It Started with a Journal

random assortment

Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:17:41 GMT

Apparently, the Arnold voice on Waze was only for a limited time. :( Now it's back to the boring voice selections from before. I wish you could install your own voices. I'm sure someone somewhere would find a way to bring the Terminator back.

*****

I've been working every evening on the outline for my book, but I'm starting to get nervous because I don't see an end in sight. I don't know how to bring it all to a conclusion! So I just keep having stuff happen, that the characters then need to react to... but what's the payoff moment? Or the ultimate conclusion? I DON'T KNOW.

*****

jade_okelani and I watched -- well, partially watched -- the leaked pilot episode of Lucifer, which stars an actor we both love, Tom Ellis. I am sad to report that the show is TERRIBLE. Or rather, that the pilot is terrible. It's loosely based on a comic book character from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman? No way. If by "loosely" they mean "to the point of no resemblance at all" then sure. It's seriously awful. You know those "paint by numbers" books for kids and adults with no artistic talent whatsoever (me)? It was the TV show version of that. It's like every single detective show ever -- Castle, Dexter, Psych, Forever, etc. -- only with Lucifer in the detective role. Except unlike those other shows, there is absolutely nothing charming or unique about it. Well, okay, Tom Ellis is charming, but even he can't make this dreck work. Every character is predictable, the lines are cheesy, the situations retreads... ugh. Of course the tough lady cop is immune to his Satanic charms (which are murkily established, so they can change course and make other shit up later, I'm sure). And of course she's a tough lady cop. And of course, even though he's the effing DEVIL, within the first episode we already see him care about someone (who of course gets killed, which sparks his desire to detect stuff), a total random character, which means the devil caring about someone isn't even a special thing -- which you'd think it would be. And given his powers, why the hell (pardon the pun) would he need the help of any human beings at all? And yet he's all excited that the cop will let him tag along on her investigation? UGH.

I sort of want the show to succeed, if only to spite right-wing Christian groups who are criticizing it for "glorifying Satan." They're actually doing the show a favor by creating all this publicity about it and making people like me want it to succeed. If they'd just shut their traps, the show would go away on its own because it is legit terrible. Maybe if it gets really good later I can give it another shot, but it's starting from such a low place I don't know if it can improve that much. There are certain shows that are right on the cusp of being decent/watchable, and just need the right push, but this isn't one of them.

*****

jade_okelani has never seen Psych, and I haven't seen the last season or two, but to wash the taste of Lucifer from our mouths we started watching it. I remember being "meh" on the show initially, but the beginning is better than I remember... maybe because in comparison to Lucifer it's completely brilliant, but more likely because I already know and like the characters this time around. :))

*****

Due to adelagia's bad influence, and YouTube vids, I've been experimenting with a lot of hair products recently (it's fun!). I'm a new fan of using a flat iron to curl one's hair. It's quick and easy, and burning myself isn't a high probability.

I've also now used a curling wand, which is basically a curling iron without the clamp. ( The good and bad. )

( Some products I've used recently! )

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post-Thanksgiving post

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 19:33:54 GMT

Had to get up extra early today to run a colleague's meeting for him. And I didn't sleep well. So now I'm dead on my feet. ZzZZzzzzz...

That video. OMG. Dying from laughter.

My week off for the Thanksgiving holiday was AWESOME. And short, too short. I was looking forward to meeting adelagia and slitherhither for lunch on Sunday, but I was also appalled when it rolled around so quickly. Work the next day, NOOOOOOOOOO!!

I did some good shopping this week. I found an unbelievably awesome North Face jacket at Plato's Closet that was like new for $50. It retails for nearly $400.

I didn't bother to go out to any retail stores this year for Black Friday, but managed to snag a couple of deals anyway through Amazon. And I was able to do it through the comfort of my own home, in my jammies!

Probably the best deal I got was this TV. It's a Seiki 40" 1080p LED TV that I snagged for $169. When I bought it I had imagined using it as an especially awesome monitor. Then I realized I was certifiable. It would be like two feet from my face! So now it's set up in the guest room.

Also, I finally bought a sewing machine. I've never sewed in my life. I kind of thought that it would be a thing that was fairly self explanatory, at least what I'd be using it for (hemming jeans). Except after taking it out of the box and watching from YouTube vids on how they work, I feel like it would require me to get an engineering degree to operate. There are so many terms that I have NO CLUE what they mean. I now know of the existence of things like presser feet. What do they do? Why do there need to be different ones? Which one would I use to hem jeans? These are all questions to which I have no answers. And that's only about presser feet. Don't even get me started on the other stuff. Now it appears that I'm going to have to take some sewing classes, as I learn better by doing than reading or watching.

I was even productive over the holiday! I put together my new elliptical and have even used it a couple of times.

And I have been doing some writing -- I'm about 10k words into an original story! It's the most I have ever written of an original story, so this is a significant milestone for me. We'll see how far I actually can get with it, but at the moment it actually feels like something I'll be able to finish (fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc).

Due to my new love of Theo James, I've been watching the now-canceled CBS series Golden Boy. I actually really like it. I'd never even heard of it until it was already canceled and was looking at Theo James' filmography on Wikipedia.

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FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (9/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:46:26 GMT

FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (8/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:03:59 GMT

FIC: Chasing the Light (4/4) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:20:07 GMT

Title: Chasing the Light (AO3)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: PG-13

Summary: A mission that goes awry tests two assassins and their partnership.

If you missed them: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

( Read part four. )

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FIC: Chasing the Light (3/4) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:15:39 GMT

FIC: Chasing the Light (2/4) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 06:35:37 GMT

FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (7/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:01:45 GMT

FIC: Chasing the Light (1/4) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:19:11 GMT

Now that all has been revealed, I'm going to be posting my be_compromised Secret Santa Exchange story here for archival/anal completist purposes. If you read the fic at the comm, this one is nearly entirely the same. But because I can never leave anything well enough alone, I'm going through it again and finding little nitpicks that I'm fixing. >.> There shouldn't be anything significantly different.

Title: Chasing the Light (AO3)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Clint/Natasha
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson, Original Characters
Author's Notes: Apologies for the long notes, but I have a lot of people to thank! This story was written for ittykat as part of the be_compromised Secret Santa Exchange. My prompt can be found at the end of the story; I don’t want to give away too much at the beginning! :-)

Thanks go out to a number of lovely ladies: anuna_81 and cybermathwitch for running a great exchange, ittykat for the fun and challenging prompt(s), daxcat79 for the awesome banner below, and my two tireless betas, jade_okelani and adelagia. Without Jade, I don’t know if this story would have gotten written. Parts of this story gave me fits while writing, and whenever I encounter a roadblock, I tend to avoid writing altogether. But she gave me daily writing assignments and encouragement, and little by little, it got done. Adelagia helped me remove one of those early roadblocks. I could not, for the life of me, figure out a way to do what I wanted to do, and on one of our foodie trips up to Vancouver we talked it through and she helped me find a solution. Hurrah! And of course, that’s on top of the beta duties they both took on after the story was done (when they both independently said that I needed to add a scene or two at the end, I agreed with their wisdom immediately. OK no, I kicked and whined and resisted, but ended up listening to them anyway, and of course now the story is better). I am blessed to have two such good friends who allow me to abuse them in this manner.

Summary: A mission that goes awry tests two assassins and their partnership.

( Read the story. )

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FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (6/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:47:51 GMT

I swear I used to be more interesting...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:01:52 GMT

...or at least made myself post regardless.

1) Work is still insane. I don't even want to get into it except to say that I am a stressball almost all of the time. I haven't been on Tumblr in WEEKS -- that should tell you something right there.

2) I'm also stressing about my Secret Santa fic. It's LESS THAN A MONTH BEFORE IT'S DUE OMG. I just have zero inspiration to write. I mostly know what I want to DO with the story, which is better than where I was two weeks ago, but still. Why can't computers just read the pictures in our brains, then spit out words to describe those pictures? It would make writing so much easier. >.>

3) For those of you who have Xboxes -- first, I hope you are taking full advantage of its free abilities, both gaming and non-gaming. I loooooove using my Xbox as a multimedia beast. Second, if you've ever considered Xbox LIVE Gold subscription (which costs, for a year, less than what you'd pay for about 4 months of World of Warcraft), but aren't sure if you actually want to get it, it's being unlocked this weekend. Actually, it started this morning and will run through Sunday. What that means is that you can just sign in per usual with your free Xbox LIVE account, and all the Gold features will be available to you to check out.

4) I recently watched Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, which is basically an 80-minute movie broken up into five parts. It was really, really good -- surprisingly so. I'm not a Halo player and barely knew any of the story when I watched, but I still totally got into it. It reminded me of BSG, in a good way -- it's just excellent sci fi. The main male star is pretty cute, and the main female star is Anna Popplewell, whom most people know as Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia. There's a cute friendship between them.

It was originally posted as a Web series on YouTube, but only the first two parts are available there now, probably because it's going to be released on Blu-ray in less than a week (and I'll probably get it). The other parts are still available on DailyMotion at the moment. Here's the first part (I recommend watching the series in 1080p):

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

They created it as a promotion for the Halo 4 game, but again, you don't need to know anything about Halo to enjoy the series, and it's complete with the 5 parts. (Just think of it as a movie broken up into 5 segments.) It's gotten great acclaim from the fanbase as well as critics, and I'm here to tell you -- IT'S FAB. Waaaaaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiiit.

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FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (5/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:04:35 GMT

FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (4/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:41:56 GMT

FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (3/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:36:46 GMT

Title: Wet Hot Avengers Summer
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: PG-13, for teenagers getting up to what teenagers get up to
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Tony/Pepper, Thor/Jane, minor Clint/Bobbi and Phil/Cellist, Clint & Coulson, Clint & Tony

Summary: At summer camp, Clint’s met the girl of his dreams. Then he meets her four brothers.

This part, which I managed to get ready earlier than intended, is dedicated to Al-theFreak, who drew some awesome fanart for this story! Yeah... if your dogs were cowering at some point it was because I let out a very loud sound only they could hear.

If you missed them: Part 1 | Part 2

( Read part three. )

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FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (2/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:52:44 GMT

FIC: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (1/9) | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:18:08 GMT

Title: Wet Hot Avengers Summer (AO3)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: PG-13, for teenagers getting up to what teenagers get up to
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Tony/Pepper, Thor/Jane, minor Clint/Bobbi and Phil/Cellist, Clint & Coulson, Clint & Tony
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Jane Foster, Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Thor, Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner
Author's Notes: Pre-Avengers. Like, waaaaaay pre-Avengers. Also AU. Waaaaaaaay AU. They're teenagers at summer camp. For the purposes of making this work, the characters are nearly all around the same age. Total fluffy crackfic. This was supposed to be written for the be_compromised promptathon, but... yeah... I waved at that deadline as it blew past. But the prompt was from inkvoices: Kid/Teenage AU: Clint is at a music camp and either Natasha is too, or she's at dance camp or martial arts camp on the other side of the lake – except I made it the same camp and they’re in different classes and everyone co-mingles. The title comes from the movie Wet Hot American Summer, but isn’t any kind of crossover or inspiration, other than that it is also about summer camp. Many thanks to jade_okelani, who's betaing this for me, though she'll more than likely live to regret it. ~~I'm pretty sure there's going to be eight parts.~~ Okay, I lied. Nine parts.

Summary: At summer camp, Clint’s met the girl of his dreams. Then he meets her four brothers.

( Read the story. )

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more Veronica Mars vids + writing update

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:30:10 GMT

I'm still on my Veronica Mars rewatch kick. There are many vids out there, most of which are mediocre. Partly that's because they're from 3-5 years ago, and of course, vid quality back then was pretty poor.

The "We Are Young" vid I shared in my last post is still the best gen vid I've found. (Speaking of, the vid makers don't say whose cover it is, but I drove myself crazy trying to find out, and I think I've figured it out. I think it's a manipulated version of Glee's cover. Which blows my mind, because I didn't particularly care for their cover of that song, but this manipulated version of their cover? I might love even more than fun.'s ORIGINAL version. WEIRD.)

I've dug through the muck and found a few others that are really worth sharing. Oh how I envy you guys getting to watch these for the first time! ;) I hope you like them as much as I did.

( LoVe-focused vid that will make your heart ache, in a good way. )

( LoVe-focused vid that will tear your heart to shreds. Oh, LOGAN. )

( And now for something a little more upbeat. Veronica Mars is a badass. And CUTE. I have such a girl crush on Kristen Bell. )

In Avengers news, I have finally finished the draft of that story I've been working on! Hallelujah! I just need to majorly edit it and get it beta'ed, and then it will be ready to post, lol. Also I need to start deciding what the hell I'm going to write for the Secret Santa exchange. >.>

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FIC: Punching in a Dream | Clint/Natasha | NC-17 | The Avengers

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:24:25 GMT

Title: Punching in a Dream (AO3)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Clint/Natasha
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson, OCs
Author's Notes: A pre-Avengers mission for Clint and Natasha that is basically an excuse for them to get it on. Light BDSM. Thanks tons to adelagia and laria_gwyn for swooping in with their quick beta work. I'd kind of forgotten how embarrassing it is to get beta on smut. >.> Title comes from a song by The Naked and Famous.

Summary: To maintain their cover, Natasha asks Clint to treat her a little more roughly than he normally likes.

( Read the story. )

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this entry is all over the place

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:26:27 GMT

Okay, so I have this epic fic planned wherein I use like a dozen different prompts from the be_compromised promptathon. I have an outline planned out and everything. But it's SO big and daunting that I don't know if I can actually write it -- at least with any kind of speed. And I kind of feel like speed is important, because I don't really want to use a prompt that's been done (and probably very well) before. >< I mean, given the amount of time and effort that would be involved to tell the story I want to tell, seriously, I don't want to produce something that's just a retread of someone else's work. But I can't stop thinking about the story. For this I blame allisnow, whose "friends with benefits" prompt got the muse whispering in my ear. I wrote a big old "friends with benefits" story in my XF days, and I have always loved the concept and would love to apply it to Clint/Natasha, but... yeah. Start from the beginning of this paragraph and go in an endless circle.

And before even tackling that, I'd really like to get this other story I have written edited and posted, but Jade has been super busy lately so hasn't had time to beta it. And I just can't post a story (not a drabble) without that; everything in me rebels at the thought. No posting unbetaed stories. Period.

Last night I indulged in a spending spree, buying an Avengers-related t-shirt that I've been wanting for awhile (what kept stopping me is the idea of paying $20 for a t-shirt. No t-shirt should cost more than $5 imho, lol). Once I get it, a photo will be forthcoming. Then I bought a gazillion Blu-rays/DVDs, basically to round out my Jeremy Renner collection. I'm still missing Take, Fish in a Barrel, Thor, and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, but I have most of the others now. A photo of all of them will also be forthcoming. I also preordered The Avengers. The end of September is soooooo far awaaaaay.

For Mortal Instruments fans... this is something worth reading, imho. Cassie recently made (or rather, re-made) this post on Tumblr, regarding "Magnus and whitewashing." ( Going to copy the full text here, because I think it's important. )

She's completely right, and after reading it I felt vaguely ashamed for ever wanting Robert Sheehan to play Magnus. I even said, not too many posts ago, that I thought he was perfect "other than the fact that he isn't Asian." I guess it's because there are so few Asian American actors being given work, period, especially in that age group, that not one single appropriate actor occurred to me. And yes, other than not being Asian, Robert Sheehan did fit my idea of what Magnus would be like: tall, thin, fabulous.

But I shouldn't have lessened the importance of his ethnicity, given that I am Asian American myself, and should be supporting minority characters, given how few of them there are. And especially because it would seem, just like from the Rue situation from Hunger Games, that some faction of people are confused as to why they would hire an Asian actor (or in Rue's case, a black actress). Never mind that BOTH OF THOSE CHARACTERS are fully described by the author as being Asian and black, respectively. Do those people just not know how to read, or is it just so ingrained in them to think of all people/characters being white that they can't imagine any differently, despite being outright told so, and multiple times in the books? It boggles the mind.

Anyway, this was the bit that got to me most: Technically, Magnus is biracial. I would be perfectly happy with a biracial actor playing him — but otherwise the option is an Asian actor, not a white actor. It doesn't matter if any of Magnus' background is white. Casting him white would erase that part of his background that is Asian. And important. There are plenty of roles out there for white actors. Most roles are for white actors. This is not one of them. There is very little I have control over as regards casting. I cannot pick an actor for Magnus. I don't have that ability. But I can say, and say strongly, that I want them to cast an Asian or half-Asian actor, and I did. It is pretty much the one ironclad demand as regards casting that I have made, i.e.: if you don't cast an Asian actor, I'll never talk about this movie again, nor will I see it.

I should've felt that strongly about it myself from the get go, but sadly I'm also somewhat cynical when it comes to Hollywood, been let down countless of times before, so rather than take up my pitchfork about something I figured was probably inevitable (that they'd just cast however they wanted to, with no regard to "how it's supposed to be"), I just let it slide. But I am super glad that she made a stand about it -- any kind of stand, really, because hardly anyone ever does, and the fact that it's just accepted (by myself included) is disappointing and sad.

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FIC: The Observable Universe | Clint/Natasha, Gen | PG-13 | The Avengers

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 09:04:32 GMT

Title: The Observable Universe (AO3)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane, Tony/Pepper
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Jane Foster, Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Thor, Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner
Author's Notes: Or... 5 times Jane saw Natasha do something mundane (and one time she saw her do something extraordinary). Or... the Avengers drink. A lot. Or... almost 10K words' worth of fluff, I do what I want. Basically, another "third person POV on Clint and Natasha" story. I'm not sorry. Also there's genfic after hours fun with the other Avengers. So much love and thanks to jade_okelani, without whom I'd never get off my duff to finish any story. And she betas! And brainstorms crazy plots! And takes down notes when I'm busy driving us to a casino! And gives me writing deadlines! She's a multi-purpose unit, the latest in fanfic technology from Stark Industries.

Summary: As an astrophysicist, Jane studies the observable universe for work, but in her free time what she likes to study is a bit closer to home. (Or: Jane has a low tolerance for stupidity. Clint and Natasha take exception to being called stupid.)

( Read the story. )

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Sorry this is so long. At some point I gave up trying to keep it short.

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:51:16 GMT

Avengers fandom things.

* If you're into Clint/Natasha, or might be into Clint/Natasha but aren't sure, or have already been or have been wanting to get into fandom, there's a promptathon going on at the C/N comm here. Meet some people, leave some prompts (which you can do this whole week). Or if you're a hermit like me, don't meet people and just leave prompts. :)) Seriously, the more prompts, the better. If you aren't sure about the ship and want to read a certain kind of story to see if you can get into it, leave a prompt. If you love the ship and want to see some GP thing, leave a prompt. Prompt filling starts at the end of this week, and it's a very casual thing. All prompts are open to any kind of fanwork, and can be used by more than one artist.

* Avengers Assemble #5. The Natasha/Bucky shippers went apeshit on Tumblr because of this and this. I made a comment that I hoped the comic would continue to go in that direction, and I got a couple of eye-roll inducing PMs from Natasha/Bucky shippers/trolls that made me temporarily turn off anonymous mail. They both said something along the lines of, "It's not going to happen, this was an OOC moment. Natasha is dating Bucky and Clint is with Jessica." Oh yes, because in fiction and in real life, there's no such thing as breaking up. Especially in comics. They're all super faithful and never get it on with other people and are involved in permanent unions. Seriously? We haven't gotten to a place yet where we can just let other people ship what they want to ship, even if we might disagree with or hate it? Is it just because Tumblr's full of teenagers? I guess I'm just too old and have been involved in fandom in general for too long (~13 years). Flame wars are stupid and pointless. Ship what you fucking want to ship and let others do the same, jesus.

* I have written two whole stories! They both need editing like crazy, then beta after that, but it is exciting just to have finished a story (much less two). Regular writing is a skill that's evaded me for so long that I thought I'd never get it back. But thanks to a little "program" Jade's helping me with, I seem to be back in the rhythm of writing. It's a good feeling, even if what I produce is crap. I'm slowly getting over the stress and pressure of feeling like I have to produce something better than anything I've written before. I need to get back in the mindset of writing for me, writing things I want to read, and to hell with everyone else. Well, you know, not really, I love everyone else. But you know what I mean.

* Ohmygod, I just love RDJ. He showed up at Comic Con to judge a kids' Iron Man costume contest. My favorite bits:

:)))))))))))))

* Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier. I am... cautiously extremely excited about this. :D ( I kind of went on about this longer than I intended. )

In non-Avengers news:

* In the past few days I have baked three loaves of bread using Cooks Illustrated's Almost No-Knead Bread recipe, and it's been a rousing success. I may never make bread any other way again.

* I've started watching Leverage. Shhh don't tell Jade. Unless she happens to see this. :)) I'm planning on telling her once I've finished S1. My problem with the show is that it's too caper-y. I don't like capers -- or at least, not enough to watch hours and hours of it (one movie, like Ocean's 11, is about my limit). All the resolutions are so convenient that the plots don't hold my interest, because none of it really seems to matter much. It'll all get fixed in the end in some easy way. Plus I'm not a Timothy Hutton fan. I do like Christian Kane (though he's so much puffier than his days on Angel, and I'm not into his long hair), and I like Eliot & Hardison, but I don't know if I like them enough to watch the show just for them (they're no Troy & Abed). I like Sophie okay, but she's Nate's love interest, and I'm meh about Parker as a character. Of course, these are all thoughts from the first half of S1 so I could change my tune.

* I'm going to start watching Psych because T. is totally into it and I want to see what the fuss is about.

* I finally finished all of House. Boy were those final three seasons torturous. ( Possibly spoilery comments. )

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FIC: Lifeline | Clint/Natasha | R | The Avengers

Sun, 27 May 2012 18:17:15 GMT

Title: Lifeline (AO3 link)
Author: sarea_okelani
Rating: R
Pairing: Clint/Natasha
Author's Notes: This is fairly lighthearted in tone. I've been reading some dark, angsty things and while I love dark, angsty things, and may write something dark and angsty eventually, this is not that story. This asked (nicely) to be written first, so I did. A lot of the backstory is my headcanon. There's so much comic book canon, some of which contradicts itself, and some of which the movie has contradicted, so I felt free to deviate a bit too. :-) In the movie, I think Natasha wears her heart on her sleeve a bit – okay, maybe not her sleeve, maybe someplace a little more hidden, but the point is that she cares for Clint, she wasn't particularly subtle about it, and it doesn't take a Tony Stark to see it. :-) This story is for that Natasha. Many thanks to ropo, who brings up Very Important Points such as "In the covers, or over the covers?" and jade_okelani, who always manages to talk me off the ledge. Lyrics by Angels & Airwaves.

( Summary: In the aftermath of Manhattan, Clint tries to remember what 'normal' was like, but Natasha's not making it easy. )

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FIC: What She Owes | Clint/Natasha | PG-13 | The Avengers

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:17:21 GMT

Title: What She Owes (AO3 link)
Author: sarea_okelani
Pairing/Characters: Clint/Natasha (aka BlackHawk!)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 550
Summary: She can't pinpoint the exact moment her hopes were razed.

Author's notes: Just a short interlude with Natasha when she's regaining her bearings after scuffling with the Hulk.

( Read 'What She Owes.' )

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The world goin' one way, people another, yo.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:47:52 GMT

Hello LJ chums! I find myself in a very good mood because it's FRIDAY and I'm looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow adelagia and I are going to Boiling Point, and then there will be gameage. Last week we ROCKED the game of Pandemic that we played. That's right, we saved the whole world from disease and no one even realized it... it's like we're real superheroes.

I lost to the esteemed carrie_leigh in the last round of the Hump Bracket Challenge, so here are the drabbles I wrote. It was really fun to participate, and I got to stretch a bit and practice writing outside my comfort zone. Great experience.

( Round One: 'Keeping Promises' | Marcus Flint, Katie Bell, Draco Malfoy, Adrian Pucey | PG-13 )

( Round Two: 'More Than This' | Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Seamus Finnigan | NC-17 )

For the third round, I actually have three drabbles to share with you. >.> The first is the one I actually submitted. The second is the one I wrote first. And the third is the one I wrote second. Clear as mud? See, what happened is that the first drabble I wrote, jade_okelani and I both had qualms about whether it really spoke to the prompt I was given. So then I wrote another one. I sent it over to Jade to beta almost at exactly the same time that she sent me her story to beta, which which I resisted reading until I'd finished my story. The second I started reading her story my heart sank -- WE HAD CHOSEN THE EXACT SAME PAIRING! And not only that, approached it in a nearly identical way. Guys, for the most part it's great to share a brain with someone, but at times it can be a trial. :)) So it was back to the drawing board once more, to write the story I actually submitted. There's no reason for me to hold any of them back, so here's all three of them. :P

( Round Three (submitted): 'Just Once' | Sirius Black, Lily Evans | PG-13 )

( Round Three: 'Fueling the Flames' | Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley | NC-17 )

( Round Three: 'He Remembers' | Severus Snape, Lily Evans | PG-13 )

I finally watched the last episode of S4 of The Wire. Even though I knew what was coming, I still cried. I didn't even cry when this happened! Though I was still super bummed. I ended up really enjoying the season -- I really liked the kiddie crew. I also watched the first season of S5, and it's always tough at the beginning to get used to a whole new host of characters again.

Every now and then I get a bee in my bonnet about ASoIaF theories, particularly my two favorite: Who are Jon Snow's parents and Who is Azor Ahai? I wish people would update their essays with ADWD text/proof. Le sigh.

This is a "Who are Jon Snow's parents?" essay that I haven't read before. It gets more in depth than this one about all the potential mothers and fathers, but the latter essay provides more actual book references. Both are good reads.

I loved reading this about what exactly happened during Robert's Rebellion. We get our info in such bits and pieces from various characters that it's hard to put together a clear picture of what happened when. This essay provides a great timeline of events.

Teeheeheehee:

Have a faboo weekend everyone!

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the elite eight!

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:30:56 GMT

These are coming closer and closer together as the field narrows, but it's time to vote for the Elite Eight at hp_humpdrabbles! Vote for your four favorite drabbles here.

You don't have to vote for me; in fact, you won't even know which one is mine because they're all anonymous! The pressure's off, so just vote for the ones you like most. Having people vote, period, is the most important part. We're down to the last 8 writers, so your votes will determine the Final Four. You wield such power in your hands!

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