land of sharp pointy things

Now serving: prawn!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:23:35 GMT

Two ficlets for the IJ Porn Battle:

Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack/Elizabeth, pistol

and

DC Comics, Donna Troy/Koriand'r, alien

There are lots and lots of prompts to check out if you feel like writing porn of your own!

Prawn!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:52:16 GMT

Porn battle! Someone go leave prompts for something I write, pretty please? So that there can be porn. *nods seriously*

Precautionary measures

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:20:11 GMT

I've just backed up a bunch of LJ entries over here, inspired by LJ's latest rounds of skeevy behavior (eliminating Basic account creation with no warning, and apparently censoring interests like "bisexuality") from the "most popular interest" list), so I'm sure there's a bunch of "poll does not exist" and pointing to communities that don't exist on IJ and so forth. Will fix that when I get a chance.

I keep meaning to remember to cross-post here, at least my fiction and meta, but I keep not doing it -- the irritation factor of managing to keep up with entries and comments and people across two journaling services is high for me. Oh, LJ, why must you be so full of fail?

Fic: Itinerary

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:36:56 GMT

"Itinerary," PotC, gen, rated PG. Written for potcfest for the prompt Will dealing with being Captain of the Dutchman (getting to know his dad a plus).

Summary: As the captain of the Dutchman, Will is still learning to find his way.

Itinerary

They begin, always, in sight of the shore, a fine green shore under a golden sun. It is somehow always afternoon when the last of the boats has grounded itself against the sand and the last of the men has made his way up the beach out of sight. They always seem to walk purposefully, as if they know where they are going.

Will watches from the rail. He doesn't really want to set foot on that shore, as beautiful as it is. He glances around at the crew, many of whom have spent the afternoon standing at the rail to watch. Twice he has watched one of his crewmen come to some silent decision and climb down into one of the waiting boats; no one tried to stop them, although he knows from the talk in the galley later that they are missed.

No one seems inclined to do so now. The water is still full of drifting empty boats, but Will knows it's time to go. "Make ready to set sail," he says to his father, who calls out orders to the men with a practiced skill Will still can't match. Will takes his place at the wheel, feeling it warm in his hands. Before they return to the world of the living, it will be cold.

The sun does not so much set as disappear behind them, and around them the stars come out, above and below the waves. They cut a steady course through the mirrored stars, and Will stays at the wheel, feeling it chill against his palms. He's not sure how it is that he knows when they have reached the point where they can return to normal waters, only that there is a point when he takes a deep breath and the stars change.

It's not the painful wrenching it was returning that first time from World's End, emerging gasping out of the ocean like babies being born. It's just a breath, the time it would take for a heart to beat, and then the wind is shifting as normal winds do, the sails creaking. The stars above are familiar patterns, the Plough wheeling steadily through the night sky.

Bill comes up to the quarterdeck beside him and spreads out a map for him. He doesn't ask how Bill knew which map to bring him, though he couldn't have told their position himself nearer than "somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere."

"Where are we headed?" Bill asks.

There is a storm off the Grand Banks. That's the first stop. "Here," Will says, pointing to the fishing grounds off Labrador. "There's a nor'easter coming in."

"All right," Bill says. "We were thinking there might be a chance to take on supplies before we got down to work ..." He trails off, not quite making it a complaint.

"There's not time right now," Will says. He looks at Bill sideways with a crooked smile. "It's not as if we'll starve."

"Well, no," Bill says. "But the men do like to eat."

That's not all the men are interested in doing in port, Will is sure, but he only says, "We've work to do first," and his father shrugs, accepting.

"We're nowhere near the Grand Banks," he points out.

"We're really not, are we," Will says, watching his father's coarse fingers trace sure lines across the map. The ship can find its own heading, but Will wants to learn the art of determining their course for himself. So far he still doesn't feel he's mastered navigation. "Well, let's take her down."

It's quiet on deck when they're under water. Will has long since gotten used to the feeling that he ought not be able to breathe. It doesn't feel like breathing water, or like moving through water, more like moving through cool shadows. Below decks, nothing seems out of the ordinary, although water drips from every deck and bulkhead and everything smells of salt.

The water grows colder as they head north, and it clouds as the surface grows troubled. Great schools of cod flash by, enveloping the Flying Dutchman like flocks of silver birds and then vanishing in her wake, occasionally pursued by the darker forms of seals. They break the water in the teeth of a raging storm, lightning cracking the sky and the rain pouring down.

Fishing boats are rocking wildly at anchor, and as they watch one rips free of its moorings and splinters into a huddle of smaller boats like a loose cannon crashing its way across a deck. There are men in the water, and men shouting, their voices faint echoes under the driving sound of the rain. Boats are going down, boats are ripping free of their moorings and being smashed rudderless into the waves; masts are splintering and waves are scouring low decks clean.

"It was a storm like this that did for us," Wyvern says, coming up beside Will at the rail. He sounds less distant than he usually does, staring out at the wreck the storm is making of the fishing fleet. "They all went down and left me clinging to a spar." He sounds almost conversational.

He is one of the few men who served under Davy Jones who remain aboard. In Wyvern's case, Will is fairly sure that's because the man is more or less mad. If anyone aboard knows what his original name was, he's never heard them mention it.

"That's all done with," Will says.

"The water's cold as the grave," Wyvern says. He lifts a heavy coil of rope with an effort, propping it on the rail. "There's no chance for the men in the water."

Will is not so sure -- where there's life there's hope -- but he helps Wyvern to heave the line overboard, and sure enough two men nearby cling to a rope they never could have touched were they still fighting the water's chill. They haul it up, other men coming over to help, and Will gives one of the soaking men a hand aboard. The man looks up at him with dark, frightened eyes.

"Davy Jones," he says, and the man next to him begins to shake.

"More or less," Will says, because he's learned there's no point in arguing. "But I'll do you no harm, man." He puts a hand on the man's shoulder. "You're dead," he says simply. "I'll take you where you need to go."

It's strange how often those words are enough to drive out fear. He watches the man take a deep, shuddering breath, and then turns away. There are more men in the water, some floating aimlessly, some swimming toward the side of the Dutchman, a few rowing small boats that are not hindered by the wind and the water.

"Lower the nets," Will says, and they drag in those who are too bewildered to move, and help those who can climb aboard. Will leaves the handling of the ship in Bill's hands and walks up and down through the crowd of men, saying what comforting things he can.

"My Mary," one of them is saying, "I has to get home to my Mary and my boy," and Will glances up at Bill, solemn and steady at the wheel. He wonders if Bill thought the same, sinking through the dark sea with a cannon tied to his feet, or if he had already stopped giving much thought to his Mary and his boy.

"They'll be all right," Will says. The man is not much more than a boy himself, his fair hair sodden and his palms laid open from trying to clutch the ropes. "You can't help them."

"Yer pardon," one of them says, an older man who looks less frightened than resigned. "My brother was on the boat with me, Jacob is his name, but nobody's seen him here."

Will looks out across the waves. The wind is calming, and the remaining ships at anchor seem safe for now. There are no more forms moving in the wreckage, and no more bloodied or drowned men climbing awkwardly up the side.

"We've picked up all the dead," Will says.

The man smiles just a little, looking like it nearly cracks his weathered face. "He always was a clever bastard, Jacob was. More than me, eh?"

"It's a hell of a storm," Will says. "You just weren't lucky."

The man snorts. "That's all the reason there is? You're not going to tell us it's God's plan, or some such?"

"No one tells me," Will says. "I just sail the ship."

"Ain't that always the way of it," the man says, and for a moment they are just two sailors shaking their heads together at the weight of the things they don't know and can't change.

Then Will nods to him and makes his way back to the wheel. "We've got a few more stops to make," he says, and Bill and Jacoby begin encouraging the men to go below, where there is a warm fire in the galley stove and where the men can settle comfortably against the bulkheads or in hammocks, though they will not eat or sleep. The rain is ending as they sink beneath the waves, and red sunlight glimmers through the water until they descend into darkness.

A dockworker in Madrid gets the worst of a knife fight and bleeds out his life in the harbor. He stands awkwardly on deck, looking at the water surrounding the ship in some dismay. They are skimming along the sea floor, and are currently being watched by a hopeful but overly ambitious shark. "I can't even swim," he says.

"That won't be a problem," Will says.

For a while whales follow them, great blue giants drifting above and below the Dutchman and watching Will with dark eyes the size of dinner plates. They look very old and very wise, and he wishes he knew what they were thinking. They sing to each other, a low, tuneless song that weaves its way around the ship, and though there are no words to the song, Will thinks it is something about finding your way through the dark.

A merchant ship founders in bad weather off the coast of China, and they surface long enough to help a handful of poor swimmers aboard, though most of the crew makes it safely to land, swimming or clinging to crates and bales. Three of them are women, and one of them is reaching back toward the water desperately toward a little girl of three or four.

Jacoby climbs down a rope to fish the girl out of the water, carrying her almost tenderly up to the deck and handing her to Will. He's been aboard since the first weeks after Will took command of the Dutchman, one of the first who decided to stay. When Will asked him about it, he said only "I've got no one waiting for me, not on land nor where I figure I'm going."

The girl stirs in Will's arms, as if waking from sleep. She is such a light weight in his arms, her hair curling on her forehead like dark strands of seaweed, and if Will's heart were in his chest, surely it would ache. He can feel the shadow of that distant grief, and for a moment he is glad that his heart is far away in someone else's keeping. He kisses the girl lightly on the forehead and hands her to her mother.

It's night off the coast of Madagascar, and Will goes below to steal a quiet hour in the cabin he is beginning to think of as his home. The great organ still stands against one wall, and he supposes that he might learn to play it eventually. He sits at the bench and turns the sword he made for James Norrington over in his hands instead.

It is the best thing he ever made. There should have been many better swords after it, hard work to make his name and to put food on the table for Elizabeth and their children. There were so many things he meant to do for Elizabeth, and it's strange now for his life now to have nothing to do with her. She would not understand why this work must be done, only that it takes him away from her, and maybe if his heart were in his chest he would feel the same, but it is safe in her keeping, and he is here.

A pirate ship and a British twenty-eight exchange fire off St. Kitts, and they take aboard a few of the pirates and a few of the British sailors, who cluster around a very young midshipman as if still waiting for his orders. Bill has his head together with the pirates, talking to them like old friends. Will can't tell if they really are, or if it's only that the world of pirates is still a closed circle with his father on the inside, one that he can never really penetrate.

The midshipman looks up at Will with all the indignation of not-quite-fifteen. "Are we your prisoners?"

"You're dead," Will repeats patiently. Sometimes this takes a while to get across. "You're not my prisoner."

"Then will you put us ashore?"

"When we reach land," Will says. His father laughs at some joke one of the pirates has made, clapping the man on the shoulder. Bill is a good pirate and a good sailor and not much good at anything else he's done in his life, though Will thinks in his own way he tried. He is a good first mate with a steady hand at the wheel and an easy way with his friends, and those are the things Will has the chance to learn from him now. Maybe they're all he could ever have taught.

The deck is crowded now, and below the dead sit quietly. It's time, Will thinks.

"Mr. Turner, make us ready," he says.

Bill looks up at him reluctantly. "We could still stop off in port -- "

Will raises an eyebrow.

His father sighs. "No, I guess not. All right, boys, look alive, or something close to it."

The sails fill with a steady wind, and around them night begins to fall, and the water is full of stars. When Will looks back, he can see the smaller boats following them, drawn in their wake, their lights glimmering on the water. Their own greater lamps light the way.

They end, as always, in sight of the shore, a fine green shore under a golden sun. The little boats pull away and ground themselves on the sand, and one by one, the men climb up the beach. Even the little girl is walking as if she is sure of where she is going, no longer holding her mother's hand.

The weathered man he still knows only as Jacob's brother hesitates, his hand on the rail. "I could stay," he says suddenly. "If you need another hand. I'm in no great hurry to be done with the sea."

Will starts to tell him to go on. The boat is waiting for him, and though Will doesn't know what's waiting for him past the beach, he doesn't imagine it's anything the man will dislike. But there's a bright light in the man's eyes that seems familiar, something like his father's face when he set Will on his knee and talked about the sea, or like Elizabeth's when she spun him wild stories about pirates.

"All right," Will says instead. "It's no easy life."

"What is?" the man asks, and doesn't seem to be expecting an answer. When he steps back from the rail another man takes his place in the boat, and he helps Jacoby lower it to the water.

"Where are we going next?" Bill asks, coming up beside Will.

"We'll try to make port," Will says. He'll watch the men go ashore with as much good grace as he can manage. "Tortuga? Bristol? Madras?"

"Wherever you like," Bill says, but Will suspects he has something in mind. "There were these ruins we saw once off the coast of Alexandria. A whole city under the sea. Thought you might like to see it."

There are plenty of vices to practice in Alexandria too, Will is sure, but he wouldn't mind seeing a sunken city. It's the sort of thing one ought to see while ferrying the souls of the dead. And he expects the people who lived there would have liked someone to see it, and to remember them.

"Then we go to Alexandria," he says, and shrugs.

"Thanks," his father says, and claps him on the arm. "The men appreciate a bit of time ashore, you know."

"I know," Will says, and looks out over the water at the beach under the golden sun. The shade of the green hills looks inviting. He wonders whether he could go ashore, here, and what would happen if he did.

It's not anywhere near time to find out, Will knows, and he doesn't really want to. He's not tired as he turns back to the wheel, and the wind is filling their sails, backing them slowly away from that shore. He begins calling out orders to the crew, hoping that he's not making any nautical blunders but expecting that his father will tell him if he is.

It's time they were on their way.

PotC fest!

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:37:04 GMT

artaxastra and I are running potcfest, an all-pairings, all-characters Pirates of the Caribbean fest. You can submit prompts from now until September 3, and claiming of prompts will begin September 4. Stories will be due October 4, and there's no minimum word limit -- short pieces are fine if you don't have a lot of time to write.

You don't have to be planning to write for the fest in order to submit a prompt, so prompt away. The rules, deadlines, and the prompt submission post are here -- check it out, and please pimp this around! I'd love to have a wide range of pairings and characters represented.

(We'll be running the fest simultaneously on InsaneJournal and LiveJournal -- you'll be able to post at either community or both as you like. However, please leave your prompt suggestions on the LiveJournal post linked above, so that we can keep track of them in one place.)

Distractions meme (Good Omens edition)

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:44:59 GMT

celandineb asked: Hm... besides Aziraphale/Crowley, what is the slash pairing you see as most workable out of Good Omens, and why? *is rereading GO right now*

One of the reasons that I haven't written more Good Omens fanfic is that I can't really work up much enthusiasm for any pairing other than Aziraphale/Crowley, and even that's a qualified "maybe, if you can get past the baseline asexuality." Even the canon het pairings leave me lukewarm -- I'm not really all that interested in Newt and Anathema, and while Madame Tracy/Shadwell is kind of weirdly sweet, I don't really want to visualize Shadwell having sex.

I suppose either some combination of the male Them -- but Brian and Wensleydale are so young that it's hard for me to project their personalities forward to see what they'll be like as adults, though, and I find them both mildly irritating -- or, hmm, Adam/Aziraphale or Adam/Crowley could be interesting. For somewhat scary values of interesting.

I've seen War/Pepper, but I find it hard to think of War as being interested in sex except as a means to destruction.

redfiona99 asked: Good Omens - Do you think they'd ever be able to make a good film from it?

I think they could; I just don't think they will. A lot of the humor of the books is in the narration, but I think you could still capture some of the tone if you kept the focus on clever banter interspersed with the occasional comic action sequence, and had a good sense of pacing to handle essentially three converging storylines (four, if you count the Horsemen).

I'm not sure studios still have a setting for clever comedy, though. The only time I know of that this was seriously being pitched, Terry Gilliam was planning to direct, which ... well, he's done some brilliantly weird stuff, but he's also done some just plain weird stuff. I'm not totally convinced Gilliam can direct a movie that's not a mess, and he doesn't seem to have a good track record with actually getting projects produced.

So ... well, I'm just not holding my breath.

We are not under the radar. Look, that's us, on the radar.

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:44:56 GMT

It's too late to avoid mainstream attention to fan fiction. That ship has sailed, that bridge has burned. There are 66 articles in Google News that reference fan fiction from the last month alone. These are just a few:

Newsday suggests that if your kids are depressed about the end of Harry Potter, "Remind them that there's always something else to look forward to, and suggest activities to get them out of their funk, such as creating their own fan fiction or finding ways to do good in the world (Harry would approve)." The New York Times profiles autistic teenage girls, and casually mentions a girl who writes Harry Potter and Pokemon fanfic. The Toronto Star covers Prophecy and talks about fanfic. Salon talks about the popularity of Death Note and the fanfic it has inspired.

And then there are the movie magazines. I'm sitting here with an issue of Film Fantasy Magazine on my bookcase that includes an article about Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic reccing specific stories available on the Internet.

Most of the articles don't talk specifically about slash or adult content, although some do. But if you Google "fan fiction," you'll find the slash in the first Google hit (ff.net, of course), and the adult content in the fifth (adultfanfiction.net). When I Google "harry potter fan fiction," Google helpfully suggests as additional searches "harry potter adult fan fiction" and "harry potter slash fan fiction." Anyone who knows about fan fiction can find the stuff that will make some people hit the ceiling.

We just weren't going to make it through this summer under the radar. The end of Harry Potter was too big a story, and anyone seriously trying to report that story was going to find the fan fiction. All of it. Not just the fluffy Harry/Ginny romance and the plotty quest-for-the-horcruxes stories, but the slash and the sex and the kink. And the other fandoms -- once you've tried "harry potter fan fiction," it doesn't take much of a logical leap to try the names of other books or movies or popular TV shows.

The search results for the LJ interests "harry potter fan fiction" come up on the third page of Google results for "harry potter fan fiction," which seems to me a pretty likely search for someone who is trying to find out what this fanfic stuff is all about. The results for "harry potter fanfic" and "harry potter fanfiction" come up on the second page.

My point is that few of us are more than one or two degrees of separation from likely entry points for anyone who's seen an article in their local paper and wondered what all the fuss was about. And because of the way the Internet works, and the way Google works, it's not as if people trying to find out about fanfic start by seeing an introduction to what it is and why people write it -- they're likely to get dumped into the middle of a community for which they have no context.

I don't think there's anything we can do to prevent this. The combination of Google + mainstream media attention has pretty much killed the idea that fan fiction can only be found by fans who are in the know. Everybody knows about Harry Potter, and all it takes is reading one article, getting curious (or alarmed, or offended), and typing a few words to find hundreds of possible points to begin exploring fan fiction, some of which are likely to be fairly shocking.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, or for that matter a good thing. It's just what we're dealing with. It's as if we are at a convention where at any minute someone could be dropped into the middle of a panel that's discussing Draco/Giant Squid mpreg crackfic and conclude by the time they managed to find the exit door that we are all perverted lunatics. Or, depending on their temperament, appear in the middle of a panel that's discussing Remus/Sirius fluff and still conclude that we are all perverted lunatics.

There are a lot of possible responses to our increased visibility. Keeping more of what we post under friends-lock or password protection is one. Saying, "oh, whatever," and ignoring critical attention is another. Trying to provide basic explanations of who we are and what we're doing for outsiders who may wander by is yet another. I know those explanations exist, but we don't always make them easy to find. (Nor should we necessarily have to, but, again, our community space on the Internet is a space with essentially no walls, and when people can't find an explanation of what the people in there are doing, they are likely to come up with some fairly strange ones on their own.) Being aware of the legal issues (both in terms of obscenity and copyright) around posting fan fiction and/or erotica on the Internet is an important one -- those issues are not simple, and there's a lot of misinformation being thrown around by people who are trying to simplify a complex legal situation.

But I would urge us not to rely on security by obscurity. It's just not safe to assume that your fan fiction can't be found by a reporter looking for examples of "that Harry Potter stuff," or someone in your college class, or a right-wing activist on a crusade against porn. You might be somewhat less likely to drift under the microscope if you're in a small fandom, but you never know what's going to be the next big story when your local paper has a slow news week.

If it would be a major problem for people outside of fandom to know that you write fan fiction, there are two approaches you can take on journaling sites, and I really recommend picking one and using it religiously. First, post fannish content exclusively under friends-lock, and really know the people on your friends list -- you don't know who an empty journal might be. Or, alternatively, post personal content exclusively under friends-lock (with the same caveat) or in a separate journal entirely, and make sure that your email, profile, and public comments can't link your real identity to your fanworks in any way.

Personally, I think the second is easier to manage, because it's always tempting to post stories to public places at least some of the time -- a community, a challenge, an archive -- and once it's done, it's done; you can never count on being able to erase all traces of something you've posted under a name that's linked to your real-life identity. But I think it's important to pick one or the other or accept the risk of possibly critical attention being directed at your real-life identity, because if you're counting on the entire community to stay under the radar screen, it's too late -- we are that cloud of bright lights you can already see coming into view.

Distractions meme, the all-Deathly-Hallows edition

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:57:09 GMT

Seven questions that were all about Book 7 and my answers, after the cut:

semielliptical asks: How do you think Remus and Tonks died?

I think it makes sense that Remus went down dueling Dolohov, as he was doing the last time anyone saw him -- he was taking a group of the teenagers out onto the grounds, and I can see that he would try to get them out of the way if things started going bad rather than really relying on them for backup. Remus is good, but in a one-on-one duel with an experienced Death Eater, they're probably pretty evenly matched, and sometimes the odds don't go your way.

I'm not sure Tonks ever got to Remus -- she went out onto the grounds alone, and could have run into all kinds of trouble. Like Sirius, she's prone to dashing off without really thinking much about her own safety.

rymenhild asks: To what extent might Dumbledore and Grindelwald be the Xavier and Magneto of Harry Potter, and is there anything you'd want to do with that comparison?

Heh. Well, I think there's a certain parallel, in that this was obviously an early relationship that remained important to them both, and there's the whole "we could be gods together" sort of theme to it. On the other hand, I have a lot more sympathy for Magneto than I do for Grindelwald. I can see writing Dumbledore/Grindelwald, but more in a "stupid things I did when I was younger" sort of way from Dumbledore's point of view.

schmoo99 asks: So in Deathly Hallows I have found many Snape fans hated what was revealed in Ch. 33 (I think?) The Prince's Tale...does Snape's never dying love for Lily make him a weaker character as some have said? Or has it add more depth to him as other have said?

I liked the reveal. I was really thinking we'd get some kind of "Snape had an unrequieted crush on Lily" reveal, which I was afraid was going to come off as one more way that Snape was still stuck on things he should have gotten over long ago. But I really liked the way it was actually done, where we learn that whatever his romantic feelings for Lily (and I'd like to point out that we are never specifically told that his love for Lily was romantic love), they were close friends, and that friendship was a really important part of his life for years.

And I do think that adds more depth to him.

gingersnapps asks: Lupin's character in book seven seemed, to me at least, to have changed drastically. Do you think it was entirely because of his marriage to Tonks and their soon to be born child? Or do you feel there was an underlying, not delved into, storyline for him?

I really don't know what JKR had in mind for this relationship, and I think to some extent it suffers from needing more space than it can really have in the plot of Book 7. To me, I think a lot of Remus's flailing in the last two books is related to the time he's been spending with Greyback's werewolves, and the ways that's caused him to question his own belief that he's not a monster. I may write about that at some point, but it would be a really depressing story, so I may not.

doolabug asks: I just finished Deathly Hallows last weekend (yes, yes, I'm very late to the party) and the business with Remus and Tonks' son was handled very strangely, I thought. When it was revealed that they had died in battle I thought, "Well, now at least Harry has an orphan of his very own to love and raise and be the godfather that Sirius never really was to him." And then it's not mentioned again, except for briefly in the Epilogue* where Harry is kind of like, "Uh, godson? Isn't he that chap whose always turning up for dinner?" Maybe it's just me; did you get a different read there?

I actually didn't have a problem with that. Harry's in no position to take care of a baby when Book 7 ends, and by the time he might be, Teddy's probably been living with his grandmother for four of five years, and it probably wouldn't really be good for him to send him to live with someone else, as much as Harry may love him. (There's probably a good story waiting to be written about that, as Harry comes to realize that Teddy is not him, and does not need to be rescued from his relatives' care, but instead should probably stay with the loving family he's being raised in.)

And then we skip way forward to a point where Teddy's already left school and is probably working and living on his own -- I think it's probably a sign that he does feel close to Harry that he's still coming around for dinner frequently at an age where a lot of young adults aren't that interested in hanging out with parental figures. So that wasn't a problem for me.

doneril asks: How do you feel about what was (or wasn't) done with Tonks' character in DH? Ditto for Lupin and Neville.

I was frustrated with the lack of screen time for Tonks, and with her being sidelined by a pregnancy for at least some of the book (although I prefer to assume that both she and Remus were active in ways that we didn't see through a lot of her pregnancy.) I wish we'd gotten to see more of her getting to actually do Auror stuff. And Remus doesn't get to do much but flail around unattractively in this book.

I think part of the problem is that JKR is trying to pry all possible parental figures or adult help of any kind away from Harry, and so she needs to make sure he can't turn to Remus (or, to a lesser degree because she's not as well known to Harry, to Tonks), which necessitates shoving them off screen. I would have preferred "doing something terribly important in Bristol," but I see that she can't have Remus around without having him volunteer to help Harry, and without the "umm, what about your family" business, Harry has less motivation to say "no, we're fine, we'll just go live in a tent and eat mushrooms now, thank you."

Neville, on the other hand, rocked. Oh, Neville. How much do I love you?

redbrunja asks: What are your thoughts about how Ron/Hermione played out in the last HP book?

I really liked the Ron/Hermione relationship in the last book. They both really seem to have grown up, and to really have learned to respect each other in a way that they didn't used to (or didn't used to be able to admit). They're sweet. I'll never be as invested in the pairings of the teenagers in HP as I am in the Marauders-era characters, but I liked the way R/H played out -- I could really see them working well together in DH.

Distractions meme: Kirk/Spock, or how I learned to love screwed-up relationships

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:43:09 GMT

ballyharnon said:

Penknife, I too have questions about ST, because I always wanted to write some. HP is over now, after all. :P So, I see a link over there to the Kirk/Spock archive. Please tell me a little about how you characterize (or maybe even justify) their relationship: I was aware of Kirk/Spock shipping before I really knew there was even such a thing as fanfic, but I could never see it, so I stayed away. The Kirk in my head is too in love with Enterprise, and the Spock in my head is too in love with himself. I'd love to understand, though.

K/S was my first slash pairing in my very first fandom, so I am going to have to try to separate my thoughts on it now from the uncritical love of my fourteen-year-old self.

I think K/S works only in the sense of being a gorgeous train wreck. It's possible that by reading K/S, I permanently imprinted on pairings that are gorgeous train wrecks, thus explaining Xavier/Magneto, Picard/Crusher, and to some extent Remus/Sirius. They love each other a lot; it doesn't necessarily help them have an actual relationship without horrible things happening.

It's really hard to write happy K/S without going AU, because you have three big canonical breaking points: the point where Spock goes to Gol, the point where Spock dies, and the point where, shortly before Generations, Kirk is getting ready to marry Antonia. Then Kirk dies, sort of. And there's the whole chain of command issue. If you insert romance into this at any point, you're not likely to get a happy story.

What you do get, however, is fabulous potential for angst, because there are so many obstacles or points where it looks like the characters are madly flailing away from each other. (Plus the canon "fuck or die" element, which I admit to having a lasting kink for, especially when the emotional aftermath is a real mess.) But there's always this intense, overwhelming love between them that makes me want it to work, no matter how hard it is to make it work.

Kirk sacrifices everything to bring Spock back from the dead, his ship, his career, his son, and he's in some sense satisfied with the bargain. Spock holds Kirk's hand and says that V'Ger is fatally flawed because "this simple feeling" is something it can never know. They mind meld -- and I won't even get into the fact that Enterprise canon implies that mind-melding is not only the equivalent of sex, but of kinky sex -- but the intimacy of it is fascinating, the ways that they know each other and totally each other despite all their differences.

And both of them are pretty lousy at having relationships with other people. Kirk at least manages to have friendships with other people, but his romantic history is one long series of disasters. Spock ... well, I think even if you are writing 100% pure gen, there's no avoiding the fact that his relationship with Kirk is the most important relationship in his life.

In my head, their mutual fascination begins with Kirk's attempts to make friends with Spock, as he does with all his officers -- but Spock is incredibly hard to get to warm up, and in the process of trying to charm him into opening up a bit, Kirk ... well, underestimates the effect of the patented James T. Kirk charm on someone who's never really felt accepted before, and who is (without understanding that at all) much more susceptible to falling for men than for women.

But at the same time, he's being charmed in return -- Spock is brilliant and emotionally vulnerable and has a hidden sense of humor, and once he does warm up, he is the most loyal of friends. At the same time, he's strong-willed and stubborn enough that Kirk can't just wrap him around his finger, and I think Kirk likes the challenge of that.

It's a really problematic relationship, for which I've written lots of UST. I've written AU in which Spock manages to drag Kirk out of Starfleet during the years before the first movie, when Kirk is clearly unhappy with his career and doesn't have the Enterprise as an eternal obstacle between them. I've written this relationship as sort of a long-term train wreck, where both of them are too wrapped up in each other to make a relationship with anyone else work but still not actually sleeping together.

But I still find it endlessly fascinating, and now I find myself itching to write K/S again, if only to try handling some things with a little more subtlety and complexity than I knew how to do ten years ago.

Fic: "There Is A Chest," PotC, Jack/Will/Elizabeth

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:35:10 GMT

For fabu: Jack/Will/Elizabeth, "hidden treasure." ~1400 words, rated PG-13. Set post-AWE.

There Is A Chest

Under Elizabeth's bed, there is a chest. Everyone at Shipwreck Cove knows it is there; occasionally she takes it out and holds it in her lap, in much the same way she holds baby James. She says hearing the beating of the heart within the chest helps her sleep, and while this is generally considered to be macabre, it only does her reputation as a pirate good.

There is a key that hangs around her neck, between her breasts. It's widely said that only two men have a chance in life of seeing it, and one of them sails the seas with dead men. The other is Jack Sparrow, and everyone knows that whatever treasure he's interested in plundering from her, it's not that beating heart.

Once a fairly foolish young pirate makes off with the chest, and is eventually shot by Hector Barbossa, who returns the chest for her in exchange for a hefty ransom.

"I do have just one question," Barbossa says, leaning in close in the noisy room so that only she can hear him. "I can't say as I can hear any heart beating in there."

Elizabeth leans in even closer. "Perhaps your hearing's not what it used to be."

"Perhaps," Barbossa says, and tips his hat to her. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Mrs. Turner."

"Well, that was a close one," Elizabeth says later to Jack, when they've adjourned to her cabin high above the docks of Shipwreck Cove and he is replacing the chest under the bed; what once was the deck is forever slightly slanted, so this requires a certain amount of care. "I thought he was going to propose I open it."

Jack looks creative, always a somewhat worrisome thing. "I don't suppose you could get some other sort of heart and put it –"

"It wouldn't still be beating, though," Elizabeth says. "And I expect it would get rather …"

"Well, if you pickled it …"

"No."

"You never like my clever ideas," Jack says, climbing onto the bed beside her and resting his hand on her hip.

"Sometimes I do," Elizabeth says, and draws him down to kiss her. His mouth is warm on her throat, and warm between her breasts, where the iron key lies cool against her skin.

*****

In Will Turner's cabin, there is a chest. Everyone on the ship knows it's there, and sometimes he rests a hand on it, as if something precious to him were cradled there. He never says what's in it, but it's widely speculated among the crew that he came to learn something that made him question how well his wife cared for his heart.

There is a key that hangs around his neck, resting near the long white scar that mars his chest. Sometimes when he's working, hauling on lines or climbing the rigging, the men can see it, though he quickly tucks it away. Every now and then he leaves the ship and returns without souls in his care; some of the crew are tempted to make jokes about how much time his wife must spend at sea, but no one yet dares.

Once Will returns in a longboat and climbs up the side of the ship with Jack Sparrow climbing up after him, and Bill stares at him. Jack says, "I'm only visiting, much as I'm sure that disappoints you all."

"I thought," Bill says, and then frowns. "Well, Jack, I wouldn't have thought you'd have the nerve."

Will turns to face his father. "You mean considering that the rumor is that he's swiving the captain's wife?"

"Well," Bill says, and he's sensible enough to look as if he thinks he may have made a mistake. "Well, I wouldn't have put it quite that way."

"Good," Will says, and takes Jack's arm, drawing him toward his cabin.

Once they've retreated to the cabin, Jack lounges on the bed. "It's not old Bootstrap's fault," he says. "I am swiving your wife, and you can't really expect that not to cause a bit of damage to your reputation."

"No one says anything about it to my face," Will says.

"Well, I expect they're mostly scared to."

He sighs and comes to join Jack, sprawling on the bed and letting Jack knead the tension out of his shoulders. "And if they knew that you were swiving me as well?"

"They might take that better," Jack says. "After all, buggery's a nautical sort of thing. And there's more than one pair of mates as has shared a woman."

Will knows that Jack is telling him something important under his casual lewdness, that he must let his crew see something of who he is for them to feel any sort of loyalty to him. It's just not easy for him to do, so he reaches for some distraction. "Did Elizabeth send a letter?"

"She did," Jack says. "I'd best give it to you after, though, or you'll pay no attention to me."

"No one could ever fail to pay attention to you," Will says, bending his head to let Jack stroke the back of his neck where the knot of the key's cord rests. He'll read the letter later, and lock it safely away in the chest with the other letters and the lock of little James's hair.

He knows the crew thinks the chest holds his heart, and he can't say that isn't true. Right now, though, the heart he can hear when he turns his head is Jack's, measuring time in heartbeats the way he no longer can.

*****

In a cave beneath Shipwreck Cove, there is a chest. It's a quiet place, near the spring that is the secret heart of the island, the source of the water that somewhere above is drawn up with buckets to sustain them all. It's always cool there, even in the summer, and a lantern throws back strange shadows from the cavern walls.

There is a key hanging unregarded among the tangles and braids of Jack's hair. No one notices it, or if they do, they assume it is the key to a lock long since forgotten. Sometimes Elizabeth touches it when they are tangled close together themselves, and sometimes Will does the same, as if it they could feel the touch of each other's fingers on the cold metal.

Once Elizabeth can't sleep, even after they've worn each other out with pleasant exercise, and so they leave young James sleeping under Teague's watchful guard and make their way down through Shipwreck, past all the noises of a pirate town at night, the clamor of voices and the barking of dogs and the crying of other babies. They go down and down until it's quiet.

Jack has a lantern, but he doesn't think Elizabeth needs it; she's memorized her way through the dark twists and turns to the sheltered cave where the chest lies.

"Here you are, me love," Jack says, and sets the lantern down on a ledge of rock.

Elizabeth rests her fingers on the chest. In the quiet, Jack thinks he can hear the sound of a heart beating.

"You could bring it back up if you want," Jack says. "Switch it with the empty one, and who'd be the wiser?"

"It's safer here," Elizabeth says. "It's not as if people will stop trying to steal it."

"Well, if Hector goes around shooting them they might."

"Yes, but if I keep paying off Hector, they might not."

"You could shoot Hector."

"Jack," Elizabeth says, leaning back against him and shaking her head. Her hair is damp and cool against his cheek.

"It was just a suggestion."

"I know he comes as often as he can."

"And as often as you're at sea," Jack says. "Which isn't as often as he'd like."

"This isn't what any of us would like," Elizabeth says, but she doesn't sound particularly unhappy right at this minute. She reaches up to touch the key tangled in his hair, fingering it like a talisman.

"You ought to carry the real key yourself, Lizzie," Jack says. "It'd probably be safer."

"It's safer if it's not where everyone thinks it is," Elizabeth says. "I trust you. We trust you."

"You shouldn't," Jack says, because sometimes when she gets that tone in her voice it feels like the little piece of iron hanging from a knot in his hair weighs a hundred pounds.

"You don't have any reason to steal from me," Elizabeth says, and it's true; he's got no need to go collecting hearts when he can press his hand to her warm breast and feel hers beating in the palm of his hand.

Idol Reflections now open on GJ as well

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:57:00 GMT

The Idol Reflections LJ community now has a GJ mirror community. This is a result of possibly-paranoid twitchiness on my part about LJ's recent statements that even linking to prohibited content is a TOS violation; there are 100-some essays on Idol Reflections, most of which link to fanfic and fan communities featuring the character who is the subject of the essay. I can't vouch that none of those links are to stories containing underage sex, and I can't say whether that's a violation of the TOS or not right now.

Beyond the (unlikely) possibility of the LJ comm getting TOS-ed, I also just want to have a GJ version so that people who are leaving LJ can still write me fabulous essays about their favorite characters (hint, hint). People who've claimed characters can post their essays on either the GJ or LJ version of the community or cross-post to both, and I'm encouraging people to repost their old essays to the GJ community as well. We've reserved the idol_reflection username on InsaneJournal as well, and will consider opening that community to posting as well if that seems to be where large portions of fandom are headed.

Barring disaster, we will keep the LJ community open -- sionnain says she's ~~leaving LJ when they pry her cold, dead fingers away from the~~ not leaving LJ, no matter what, so she'll stay on as mod even if I eventually do close down my LiveJournal account. And I'm not leaving LJ yet. But I want the community to have a backup location, because there's some great work there that I'd hate to see lost.

PotC communities on GJ (and IJ)

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 20:14:59 GMT

I'm starting a running list of PotC communities on GreatestJournal (not RPGs, but other types of communities) -- if you know of one I'm missing, let me know.

ETA: I'd also like to keep a list of PotC communities here on InsaneJournal, so please let me know about those as well:

potc_slash: PotC slash fic and art
potc_creative: General PotC community

Better safe than sorry

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:27:13 GMT

I'm currently working on backing up my LJ here using LJSec; bear with me if that makes anything here go wonky. I'm using the backdate option, so it shouldn't spam your friends page with 900 entries.

Polls will be broken, and "lj user" tags in old entries will point to a lot of journals that don't exist; I'll edit those as I have time, but, 900+ entries -- it'll take a while for me to have that much time.

ETA: I'm also not transferring friends-locked entries at the moment, because I don't entirely trust that they'll remain locked or correctly filtered; I'll work on that later.

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:41:22 GMT

LJ's down, but the problem apparently isn't isolated to LJ -- there seem to be major router outages in various places in the U.S. and Europe.

Arrgh.

ETA: Now it looks like the problem may be a power outage affecting Six Apart, Technorati, and Craigslist. But what will I do without my constant stream of new Deathly Hallows fic?

ETA2: Yep, looks like power outages -- here's a more detailed report.

Nothing to see here yet

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:05:58 GMT

This is a test entry; I'm not migrating here from LiveJournal yet, but I'm trying to get this journal set up so that I can start cross-posting here for people who are leaving. Bear with me while I unpack boxes and put the curtains up.