skeeter63.org/~tslibrary/stories/dasha3.htm
It is not sadly typical of this fandom, but it paints a picture of the key relationships within this fandom in an interesting, real, slightly angsty way.

If you have read this fandom before I recommend it anyway as it's from Stephen's POV, is clearly narrated, has food poisoning and spiking senses, has William shielding Jim's ears and has Blair being strong and competent, plus it's Dasha and she's wonderful.