It's Memorial Day weekend for those of us in the USA who're lucky enough to have all three days off. I always got a holiday payrate but often had to work it. Of course, hospitals never close, except in case of major damage from natural (or unnatural) disasters. Dead President University Hospital is a Level 1 Trauma Center. We never close. Of course, that's all in the distant past now that I'm retired. :D

I posted Slow Cooker Pork with Prunes to omnomnom, which I made last night and is excellent. Now, I know I've been very lax about posting links to recipes but I'm going to do better.

Live Journal's annual xf_is_love begins in a few days and there are a scandalous number of days open. I kept meaning to post about it but it kept slipping my mind. xf_is_love is the easiest, most low-key fandom fest you've ever participated in. It begins the first of June and runs through the entire month. There is no minimum word count for fic or meta. You may post three icons or three dozen. You may make a short pic spam or one that will crash my computer if I try to load it. You may reserve an episode to celebrate—or not. As you will.

In the beginning of June, I'm going out of town, so I asked Ruuger for a day closer to the middle of the month. I have no idea what I'm going to write. Also. I may have accidentally signed up for the the X-Files BigBang, xf_bigbang. I have no idea what I'm going to write for it either, but as far as I know, it will not feature vampires.

Fortunecity.com went down at the beginning of May, taking with it many old fansites. I am searching for and documenting The X-Files on Fanlore with the gracious help of awils1, and because no one else stepped up, I'm kind of doing the X-Men. I'm so out of my comfort zone with the latter, because other than seeing the first two movies, reading the comics when I was a kid and checking out a little fic off rec sites, I'm not in the fandom. I've never been in the fandom. If there is anyone out there who'd like to take that over, the sign-up page is here (just delete my name and put in yours!) and the page at Fanlore is here. If those don't tickle your fancy, there are a lot of unclaimed fandoms. No one is doing Batman. No one is doing Bones. No one is doing Bandom, for pity's sake. And that's just the "Bees." Editing pages at Fanlore is snap. If I can do it, you can do it.

If you all could search your computers for fortunecity.com urls, if you don't have the time or the energy to do it, if they have fanworks on them, I'll try to see they get on the Fanlore page.

Thank you and enjoy your weekend!

I'm used to always being way behind the Big Fandom curve, and sometimes, most times, really, I'm not even close. I think I like watching episodes all at once rather than spread out over a longer period of time. Someone theorized that people are more tolerant of crap writing when they do it that way, and I'm convinced that's the case for me. I'm playing catch-up with Doctor Who and Sherlock. I don't ship any of the popular pairings for the later and I haven't had the urge to even read fic for the former, so I'm just lurking around the edges of those fandoms.

I know I'm being way harder on Sherlock than I am on Doctor Who. With Sherlock, there is so little footage to watch and so much time in between new episodes, that my mind just naturally starts picking the show apart, which is easy to do. With Doctor Who, I have four new-to-me episodes a week to get in, and I don't really feel the need (or have the time) to do it as much.

I watch one. Well, that was terrible. There's no reason to save it for idunnoh to watch. Hit delete. Next!

As for the exciting fandom flavor of the month (the year? the decade?) The Avengers, although I used to love comic books and comic book movies, I stopped going to them a couple of summers ago when I had to walk out of Iron Man II because it was so loud and so violent. It was during the racetrack scene. I already had my hands over my ears but once that scene started, I was completely overloaded. To my husband's dismay, I left my seat and waited in the lobby for the movie to finish. Thinking about that experience still makes me anxious; I haven't been able to talk myself into going back to an action movie since it happened. (I've always been unusually sensitive to sound. When I was a child, there were certain records of my father's where the musical notes made me so anxious that I had to leave the room if he put them on the record player.) I never did see the end of that movie. Anyway, long story short, unless my discomfort with loud noise and rapidly flashing imagery goes away, it will be awhile before I get to see The Avengers.

( Sherlock review )

( Awake )

( Fringe thoughts )

Fic Rec: Maybe Amanda and OneMillionandNine have begun posting the third part to their Sherlock AU, "Sustain III: Obbligato". It's complete, has 14 chapters, and they're posting one part every other day. It's really good. I mean really, really good. The truth is, they've kind of ruined the series for me because their writing is so much better. Their alternative universe is rich, emotionally complex and satisfying, and their characters are just more appealing, while still fitting into canon through the end of Season One. Now I know Molly Hooper and Sherlock make an odd sounding couple but these two writers make it work because they are just that good. If you haven't read the first two parts, you need to start at the beginning, but oh, if you do, are you in for a treat. The theme for the month at fancake is comfort fic, and "Sustain (or Concerto for the Famished in D Minor)" is certainly one of mine.

Sustain (or Concerto for the Famished in D Minor) (70680 words) by maybe_amanda and OneMillionandNine
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Mature
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings. Please consider yourself warned; if you need more information, feel free to pm me.

That's all folks.

I had so much fun with Remix Madness that I have put up a comment at Reverse Remix, The Comment Edition, being hosted by besserprocess.

If you want me to remix one of your fics, just choose the one you want, and comment here. I'll remix three stories in the following fandoms: The X-Files, The X-Files RPF, Fringe, Stargate SG-1, and Star Trek (2009).

If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, you can comment there with Open ID. If you want a Dreamwidth account, I think you can just create one now. If not, I have invite codes.

On the other hand, if you are more in the mood for writing than reading, go sign-up to do a remix or two or four. And if you have a Sherlock story or a White Collar fic or a Pundit RPF story or a Babylon-5 fic (and so on and so forth) that you'd love to see remixed, go check out the other authors who have volunteered. You may find yourself a match.

I need distraction and writing is the best distraction I know. (Well, except for sex, but I'm not getting any cooperation in that department. Sigh. I can't wait for school to let out.)

idunnoh and I just finished watching the end of series four of Doctor Who( Possible Spoilers for and Strong Opinions about The Stolen Earth and Journey's End )

Remix Reveal!

I wrote two stories for Remix Madness. I'm going to repost these here so if you don't like the format at AO3, you can just wait.

The first one was a remix of sarken's "In the usual way (inches a year)." Her post-ep for "The Truth" was told from Fox Mulder's pov. As I interpreted it, he was already adjusted to being on the run since he'd been gone for a year. He just seemed happy that he had Scully with him and that he wasn't alone anymore. I decided to tell the identical story from Scully's pov and see how that worked out. Surprisingly, the title came to me first.

Never Be the Same ("In the usual way (inches a year)" Remix) (2208 words) by wendelah1
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully
Summary:

She had always known it would come down to this.

The second remix was of cofax7's "Wildcat Canyon," an interesting character study of Scully set in the Bay Area. Since it had been posted in January 2000, and had a little casefile in it, I decided to set it during early season seven, tell it from Mulder's pov and see where that would lead.

Impossible Question (The Wildcat Canyon Remix) (2140 words) by wendelah1
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully
Summary:

Mulder and Scully are called to California to investigate the mysterious death of a young scientist.

In other news, my custom dress orthotics arrived. They fit perfectly into three pairs of not-too-hideous flat Munroe shoes, so now I should be able to wear something other than my horrible looking (but very supportive) Brooks walking shoes. I am very excited.

I was scrolling through my Tumblr dashboard looking at pictures of Gillian Anderson, when I encountered this little reblog, which as of this moment has 9,279 9,293 comments or whatever you call them there. Not much in terms of Tumblr numbers, but it's early yet. It could crack 10,000, easy.

at what age are you supposed to delete your blog

#yeah what happens when i’m 40 and still blogging omg

What I wanted to say was that clearly, you will have exceeded your allotted time in the blogosphere, and your Tumblr will be scheduled for a Routine Over-Forty-and-Still-Blogging-Omigod Deletion. Or maybe your hard drive will fry. Or, perhaps your head will explode.

What I said instead was, "Do you think there are no people over forty reading your blog?" My headline was "What does age have to do with it?" I have seven followers at Tumblr so that statement is not likely to make much of an impact, not among the 9,293 and counting people who "liked" and "reblogged" the original post. (I have maybe ten people who read my journal here, so yeah, this isn't likely to make much difference either.)

Even if I was inclined to post anonymously, which I am not, talking about this in the anonymous aging and fandom post at fail_fandomanon isn't going to accomplish anything either, since few people who haven't already turned forty or are at least worried about it are going to read it. What's funny is that at the age of forty I was probably in better shape physically than I was at eighteen. I was certainly a lot more interesting.

Am I being overly sensitive here? Maybe it's just okay on the internet to be randomly, carelessly ageist. Since the internet is a reflection of society in general, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Everyone is welcome here—except for people who are no longer young.

If I'm breaking some rule about not reposting Tumblr stuff off site, well, that's too bad.

I am not as wound up about Fringe as I was last week. Instead I'm wound up about Doctor Who. More about that later.

Tomorrow is Fringe Friday There is a Twitter campaign for the show. I don't Twitter but I really like the look of one of the banners. I like all of the banners, really, and the icons, too. So if you like Fringe and use Twitter, go for it.

EDITED TO ADD: Fringe was renewed for a 5th season, 13 episodes! This means they will get to wrap up the plot, I hope in a way that will satisfy the fans. If they want to make me happy, they can start by bringing back Redverse Charlie from wherever he disappeared to and resurrecting Captain Lincoln Lee.



I wrote two stories for Remix Madness. I will tell you which ones they are in a few days, after the reveal.

My favorite story so far is one written for igrockspock.
Triplicate (The Emily Dickinson Lives Forever Remix) (1036 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: John Watson
Summary:

Three times John Watson stops death.

I liked writing remixes. It was fun, re-imagining the two stories. For me, it was relatively easy. More than that, I learned something about my writing process from doing them. One of the rules of Remix is you have to stick to the same basic plot outline. I learned that if I have an outline, I can sit down and bang out a story very quickly (or at least I can in one fandom). But that's an important thing to know, because if I sit down and make myself map out some of these unfinished stories sitting on my hard drive, I should be able to finish them all in no time flat. That doesn't mean they'll be any good, of course. But they'll be done. And they'll be out of my head so I can move on to something else.

I finished my first remix for Remix Madness. That was so much fun. I wrote it in three days, and I didn't even lose much sleep. If musesfool does it again next year, I'm in. The deadline is Sunday night so I'm going to try to write another one.

No one who has been paying attention will have any trouble discerning which one is mine. WHY YES I'M REALLY HAPPY AND ENJOYING MY POST-WRITING HIGH NOW!

Fringe is on tonight. I love their hashtag for tonight's tweet-fest: "FightTheFuture." Yeah, seriously. It's adorable. There are icons and everything. I don't have a Twitter and I'm never going to get one (and I'm watching the Laker game, no wait now it's the Angels game) but I hope everything goes smoothly. As I am almost completely disengaged with this show now, I'll catch up with it tomorrow. But hey, go Fringies!

Doctor Who: I just finished watching "Silence in the Library," which I think I might have already seen. The scene where River Song keeps telling the Doctor that she knows him but won't tell him how seemed familiar, and also confusing. Donna seemed utterly wonderful, especially in the way she tried to reach out to the poor Redshirt Girl. That phenomenon of "ghosting" was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. I hope the mystery all gets cleared up in the second part which I have dvr'd and will watch tomorrow. BBC America is also broadcasting The X-Files in the middle of the night, which greatly amuses me. "I know, let's broadcast that show with the two FBI agents and the aliens. I bet those wacky Americans have never seen that one!"

I keep meaning to write something about Awake, which I am watching with my son. Next time.

There is nothing new to report about idunnoh. He has an appointment May 18th to see his medical doctor about the funky labs, but there is still no surgery date.

So I just threw my name into the pool at Remix Madness 2012. I've always wanted to do a remix and this year I found a story to try. If I finish it, who knows? I might try another one.

You do have to throw your fic into the remix pool if you want to write a story, but you don't have to write one to offer your fic for remix. There is no length requirement. There are no qualifying fandoms. Anything goes! You can have a safe story but there are no take-backs. There is no guarantee that you will get a story or that you'll find something you want to write.

I don't expect I'll get one in return but I just want to give this a try, to see what I can do with someone else's idea. My comment is here. If the remix doesn't turn out well, I don't have to post it, so it's very low risk.

I must be feeling better.

How about a nice '80s vid to make up for all of the depressing crap I've been posting lately?


Now I feel all nostalgic.

Note to self: stop messing with anti-depressant dosages to jump-start your writing. FIND ANOTHER WAY. Life is hard enough. Just take the f__king drugs already and be grateful that they work when you do.