days like crazy paving

in other exciting news

escherzo — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:18:31 GMT

I got my class schedule for September! It is actualfax the least exciting schedule ever, and if you don't keep in mind that these are all 5-credit honors accelerated track classes I sort of look like a slacker.

I'm not worried about that one. Honors Physics, Calc, and Engineering, though? Yeah, little worried. At least I only have classes 3 days a week so I can work my ass off at not failing physics in the meantime. I was hoping to take some fun classes, but I think that will end up having to wait a while. I'm thinking maybe taking Russian next quarter or something.

Hanging in there

escherzo — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:01:10 GMT

Should have put something up sooner--I came through in one piece, and have been doing a lot of nothing for the past few days--sleeping mostly, and catching up on TV on my netbook. Yesterday I spent about half the day actually sitting at my computer though, and that's progress. I'm sore as anything and getting progressively greasier (I'm not allowed to shower until the 10th... they're gonna regret telling me that once they smell me) but all things considered I'm making good progress. No way I'm getting back to work until after the 10th, so I'll probably be taking the two weeks after all... here's hoping I don't run out of stuff to do in the meantime. Any shows I should check out, movies to watch, good audiobooks to look up? I've just finished catching up on White Collar, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, and Community, and short of rewatching what I already have that's all I've got.

Thank you all for the well-wishes ♥ I'd share more about how it's going but typing is kind of an uncomfortable motion and so I'm trying to keep it to a minimum when I can.

Well, here goes.

escherzo — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:57:11 GMT

I'm having surgery at 9am tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I cannot even begin to express how terrified I am right now.

this and that

escherzo — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:40:36 GMT

First of all, I want to give a giant THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me out, whether it be by donating, buying stuff, or just general words of support. You are all wonderful ♥ the selling stuff bit is still ongoing if anyone's still interested--everything here and a Kindle, because I figure I can do without it and prefer actual books anyhow.

Speaking of money-related things, brandixcyanide is in need of some help right now, mostly re: rent--post with more info on that is here. Go help her out--it's a good cause, I promise.

So, I've managed to test my way into Calc 1 for next year, thereby dissipating about two weeks worth of stress. Said class will probably be a disaster and a half, but at least I made it in in the first place. Math has never been my strong point though.

Started watching Community! And by started watching, I mean I finished the entire first season in a matter of three or four days. I don't typically go for comedy shows, because my tolerance for secondhand embarrassment/the motts is virtually zero, but for some reason this one works for me a lot of the time. The only one I don't like much is Pierce, and that's... well, you're not really supposed to like him that much. Annie is basically a quarter of my class in high school, Troy and Abed's double act is flawless (I don't understand a lot of Abed's references but I like him a great deal anyway), I'm pretty fond of Shirley, Britta... I couldn't think of who she reminded me of until she said 'bagels' (~baggles), at which point I realized that I liked her because she's a lot like the one coworker I get along with, down to the funky bagel-pronunciation. Weirdly, I identify with Jeff, of all people. Not always, admittedly, his whole hangup about expensive things isn't my bag, but then he goes and does stuff like getting overly upset because someone else of the same age/skillset/general this-person-is-like-me is better at him than pottery and I go "OH." (I'm getting better about that, but I can't count on one hand the amount of friendships/casual friendliness I've wrecked because people were better than me at some given thing that I thought I could be Awesome At. It was reeeally bad when I was younger). I don't know. Point is, I like him. I don't really see myself getting fannish about the show--the only thing I really ship is Jeff and Britta (him with Annie kind of makes me want to burst into "Don't Stand So Close To Me"--how old is he supposed to be, anyway? I assumed 30+) and I like Troy and Abed but picturing them as anything but platonic kind of weirds me out. I don't get it.

Fic-writing mojo has been extremely weak lately--well, since the beginning of the month, when I quit smoking (since I had to be quit for at least a month pre-surgery and all that). Hoping the next few weeks will improve on that.

Oh yeah, and on a final and completely unrelated to the rest note, I need to contact the landlord of a place about coming onboard as a roommate of a person who already has a lease there (found her through craigslist). Anyone know what the general protocol of that is?

ETA: oh, and I did bandom podfic, actually! My pod_together fic is up here (I recorded it, didn't write it. I personally think the podfic's a little rough, but feel free to check it out anyway :D it's Frank/Gerard, short and sweet)

ETA2: Something brilliant you should read ASAP. It's Sherlock, set in the SPN universe, so Sherlock and John as hunters. Wonderful stuff.

Okay, I'm just going to swallow my pride here.

escherzo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:36:10 GMT

As I may have mentioned, I have top surgery scheduled for the beginning of next month. If I pay for that with my current levels of funds I will have ~300 dollars left in my bank account, ~300 dollars of expected incoming medical bills (one 150$ one that I already have, and the facilities fees bill is always absurd), and I still need to order one of those post-op compression vests and somehow scrape together money for gas to get to work. If my boss doesn't let me take unpaid time off, which he may not, my last day of work will be my surgery date, and that means I'll have one paycheck between now and the time I move out and live on my own. I'm cutting things much, much closer than I wanted to. I was banking on having more left over, but sudden expenses being what they are, it didn't end up happening that way.

So, I'm going to sell as much as I can find and then generally throw myself on the mercy of the internet and hope something good can come of it. Please, please help if you can, or pass this along to someone else who might be able to.

Things I am selling (Prices are all pretty negotiable as I don't know what the going rates are--make an offer?):
Kimono/yukata from Japan (definitely authentic, was a gift from an exchange student that stayed with my family), cotton, pink, a women's medium-large, also has shoes (approx size 8) and accompanying accessories. Only been worn twice ever, if you're interested I'll take some pictures of it.
Denim jacket, women's large, also very gently worn
~~Fujifilm FinePix S700 camera--dusty, but entirely functional--and accompanying case~~(claimed)
Books:
Chuck Palahniuk - Choke (slightly used)
Norah Vincent - Self Made Man (only the first few chapters have ever been read)
Ally Condie - Matched (new)
Anna Swir - Talking to My Body (new)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Journal (new)
Michio Kaku - Physics of the Impossible (new)

If you're not interested in any of these but you have a little to spare, please donate a bit. Hell, even five dollars would help--it'd get me enough gas for a day and a half of commuting. For the record, I can do fic, fanvids, mixes, icons, banners, headers, tumblr graphics, whatever--if you donate and you'd like any of these just let me know and I'll be there--it's about all I can do at present since it doesn't involve money.

I am literally speechless right now.

escherzo — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:10:09 GMT

SO MY GRANDPA RIGHT

HE ELOPED.

OR MORE CORRECTLY HE GOT MARRIED ON FRIDAY, AND LET THE FAMILY KNOW VIA EMAIL TODAY. AND APPARENTLY WE ARE SUPPOSED TO WAIT 24 HOURS FOR THE SHOCK TO SETTLE BEFORE WE CALL HIM.

... I'VE NEVER MET HER (ALTHOUGH SHE'S A MEDIEVAL ART HISTORY PROFESSOR APPARENTLY SO SHE'S PROBABLY COOL) AND HE NEVER LET ANYONE KNOW HE WAS SEEING SOMEONE. HE NINJAED THAT SHIT.

SO I HAVE A GRANDMA AGAIN.

'THIS IS A SURPRISE' DOESN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COVER IT.

Ah, the future.

escherzo — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:26:05 GMT

Something about late nights always lead to too much thinking. Right now, it's about ~The Future, as you do. Right now, my declared major for college in September is chemical engineering. Thing is, I was looking at the curriculum for the four years, and I realized that I am literally not interested in any of it, except for the couple of classes of straight chemistry I would have to take. No interest. Zip. Zilch. I only chose it because it pays well, I could probably actually be employed, and I could get away with only four years of college. On the other hand, I'd be absolutely miserable for four years, and probably for the years after as well.

I don't think I can keep it, but I don't know what other options I have. Things I am interested in: virology, criminology, chemistry, and writing. Writing's right out, for obvious reasons, and I know chemistry at least can require a good ten years of college, if not more, to make 40 grand a year. I'd have better luck sticking it out at my current job until the office manager leaves and then taking her job, with no education requirement necessary. Hell, with something like that, I'd be better off saying fuck it and being a trucker.

Somewhere along the line, I got it into my head that if I'm not in engineering or going to med school full-bore, there are literally no jobs that I can have. At all. Anywhere. Which actually might be true, if any employers discover the whole trans thing. I don't want to go to med school though, and I have no interest in engineering, and my brother is already doing nursing, and being a pharmacist would be boring as fuck, and I would be the worst lawyer ever, and I am sitting here going fuck, I am out of options and am unable to think of careers that exist that aren't professional tracks. As you do.

Honestly? I'd just like to go to trade school instead, but apparently I'm Too Smart and it's A Waste. And maybe that's true, but I like what I do right now--I like it a lot, I like working with my hands, and if I have to suffer through fifteen years of college and the accompanying debt, I am not going to come out the other side with my mental health intact.

Fuck.

a wild plot bunny appears

escherzo — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:34:43 GMT

Anyone else seen Criminal Minds - Suspect Behavior? I'm catching up on the first season right now--about halfway through. It got off to a bit of a slow start, but at s7 I am enjoying more than I expected I would, based on the first few episodes. Shame it's only got the one season, I'd have loved to see what else they could do with it.

And of course, inevitably, my mind is going to SPN crossover places. I've seen a crossover with regular Criminal Minds, but with Dean as the suspect, as you do. I don't know, I feel like this team could actually work with Winchesters & co rather than trying to lock them up--they're not part of the bureaucracy, the team leader is a religious type who at the very least believes in angels (and he seems the sort to believe in demons as well), they're more casual and meet in what appears to be a boxing club part of the time, a lot more physical and hand-to-hand rather than the stepping-back-and-straightening-your-tie type, and bringing in outsiders with experience seems like something they'd be willing to do, no problem. Also, I feel Beth and Sam would get along fantastically.

... Juggling seven characters would be a new one for me though.

I still can't believe it's almost July.

escherzo — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:43:32 GMT

When did that happen? I'm having top surgery August 1 so the anxiety of it being nearly July is definitely getting ramped up right now. ~~oh god I need to sell some stuff I don't have the money for it yet~~

Been doing well, keeping busy, making a great deal of podfic and doing a bit of writing, as well as tooling around with tumblr graphics. (Admittedly, tumblr graphics and I don't get along very well. I'll spend half an hour selecting someone and then decide after the fact that I don't even want to use that image, and then I will just rage at the world for a bit. It's very exciting.)

Attempting to find my mom some new shows--she loves NCIS beyond all sense and reason, but she's seen all of it now. Tried White Collar, and she loved the first episode (I figured she would, she has a thing for Catch Me If You Can) but wasn't quite as sold on the rest. Any general suggestions? Mostly her thing is the interplay of characters rather than plot, and she watches a lot of crime shows (and before you say it, she's already seen Criminal Minds too~)

Most of these aren't finalized (only the second one is, and even that's in first-draft finalization stage), which basically means that the ideas are all firmed down but the prose is fucking dreadful. Sometimes going from voice recording to actual fic is a bit of an elaborate process.

Also these are all Wincest. Someday, I will figure out how to get into a fandom and not write all the same pairing. This is not that day.

1. powers!fic, because that is always how I roll. Tentative title is "bloodborne"

"This was never something the demon bargained for. This was never part of his plan. Dean was not chosen. But Sam chose him, and so he is."

2. The one I'm currently finalizing to post, though it has a giant gap in the middle--FTM!Dean+genderswap curse fic with no current title because fuck if I know what to call it. Its current title is 'wtf is this'

"She nods and gestures for him to sit down on the porch next to her. “Alright. Talk, little lady.”

Dean tries and fails to hide his flinch, thinks of bones re-knitting, of scars and stitches and being pulled apart. “I want you to put a curse on me.”

Silence, and Dean meets those ancient eyes with a steady gaze.

“Make it permanent,” Dean says. “As permanent as you can, anyway. I'll keep you safe if you can do it, safe as my own family. See, thing is, my father has two sons.” He smiles a little. “He just doesn't know it.”

“Ah,” the old woman says, and smiles back. “That I can do.”

3. Tentative title is 'flood warning,' basically boils down to I AM SO HOT MY FACE IS MELTING OFF AND THERE IS NO A/C AUGH I WILL VICARIOUSLY COOL OFF BY WRITING A LOT OF WATER-RELATED SNIPPETS. Also, an excuse to use 'CPR mistaken for a kiss' as a plot device. Yes, that is exactly how I roll.

“You kissed me,” Dean sputters.

“You kissed me first,” Sam points out, and his waterlogged brain seems to think that this is an understandable, logical response to the situation.

“...I was giving you CPR. You know, that kind of mouth to mouth?”

“Oh,” Sam says, and it falls a little flat. “I, uh. I was still breathing, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I panicked, sue me.”

4. Reaperfic! In which I throw 90% of the rules about said aforementioned reapers out the window and then paste over the holes with ideas stolen from Dead Like Me.

"Dean turns forty. Sam buys him an over the hill hat and a crappy WalMart cake with a plastic tombstone on it, and in past years, they wouldn't joke about dying, but now, now it's just another part of life, now it's something they see every day, even more than they used to. Now they're not sure they're ever going to die, so they can joke all they want, and Dean picks the little plastic tombstone off, licks it, and throws it at Sam's face.

Sam thinks that somehow, somehow they have gotten their reward. They have persevered. They have dealt with Heaven, and Hell, and everything in between, spent years running, spent years praying that they will stay together, that no one else has to die. Somehow, against all odds, they have made it through, and now a thousand roads of the future stretch out before them, opportunities they never thought they would live long enough to have."

it's fic time again~

escherzo — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:03:33 GMT

have at! :D If you like, anyway. Might be something to do on a Sunday evening~

escherzo — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:35:13 GMT

Posted my first podfic today! here :D.

It's a little rough around the edges--my voice recorder loves to glitch near the beginning of a recording for some reason--but I managed to figure out how Audacity works well enough to make it vaguely passable at least, so I'm happy.

this is not my day.

escherzo — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:36:38 GMT

My mom and brother decided to go up to Michigan in my car, since my dad is apparently doing a race somewhere down south and thus taking his own elsewhere. So, no transportation for the weekend--annoying, but I'll live, I guess.

Aaaand then, of course, I remember that I keep my wallet in my glove compartment and it's... kind of still in there. And they're an hour into the drive so they can't turn around.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

escherzo — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:38:41 GMT

You guuuuuuuuys, omg. I officially have my first podfic! painted_pain recorded my 6x22 coda, and I am happier than a whole batch of clams. You should all go check it out here.

Also, spnspringfling had its reveal, and since I just reposted my fic to my journal I'll just link y'all to it in case you want to give it a look :)

While I'm in sharing mode, just finished another one tonight, pretty short really, but it would be extra awesome if someone wanted to give it a look. It's only 800 words? :D?

... yeah, I don't even know. /explosion of fandom-related stuff

In completely non-fannish news, my mother woke me up to tell me she had a buzzing in her inner ear and discovered that a tiny bug had crawled halfway to her brain. I don't know why she needed to tell me that except to give me nightmares, so I think I'll pass said nightmares along. That's how I roll~

escherzo — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:24:12 GMT

updating from Cleveland airport! en-route to Washington to see ten_th and have a ~prom weekend.

Seeing little kids playing hopscotch with a floor version of the TSA's forbidden items list? kind of depressing. ah well. boarding now!

escherzo — Wed, 25 May 2011 06:27:51 GMT

I really, really hope this Proactiv crap actually works, because the acne on my back has gone from annoying, but manageable, to OH GOD IT'S SPREAD TO MY ARMS AND IT'S TURNING INTO GIANT PAINFUL WELTS. Ah, the joys of summer. Actually, it might not have spread to my arms. If it hasn't, I've had a freak allergic reaction on both my upper arms to god knows what. Exciting times. I'm not even allergic to anything! Unless of course someone has been sneaking penicillin into my food.

In less gross news, go watch this; it's my current band obsession and a beautiful music video to boot.

Anyone got a few spare moments to beta my spnspringfling fic? Yes, I seriously have it done already. I don't even know /o\ Sam/Dean, and... okay, fine, it's pretty much just a straight up PWP because I can't do plot in 500-2500 words with the prompts I got and hey, everyone likes getting porn, right?

My subconscious is really fucking weird.

escherzo — Tue, 24 May 2011 01:22:32 GMT

So I had a dream last night in which I went to a dinner party with Putin as part of a secret plot to get a hair on one of the plates into space. Also, he was wearing a fez.

... yeah, I've got nothing. He looked really hilarious in the fez though.

Tornado warning around these parts--first of the season that's come close to me. I think it's staying north for now, but the warning was for the county I work in, so I'm really damn glad I got home from work early, let's put it that way. Anxiety, thy name is tornado sirens. Even if they don't come anywhere near me I die a little inside when I hear them. Ohio's right on the edge of Tornado Alley, but we've had some close calls, and once we had a tree that was a good foot or two in diameter fall on our roof, right above my room (tornadoes are 15x more frightening when you have a half-acre of forest in your backyard, trust me on this one). Hopefully it won't be so bad this year. Fingers crossed. Speaking of, you may have heard of the tornado that killed ~116 people in Joplin, Missouri. Here's a link on how to help there.

Also, I need to stop signing up for challenges. I've got a week to write something for spnspringfling (easy though, it's only 500-2.5k words and if I record it first it'll probably take me less than an hour for the rough draft), put myself in as a podficcer for pod_together (more impetus to find a room in my house free of outside noise, I guess, though I'm not sure one actually exists, and pray there aren't female characters with dialogue in the fic I get because the last time I tried doing that, my voice cracked in fifteen different hilarious ways), and also for the hell of it put myself down for the mini-bang (10k) at samdean_otp. This is so going to come back and bite me in the ass later. I just know it. COMMITMENT, I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU.

How is Monday treating you, flist? Got anything good coming up?

Have some season 6 coda fic!

escherzo — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:42:25 GMT

Here we are :D. I had a feeling I was going to end up doing fix-it for this. I still haven't figured out my thoughts on said finale. I keep trying to think of how I feel about it, and my brain keeps going "lol I am a stereotypical man/Vulcan and refuse to come to conclusions"

Anyway, enjoy. I'm off to catch up on comments.

escherzo — Sun, 22 May 2011 07:25:38 GMT

So, putting out a beta call! SPN fic, like I ever write anything else these days, Sam/Dean, NC-17 (honestly though, it's more like R, imo), 2800~ words, pleeease do not volunteer if you haven't seen the S6 finale, because it's basically an episode/season coda.

Anyone? :D

An Open Letter to My Supervisor at Work

escherzo — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:47:05 GMT

Dude,

If I have to listen to Pussy Poppin again, I am going on strike.

From life.

No love,
Me.

You know, being normal would be awesome.

escherzo — Thu, 19 May 2011 03:28:01 GMT

Normal people, when they have dreams about people they know dying, chalk it up to a weird subconscious and move on, probably.

Me? I'm going "wait, shit, my mom has pre-cog dreams sometimes (no, seriously, and I am a skeptic about a lot of things but she's even more so and if it's an established fact for her then that's good enough for me), what if they're genetic?"

I just want to call her up and make sure she's okay, but she isn't even in the country right now and I don't have skype set up yet. :/

So instead I'm going to go watch Death Takes a Holiday and Appointment in Samarra as research for the reaper!fic I'm doing right now (speaking of, so how come people can see vengeful spirits but not regular ones in SPN land? It is very fic-relevant so if anyone happens to know...). Because clearly what my brain needs is more thoughts about death.

... Yeah. Um. What are you listening to at the moment, flist? I raided spnnewsletter for fanmixes last night and have been rolling around in new music all day but hey, the more the merrier.

I ficced!

escherzo — Tue, 17 May 2011 06:28:18 GMT

Check it out if you have a spare moment :) Sam/Dean, PG-13, around 5k. I like this one, even though it didn't take me nearly as long as something that long usually does (transcribing my out-loud rambles = prolific magic, apparently).

♥ to you all. It's been a good night.

escherzo — Sun, 15 May 2011 03:54:04 GMT

Apparently my childhood standby for writing still works. I borrowed my brother's voice recorder (and have three hours worth of podfic done as well, most of which I'll probably never post because I keep tripping up on words (why do I say 'shroulders' instead of 'shoulders' when my voice gets tired? whyyyy)) and, like I did as a kid, paced back and forth in the woods telling myself stories.

I'm trying to edit what I got, and it's... well, a bit more rambly than I was hoping for, which is to be expected, I think. Still, after all the transcription is said and done, it was five thousand words of fic that took about an hour to produce. I'll have to try this one again sometime.

I'm oddly fascinated by the sound of my own voice these days. It dropped so fast I can listen to my own recordings and almost forget I'm hearing myself--I still sound about fifteen or sixteen, it definitely hasn't settled yet, but that will come in time. My headvoice and speaking voice are different now, but oddly, the way I sound when I'm singing sounds exactly the same in my head as when I hear it recorded. I don't think that's supposed to really happen.

When I've got the fic cleaned up, anyone want to beta? Sam/Dean, PG-13, don't volunteer if you really like John Winchester because I, uh, killed him off as a plot device (yes, I know killing him off is canon, but I did it earlier? So.). I probably won't have it ready to be viewed by anyone but myself until tomorrow, but if you've got a spare bit, do let me know.

In unrelated news, can we talk about how epic the newest episode of Doctor Who was? I am sending all the love in Neil Gaiman's direction for that one. Oh man.

ALSO. First week of June, I'm flying out to see ten_th and be her prom date. It's going to be awesome.

DW Rec List

escherzo — Mon, 09 May 2011 03:15:15 GMT

I was going to do more of these, but judging by how long this one has taken I should probably split them up. This encompasses both new!Who and old, and contains surprisingly little porn. These are the fics that have really stuck with me, the ones that in one way or another, are just about perfect. Mostly Doctor/Master, turns out, though a bit of Eleven/Amy/Rory, a bit of Two/Jamie, a bit of Eight/Fitz, and a few gen. Three of them contain Donna being a BAMF, if that's your thing (it's certainly my brother's, anyway). I was intending to only do five or ten recs! I think the final count is a closer to twenty.

resonance structures (Ten/Simm!Master, PG-13)

Excerpt: As a general rule, the way humans think about the universe is incorrect by a magnitude of a single dimension. This is most easily illustrated by their linear progression through their own lives, and can be expressed:

G = K(E + 1)

Where E represents the human experience.

Where G represents 130Σ(T), which is a term of summation.

And where K represents the way it feels to stand with your arms outstretched and let the magnetic field of eternity strip you down to your core and then give your thoughts back to you, one by one.

I want this fic to talk nerdy to me always. Chem metaphors are love, and this one is brilliantly done. If you check the tags, there's also a physics one and a biology one, but imo the Chem one is best. Yeah, I'm a nerd, whatever.

5 things + 1 (Two/Jamie, R)

Excerpt: "You're staring," Jamie observes impeccably,

and it's not that the Doctor doesn't have any pick-up lines so much as he hasn't utilised one in maybe a century or so.

"Well, Jamie, that. That is to say."

The Doctor clasps his hands together and wills himself to shut his eyes.

"It's just that you have excellent clavicles."

In a somewhat absurd moment, Jamie covers his lap with a sheet.

This one isn't perfect, sure—a little rough around the edges, but it's Two/Jamie and it has just the right amount of humor and sweetness that I'd expect from those two.

Paleolinguistics (Ten/Simm!Master, G)

Excerpt: A language with one speaker is a dead tongue. A language with two is alive.

...I like fics with Gallifreyan in them, okay. Short (200 words or so) and lovely.

Imaginary Worlds (Theta/Koschei, NC-17)

Excerpt: They sit with their legs crossed on Theta’s bed, fully clothed, a foot away from each other, conspicuously not touching. Koschei’s never so much as touched him, never so much as hinted he might want to. Theta persists anyway. A hand on Koschei's shoulder, a nudge to his back, one feather-light punch, another playful shove. He's careful to keep to what's appropriate between friends. But Koschei never even seems to mark it. To Theta their position on the bed seems painfully incidental.

The two engage in a peculiar staring contest. Theta imagines his will growing like a vine–one strand, two, and more and more. When he has a good amount of them he lets them roll into and through and under Koschei’s barriers, which seem like little more than fine netting.

Mindsex! This is probably the porniest DW fic on this rec list—when looking for things that stick with me, porn doesn't generally win. Still, a little telepathic fun deserves its place here, and x_los is a writer I'm big on in this fandom, so. Theta and Koschei are the Doctor and the Master's first incarnations back on Gallifrey, by the by. I don't remember quite where the Koschei name came from--Divided Loyalties, I think, which was a terrible book but interesting for backstory anyway.

Waterloo (Five/Ainley!Master, PG)

Excerpt: “Very well,” the Master said. He cleared his throat. “I am about to be crowned high king of all Fenwick. They have that rather useful telepathic gas, if you remember, which, as king, I would, of course, be in control of.”

“Good heavens,” the Doctor said mildly. “Imagine the damage you could do.”

“Unspeakable,” the Master agreed. “Naturally, I expected you'd at least try to stop me before that."

"Naturally.”

"But then you didn’t turn up for the coronation. Killing thousands of people effortlessly certainly has its attractions, it's not nearly as much fun as killing thousands of people after a tiring struggle with an equal mind. So I went looking for you, in case something had happened.”

In which the Doctor gets sick, so naturally the Master is inclined to lock his companions in a stasis wardrobe and nurse him back to health so they can get back to foiling each other's plans. As you do. I'm not big on h/c, but for some reason with these two it works for me pretty well.

Five Times Lord Braxiatel Had Occasion to Regret The Doctor’s Exile Very Deeply Indeed (And One Time He Wished The Doctor Would Just Sod Off Forever) (a bit of Five/Ainley!Master and a bit of Three!Delgado/Master and maybe a bit of Brax/Romana if you really squint, PG)

Excerpt: The Doctor is many things to many people, but to Irving Braxiatel he is the universe's most annoying little brother.

Poor, poor Brax. If he wasn't such an ass, I would almost feel sorry for him. You know, once I was done snickering at him. You don't have to know a whole lot about him or be all that familiar with the Gallifrey series to read this—first time I read it, I'd never heard of him, so. It does help to be familiar with old!Who though.

The Space Between Opposites (Ten/Simm!Master, PG)

Excerpt: The Master gives the Doctor a lopsided grin and says, “You know, there’s no word for law-unLaw. Without the construction, I mean. Why don’t we make one up?”

“Just make one up, right now?”

“We are the only community of speakers who can define the language now,” the Master points out.

The Doctor considers for a moment, and then he produces an utterance. The word sounds a little bit like ‘universe’ and a little bit like ‘hope.’

“I like that,” the Master says, and so an old language is changed.

If you have any interest at all in linguistics, READ THIS. Actually, read this, period, because I don't know a damn thing about said linguistics but the details about Gallifreyan and its rules/interactions based on that are amazing. I love nerdy fics in this fandom—honestly, that's probably why I always lurk and never write for it, I don't feel smart enough to do the people/aliens involved justice.

Doctor Who Season 4 (Ten/Simm!Master, Hard R)

Excerpt: An alternate Doctor Who season four. In which the Doctor and the Master have dysfunctional adventures in time and space, Martha becomes a fully qualified doctor, Leo Jones wonders what all the fuss is about, the Torchwood team recounts Himalayan hijinks, and Lucy Saxon refuses to let the averted end of the world sideline her.

No, seriously, aralias wrote an entire alternate season starting where S3 would leave off, with a few edits (actually, wrote two, I'll get to the other one next). I can't get a proper excerpt to explain how amazing this one is, but if you have a few hours/a day to kill, this is the perfect way to do it. There isn't much explicit Doctor/Master if that's not your thing, and frankly I'd recommend giving it a read even if you don't ship it—it's real easy to pass over that part—just because the whole thing is extremely well-crafted.

Doctor Who Season 5 (Ten/Simm!Master, R-ish)

Excerpt: An alternate Doctor Who season five. In which Donna Noble rediscovers herself, Torchwood finds all sorts of useful technology, the Doctor and the Master just can't get rid of each other, the past doesn't stay where it should, and Time starts to heal.

A similar deal to DW Season 4 (above), especially recommended if you want a fix-it for Donna that allows her to go and be a BAMF. Long and involved and extremely well-crafted (imo [Bad username: aralias] is one of the best writers in the whole fandom) and perfect if you've got the time.

the naming of things (Theta/Koschei, R)

Excerpt: And so, a game: they adapt it from a chess variant played during the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. They even call it chess, first as a convenient shorthand, then as a sort of code. Still adolescents, they need their sleep, but they take it in quick hard doses, three or four hours a night; the rest of the time they lie awake, squished together in one bed with their fingers flying over data pads of complex equations in six dimensions. They alter the course of the Feoh Empire. They chance the composition of a methane planet to support carbon life. They build military bases or tear them down. They change clauses in the Shadow Proclamation. The room becomes cluttered with models of wire or string; they conduct little self-contained experiments, then disrupt them. All the while they keep score, but not against each other; never against.

This contains suicide (though with Time Lords, it isn't quite as... permanent, and it's done for scientific reasons rather than angsty ones—still, a warning all the same). Summary is 'How to become the Master' and I feel that sums it up better than I can—Koschei/the Master growing up, discovering the hidden dark places in himself and the things he's capable of. A brilliant read. I'm saying brilliant a lot in this. Ah well.

Five Steps in the Musical Education of Fitzgerald Kreiner (Gen-ish, PG)

Excerpt: What Fitz heard, he'd find out later, was the last work of a band the Doctor referred to as one of Earth's cultural treasures. It reverberated in his skull, bouncing around for days after: boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time, and a steady drumming that felt more like his own pulse than his heartbeat.

I kind of doubt anyone but me on my flist has read the EDAs. HOWEVER. It isn't too hard to pick it up, and honestly, Fitz is one of the best companions—not my favorite, that's Ace by a long mile (shame I can't find any good fic for her), but definitely the one I can identify with the most. This is just a very sweet and peaceful piece, worth giving a try even if you have no idea who any of the involved parties are. The ending especially is just right.

come to me with remedies (Eight/Fitz, NC-17)

Excerpt: A year's time in a blue house in a tiny English town. The ups and downs of the lives of a not-so-perpetual slacker, a daydream believer, and a terribly sensible trader.

Isn't a proper excerpt, but the fic is 50k so it's hard to pick out quite what to quote. This is one of my favorite fics ever, in any fandom, full stop—makes the top five, probably. There's just something about it I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe the easiest way to describe it is—it's the fic equivalent of sitting watching the snow fall while you're warm and indoors and having a cup of cocoa—soothing and lovely and weaving a perfect little universe all of its own that you can curl up in for a little while. The a/n mentions needing to understand The Blue Angel's Obverse, but frankly, I've read the book, and it isn't exactly overflowing with sense, so I'll give the basic rundown necessary for understanding it: in the Obverse, the Doctor is human and very domestic in his little blue house, and he has 'episodes' where he thinks he's the regular Doctor and needs to go fight aliens and find his time machine and so on. Actually, I think you can glean that from reading the fic, but hey. I'd never read any of the books when I read this, and I did just fine—so go, shoo, go read!

In A Big Round Bed, In A Little Blue Box (Eleven/Amy/Rory, PG-13)

Excerpt: Rory knows the freckles, on Amy's shoulders, as if they were a map to his very own home; he's growing to know the shape of the Doctor's hand, just as well.

Have I mentioned Eleven/Amy/Rory is my OT3 for the current season/last season? I love the three of them together more than I can say, and this is a perfect, short little summation of their... them-ness? I don't know, words are hard. Go read.

Turning and Turning (Amy/Rory, PG)

Excerpt: When Rory Williams was a kid, he'd picked up a book of poetry and read the one about turning in a widening gyre, the one with falcons and whatever it was that kept slouching towards Bethlehem. It hadn't really stayed with him, and what little he'd managed to remember wasn't even enough to get him through a decent pub quiz.

Now, though, he had the bit about twenty centuries of stony sleep rolling around and around in his head.

I love Rory fic, especially Rory fic that explores the two centuries he spent with the Pandorica. I've got another one on this reclist, but this one is quite lovely, and very worth a read.

Footsteps in the Sand (Gen, PG-13)

Excerpt: "Don't technically me, I know cryostasis when I see it. And one man's 'experimental cryostasis' is another man's meat freezer." Donna shivered on the edge of the drawer, too dizzy to stand by herself, and too proud and furious to take Jack's hand.

In fact she was more than tempted to reach up and slap him but her fingers didn't work right and her head ached like it had been dragged along the ground.

Her head was- too full.

Donna fix-it fic! In which Donna sorts out her brain, cobbles together a spaceship from spare debris at Torchwood, and takes off to see the universe with a very unlikely copilot. I love me some post-S4 Donna fic where she gets to go be brilliant.

Experimental Science (Gen, PG-13)

Excerpt: She's made...something, though god knows what. It looks like a mess but it's whirring away to itself. What used to be the DVD's laser is skipping back and forth across the top, and underneath the machine is quietly clicking away to itself.

"Bollocks," she says feelingly.

Because she has no bloody idea at all how to rebuild a DVD player and three remote controls.

In which Donna has moments of brilliance that keep poking through. It's not quite fix-it fic—almost, not quite—but it's a lovely read all the same. By the same author as above, actually, and both are very worth a read.

Greenwich Village (June 28, 1969) (Two/Jamie, PG-13)

Excerpt: “No,” said Jamie.

The Doctor blinked. “No?”

Jamie shrugged. “Just because they're a lot of buggerers doesn't mean we ought to leave them to fight on their own.”

Two and Jamie at Stonewall! This is another one that's a little rough around the edges, but it's so utterly sweet I had to throw it on here. As for the 'buggerers' bit, it may help to explain that Jamie is circa the 1860s.

The Care and Feeding of Tiny Humans (and slightly larger Time Lords) (Gen, PG)

Excerpt: “You.” said the Dalek, “Are. A. Very. Small. Human.”

“You,” said Amelia, “are a very large pepperpot.”

In which the Doctor comes back for Amy when she's still a wee thing. This fic will give you cavities from the sheer sugary cute, but the cavities are so, so worth it.

Nobody Sees, Nobody But Me (Gen-ish, a hint or two of Eleven/Amy/Rory, PG-13)

Excerpt: There's a cohort of Frankish soldiers who travel with the box, who laugh at his funny voice and stupid outfit and obscure duty (he can't tell the truth, it seems somehow disloyal, though he's not sure who to). They become friends, of a kind, mates, like the blokes you go to the football with. He teaches them tricks to stave off infection, they teach him what appears to be the predecessor of poker.

He watches them age, and die, and understands something about the Doctor that he didn't really want to.

Wars keep happening. That's all humans. He tries to keep well out of the Crusades and really didn't mean to throw in with the Templars, but by now he's got a reputation. The Roman and the Pandorica. After single handedly talking down a mob of frightened villagers who wanted to destroy the box because it bought (they said) an eclipse, a knight calls him Madman. The Madman with the Box, like he was when they were nine, which won't be for another couple of centuries.

That name dies when the knight dies, tuberculosis, which is so bloody easy to fix, he screams at the empty sky, and then spends six months messing about with mould to make penicillin.
While he's here, in this wrong world with it's wrong kings and wrong skies, he may as well make his mark

Oh Rory. Another two-thousand-year-wait fic, just as sweet and achy as the last, maybe even better.

So, there's that. Things I wish I could find in this fandom: better than mediocre Five/Turlough, more Two/Jamie, good Ace fic (femslash or Ace/Hex), Peri/Erimem. Sadly, those require watching old episodes or listening to audio plays and most people don't bother :/

Happy Mother's Day, y'all! ... I am not southern, I shouldn't be saying y'all. Whatever.

escherzo — Sun, 08 May 2011 17:51:19 GMT

Psycho Cardinal is driving me up the wall. Okay, so. There's this cardinal, right. He lives somewhere near my house, and if he didn't have massive head trauma before, he certainly does now. He's been around for a year or so, and he's either in love with his own reflection or he hates himself--I'm not sure which. Every time he sees himself reflected in something, he rams said something head-on, flaps around dazed for a bit, and then does it again. No window in the house is safe from the thunk thunk thunk. There are beak marks on my car's side mirrors. (My mother's theory is that he can't find a mate so he's doing this out of sexual frustration. I try not to think about that as a general rule)

Speaking of my mother, I am mainly posting to do a bit of Why My Mother Is Awesome. We can't celebrate properly today, since she's flying out of the country tonight (the uncle that works at CERN/on the Large Hadron Collider has offered up his place in Switzerland for the month, and that's the kind of invitation you just don't turn down, especially when someone else is paying for everything). We took her out to dinner yesterday, but still.

So: Admittedly, she and I don't always get along, especially these days--transitioning is not in her good books and likely never will be--but aside from that there's plenty I can say. I do have to give her a lot of credit. She single-handedly raised five kids--my father's approach to parenting was the same as any of his other hobbies. He takes something up for two years, loses interest, and moves on completely. My sister got two years of a Proper Dad, and everyone after that point was pretty much ignored or viewed as a threat because we meant he didn't get all the attention. Hell, he wouldn't even hold us when we were babies because it made him uncomfortable. So, she raised all of us on her own. She was the one who taught my brothers how to shave, even (not me, admittedly, but hey).

Somehow, while raising five children, she managed to start a nonprofit vacation bible school that in its heyday had 500 children attend at a single church, got a master's degree, and right now she's a doctoral candidate. She can play trumpet, violin, piano, mandolin, harmonica, dulcimer, and a bit of guitar. She went to survival school as a teenager and until the school closed in the 80s, held the all-time record for staying out the longest (they, as I understand it, gave you a hunting knife, a few odds and ends (I think it was twine, a tarp, and something to start a fire with, and I'm not 100% on that last one), and dumped you in the Montana wilderness. She was out there for over a week.) When I was a kid, I legitimately thought she was Superman--one time, we were hiking in the woods and she saw a tree that was on its last legs (she spends a lot of time examining the trees, has a bachelor's in forestry) so she went over to it and gave it a nudge with her foot and the entire thing went down. I spent the next few months somewhere between terrified and in awe. She's an excellent skier and used to play soccer, coach volleyball, and do a bit of football on the side--one time she played against the local high school wrestling coach (also her friend's husband)--huge guy, built like a brick wall and twice her size in both directions, and she still managed to tackle him. Got a broken finger for her trouble, but she's extremely competitive (plays Scrabble like it's a fight to the death, seriously) and so she was not about to back down. She also decided to take up snowboarding at fifty (and then decided to stop taking it up when she wound up with two broken ribs).

But seriously, every time I think I've figured out all the random shit she knows how to do (and it is an exhaustive list--since my dad is functionally useless she knows how to make everything, fix everything, etc. The only thing she can't do is draw (except trees, she can draw trees) and I'm kind of thankful for that because there has to be a limit somewhere) she surprises me with something else. I got a set of throwing knives a while back, for the hell of it, and when I mentioned it to her I was expecting her to be all "why are you obtaining weapons, wtf," not "Oh, I can show you how to use those, we practiced knife-throwing in the downtime at survival school." She's a lot like Ellen from SPN, actually, only older, more butch, and without the guns.

She's also the one who hugs people, and the only one who actually says "I love you" (we say it back, just... not to each other, at all, ever) since the rest of the family is very weird about expressing anything but "I AM GOING TO SHOW THAT WE ARE FAMILY BY DEBATING EVERYTHING YOU SAY". So there's that too.

Think later today I'm going to make a multifandom rec list of my Favorite Ever Fics--so far, most of what I've got is SPN, bandom, and Doctor Who, though I have a few miscellany (Boondock Saints, Generation Kill, Life on Mars) I might throw in as well.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY FEELINGS ARE DOING

escherzo — Sat, 07 May 2011 02:16:49 GMT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

... no, that's basically all I've got. MY MIND, IT IS BLOWN AND I AM GOING TO GO SWEEP UP THE PIECES OF MY HEART NOW, EXCUSE ME.

CAS :(

(you got a sign! His name was Dean! Come on, Cas, you're breaking my heart here)

also in other news AAAHHHHHH

THAT ENDING WAS CRUEL. AND NEEDED MOAR CHUCK.