franticsga

Meep, not much time to do anything but a drive-by posting, but this has made pretty much my entire month.


I NEED an icon of Bradley doing "fear" or, barring that, an icon of Colin's emo finger-tear.

Also, totally aside from the utter fantasticness of that and the Bradley and Colin road trip (more on that later, when it's not the last two weeks of class and I have a billionty jillion projects to finish...or start, even), how good does Colin look in the bit where Bradley says "3...2...1"? It looks like he just woke up from a nap. Or some other night-time activity. Sometimes I forget how good-looking he actually is. I was re-watching ep 2.04 with the commentaries and I wasn't even paying attention to the Bradley and Colin Are Ridiculous Show because I was distracted by how completely lovely Colin is. How does anybody even act beside him? If it were me every five seconds they'd be like, "CUT. The guest actress has attached herself to Colin's neck again."

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Yes, it is my least favorite holiday because it's not long enough and I'm not terribly fond of the food (except the stuffing and the mashed potatoes and the pie, hooooo yes you will be in my belly tonight), but this year Mr. B and I are on a road trip with Sophie to go see my family in Maine.

I'm typing on Gay Deceiver at the Red Roof Inn in Rutland, VT, which is where we always stay during such adventures, and I have to be quick because we're leaving soon to go meet up with ameranth and her dog Anna for a few hours before we go off to eat with our families.

BUT. Of course you knew I couldn't let the extended BRADLEY AND COLIN ROADTRIP OF EPIC EPICNESS go by without commenting on it just a wee bit.




Sharing the earbuds while driving!

Colin in a beanie!

Bradley in a jacket I hope is not actual leather!

Ridiculous graphic versions of them that look like the beginning of a baby show on TLC!

Bradley driving a Ford Focus while Colin navigates!

Looking for water or ley lines...?

Colin: ...and doing some odd things in the dark.
Bradley: *turns into my grandfather for a moment* harumphump. Yes. Well.

Bradley actually understanding what Colin is saying when, for a brief moment, I am completely lost because his accent goes waaaaaaay North!

Bradley reminding me that I would really like Bill Nighy to play his dad sometime, on some show or other, because occasionally his voice sounds like Bill Nighy's and I think that would be the funniest thing EVER!

Too fun. They are such silly men.


Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! I am extra thankful this year because my brother Brian is safely back in the States. Yay!

Things:

1. Why is there not a Merlin femmeslash community? Or is there one and I just missed it? Because I would like to post the latest fic in some kind of community and the only applicable ones I've found so far are merlinslash or merlin_rarepair, which would be fine but there's no incest warning, leading me to believe Morgana/Morgause would probably not be welcome there. At any rate, no matter what there should really be a femmeslash community.

There totally is a femmeslash community-- thank you, merlin_femslash!


2. You should go read what yorkshirewench just posted about the EPIC BRADLEY AND COLIN ROAD TRIP. There are pictures. Bradley manages to look really, really good despite the scraggle. Colin always looks good, so nothing surprising there. Looks like Colin is the Map Man on this trip, which is probably a good thing as Bradley with a map could only lead to accidental-ending-up-in-Dublin hijinks.

3. Spoilery photos for a future episode are up, and all I can say is: Yes, DO WANT, please.

4. Oh, right, NaNoWriMo. Damn. I haven't written in like a week. I'm taking my laptop with me to Maine when we go for Thanksgiving, but I still don't think there's any way I'm making up the 20,000 words or so I have left to reach 50,000. We'll see. I keep getting distracted by other writing.

Title: Interludes and Small Fires
Author: franticsga
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4,746
Pairing: Morgana/Morgause
Warnings: First time writing femmeslash, may be full of clichés. Also, spoilers up to episode 2.08. Oh yeah, plus incest.
Description: "You don't know why you feel this way, do you," Morgause whispered. "You don't know why you set fires in your sleep, and now while you are awake."


( She kept lighting fires accidentally. )

So it's quite possible that I'm currently writing Morgana/Morgause.

Title: Sweet and Lovely and Of the Devil.
Author: franticsga
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,626
Disclaimer: If life is in any way fair, this actually happened, but since we can never know I suppose it's best to say it's fiction.
Notes: I wrote this in response to cherrybina's post yesterday, particularly chibirhm's reply.
Description: And oh, Colin Morgan, only he could arrange for a quickie in a loo and have it be completely and totally legitimate. He is a bloody underground tart and there is nobody else who can appreciate it.




( He promises himself he will not use the phrase 'myself and Colin' more than twice in any given sentence, because people are really starting to be suspicious. )

OMFG PEOPLE, IT IS LIKE A REALLY GOOD RPF CAME TO LIFE, SPAWNED WITH THE FANDOM HIVE MIND, AND GAVE BIRTH TO THE AWESOMEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE.

HYPERBOLE IS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH HERE OKAY.

Bradley James and Colin Morgan set off on a drive across Wales? I know I have read this fic before. It ends really well for all parties.



(Oh yeah, I also finally submitted a short story to a journal. It's nowhere near the level of exciting that the above news garnered, but i's still pretty nice. Mr. B and I celebrated with some Sofia Blanc du Blanc and sushi. I know it's not going to be accepted, but the fact that I finally got over my total terror of submitting fiction is celebration-worthy, right?)



BUT BACK TO THE COLIN AND BRADLEY ROAD TRIP ACROSS WALES.

WE ARE ONE STEP CLOSER TO MY DREAM TELEVISION SHOW, WHICH IS CALLED 'THE BRADLEY JAMES SHOW' AND FEATURES BRADLEY (ASSISTED BY HIS BFFF COLIN) BEING BRADLEY AND INTERVIEWING PEOPLE AND DOING STUPID SHIT ALL THE TIME.

COME ON BBC WALES, MERLIN CAN'T LAST FOREVER AND YOU NEED TO CAPITALIZE ON BRADLEY JAMES'S INSANITY.

Okay, I doubt anybody remembers, but a while back I wrote that I wanted somebody to make a Merlin video using the song "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce and Jay-Z. I wrote: Maybe because Merlin is like five seconds away from setting Arthur's car on fire? I DON'T CARE, DO IT FANDOM. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, MERLIN'S SPRUNG AND HE DON'T CARE WHO SEES.

AND THEN SOMEBODY DID IT. I mean, it's clear from the fact that money is not dropping from the sky into my lap that I cannot, in fact, make things happen with the force of my brainpower. But things like this make me reconsider. Now fandom, bring me a picture of Colin Morgan and Bradley James making out. Or, failing that, a story about how they managed to have sex after Colin Morgan broke his tailbone. HOCUS POCUS ALIMAGOCUS.



The video is by the (OBVIOUSLY BRILLIANT) Cappy and sisabet.

THINGS

1. I haven't been online much in the past couple of weeks because of school stuff, and I probably won't get a chance to do much more than post short HI HI I MISS YOU GUYS things until the semester ends. And then I have a winter class, but it shouldn't be too bad, and then I have six classes in the spring, and then I have the WHOLE SUMMER off before grad school. WATCH OUT KELLY, HERE I COME.

2. Sophie just came up next to me, laid her head on my leg, and burped. Her name tag catches the light and reflects everywhere, which I noticed, and somehow she still managed to startle me so much that I flaiiled and knocked over my tea mug.

3. In other Sophie news, I've been thinking of starting a daily list called "Things My Dog Has Eaten". Lately it's been pretty interesting: acorns, rocks, leaves, styrofoam, crickets. Mr. Boyfriend and I sometimes call her Bruce, after the mechanical shark in Jaws. NOMNOMNOMREMOTECONTROL, says Sophie.

4. I was listening to "Breathe Your Name" by Sixpence None the Richer this morning and it reminded me how irritating it is when I like a song and I discover it's Christian Rock. Does it make a difference if the love song is about love of god? Of course not. But it still makes me feel like I've been played. Dammit, Lifehouse.

SHIT YEAH CLASH OF THE TITANS TRAILER.



I'll admit I've only ever seen bits and pieces of the original, and I hate remakes just for the sake of remakes, but this looks AWESOME.


Mr. Boyfriend, Sophie and I are full of lame tonight. Sushi, Mallrats, and in bed before 11:30pm. I don't know how people even have the energy to go out to bars and stuff on Friday nights. I salute you, little college girls teetering around on heels as big as you are.

First things first: Bradley James, we've talked about that blond tarantula-thing on your face. I know the hair from your sideburns to your chin is actually starting to grow, but it's not a full beard until you can actually grow hair from the lips down to the chin. And you can't. It's clear to me that public shaming is not going to get you to stop it, so perhaps we could all take a collection? A donation from us to you? I have an extra razor in my bathroom right now, and it's even a man's razor because I like those better. I could send it to you?

I mean, if you're trying to have a beard-off with Colin, he's going to win every time, which is especially funny because I make fun of Irish boys for not being able to grow anything but scraggly reddish fuzz but he still has you beat.

In conclusion: no.

Second things second: good lord, Angel Coulby is gorgeous.

Third things third: after watching last night's Project Runway, I am forced to send out another message: Tim Gunn, you know I love you, but do you know why? It is because I am at least 50% more butch than you are when I'm wearing a dress and high heels. It is because you are so fussy that when try to go "Los Angeles" and wear jeans I can see how your skin visibly crawls away from the denim. It is because I can imagine you wearing your suit to bed like pajamas. It is because I have this sneaking suspicion you went to charm school and that's why you walk like you're balancing a year's worth of W magazine on your head. This is why it's so disturbing to see you booty-dancing with Heidi Klum. Please don't ever let her convince you to do that again.

Fourth things fourth: I don't really have a fourth thing, except that I am steadily plugging away at the Z novel. There's a small part of me that keeps wanting to put magical realism stuff into it, and I have to restrain myself because there's already a lot going on in this novel. But I love the visual of them wanting each other so much that Maypop flower vines keep crawling over their belongings, or that all the furniture in their tent keeps pushing itself closer together and they have to keep moving it every day. I sort of feel like adding these things would take away from the crazy shit that happens that's actually real. What do you think, o wise friends-list? To magical realism, or not to magical realism?


ETA: I'm taking the 'Mary Sue Litmus Test' and I think Z might be failing. "Does the character have unusual or exceptional hair, or does her/his hair get a disproportionate amount of description compared to that of the other characters?" HE HAS A JEW-FRO OKAY. I ONLY MENTIONED IT A COUPLE OF TIMES AND IT IS TOTALLY SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE IT HAS TO BE SHAVED OFF.

Breaking my second internet silence (SO MUCH TO READ, OMFG) to post a poem for Veterans Day. I posted this last year on my other journal and I find I still love it, it's still applicable, still makes me think of how utterly absurd and unnatural war is.


Break of Day in the Trenches (1916)

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver - what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe -
Just a little white with the dust

-Isaac Rosenberg, killed at dawn while on sentry duty in Fampoux, France, April 1, 1918
I woke up to a charley-horse today for the first time since boot camp, which I thought was quite fitting. Fist-bump to my fellow veterans, and YAY because my brother posted on Facebook that he only has 11 days of missions left before he comes home.

***

In sort of related news, I'm busily working on my NaNoWriMo. I'm a bit behind for the moment, but only because I'm not counting the words I haven't entirely converted from Be Resigned into the novel. If I do that I'm well ahead. Today I'm supposed to be at 18,333 words and I'm only at 11,195, but with the unconverted bits I'm at 19.404. To make myself feel a little better I'm going to post the latter count.

 

19404 / 50000 words. 39% done!


Also, apparently when Z and James Do It, they do it to "Here in My Room" by Incubus.  WTFF, self?

Since there are lots of new people on Ye Olde Friends List, I thought I'd put together an intro post.

( Intro post, aka TL;DR MEMEMEME. )

I think this mainly came about because I find the support for Sir Leon so funny.  Go Sir Leon!

I always like DVD commentaries unless they're talking about the special effects, so this is a fun meme.  

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

FUN.

My fic tag, for anybody who would like to ask questions.


And with that I'm off to a grad school thingy where I ask questions and maybe somebody finally answers them instead of shoving me off to somebody else.  GOOD LUCK WITH THAT MELISSA.

I have four professors for five classes and I really do adore them all.  My Magical Realism professor is the most adorable mellow middle-aged skinny man who was born in South Africa and knows like five different languages.  I love the class, and I totally love how much he adores African fiction.  He is currently in Ethiopia at a conference, which means I don't have my morning class for the whole week.  I doubly love him for that.

My Women in Art History professor is hilariously goofy and insists on using real words and not euphemisms for anything, and talking about what things really do look like.  Yes, Georgia O'Keeffe, it does look like a vulva.  The three guys in the class, to their credit, don't seem to mind discussing installation art that uses red-paint-spattered tampons, or pubic hair, or media representations of sex.  They don't even seem to mind the fact that each of us has to make a quilt square for our final project.  But then, I've seen at least one of them snoozing away during class, so maybe he just doesn't know yet that he has to make a quilt square.  My final project is going to be on Sophie Taueber Arp, so for my quilt square I'm cross-stitching a Tetris screen. 

My Bible as Lit professor is young and sweet and looks exactly like Ed Helms.  Under different circumstances I'm sure I would be all about that, but he's happily married and has a really cute baby and honestly, he's so damn wholesome I kind of just want to pinch his cheeks.

The last professor, who teaches my Critical Theory class and my Women Writers in America class, is my favorite, not least because I have the most appallingly obvious crush on her that ever existed.  Okay, no; maybe it's not that obvious-- I have a friend who is in love with my advisor (they're actually friendly outside of school, which I think only exacerbates the problem), and she has the most obvious crush that ever existed.  But I am really close behind.  Mr. Boyfriend is like, "Um, honey, it's not that I feel threatened exactly, but..."  Although of course he has nothing to worry about because he is the awesomest thing to ever awesome and he knows it. 

ANYWAY.  The point of this is that I had a paper due today for the Critical Theory class, and I put it off and put it off to the point where I was hitting the snooze button this morning and dreaming about it.  The song "Just Dance" came on and I started to have this hilariously weird dream about handing in my fic Inside Outright, which is of course where my mind goes whenever I hear Lady Gaga, for her analysis instead of my actual paper (which is on Frankenstein, particularly Dr. F's fetishism of the dead because of the warping of his pre-Oedipal desire for his mother when she dies before he can replace it with desire for his wife.  Exciting stuff, right?).  So the professor thinks this is a perfectly acceptable submission and we discuss fanworks and then we eat sushi and then we have sex. 

Class today was quite awkward.

Ooooh, professors.

Oh, Maine. 


I feel sick to my stomach.

It's really, really hard to have faith that someday things will change when shit like this passes.

You know what makes me almost as sick?  Okay, the other day this person on my Facebook friends-list, a girl I grew up with, wrote this out-of-nowhere post about how her daughter was asked to participate in a little class skit about gay marriage.  This woman was so offended that she is seriously considering pulling her daughter out and homeschooling her.  I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt because it seemed like she was just really mad that the school was talking to her child about homosexuality when she felt it was the parent's place, but then she followed that up with another post about how she didn't care if everybody hated her for not wanting to "fall in line" with gay marriage supporters.  DELETE FROM FRIENDS?  Why yes, don't mind if I do!  I was so mad that I posted this:  "[franticsga] does not approve of you if you are anti-gay marriage," which is hardly inflammatory, but I knew a bunch of my more religious relatives were going to take that badly.

And one of my aunts (my ex-stepmother, and yes, you read that right; it's all kinds of Tennessee Williams up in my family) had the nerve to rebuke me for it because one of my other aunts, who is anti-gay rights, was feeling hurt because I don't approve of her. 

I let it sit for a day or so because I don't like to rage-post, and responded that just because I disapprove that doesn't mean I don't love.  But I am so beyond sick of having to temper my responses when I'm dealing with bigots.  I'm sick of being respectful of the warped ideology that gives bigots an umbrella of righteousness to cover up their total lack of humanity.  I'm sick of hatred winning. 

Ugh.  Thank you for taking joy away from thousands of people, Yes on 1 voters.  I'm sure you'll find your reward.

Okay, flist, I know many of you love Princess Bride as much as I do (though I don't know how that's possible as I love it SO SO SO MUCH).  So you should watch this video made by mamoru22 , and then you should laugh and clap your hands together like a lunatic (this part is optional, but if you want to do exactly what I did then you'll have to be a lunatic), and THEN you should tell her how lovely she is.

Title:  In Lieu of Flowers Please (a Be Resigned Snippet)
Author:  franticsga
Warnings: NC-17, extreme smoosh.
Notes:  I figured at some point I would be writing follow-ups to Be Resigned, but I didn't expect that this would be the first one.
Description:  April 3, 2009.


( In Which Nobody Gets Down on One Knee, At All. )

PLEASE GO POINT AND LAUGH AT BRADLEY JAMES WITH A BEARD RIGHT THIS SECOND. 

There are men who can grow a beard and look sexy and there are men who grow a beard and you know there are big patches missing and that's why it's not quite a goatee but rather a skinny mustache and a bunch of fuzz around the jaw-line.  Bradley is the latter kind.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN I DON'T LOVE HIM. 



photo from myfoolisheart

"No, I am not trying to copy Colin, Ayyyyyngel."

I think it's the Abercrombie shirt that really seals the deal.  It is impossible to be deliciously scruffy when you're wearing A&F.  You just look hung-over from last night's kegger.


Anyway, I think my internet silence might be up, because the real-life stuff that was taking up so much time is over with, hoooraaaaay!  Mr. B had his book-release/poetry reading last night and then we had a party afterward, and it was very loud and fun and now we have so much booze and extra food we hardly know what to do.  There were lots of people neither of us had ever met before who came, and this one guy named Greg (who wore a toga, and I'm still trying to figure out whether it was a costume or not) brought apple-and-rhubarb crumble and a hazelnut tart, and I am stuffing my face with it as we speak. Tonight our favorite bar is having a costume party and we're going as a ninja and a pirate, the world's most natural enemies.  I will be taking pictures, but I'm still trying to figure out how to upload pictures from our cameras onto the Mac, so it might be a while.  I seem to be very slow with this Mac stuff.

All right, y'all, it's time for me to take a break from the internet.  I don't know how long it will be-- probably not long, because I can never stay away from my beloved internets for more than a week-- but I have a ton of real-life stuff I need to do and I can't be distracting myself.  See you on the other side, lovelies!