it's a magical world

DAMN this festival I'm stage managing is exhausting. But in a good way. And my friend's boyfriend is in charge of tech staffing for an events company, and he got me on the electrics crew contact list, so I've got a 10-12hr day tomorrow hanging and focusing lights. Which, YAY PAYCHECK, but less yay 9am crew call on what's usually my Monday off. (On the plus side, it was originally 8am, so this is an improvement.)

I signed up for a whole bunch of seasonal exchanges this year, plus a nifty fun vidding project that I'm not sure if I can talk about yet. But I can guarantee that the next two months will see more fannish productivity on my end than probably the entirety of the past year. At bare minimum, I'll have a Yuletide fic, a Sleepy Hollow something, a Festivid, a vidding project vid, and a Secret Mutant fic. But for the first time ever, I'm super intrigued by all four of my Secret Mutant prompts, so I may try to fill more than one of them; plus, based on the Dear Whoever letters I've been reading on my circle, I may well try to create at least one Festivid treat and one Yuletide treat by virtue of really loving their prompts. And over the past couple of days, I've actually been making active progress on the next chapter of "Queen's Gambit" for the first time in MONTHS, so that's actually my priority right now. And I'm still sitting on that Buffy high school vid that just needs one more good round of edits before I post.

I have solid ideas for all the exchange prompts so far except Yuletide, for which of course I matched with a fandom I probably shouldn't have offered and has a prompt that's a little too specific for my tastes -- you know the kind when the person CLEARLY knows exactly what fic they want, and you kind of wonder why they don't just write it themselves? Yeah. But I'll figure it out eventually.

Something tells me that I'm going to spend December in a blind panic because I'm waaaay overcommitted to fandom. But at least I know I'll be unemployed-ish for a solid three weeks in November, so hopefully I'll be able to knock out a bunch then. And Festivids aren't actually due until mid-January, which I always forget and think I have to do them RIGHT NOW RIGHT AWAY when, really, those are the last things I need to tackle.

OH HEY MEME TIME.

7. Your pet hates
Apart from the usual (homophobia, racism, misogyny, transphobia, general un-grooviness), I really hate passive-aggressiveness. Ugh. That kind of attitude just makes my skin crawl.


ETA: Oh hey sign-ups are still open for the Sleepy Hollow fanwork exchange (any kind of fanwork -- fic, podfic, vid, art, icons, etc) and everyone in this shiny new fandom should check it out:

Sign-up October 14 - Oct 25!

I'm really no good at the daily posting thing.

3. Your favorite quote
"White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities." -Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim

Because storytelling, that's why.

Anyway, it's Yuletide time again, and once again, I am stumped for offers. I can always come up with three fandoms that I've never written before, and then I flail around desperately to find a fourth I think I can write. (I've been playing Yuletide from the very first year; I learned the hard way about offering fandoms I'm not 100% sure about.) So as always, I'll wind up filling the rest of my quota with fandoms I've already written for Yuletide before, and as always, that's what I'll end up matching on. But I am not offering History Boys ever ever again. I've written that three times already for Yuletide. There has to be a limit.

My work schedule is very weird this week, but today was a day off, and I have given myself permission to have zero social interaction all day. It's been SUCH a relief, oh my god, I didn't realize how badly I needed that. I've been...very, very social lately, which is a good thing! Really! I like people! But I'm still an introvert, and I haven't had much in the way of recharge time over the past couple of weeks, so, yeah. (I also have strep throat, and no idea how I contracted it. Fortunately, I figured it out within a few hours of symptom onset and got diagnosed and on antibiotics that evening, so I only had like one day of minor pain before the drugs kicked in, and now I feel totally fine. I mean, I have to keep taking the antibiotics for another week, but still.)

Haven't had much time or energy for writing lately at all. But I've been working on fic on and off all day, which is awesome. Um, of course, it hasn't been any fic I SHOULD be writing (finishing Queen's Gambit or starting on my eleventyfest assignment). So now I have like 2500 words of always-a-girl!Kirk fic? And still going strong? Look, I don't even know at this point, Star Trek Reboot fandom has kind of eaten my brain since seeing "Into Darkness". Which, believe me, I know all the ways in which that was not a good movie and in fact failed on many levels, but it awakened my long-dormant Kirk/Spock fangirl, so, that happened? But that fails to explain this fic. I have never once in my life written a genderswap. And yet. I don't even know how shippy it'll wind up being -- Kirk/Spock is and always shall be my endgame pairing in this fandom, so probably it'll at least sort of go there? But mostly I'm just interested in how Kirk's utter Kirk-ness would both change and stay the same if he'd been born cis-female. (Like, she really doesn't start off on good terms with Bones, but on the flip side, she's way better friends with Uhura.) I AM WRITING A FIC THAT NO ONE WILL READ.

I kind of avoided even thinking about writing in the Trek fandom, because I'm not a "real" Trekkie (never watched TOS, have seen but not particularly liked some TNG and DS9); I really only got interested in the fandom through the Reboot, which I know is heresy. But the AU implications inherent in the Reboot 'verse fascinate me, and so taking that AUness a step further by making Kirk female doesn't feel quite as blasphemous. Still. I've only seen one genderswapped!Kirk fic so far (it was awesome, FYI, but mostly just PWP), and while I'm sure there must be more out there, I get the sense this is not a popular fandom fad. OH WELL, WRITING ANYWAY.

God, it's just a relief to be writing something, at least.

So I legit had a dream last night that for some reason involved working out a plot snag on Queen's Gambit, and woke up and grabbed my laptop and started writing. (So I...incepted myself? I suppose that's fitting.) And while this hasn't been my most productive day ever, it did end up with several thousand more words written, and I'm only like two or three not-terribly-long scenes away from finishing the next chapter. Except now I'm having all kinds of weird self-conscious feelings about the fact that it's been nearly a year since I updated that fic, and nobody wants to read it anymore, and how the way I've broken up the next couple of chapters means that I'm banking everything on the hope that the handful of people who might actually still be reading are somewhat invested in Alex, because there is basically no Charles or Erik in this chapter at all, and ugh of course no one likes this fic as much as Boden's Mate because really the central character arcs belong to Raven and Alex, neither of whom are terribly popular characters in this fandom, and by now my brain is in some kind of weird awful feedback loop of fail.

In conclusion, this is a pretty good summary of why I haven't updated Queen's Gambit in close to a year. Um, that and the whole MASSIVE SERIES OF UPHEAVALS that have been the past ten months of my life, but yeah.

But I am only 2k words or so away from having the next chapter ready for beta. And for the record, Cain Marko's head is not a fun place to visit.

Secret Mutant reveal has happened! So now I can 'fess up at last. Both of these fics drew heavily from personal experience, so fair warning, I'm about to blather on a bit.

First up, my original assignment:

Trigger Discipline (3931 words) by kaydeefalls
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Raven Darkholme, Moira MacTaggert, Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier
Summary: In which Raven learns how to fire a weapon, and maybe even when not to.

( Gasp! Gen fic about female characters! )

Next up, the incredibly obvious pinch-hit:

The Opposite of People (9217 words) by kaydeefalls
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Raven Darkholme, Sebastian Shaw, Alex Summers, Logan (X-Men), Armando Muñoz, Hank McCoy, Ororo Munroe, Jean Grey
Summary: In retrospect, it probably didn't help that the first time Charles met Erik Lehnsherr, the man was up a ladder in well-worn, close-fitting jeans. Modern!nonpowered!AU where they all work in the theatre, Shaw is still a bastard, and Charles is doing his best to get this damn show open with his sanity (relatively) intact.

a.k.a. the Theatre!AU I've been talking about for over a year now. Seriously, this is my ultimate id!fic. ( No, you don't understand, that fic is a 100% accurate and true representation of my life. )

Also I can say that my gift fic was written by ninemoons42, which was hilarious and awesome because she's one of my usual betas, and I recognized her writing style instantly. :D :D :D

Secret Mutant is live! If you like XMFC fic, you should totally check it out. It's...mostly Charles/Erik, but there are a handful of other pairings & gen fics strewn about in there, too.

I wrote two fics. They are POLAR OPPOSITES in popularity at the moment, and I expect that won't change. There is pretty much zero anonymity involved in my pinch-hit; the other is less obvious (and has almost no hits on AO3 at the moment, which does not surprise me). If you manage to guess both, I'll...write you a thing? Seriously, no points for guessing the pinch-hit alone, it's that obvious.

I received an XMFC/Bond fusion fic, which is also not even a little bit anonymous, but I'll not reveal the author early. ;) She has excellent taste in fusions; I've been mainlining Skyfall fic over the past few weeks, so that was very well-timed.

Aaand...I really need to get cracking on Yuletide, fuck. Instead, have a Yuletide meme! ( i've been participating since the very first year, godDAMN )

A meme that actually looks really interesting, and that I need to make sure I check out everyone else's responses to:

Pick a character* I've written and I will give and explain the top five** ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

* Try to make it someone I've written either often or recently in order for me to answer.
** May not actually be five

I have BUCKETS OF HEADCANON for most of the POV characters I've written. Like, to the point that I feel guilty if the plot of one fic requires me to ignore my headcanon from a previous fic. (AU scenarios aside, of course, but even then, there are crucial elements of Who A Character Is that go for any iteration. Otherwise, I may as well be writing original fiction.)

I did get some Secret Mutant fic written last night! And I reorganized the outline of it a bit, which helps -- I have a bad habit of imposing a structure on fics to help organize my thoughts which then fails to actually best serve the story itself. I need to let go of that a bit.

Also today I sold my car. Which makes me feel a bit like I've lost a friend, weirdly enough. Oh, Martha my dear, you got me to so many rehearsals around DC and then to Colorado and back, you were a good car and I am very sorry to see you go. :( But I really, really don't need a car in NYC, and I can't afford to pay $350/mo on insurance for a vehicle I won't ever drive. Still, I am sad.

Not sure who's even seen this movie, so, um, anyone willing and able to do a quick beta on 6000 words of Snow White/Huntsman fic?

At least this ought to get this fandom out of my system. And I have to admit, writing het sex does have its advantages, mainly being that I can just use "his" and "her" a lot instead of having to constantly name the participants to distinguish one person's body parts from the other's.

Yes, I spent my one day off writing het porn. These things happen. In fairness, the fic is only like 20% sex, and it's not all that explicit. But that's the part I hadn't written yet, so.

Apparently I misunderstood the X-Men Reversebang schedule -- and it sounds like I'm not the only one, since they just posted a clarification that while there's a mandatory author check-in on May 21, the rough draft itself isn't due until June 20. THANK JEBUS. Seriously, writing this thing has been like pulling teeth, and while I've been planning on devoting this weekend to working on it, it's extremely unlikely I'll be 80% done with the fic by Monday. And now I have a whole extra MONTH to get there!

I've shoved other WIPs to the side over the past few weeks to work on this one, which has been massively frustrating given my lack of significant progress, but now I think I can allow myself to poke at Queen's Gambit again. Because I'm finally at the exciting part of that fic, but I didn't want to give it too much attention while I had this huge deadline hanging over my head. I feel so free now!

...though, okay, I'm crap at the collaborating-with-your-artist part of Reversebang, because for me, writing is a very private and isolated process -- I almost never share WIP drafts with anyone else until they're polished to a ready-for-beta point (which, for me, means I've gone through and done my own edits several times through already). Even Queen's Gambit, which I'm posting as a WIP -- I need to have a complete, coherent 10k-ish word chapter before I'll even show it to my betas. I don't know how to write collaboratively. Should I be e-mailing my artist scenes as I finish them, even though I know I'll rewrite them a bunch more times and I hate hate hate having other people see my roughest drafts? Should I, like, offer to share the gdoc with her? How is this supposed to work?

Since all the cool kids are doing it, and I clearly love nothing more than pretending to be cool and failing magnificently, AO3 hitcount meme time! For the record, I have 138 fics uploaded to AO3.

( my top 10 fics, by hitcount )

( observations )

Speaking of fic, I sent the next chapter of Queen's Gambit off to beta earlier this week. So that's coming. :) And my show closes Sunday, which means a solid month of only working my day job and having BUCKETS of writing time and packing to move more than halfway across the country, holy shit.

Ugh. It's been a week, let me tell you. So I'm going to do my level best to put myself into a writing coma all weekend, since I've got nothing else to do. It's going to be my last real free weekend for a while -- next weekend, I'm heading up to Philadelphia with my mom to figure out whether or not I want to move there, and the weekend after that is the last before my next show kicks into gear, so I'll be frantically prepping for tech.

Now the question is which of my various and sundry WIPs to focus on. SO HOW ABOUT A RANDOM POLL.



It's probably telling that I'm super fucking excited at the prospect of locking myself in my bedroom and writing all weekend. Um. Introvert, much?

Well, this roommate search is proceeding MUCH better than the last one. Posted ad on Craigslist Friday evening, got 15 responses by yesterday morning, showed five people the place yesterday and have three more coming today and tomorrow. I have no idea how I'm going to pick a roommate -- everyone seems very nice, though they're all quite different from one another. No red flags, but no one I've been like YES LIVE WITH ME PLEASE. So, yeah. I feel weirdly guilty knowing that I'm going to turn most of them down, even though of course that's how this process works. But I remember feeling rushed and slightly bullied offering the place to current!roomie (though I liked another girl slightly better), and that clearly didn't work out, so I'm more inclined to listen to my gut instincts this round. We'll see.

I caved and requested an extension on my white_lotus exchange, thank goodness. This weekend has been insane enough as is. And the fic I'd originally been writing for it really, really wasn't working for me, so I scrapped it entirely and am now working on something completely different. Which I like so far, but doubt I could finish by tomorrow. So yay extension! I'll definitely have more time this week to complete it.

Am completely, miserably stuck on the next chapter of Queen's Gambit. I've got scraps written, but no complete scenes. I have such a clear idea of where I'm going later in the fic, but not how to get there, and it's deeply frustrating. And with all the holiday exchanges, I haven't even been thinking about that 'verse for about a month now, and getting back into that headspace is harder than I'd expected. Ugh. I'm really excited about what's going to happen a chapter or two down the line, but connecting the dots in between is just...not working. And I don't know why. Can't I just skip straight to the job itself? Why do I have to write all the crucial set-up crap in between? Bah. (Part of it is that there are certain POV characters that come way more easily to me than others, but no, Logan and Emma are actually doing important things and I actually do need to write about them. It's just a constant struggle for me to slip into their voices. Why can't Alex narrate everything? And then there's the side issue of certain characters knowing more than I want the audience to know just yet, so I've either got to avoid their POV or be very, very careful about what they give away.)

And current!roomie is either never home or has shut herself in her room, which is frustrating because I actually do need to talk to her about what her plans for moving out tomorrow are. And get her share of last month's utilities, which she still hasn't paid me back for. And also she needs to come out of there before someone stops by to look at her room today. Argh.

Heeeey, Yuletide! My fic will surprise absolutely no one who knows me.

The World's Fastest Snowball (4010 words) by kaydeefalls
Fandom: Sports Night
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dan Rydell, Casey McCall, Dana Whitaker, Natalie Hurley, Jeremy Goodwin, Kim (Sports Night), Elliot (Sports Night), Isaac Jaffe, Chris (Sports Night), Dave (Sports Night), Will (Sports Night)
Summary:

In which a network plot may or may not be afoot, interns are procuring desks for unwilling sportscasters, and inclement weather threatens the course of baseball history. So business as usual, pretty much.

I'm kind of amused that of all the fandoms I offered and requested, I managed to both write and receive the same fandom. BUT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH SPORTS NIGHT FIC OKAY. This was fun to write, although it took me a very long time to get it started because I really, really don't know much about actual sports. The only sport I both understand and enjoy watching is baseball, hence this fic, but even so, I have never done so much research for such a relatively short fic. (The MLS trivia alone, dear god.) Anyway. It's nothing special, but I made myself giggle an awful lot while writing it and my recipient enjoyed it, so that's all that matters. :D


You know what else matters? NEW SHERLOCK TONIGHT OMG. Can. Not. Wait. And I wrote many, many words for the Charles/Erik pinch hit last night, which I now need to double-check for, y'know, coherency. And then actually fucking finish it today, oh god, I really need to do that, how is the pinch-hit I'm writing in a week longer than my original assigned fic which I worked on for a month. *facepalm*