The Tyranny of Socks

Because why not? ( as seen everywhere )

Off to clap.

The AO3 uploader hasn't been working for me recently for LJ (I understand that this is a general problem), so I have been uploading some old fic from my webpage, which does not work as smoothly but does work. This mostly means some older XF fic -- and of course I reread as I go. I had forgotten how frequently I used the Balkans as a setting (although it was generally justifiable for plot of character-related reasons); I didn't post one or two things last week, because of the news about Radovan Karadzic. It just seemed weird and tacky.

I am also remembering my issues the X-Files. Wow, do I have issues; I can't even watch an episode now. Anyway, the short version is that although I kept watching, canon and I parted company definitively after Two Fathers/One Son: nothing after that made any sense to me at all, and frankly, given how little sense most of the stuff that happened before then made, that's pretty damning.

The next thing I think I should post is Parallel Catastrophes (which for those of you who joined this journal after 2003 or so is a crossover between XF and Harry Potter in which WMM is Pansy Parkinson's grandfather and Marita Covarrubias and Narcissa Malfoy are sisters. Obviously, this was all before OOtP came out.) The problem is that there's a huge plotty story which I have never posted, because I don't like how it starts, and I haven't even looked at it in a couple of years -- but it needs to be there to make the fragment I wrote back when I did that big crossover meme.

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Speaking of which, I saw this meme at rhi's journal:

Give me two fandoms and I will tell you about their crossover OTP(s).

Like Rhi, I'll add a plural, since there may be more than one, and add that my OTPs may be gen.

The results of the meme I did the other day: here's my list of characters!

1. Jack Bauer (24)
2. Kate Somerville (Lymond Chronicles)
3. Irina Derevko (Alias)
4. John Winchester (SPN)
5. Frank Pembleton (Homicide)
6. Lauren Reed (Alias)
7. Kaylee Frye (Firefly)
8. Alex Krycek (XF)
9. Sarah Connor (SCC)
10. Al Swearengen (Deadwood)

( and the questions! )

That was so much fun!

I see the list of "ten signs I wrote this story" meme is going around again, and cannot resist navel-gazing. I did this meme back in January of 2006, which is not all that long ago except in fandom terms. Here it is, with additions in parentheses. Bold parentheses!

10 signs a story is by Vanzetti:

1. Shameless overuse of the "then + verb" construction. Must break this habit! (I think I may have moved on to out-and-out asyndeton, which at least means that I've left the "then" out)

2. There will be little description of persons, although there may be some description of the location. (True. This is something I don't really care for in other people's fanfic -- the whole point of the exercise is that we already know what these people look like! -- so I tend to leave it out of my own stuff.)

3. The plot is carried forward by conversation, rather than action. (This was already less true -- I was moving out of the stories driven by dialogue -- but it's still the case that I like to get important stuff done in conversation, rather than narration or internal monologue.)

4. No one is in love. (I don't think this was true even then, and in fact I see that I contradict it in number 6 below. It would be fairer to say that I don't write romance. Romance may occur, but it won't be the focus of the story.)

5. No one has sex. An exception might be made for femslash. (And, apparently, for John Winchester.)
5a. Fade to black!

6. If characters do have sex, it is likely to be because they have a deep and true love which can overcome a thousand betrayals. No one will admit this to themselves, let alone the other person.
6a. If not a deep and true love, than at least a deep and true understanding.
6b. I am a huge fan of homophrosune (likemindedness). Odysseus/Penelope OTP!
(This is all still so very, very true. My characters are chronically incapable of saying "I love you." They express love in all kinds of ways, sometimes involving guns and explosions, but most of them would rather gnaw off a limb than actually say it.)

7. The main characters in the story are unlikely to be the main characters in the source. (Yep. And now, they are also likely to be dead at least some of the time.)

8. The characters will travel long distances in the course of the story.
8a. Exotic locations!
8b. I hate airports!
(This is less true now than it was then, and even then it may have been due to the characters and genres -- Alias characters travel all the time, especially with their special travel powers, and both Krycek and Marita act in an international world. Winchesters drive around a lot, but they don't use airports much. These days, my characters are more likely to travel between Hell and the world than anything else. I guess that counts as an exotic location.)

9. The characters will be adults, and will act like adults. (Still true. Boys are boring. Girls moderately less so. But I teach young adults; I don't want to read about them, too.)

10. There are unexplained classical allusions and the title has something to do with graves or stones. (I've gotten better about the title thing, although I still find coming up with titles hard. But the unexplained classical allusions are still leaving their nasty pawprints all over everything.)

Is there anything I'm missing?

A sort of self-involved meme, from the_grynne, because I want to:

What would you say are the trademarks of my writing? What themes or quirks or turns of phrase have you noticed? What is it that makes a story by me -- well, a story by me?

I don't suppose I can tell my TA that I don't have the exams ready for her because I spent yesterday wanting to thwap idiots on the internet, can I? No, didn't think so.

As seen everywhere, the list of books other people say they haven't read. The best part about this is learning that many, many people share my loathing of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

( the explanation and the list )

Hooray! The roads are open! Of course, we may flood again after the torrential rain forecast for this evening and tomorrow, but for now, they're open!

In celebration -- a meme. This week's Fannish Five apparently asked for your top five fictional parents.

1. Kate Somerville. Because character is everything. Kate is pretty perfect as parents go, when you think about it. I mean, think about how frantic she must have been through all of Pawn in Frankincense, and yet she recognizes that Philippa is growing up and is there when she's ready to come home again -- and really, Philippa could only have done what she did because of the sort of person Kate and Gideon raised her to be. (Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles)

2. Molly Weasley, this week, for those reasons in DH, and because she doesn't think that sending fifteen and sixteen-year-olds into combat is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. (HP)

3. Jack Bristow. Jack in some ways is such an unlikely good father -- and of course, for a long time he believes that cutting himself off from his daughter is the best thing he can do for her. But he grows into the role so well, and loves his daughter so much. (Alias)

4. I wanted to put Irina Derevko on this list, but the last season of Alias made that hard to do, so instead I'll put Sydney Bristow in her place -- because Sydney will clearly succeed where her mother failed, in having her spying career and her children, and being the best at both. I think one of the best moments in the last season was that little scene of Sydney playing the tapes of her debriefings with Vaughn to her unborn child, so that Isabelle would know what her father's voice sounded like. It was so perfectly, weirdly Sydney Bristow. (Alias)

5. John Winchester. (Yeah, you're all surprised, aren't you?) Because he was a complete bastard, but he did better than anyone else could have managed -- not just the best he could, I think, but the best anyone could, in those circumstances -- and he came through when it mattered. (SPN)

You know, it was really hard to limit this to five. There are no Vorkosigans here! I could have populated the whole list with characters from Alias! What about Marge Simpson? What about D'argo?

cameragrl tagged me with the "eight random facts meme" a few days ago, and it's been a while since I've done one of these so here we go:

( eight facts about me )

Other information about me can be found in the ten things I assume you know about me meme and generally via the formative lists tag.

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Since I mentioned that whole website-building exercise, I might as well ask a question. Do I give drabbles their own page? do I post them at all? some of the Supernatural drabbles I wrote last summer can be grouped together into a loose series, and some of them I like enough to post on their own. But there are all kinds of random short pieces scattered here and there, and I just don't know what to do about them.

Earlier lists of five here (SPN, Jericho), here (SPN, XF) and here (Primeval).

And finally... for celli and camille_is_here, Five crossovers the Winchesters didn't know they were in. (Alias, Jericho, Primeval, Angel, The Riddle-Master of Hed)

( five crossovers, under the cut -- mostly gen, mostly Sam and Dean. )

I don't think I've ever needed this many tags on a post!

In my earlier post, I managed to include the cut text for the "Five things" iseult_variante requested, but not the five things themselves. So here, instead:

( Five times Lester secretly loved his job (Primeval) )

Sorry about that!