Between Snowmageddon (now with bonus Snoverkill) and work commitments, I've been and will remain AWOL for a bit, but I wanted to pop in and recommend vito_excalibur's latest in the Alters series, which I won in the help Haiti auction.  It's Lex and Clark, Lex in badass science mode and Clark with a perfect Justice League smirk, and I highly recommend it!

Some mornings, I wish I could clock into my job with extra force. I wish for Extreme Timecards.

I feel like I should get -- not more money, but somehow a little stamp next to my name on days like today, when half the staff totally fucked off because there's two inches of snow on the ground and a light dusting of it in the air. If I made it here from the Sheridan El stop, which is an open platform three stories off the ground with no windbreaks, you bastards with cars can damn well make the effort. And if you won't, I should get a gold star next to my name when I clock in.

And a cookie.

BossBoss is in today though, good man himself. Yesterday we were LOLing just before I left work, because my mother emailed me that there was a "Snow Event" on its way to Chicago. My immediate response was "I hope there's live music!"

If we end up being the only two staff members in today we are totally going to hang out and watch streaming Doctor Who bootlegs in the conference room.

...which sounds a lot more kinky than it is.

( Skip this if you like the Olympics. No, really. )

Not only did I buy an MP3 player, I also discovered podfic this week. Or was it the other way round? Egal. It's absolutely amazing how good some of them are, not only the story but the reading as well! Of course most of you know about jinjurly's podfic archive, but for those of you who don't, well, go and check it out. It's absolutely amazing, so much fic, so well organized and most fics not only in mp3 format, but as audiobooks and mp4's as well. And again I have to give my friend rodo much credit, because it was she who said I would enjoy podfic a while back. You were absolutely right, my dear *hugs*

( On to my first podfic recs... )

The One That Will Give You Flashbacks to the 1980s, Even If You Didn't Live Through Them. Kings of the Air, by fabularasa. Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick.

Okay. So. Two years ago, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I re-watched Top Gun. I had not seen that movie in a long, long time. It, um, looked a lot different the second time around. (This resulted, by the way, in a never-posted Top Gun recap that would probably have broken the LJ post character limit, and 30% of those characters were along the lines of "RANDOM GAY VOLLEYBALL PORN OH MY GOD ARE THEY FUCKING KIDDING?")

Anyway. My point is: this is the story for that movie. This is what they were working towards the whole movie, even if they didn't know it (although, Jesus - how could they NOT know, given all that random gay porn?). This is the only story you need to read for this fandom. Although I myself would not mind several thousand more stories exploring the really gay, not really subtext of Top Gun, but my point is: if we never get them, that's fine; we can still file this fandom in the box marked "done," thanks to this story alone.

This is also a story you can totally read if you've never seen the movie. I will provide you with a summary, in case you need it. Spoilers, obviously.

Maverick: Hi, I am a Navy pilot, and I am just totally awesome. People cannot even get over how awesome I am. I sure can't get over it, because I am such hot shit my ass routinely catches on fire. Hey, would you like my autograph? Yeah, that'll be fifty bucks.
Goose: I am Maverick's gunner or wingman or something, and he's, yeah, fairly awesome. I am a nice guy who has a lovely wife and adorable small children. This is usually a terminal condition in an action movie. Just, you know. FYI.
Iceman: I am also a pilot. And, Maverick, sometimes when your ass is on fire, it's because someone is beating it. That person would be me.
Charlie: I am the token girl. I have a Ph.D. and a desire to fuck one of my students! And, mmmm, I love the taste of arrogance in the morning. Now, who shall I pick?

[Painful singing interlude.]

Charlie: I choose you, Pikachu! I mean, Maverick!
Maverick: Yay. And yet - Iceman - I must - um, engage in conflict with him. Yes. Conflict.
Iceman: You're not hot enough or good enough to engage with me, boyo. Just stand there and let me stare at you.

[Random gay volleyball porn.]

Iceman: Maverick, you piss me off so much that I need to punch you just so I can feel my skin against yours.
Maverick: YES, BABY, YES. Fuck - I mean punch - me harder.
Goose: *dies*

[WOE.]

Iceman: I win the competition we were having to be the best Navy pilot in all the land!
Maverick: PUNCH ME HARDER. I mean. Um. Yeah, you win. But I have Become a Man! In all senses of the word! Oh, god, YES.
Charlie: ...Wasn't I supposed to be the love interest?
Goose: *remains dead*

The One That Teaches Us That Brain Parasites Can Be an Effective Therapy. (Don't Try This in the Real World, Though.) Tongues of Men and Angels, by mad_maudlin. Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay.

Okay. I have - a thing. The Goa'uld make me want to CLAW MY SKIN OFF. Just, you know, preemptively. In case they turn out to be real. And yet. This story, for me, is alllll about a relationship, and it's not the McKay/Sheppard one. (Not that I am not bang alongside the McKay/Sheppard one, of course. I enjoy it! I am pleased it is here! But it is not the centerpiece of the story for me.)

Because this is a non-Atlantis AU, and there are Tok'ra in it, and this, for me, is about what being a Tok'ra is like. It's about the relationship between Tok'ra and host, and it's the first story I've ever read that made me believe the Tok'ra might be more than just Goa'uld with slightly (slightly!) better press. I actually like the Tok'ra, as they are portrayed here. Okay. A few of them. But that is a huge thing for someone who is as mind-controlling-parasite averse as I am!

But this story is 60k words of gateversey goodness, so it is also a fantastic action piece, and it has great hurt/comfort, and some very nice bits for SG1, and engineering, and sarcasm, and, just, everything I want from an SGA story (except Go-playing ghosts and John and Rodney turned into seahorses who are disturbed to discover that MPreg is their new canon, because no SGA story can be absolutely everything). In fact, this story probably also makes perfect toast and can bring rain to parched lands. It's that good, people.

And it's amazing to me, because it's a happy ending for John and Rodney that doesn't involve Atlantis, and the thing is - I always kind of assumed that there wasn't a happy ending for them that didn't involve Atlantis, largely because, well, it seemed like they had had that relationship conversation with earth. You know, the one that goes, "It's not you, it's me. It's just - we don't feel the same way, and we want different things, and - yeah. I mean. I care. I do. But it's not working out." (In Rodney's case, he'd be the one saying this. In John's case, it'd be earth.) So I am frankly stunned that mad_maudlin could use the guys as, you know, roughly the same people (and not seahorses or circus performers or satellites or whatever) and find them a happy ending that does not involve a certain imaginary flying city.

Anyway. Read this. It's awesome.

The One with the Most Nearly-Literal Slave Collar I've Yet Seen That Is Canonical. Did the Canon Writers Notice This? Were They Paying Attention? Figure It Out, by lightgetsin. White Collar, Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey.

Okay. I do not know from White Collar. I'm at that stage where I have to check IMDb to find out what the full names of the characters are. Usually, at this stage, I have about a one-sentence summary of the fandom in my head, but in this case, I don't. Instead, I have a picture. Which I am unfortunately unable to show you, because I can't get into LJ Scrapbook for some reason Which I can totally show you, thanks to tzikeh. (It shows Neal handcuffed to Peter, who is kissing Elizabeth.) And, really, that says it all. Or at least all the parts I'm interested in.

Anyway. Like I said, I don't know from White Collar, but based on this story, if the DVDs were available, I would totally have Best Beloved watching it already. I might even be watching an episode myself (although that is unlikely, what with my current Kirk and Spock issues - but the very fact that I, deep in this weird TOSian fever, am willing to consider watching something else is significant). Because the characters are awesome, the concept is deeply appealing, and the dialog is first rate. In the story, I mean. My primary concern, if I had Best Beloved watch this, would be that the canon might not measure up to the fan fiction. This has happened before.

But, oh, it would almost be worth it, to know these three people better. Plus, you know, other people. I am sure there are other people in the show worth knowing. Probably.

So, this story - well. It is about Neal (conman!) and Peter (conman-catcher!) and Elizabeth (person who catches the conman-catcher!) and their really pure true love. But what I mostly love about it are the central questions it seems to ask, which is - how do you trust someone whose whole life has been built around making people trust him even though he's not, you know, actually trustworthy? How do you love someone whose job it is to make people love him? (And I would just like to note that it is awesome that for once the person whose job it is to make people love him is not a prostitute.) And exactly what happens when what is holding you together goes away?

(SECRET HINT: Sex! And PURE TRUE LOVE. And, knowing these three, someone (Neal) getting tied to something. But that's just my guess.)

The One Where We Learn That Even Logic Crumbles in the Face of a Really Short Skirt. Listening to Hear Where You Are, by frostfire_17. Star Trek Reboot, Jim Kirk/Spock/Nyota Uhura.

Sooooo. As some of you may be aware, I have recently had my brain taken over by Star Trek: TOS. And Reboot. Anything with a Spock, basically. (This is a painful process, but I am told that eventually I may regain the ability to speak in complete sentences, so I am trying to be strong. And you should all give Best Beloved massive, massive love for standing by me through it.) And, see, my TOS obsession makes this story even better (although I'm going to be honest here and say a) it did not need to be made even better and b) Frostfire may be liable for various damages to readers' brains for the stunning level of betterness in this story even without TOS as a point of reference), because now I have seen the women's uniforms that are the centerpiece of this, and, well.

Look at some of the images Frost linked to in her notes.

Okay. Now picture that outfit on Reboot Kirk. (In a fetching shade of gold, naturally). Yeah, I thought that would get your attention. Because, let's be honest here - Kirk was born to wear that dress. And Spock and Uhura were born to fuck him senseless in it.

Seriously, this is like 8k words of fantastic threesome porn, which is all by itself a reason to love the story, but what I really love, here, is how in character everyone is. This is an awesome Uhura, an awesome Spock, and a Jim Kirk in a dress. (Which is, obviously, the definition of awesome.)

And it's also an awesome use of a costume that actually made my jaw drop the first time I saw it in action, because holy shit that is a short dress. (Usually the argument against skirts on people in space is that if there's an artificial gravity failure, the wearer will end up with a skirt in the face. Let's just say that is not a problem here, since in the event of a gravity failure, this skirt will look exactly the same.) This story made me love the uniform a lot more than I previously did.

Also, did I mention the threesome porn?

The One to Read to Remind Yourself It Could Always Be Worse: You Could Be Spending the Holiday of Your Choice with the U.S. Congress. Die Hard 4.5: I'll Be Hard for Christmas, by Aja, aka bookshop (thanks to multiple people!). Live Free or Die Hard, Matt Farrell/John McClane.

I'm going to just pause for a minute so you can let the awesomeness of the title wash over you. Pause - pause - pause. Are you ready? Let's move on.

So, I think the title alone is sufficient reason to convince anyone, including people who haven't seen the movie (me!) and people who sometimes fantasize about punching Bruce Willis in the teeth (hardly me at all, anymore), to read this story, but I have more reasons even than that.

Like, okay, obviously I haven't seen the movie, but I always think the aftermath of action movies would be so much more interesting than the part where our hero blows something up and our villain meets his graphic end, often more than once. What happens when our hero stands up in the wreckage of a major American city, tosses aside his rebar, and goes back to work the next day? (Or, okay, six to eight weeks later, to allow for healing.) And that's what this story is about.

I also have to note that this story has the most wonderful original character ever. (At least, I'm assuming he's original. If he's a stealth crossover from somewhere, please god tell me where.) I don't know when I last met a character who could pack so much world-weary, cynical snark into a single sentence. Every bit of this story that he's in is awesome, and I would totally read a large number of stories in the Amit Sasses Washington fandom, or whatever it would be called.

Plus, you know, there's a whole thing where Matt and John find love in the midst of briefings and Congressional meetings, which has to be a first. (At least, it's a first in that no one was prosecuted or lost a major election afterwards.)

And there's a fivethirtyeight.com reference. Seriously, there's something here for every fan, except possibly those who hate happiness and good sex.

The Superbowl game was great. The adverts? Not so much. With thanks to chazpure for pointing me to this brilliant post that pretty much says what I feel about the adverts.

Sending more thanks to my lovely spouse for sending me this faux advert that, dammit, does not exist, but should! You know what the adverts they ran during the Superbowl tells me? It tells me the men who run the NFL and the television studios are afraid of our ovaries. How powerful they think women must be that they feel they have to force-feed the more impressionable minds in their audience with their detestable misogynistic concepts. *sigh*


Still, I grew up watching NFL and I love the sport if not all that sometimes accompanies it. Drew Brees is my new football hero. The fact he looks fecking hot whilst bathing helps. He's kind of how I imagine Neville will look all grown up... *g* Moreover, Drew's gluten-free like me. :)


Someone who has long been a personal hero is Stephen Fry and this is but one teensy reason why: The Intelligence Debate. A-bloody-men, Stephen! Keep telling the truth & shaming the devil.


Oh, I bet this went over really well with gay parents: Potomac students get fliers saying therapy turns gays straight


Safe nuclear fuel? New Green Nuke Fuel Cleans Up Old, Dirty Fuel Somehow I get the feeling that the nuclear plants even Obama wants now, will be run as usual: built by the lowest bidder, using current technology & ignoring this new technique to our detriment. That Palin backs it is what is truly terrifying.


Speaking of the psychotic pathetic: in today's episode of Psycho's R Us, a US soldier 'waterboards' daughter. Since it's not listed as torture thanks to Bu$hit and Chickenshiteney, no doubt a lot of people with anger management issues might find this a useful tool in their ballistic arsenal.


This one's for my fellow DS9-fans: ok icons


Too cool! Fiona Shaw does her bit for science: Inside the mind of an actor (literally).


Also cool is the new phone that translates 6,000 languages in real time, really? Well, it's marginally better than sticking a fish in your ear.


That all said, I send those of you being, as well as about to be, hammered by snowpacolypse pt. 2 lots of ~strength vibes~ and warm thoughts. Stay safe as you can manage.

I have decided that eyebrow is a verb in my world.

I mean, if I tell you "Then he eyebrowed at me," you're pretty damn likely to know what I'm talking about -- especially if the context includes dialogue, or the proper names of Spock or Snape. Ergo, to eyebrow, eyebrowed, eyebrows, will eyebrow. Yes. It can stay.

And so say I.

In other news, Mandala House has now been alarmed. I decided that the open-window was fair warning on my part, and so when the world threw an alarm company with a really good installation and monitoring package under my feet last week, I asceded with what grace I could. We've not contacted the insurance company yet, but between the intruder alarm and the smoke monitoring package, the savings in the insurance bill might just cover the cost of the monthly monitoring.

And better yet, it's got a setting to just chirp at me if a door's been opened, without ringing the central dispatch. So when I'm on my own on any given day, I don't necessarily have to lock myself in.

I'm not actually a fan of alarm systems, really. They deeply complicate things like pet sitters and houseguests, and I've never been comfortable with the rabbit medicine inherent in getting a machine to guard your stuff... but the flood last January did put a dent in my stance. As did the open window last week. I'm perfectly willing and able to defend my house against an intruder, but legally and ethically it's much less complicated if it's harder for them to get in in the first place, eh?

The alarm installer was a hoot as well. He's just the sort of alt-lifestyle gent that Dominus and I both enjoy as friend-potential. Quirky sense of humour, fantasy reader, swing music/ rockabilly fan, got most of our jokes and volleyed plenty of his own as well. It's kind of a sad irony to have met him under this context, because now an invitation to just hang out would be nothing short of hinky. Alas.

And speaking of hinky, after months of no activity on my FetLife account, today I was friended by two male subs. Now mind, my account over there is a stub, with almost no information on it at all, so where they got the idea that I was a peg-domme, I've no idea, let alone what convinced the both of them to friend me on the same day, but there you have it. This reminds me of when random sissy boys used to ping my Brighid yahoo id, hoping I'd insult them, humiliate them, and make them crawl like vermin. It took me a month to work out that it was because I'd put "Goddess" in her job title field. D'OH! I'd meant Goddess as in immortal deity, not as in woman fetishized for presumed sexual cruelty. I changed that. It didn't help.

FetLife, however, is not yahoo, and so I'm not nearly as weirded out by random subs friending me there. Just bemused by the timing, mostly.

And now, I am officially through for the night.
Goodnight, Gracie!

I've worked in litigation support for four years, and worked in document imaging (i.e. "scan & create PDFs") for ten. (There are features from Acrobat 4.0 that I still miss.) Worked professionally at word processing and doc conversion for over twenty years. I've been throwing other people's content onto computers for a *long* time. And in the last few years, I've noticed … things … about the jobs we receive. Specifically, about the instructions we get, or don't get, and what they imply about the general knowledge of the clients. I've put together a list of things I wish the clients knew, because it'd make my job so much easier. It would also make them happier, because we'd all prefer the results to match the expectations, and that only happens when the expectations are based on, well, something like reality.

This list is loosely directed at people who would be hiring lit support services, but is potentially useful to anyone looking into scanning, doc conversion, or hiring any kind of office/DTP work.

1. There is no such thing as a searchable tiff.


2. A "box" is not a unit of measurement for scanning or copying. I cannot tell you how long it takes to scan "one box" of whatever you're planning to send us, nor how much it will cost.


3. We copy. We scan. We print. We do not fix the pictures, spelling, or layout in your Powerpoint file.


4. No, we can't print out the .MOV files. Nor the .WAV files. Not gonna happen. We'll happily put a slipsheet in that spot in the list for you.


5. Digital documents need to be named something. We're happy to assign them 5-digit numbers or call them DOC01, DOC02 or whatever, but "just name 'em anything" and "they don't need names" are both very bad instructions.


6. The workers will sing your praises if you tell them they don't need to reconstruct the originals.

( 44 more. Some technical terminology. I'm happy to answer questions if anyone cares. )

I was going back through the vaults, and this one was making the rounds five years ago. Let's see if we can fire it up again!

Movie lines (crossed off when guessed correctly). (The trick of this list is that not one of them is from a movie made after 1950. You guys can pick whatever era you want, though!) See if you can guess what the other theme is in this set. :)

ETA: These are tricky, so if you guess the actor but not the movie, I'll give you credit, and if you guess the movie but not the actor, you'll also get credit. :) I may end up putting the actors down for people if this stumps everyone.

( Quotes and some clips under here )

Slowly reposting Porn Battle fics. Went and saw the movie again yesterday with nekofreak. I'm still trying to resist writing Bob/Percy.

Transgressions
Legion. Michael/Gabriel. NC-17. 1200 words. Wingporn.
If they were to know their father's wrath for this, it would be with one heart.

( Read Me )

Good morning, blogland! Okay, it was a little closer to "morning" and not "second breakfast" when I wrote this....

Today is a very literary morning. For some reason I've been Followed on Twitter by a pair of literary linkspammers, JustAuthors and TheManuscript, who contrary to Twitter's usual linkspam denizens actually have useful information to share (if you're looking for interesting Twitterers at the intersection of Digital and Literary, Catchn is another good one and a bit less impersonal).

The DIY Book Tour is not about DIY Books (ie, Nameless) as I thought it might be, but rather about DIY tours. It's an article about how for a certain level of writer, it may be more effective or at any rate more emotionally satisfying to do readings outside of the usual bookstore run. It's not something I could do, for any number of totally irrational reasons, but it may be of interest to those who have self-published and are looking to self-market and don't suffer from paralytic shyness.

More directly in the Extribulum line is DIY Publishing (sensing a theme?) which talks about what you should and shouldn't pay for as a self-publisher. Editing/design/marketing packages are Lulu's stock in trade, and it's the one truly annoying thing I have to ignore about the website. I'm lucky, because aside from the investment of time I pay nothing for my editing services (thank you, Cafe) and I'm skilled enough in the visual arts to be able to typeset and cover-create mostly on my own. The article lists some good resources, and also inadvertently informs us of where our skill sets should lie: the successful self-publisher needs to be a bit of a Renaissance Person, capable not only of writing engagingly but of typesetting and graphic design with competence and marketing with dedication. If you cannot be all these things, it helps to find friends who can be one or two....

Aside from all this, I'm finally buckling down and starting the soul-crushing, ego-destroying process of re-reviewing all the crit I got from CG and forming it into a coherent "you suck" report that will help me figure out what needs fixing. (This is a joke, btw. I know nobody thinks I suck, and my soul is not actually crushed. But it is a somewhat painful process and it helps to make light of it via the "Drama Queen" route.)

One of the intriguing things about Charitable Getting is how many people pointed out that it didn't feel like a book -- it felt like a sitcom or a TV show or a film. I didn't write Charitable Getting with a film adaptation in mind; I didn't cast it in my head or really do anything all that different from what I did with Nameless, in terms of methodology -- I stumbled on a story and wrote it. So I wonder if it's not so much the content of CG as the mindset of our culture.

The book is lighthearted. It's a lighthearted book. Nothing truly serious happens in it and I wasn't going for anything truly serious to happen in it; I wanted it to be a good story but I didn't really feel like it had to be a deep one. I think people aren't used to books being lighthearted anymore. Even books that are funny generally have a twist of the knife in store, and the most irreverent of books tend to also be the angriest these days. Books that are funny aren't usually fictional, or if they are it's a much darker funny than the essentially family-friendly kind found in Charitable Getting. This isn't a criticism of anyone or anything, really, just an observation. It seems like we expect that books will somehow have an intangible more, and films and TV will somehow have less.

As with Nameless, Charitable Getting is a bit of a freak. It doesn't fit into a genre without a few gentle whacks. Valet of Anize doesn't really either, and Dead Isle straddles a weird line between Kiplingesque adventure and serious social commmentary. I kind of wish they did slot more neatly. It would make marketing a lot easier.

On the other hand, I love my little mutant children, because they're mine, and secretly because Darwin teaches us that evolution depends on mutation.

And anyway I'm okay with giving you guys a sitcom to read. It's something different, at least, eh?

I saw a pic of Colin leaning on Bradley's shoulder in an icon by yourmanuscript and I thought, that's GOT to be a manip.

UM, HI. NO IT IS NOT.

*dies and is dead*

Flying a little bit low today.

Woke up with the opening verse of It's Only a Paper Moon in my head, looping over and over in my head.

Say, its only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

Yes, it's only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me...

Yyeah, guilty as charged, I'm afraid. And how aggravating is it, by the way, that my inner Jiminy Cricket is voiced by Ella Fitzgerald? I guess it could be worse; could be Tiny Tim.

I picked up a lovely illustrated copy of the Tao Te Ching on Saturday. Started reading it last night. It's not surprising to me how well some (not all though,) of this resonates with my sense of Things That Are. Thusfar it's been more validating than eye-opening, but that's okay; I'm not in the market for a spiritual crisis this year anyhow.

I've also been wandering around the place shouting at dodging_fate's parents for being cruel motherfuckers and using her baby's illness as a power play to try and piss in a circle around her home, her family, and her pets. What they're doing is trying to make her baby's struggle for life somehow about THEM, by 'fixing' things so he won't be sick anymore, and I just want to punch each of them in the head for it. Forcing her to discard her cats and dog will NOT miraculously cure a pheumonic newborn. The VIRUS that is ravaging the baby has nothing whatever to do with animals, or pet dander at all. No, what this manipulative bullshit will do, is traumatize the pets, the children who already live in the house and who love those pets, and utterly shatter their relationship with their generous, loving daughter if they can't find a way to step off before they reach her breaking point.

Someone needs to inform these people that parents can be disowned as readily as can children, and that right now, she has a LOT more leverage over things the loss of which they would seriously mourn than they do over her. She has their grandchildren, after all, and if they keep on being abusive, why on earth should she expose her daughters and son to people who act like that? Why should she expose herself to people who take advantage of a family tragedy to try and muscle her about?

(So... yeah. Kind of invested in this a bit more than is perhaps proper for a friend. This is one of the reasons why I haven't gone to the hospital to visit yet -- I'm not sure I can trust myself if either of them happen to be there, and I really don't want to verbally eviscerate dodging_fate's parents in front of her. She's got enough to deal with already. But the Gorgon's right up close on this one, and she has Opinions...)

I'm also back at war with iTunes again. It's spontaneously decided it can't read any of its .lib files, so it has no existing library to which it can refer at any given time, and thus has to take two hours to import my music every time I turn it on. And that's without recourse to any of my playlists either, of course. I have finally had to step away and stop touching it, lest I accidentally throw the damned computer through the window. I have literally been picking at this mess all weekend long, trying to find a way to get it to remember where its arse is, and I'm just about at the point of using the Alexander Solution to Insoluble Knot Problems. And that's rarely good for the computer, I'm afraid.

In other, less ranty news, I splurged on one of these this weekend. Mainly, I justified it to myself out of the utterly crappy sound quality I'd been getting out of my old gaming headset mic for the tarot readings I'd been doing online. But really it had just as much to do with the fact that I've never been happy with the sound on The Moon in Her House when I recorded it, and I want to a) do it over with better equipment, and b) record Singing Each to Each once I finish the final edit, and offer that one up as an MP3 as well.

And, because my life works like this, on Sunday I picked up three tarot reading appointments for this week, which will pay for 2/3 of the mic flat out, assuming nobody cancels. Can't be too unhappy with that, can I?

Many many many thanks to rubynye for her unflagging enthusiasm and encouragement and gently-setting-right-when-I-went-astray and generally helping this story to exist somewhere outside my brain. Thanks also to toft for writing Normal Working Relationship, which finally shook this loose from the spot where it had been stuck in my brain since summer.

And, of course, thanks to iulia for not killing me in my sleep even though this is so, so very not her birthday fic, which, as of today, is now actually overdue instead of just never-going-to-be-finished-in-time. Sorry! I am going to get right on that!

Ahem. Anyway, story!


Kirk/McCoy. NC-17. 5,000 words.
Warning and/or enticement: BDSM

What Leonard was about to do was undeniably crude--maybe one step up from bleeding to balance the humors--but in this case the science was sound.


( The Care and Feeding of Your Starship Captain )


This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/545643.html.