kaizoku

Guys, 5 acts is back again and it's super low pressure, you just write down some kinks and people write comment fic for you. Yay! I have a ton of ideas of things to write, now I just need to get down to it. (Note to self: you are not allowed to do any more canon rewatch just to write comment fic.)

femslash12 stories are out! The masterlist is up here.

My favorite one so far: cupid's got a gun by lastwingedthing, which is Teen Wolf, Lydia Martin/Ms Morell (played by Bianca Lawson aka the woman who doesn't age.) But it's really about Lydia and how she's strong and smart and she can't really deal with what's happened but she can do fucking magic and keep her head up. Basically this is what I want for Lydia - to see her come back from being someone else's pawn/object. And Ms Morell works really well as a mentor, someone who can keep up with Lydia and cares about her and won't lie to her. It's just brilliant, beautifully written, sweet and sad and hopeful. And the whole teacher/student thing is dealt with in the best possible way if that is a squick. GO GO READ IT.

Aaand... it is way past time for me to go to bed. The boy is sick with a cold and I really need to try to avoid getting sick too. But I was determined to post this before I get busy and forget.

At some point I will make the post about what is going on with my life these days (I has jobs!) and try to catch up with folks. I do not understand what LJ has done to filters - every time I try to read my flist, I am pulled into the vortex of fanficrants or something like that. I'm guessing that means it's time to do some housekeeping. Ehhhh.

Fellow media fan and trans man boi4eliza has his first album coming out! You might remember James from those incredibly catchy bandom songs that he wrote and sung himself: OTP, Pint-sized Romeo, and Boy in the Trucker Cap. The album is a mix of acoustic and rock, and what I've heard so far sounds awesome!

James is also planning to put all the profits from the CD towards his chest surgery. In case you don't know, in most places insurance companies won't cover surgery that trans people need to transition. Despite this, it's often impossible to legally change your gender without having had surgery.* Insurance companies defend this practice by saying it's only "cosmetic surgery." But for many trans men this is an essential medical procedure in order to live their lives fully, without (or with less of) the despair and distress of body dysphoria, the pain of daily binding, and the fear of not passing. For a singer - someone who makes a living from their voice - it's even more freeing.

So far, James has had a hard time getting his announcement into both trans and bandom communities. If you can help with this or just pass on the word via your journal, that would be amazing.

MORE INFO ON THE ALBUM AND HOW TO ORDER HERE.

If you're in the States, jarrow is doing a mass shipping order: GO HERE IF YOU WANT FREE SHIPPING AND YOU'RE IN THE U.S.

Finally, to give this a little boost, if you comment here and say you want a copy of the CD, I will put your name in a hat and WHOEVER I PICK OUT OF IT WILL GET A FREE COPY, care of me. Awesome, y/y? The deadline to put your name in is Monday September 28 at midnight EST. (And this one goes for anyone, whether you live in the States or not. Please also leave your email if it's not easily findable.)

*I don't know exactly what James' situation is wrt insurance and legal stuff (and it's not my place to ask) but nearly all trans people face huge obstacles to getting surgery. I think this is unjust and believe that trans people should try to support each other's attempts to pay for surgery whenever possible.

This Merlin fanart by korilian is gorgeous and more people need to see it.

That is all.

I just missed the cut-off for porn battle prompts with my last set by ten minutes. I had all my OT4 prompts in there so I'm really hoping... *crosses fingers* We'll see tomorrow morning.

There's so much SGA OT4 love going on right now. team_sga is having a month-long AU ficathon. Already, there's a really awesome story by briar_pipe with the team as kids. And (unconnected to the ficathon) there's ladycat777's wonderful OT4 story with a pregnant Teyla and an uncertain John. ♥

Fandom fests

12 Days of Teyla Love-a-Thon hosted by tielan - starts today! There's optional prompts for each day and you don't have to sign up to post fic/art.

Rodney is Lovely Festival hosted by sheafrotherdon

rounds_of_kink is having a mini-round January 1-11. There's two kinks (immobilization and wall!sex) and a few prompts, you can mix and match. Any fandom, 100 word minimum and no max, sign-up is optional but appreciated. Also, an Amnesty Round (post anything you didn't finish before) is coming up January 18-20th.

Also, fic_off - the community that helps you finish off WIPs in January! Sign up here

Coming soon: Character of Color Love-a-thon on choc_fic - prompts for Feb 1-14 and Feb 15-29.

Rec

Worth by bitterfig
The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle, Molly Grue/Lady Amalthea
The tone is so like the book and makes some wry commentary in a similar (if slightly less subtle) way as Beagle. Lady Amalthea tries to understand love and comes to some unexpected conclusions. (The slash is quite light, so don't let the pairing put you off.)

There'll be more Yuletide recs later, but I'm too tired now.

Panels for Insecurity Comics! (The awesome Dinosaur Comics fic someone wrote for Yuletide.) By lcsbanana and the author. So much awesome! Fandom, ILU.

4 more recs:

Look Up - Ma Vie En Rose. Chris and Ludo, a little older.

Miss Ambrose - House of Wax. Carly/Nick.

As Many as Stars in the Sky - Neverending Story, another untold story (don't have to know the canon.)

Highway Lessons - Wise Child. (I haven't read the books in a long time but this still worked.)

I'm sitting in the Concord, NH library right now using one of their computers. Holidays have been great (spent my birthday and Christmas at home and went to the boy's family yesterday) and I'm on my way home now (boy is going to Boston for the week.) I'm basically computerless right now but I'm thinking about buying a mac laptop. Planning to buy online, but, of course, that's a little tricky when I don't have computer access... If anyone has recommendations, I'd be happy to hear them (when I can get online again.) I'm looking in the $1000-and-under range - so far, mostly on Small Dog Electronics and amazon.com...

But guess what? MY YULETIDE STORY IS AWESOME!

Triangulation is a Burn Notice story and it's a Fiona/Michael/Sam triangle and it's wonderful and smart and awesome and makes me like all of them all the more. I would rave about it more if I had time.

I haven't read too many others yet, but here's some I liked:
Heart's Desire (Stardust, focuses on Dunstan)

Insecurity Comics (Dinosaur Comics fandom. It wins. It just SOUNDS like the comics!)

Paradigm Shift (History Boys, Dakin/Irwin. I love stories where the dynamics between two characters change like this. Lovely.)

Bartimaeus's Side of the Story (Bartimaeus Trilogy, gen, Ptolemy is in love with an afrit. Mucho awesome.)

My reading lately has been sparse, but I very much enjoyed these:

Limits by miera_c
(Sheppard/Lorne, second time, back on Earth, porny)

Reconnaisance by franticsga
(McKay/Sheppard gen, post-4x02 Lifeline)

Command Structure by Kat Reitz and Tzigane
(McKay/Sheppard, long and porny, bdsm, "when they were young")

Students of Hope (though I have it bookmarked as "Separated for years..." - oops) by scrunchy
(McKay/Sheppard gen, angsty, back on Earth, includes Carson, Elizabeth, Lorne, and Zelenka.)

Does anyone have any good angst stories or recs? My absolute favorite SGA angst is Charting the Motions of the Planets by Dasha. I'm sure there's many others I've enjoyed but my memory is a little foggy. And I forget to mark things as "angst" when I bookmark them. (I ask because I am trying to write something angsty. In this endeavor, penknife's essay On Writing Angst has been helpful. Another resource I've been using a lot lately is How to Construct Alternate Universes that Work as Fanfic by Rat Creature, which I consult whenever betaing crossovers.)

Some of my favorites from the current round of rounds_of_kink. They turned out to all be slash...

Due South
In My Best Friend's Bed by aingeal8c - Fraser/Vecchio, NC-17, buddy-sex.

House
House Rules by niektete - House/Wilson, R, very funny.

Prison Break
Tail by niektete - Michael/T-Bag, NC-17, NON-CON, rimming. Also funny.

SGA
Still a Kiss by allyndra - McKay/Sheppard, R, amnesia fic

Torchwood
Dead Man’s Float by silentflux - Jack/Ianto, PG-13ish, unrequited love(?)

My parents got back today back from Svalbard (they saw polar bears!) and they brought me Norwegian candy called daim (pronounced "dime.") It's hard caramel covered in chocolate. Mmmm, so good.

So, I finally got to watch "Sateda" tonight. I don't have much commentary other than to say that I think rivier hit the nail on the head about what they're doing to Rodney, I liked reading hth's take on Ronon and implications for Ronon/John and Ronon/Rodney, and toft_froggy made some interesting points about who wins the "most fucked up" award, John or Rodney. I love commentary! And for Sateda tagfic, my favorite has to be Replay by khohen1. Apparently Kavan Smith was supposed to play the part of that major - this is a rewrite with him in that role and it's so, so much better.