*cackles wildly* I was just looking back over A Little White Dove and I discovered that even though.

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*cackles wildly* I was just looking back over A Little White Dove and I discovered that even though I fixed my Pedro–>Pablo errors, I totally missed that 9/10s of the time the guitarrón player is Julie but 1/10 times she’s Julia. 

Less eggregious, but.

Can you BELIEVE I wrote and posted Found Cat basically live, and had zero such errors, and then Little White Dove was like, proofread to death and 

ugh. Anyway. At least I’m in a more robust state now.

This is, I suppose, a hazard of OCs. 

Fuck it, I’m leaving it in, it can be like a scavenger hunt. First person to point out where I call her Julia without using ctrl+f gets a ficlet, summary, or headcanon of their choice in that ‘verse. 

Hahaha this probably shows how insanely over-invested I am in your writing but I think she's Julia t

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Is this the same anon from before? You need a medal or something. (Either way.)

Yes– that is it, it’s when they’re sitting at the table the next morning after they play the show. 

You win a ficlet or something! What do you want to know?? 

(I just thought of another one, nobody has asked what Poe’s real name is! I thought people would be curious. It’s not that exciting, but I was just thinking about it again.)

this-is-furious replied to your post

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Consciously working on something that is difficult/not your default style is so hard, good for you for wanting to rise to the challenge! *whispers* I love your epics, though

I’ve done a lot of trying to work on different styles over the years. I’ve gone through phases of being really serious about my Craft. 

I just out of curiosity went and looked and my anonymous blog from circa 2005-6 is still online. I was an airport bartender. I wrote short pieces then. My gimmick for a long time was that I titled the entries with the customer’s order. 

Here’s one from February 2005: 

“Two Vodka-Teas

Two vodka and iced teas has something wrong with his voice, and can only half-whisper in a high-pitched squeaking rasp. From the circular scar on his throat, I can only guess that a tracheotomy caused the damage a long time ago. I have to lean forward to hear him. He pretends to scold me, playfully: “Ah well. I won’t raise my voice at you,” he says. He shrugs. I note that he never laughs, but smiles often. “I can’t." 

He is an amateur photographer. He shows me a photo he has taken of a Kodiak bear at the local zoo. He is excited because he is going on an Alaskan cruise.
A little later he muses, "I spent my nineteenth birthday in a coma. So I couldn’t tell you whether it was fun or not. I don’t remember. I was in a coma.”
When he leaves he blows me a kiss. I blow one back and he pretends to clutch it to his heart.”

*whispers* I too love your epics. I was actually re

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*whispers back* I love the epics too. 

I mean. the more i look back on my attempts at writing short-shorts, the more I can see how the length gradually creeps up when I actually want to say anything. I write long because I like to. But the short ones are so pithy. I need to work on that again. 

I never had a teacher mean enough about it, you know? Or maybe it’s that I couldn’t handle it if they were so it wasn’t worth it so they didn’t. (Let’s be real, I have never in my life one time accepted criticism gracefully.) I sometimes can switch it on and pare out excess and produce something polished and SHORT, but not often.

 And fanfic has only made me worse. Yeah, I’d have more readers probably if I could #1 make things more concise and #2 FiNiSH tHe THINg, but there are tons of people now who are so used to reading on-screen that they see a 300k epic and just rub their hands together and cackle with glee. 

(I was rereading little bits of Facepunch last time I was prolongedly sans Internet. I was so close to finishing it. I’m still going to. I promise I will.)

I gotta restructure the Home Out In The Wind … uh, myth-cycle, or whatever it is now. I tried organizing it more sequentially. Possibly just for myself, I need to make, like, a master-list post where I put it all in order and kind of put dates on it, or something. The main deterrent being how the fuck do dates work in the Star Wars universe and why is there no coherent system for the love of God.

To round out the Veteran’s Day posts,

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To round out the Veteran’s Day posts, here’s one my sister just put on her Facebook, of her and her now-husband, and I can’t quite figure out if it was their first or second deployment to Iraq. I do remember that the story with the fountain was that it was some rich person’s villa that the Army had taken over and was using for headquarters. I’d blur out their nametapes but their actual name is the most anonymous name possible. 

Oh, if they both have the same name then it’s the second deployment, because they got married between deployments. She’s so young in this picture!!!

(When she got married she gave all her maiden name nametapes to our dad, who was still in the Guard and could use them.)

notbecauseofvictories: poe dameron flies like

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notbecauseofvictories:

poe dameron flies like he’s trying to leave death in his radiation trail, they say, but that’s not true. (he knows it’s not true. he knows—) if lightspeed could outstrip dying, shara bey would still be in the galaxy, laughing under the yavinese sun.

and anyway, death and poe are old friends. they shake hands, every time he slips into the second skin of the cockpit and takes the throttle in his hands.

this time? poe breathes, running his preliminary checks. 

no, not this time, death says later, much later, when poe is climbing back out of the cockpit, shaking and sick from the adrenaline come-down. (death’s eyes are black.) another day. maybe two. we’ll see.

they have an agreement, something bartered between them when poe was very young and didn’t know what he was giving up. but death was there at his mother’s pyre. and when he said, what will you give, poe said, you can have any toy of mine you like.

I have no use for toys. what else can you offer?

I have my pocket money—

credits are so much ash to me. what else?

what do you want? poe had asked, and death had taken his face in his cold hands. I may call for you, at any hour, of any day, death says. and when I call, you will come.

and I will never be scared of you, poe says with a child’s solemnity, and the deal is struck. (it carries the weight of the grave.)

later—much later than the grave, and after the cockpit—in the bowels of the finalizer, poe startles awake. death looks back at him with black eyes. 

today? poe asks through cracked lips.

yes, death says, reaching into poe’s head with cold hands. today.

UK House of Lords defeat govt over child protection proposals

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ineptshieldmaid:

goodnewsblogging:

The government has suffered a defeat in the House of Lords over plans to allow councils to opt out of legal obligations to vulnerable children.

The crossbencher Lord Ramsbotham successfully moved an amendment to delete a prominent clause of the children and social work bill designed to give ministers extensive powers to sidestep children’s legal rights built up over decades.

The government argued that council social services departments were over-regulated and that proposed powers in clause 29 of the bill would free them to drive “innovation” in social work practice and make services more efficient.

But peers, who voted 245-213 in favour of an amendment to scrap the clause in its entirety, said ministers had failed to “win hearts and minds” and make a persuasive case for why the powers to strip away children’s rights were needed.

Via The Guardian

It’s a bit of a weird response to 2016, but I need the practice of looking for good news, and maybe you need to hear some good news. So. I’m reviving this here sideblog. I’m stacking the queue with good news - not ‘cat gets job in library’ good news, but good news - political, cultural and scientific developments, big or small, that make the world a better place.

I’m trying to tilt the datapoints toward ‘good news for minority or disenfranchised people’, but all the items come out of What I Just Happen To See On the Internet, so are filtered by my white lady australian expat perspective. That means you’ll get more news about Indigenous Australians than most non-australians get, at least, but I make no promises for comprehensive global good news coverage. I do take submissions and would welcome good news about places and peoples I don’t hear much about.

I told myself to hold off on Lost Kings for a little

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I told myself to hold off on Lost Kings for a little bit– surely, once Rogue One is out, I can incorporate that canon, since it’s taking place concurrently.

But I am nearly done with the next chapter of it regardless– I may have to have it go on brief hiatus just before Poe is born, because that’s when the timeline comes in. 

So, anyhow, here’s a little chunk of the next chapter of it. Astute readers of the entire epic may catch on that Kes, in Never Wrote A Letter, mentally compares Bolt to someone. Tito is that someone. So just. Hold that in the back of your mind.

Kes was brooding over [his nervousness about presenting Shara to the family group as his potential wife] and had just finished shaving when the door banged open, startling him badly.

“Kes you asshole,” Tito said, delighted with himself; Kes had flung himself clear across the tiny room with the power of his startle reflex, nearly losing the towel that was his current sole garment. “You’re pretty enough, you don’t need to spend all day in here.”

“Get in here,” Kes said, relieved; Tito was two years older than he was and had successfully managed to convince a woman to marry him the previous year, and last Kes had heard that was still going well. At the very least, it had initially worked, and that was what Kes was currently concerned with. He grabbed Tito by the arm and shut the door behind him, and only then fixed his towel.

“Whoa,” Tito said, “I didn’t— I didn’t think you felt this way, Kes—“

“Shut up,” Kes said, “we’re cousins, that’s gross.” Tito was Kes’s father’s brother’s son, so they were first cousins. He was about the only link Kes had to his father’s family at all.

“Well, ah,” Tito said, grinning broadly, gesturing at the small room. “I just don’t know what you mean by this.”

“Shh,” Kes said. “Listen to me, shithead. Did you see the girl that’s here?”

“No,” Tito said, perking up. “Girl?”

“You’re married, dickwad,” Kes said, punching his arm. “Anyway shut up. I’m marrying that girl and she and I already worked it out but Norasol is insisting I gotta do it right.”

“You!” Tito said, astonished. “You’re marrying a girl!”

“Keep your fuckin’ voice down,” Kes said. “Xacristo, I can’t rely on you for anything, what is the point of asking—“

“Shh,” Tito said, laughing, “stars, man, you’re so dramatic. Shh. Hey. Fine. Really though? For real you’re marrying a girl? You’re like, nine, Kes.”

“I’m twenty-one,” Kes said.

“Next month,” Tito corrected him.

“Whatever,” Kes said, exasperated. “You married a girl who isn’t from here, what did you do?” He remembered the festival dinner, when Tito and Zia had done the ritual. Zia had seemed to figure it out pretty well.

“I rehearsed it with her,” Tito said. “I’m not crazy, I wasn’t going to take a chance on her just— I don’t know, figuring it out. That’s asking a lot.”

“Fuck,” Kes said. “Norasol told me it would be unspeakable bad luck to tell her anything. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Aw,” Tito said awkwardly, uncomfortable enough to be genuine, “I’m, uh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.“

buttons-beads-lace replied to your post

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I definitely didn’t notice the julie/julia thing, but um. finn has a thing about not crying? realistically I probably don’t want to read anything tearjerker-y right now, but that is an Interesting Idea, I theoretically want to read that, at least.

Yeah… I might settle down and write some porny interludes to continue the Found Cat AU series, because, well, because. 

So Finn was raised not to cry, so thoroughly they just trained it right out of him (a bit of characterization I stole from the Natasha Romanoff in my Full of Grace series, but think about it, child soldier raised from toddlerhood in extreme doctrine? also I like to recycle ideas it’s my Personal Brand ™ ). 

Meanwhile, Poe, as a man with a bunch of trauma and mental health issues who had a normal upbringing and so was told not to cry, but not trained out of it, kind of cries a lot. In Found Cat he cries on Finn’s shoulder at least once. I’m just saying, he’s a dude who sometimes cries, and it’s not inordinate or unwarranted. And if you throw in that he’s sort of lowkey a little bit of a sub, he probably cries during/after sex sometimes, that’s just a thing that’s going to go along with the whole package. He crygasms something fierce at least once, when Finn figures out how to put him under and bring him back when he needs it. 

Finn’s a little intrigued by it, but doesn’t think about it much. Poe, though: he picks up on it, and during a Bad Time (he has those; if solely The Power Of Love could fix that kind of thing, Lord knows Kes would have already) he decides that Finn must not cry because he hates crying, and therefore hates it that Poe cries so much, and therefore hates Poe because he cries, and it kind of spirals. (Hi did I give Poe my mental illness? No it turns out that sort of thing is super common, I looked it up. I mean, also yes, but no.) 

Finn finally figures out what Poe’s so cranky about, and tells him that the true reason he doesn’t cry is that he was conditioned not to and it’s fucked up and he hates it, and then of course Poe feels shitty for making Finn feel shitty about his issues etcetera, but they sort it out because that’s the entire premise of this AU, which is apparently founded on my kink of people talking things out like grownups. 

And then Poe asks if Finn wants to learn how to cry, and Finn cautiously gives him a maybe because honestly it would be sort of nice, it seems like such a human thing and it’s weird to be cut off from it and also it’s so pretty when Poe crygasms. So Poe dedicates himself to the study of how he could possibly get Finn off so hard he cries. 

Finn kind of stops thinking about it, and mostly if one of them is going to push the other one around in bed, he does it to Poe, because it does such a good job at getting Poe out of his head and resetting him, kind of, and it’s a good dynamic and makes them both happy (and gets them both off). But he has a rough day and Poe picks up on it and doesn’t hesitate; he asks cursorily for permission, and Finn gives it, and then Poe gives him a really expert and judicious combo of sexual torture and orgasm denial, really pulls out all the stops, and draws it out really long, and finally when he’s pretty sure he’s about to die, Finn has the orgasm of his life and cries like a baby for, like, an hour afterward, and Poe holds him through it and feeds him junk food and spoils the shit out of him and praises and pets him and Finn sort of feels like he’s been reborn after that.

He also cries like five times in the next two days, at all kinds of unlikely things, and astonishes himself with it, and terrifies Rey; she knows how to cry but does it only in anger and has zero context for this sort of thing. It settles down, soon enough, but he and Poe are a bit switchier after that. And they do have a lot of vanilla sex. But sometimes. Just sometimes. Y’know. 

Is it an eggsperience or a restaurant? I mean. (believe it or...

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Is it an eggsperience or a restaurant? I mean. (believe it or not it’s got a chandelier and cloth napkins, Kenmore doesn’t mess around) (at Eggsperience Vasilis)

lookninjas: So hey. My brain is in kind of a ferment right now, a mad dash to find something,...

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lookninjas:

So hey.

My brain is in kind of a ferment right now, a mad dash to find something, anything to do to make some kind of small difference, and also finding some way to fucking scream out some of the fury and frustration and deep, bitter hurt that I’m feeling.  Me being me, I keep cycling back to this idea of Cassandra, standing inside the walls of Troy, saying “Don’t you dare bring that wooden horse in here,” and everything that of course came after.  And I like the idea of writing something on that theme, and maybe putting it out there to sell and then donating the proceeds to a charity or a few charities, because fuck knows we’ll need them to help us through the long roads ahead.

And knowing that I have a lot of people out there who are probably feeling the same way and might be interested in working on this or a similar project, I thought I’d open this up and see if anyone wants to take part.  The way that fandoms have put together little books of art/stories for themselves or as a way of thanking the creators – I thought we could do something like that.  Given that the Trojan War is public domain, there wouldn’t be copyright concerns.  We could get a whole lot of art and poetry and essays and fiction together, and whatever doesn’t go to publishing our little books could go to one charity or an agreed-upon list of charities.

Anyway I figured it was worth it enough to put the concept out there and see if I got any feedback.  So if this sounds like a thing you’d be interested in, whether as a creator or as someone who has practical experience in getting shit printed and/or setting up the financials so that the money goes where we want it to go (not to mention making sure there are contracts in place so the writers and creators have their rights respected), please send me an ask or a message of some kind and let me know.  And if you’re not interested but you still think this could be a thing worth doing, then reblog it and maybe someone else will be.

buttons-beads-lace replied to your post

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you definitely should repost them here. I liked when you posted other old (?) non-fiction-y things, like, there were some about conversations with your friends?

Oh yes– K stories, the little essays I wrote based on conversations with the one friend I’d spent a lot of time with that year, with the fascinating life story. 

I never did repost the ones I wrote about his experiences as a diver at an underwater life theme park (I’m trying not to use the brand name, LOL)– they’re lost somewhere in my Tumblr archives from around that time. I loved those stories, though.

this-is-furious said: I just love your style. Even in a short thing like this it somehow comes through.

Thanks!

I really should, one of these days, go back through some of my *really* old works and try to figure out when I developed my “style”; I still don’t really think of myself as having one, but I definitely do, and one of the things I let myself fall deep into fanfic in order to work on was trying to make characters who can speak and not sound just like me. 

Here’s another one, from May 2005: 

Bacardi and Coke with a Lime

He’s sitting at the bar. I’m leaning on the corner of the bar. We’re watching TV.
Celebrity gossip show informs us that Angelina Jolie is single.
“Sweet!” I say. “I have a chance!”
“That’s just what my wife said,” he answers.

ACLU STATEMENT ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

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shinelikethunder:

shinelikethunder:

things-that-are-great:

NEW YORK — In response to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, had the following statement:

“For nearly 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all, no matter who is president. Our role is no different today.

“President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation’s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.”

“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of card-carrying supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.”

“One thing is certain: we will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency and when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor.”

You can donate to the ACLU and/or join in their actions help them with the fight to defend the freedoms of those who need it most.  

All those posts talking about how we can fight– this is one good way to do it.

If you want a cause to contribute to in the aftermath of this wretched election, the ACLU is one of your best bets. They cover a wide variety of issues, and they get RESULTS. They are fighting in your corner, they punch way above their weight class, and there is nothing they love more than fucking authoritarians’ shit up.
They’re also a long-beloved, nonpartisan, well-organized Civic Institution™ with a variety of ways to contribute. Dollars, volunteer hours, legal aid, participation in local letter-writing campaigns and petitions, signal boosting, swinging by their online store and picking up a pocket Constitution, etc. The ACLU is basically one-stop shopping for where the meaningful battles are and what you can do to help just about every group–and every civil right–Donald Trump is about to try and fuck over.

Seriously, though. If you’re feeling helpless, frustrated, like nothing you do or say or contribute could even help restrain the 2016 political dumpster fire, let alone strike a decisive blow, you might want to take a stroll through the ACLU’s greatest hits.

You may have heard of Loving v Virginia?

Or the Scopes monkey trial?

How about a little court case called Roe v Wade?

Or fucking every precedent-setting free speech case in the history of ever, including New York Times v Sullivan, aka those libel laws Trump wants to “open up” so he can sue people who say mean things about him into silence. Buddy, that’s not how the Force the Constitution works.

Or basic safeguards like the right to a lawyer for indigent defendants (Gideon v Wainwright), the inadmissibility of evidence obtained by illegal searches (Mapp v Ohio), public schools not being Constitution-free zones (Tinker v Des Moines), being informed of your right to remain silent before the police can wring incriminating statements out of you (Miranda v Arizona), the Constitutional right to privacy (Griswold v Connecticut, in the specific context of contraceptive bans)…

Lawrence v Texas: states can no longer make gay sex illegal (2001). Goodridge v Department of Public Health: gay marriage in Massachusetts (2003). Obergefell v Hodges: gay marriage nationwide (2015).

Fuck yes I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. THEY GET SHIT DONE. They’ve been a thorn in the side of powerful bullies since 1920, and if Donald Trump tries to make good on even a fraction of his campaign promises, I will take enormous pleasure in being there to help the ACLU fucking rip him to itty-bitty wannabe-totalitarian shreds.

Upper photo: strange lump on couch that has been there for three...

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Upper photo: strange lump on couch that has been there for three hours. Lower photo: slightly-offended contents of lump. I did not dare reshoot blurry photo.