bus stop fiction

Today's random reason I love my lj friends: I can talk shit about Michael Shanks without getting myself in trouble. I always forget that I can't do that on, you know, the entire rest of the Internet. I think I really offended someone this week by calling Shanks-pants a crappy director. Which.

There are people that think Michael Shanks can direct? Or that he did anything on the Double Jeopardy set except whine a lot?

But let's face it. Directing is work. Michael does not like work, especially work that does not involve him being pretty. Michael loves his kids, and his wife, and his muscular best friend. And being told how awesome he is. But not so much, the working hard.

Also let's face it: THIS IS WHY I LOVE HIM. I also love that he drinks too much and wears t-shits that are too tight, so that the fangirls can see his nipples. I love that he has a potty mouth. I love that he'll do anything for a laugh. I love that he totally checks out of acting in episodes that don't have enough for him to do. I love that, when this doesn't work as silent protest, he is totally willing to quit his job and then change his mind five minutes later. I love that acting is his only talent. Unless you count hockey. I love that Michael on DVD commentary tracks mostly consist of insight into how pretty his eyes are. I love that he is so goddamn vain that he waxes all the hair on his body. I love that he IS NOT ASHAMED of this.

This is actually pretty much why I love RPF. Actors: full of awesome little flaws you can exploit to make kissing.

Oh, Michael Shanks.

NEVER CHANGE.

I keep stopping by comment_fic and such places, and being like, wait, I don't need prompts, I have ten billion ideas. You know how many stories I have started since the beginning of the year? Easily thirty. Mainly Gossip Girl, Entourage, and RPF. Will any of them ever be finished? Who knows. Including EPIC E/Vince prison AU, which will either be awesome or a collosal failure. Boys! In prison! Doing terrible things. I currently know way more than I want to about the New York state penal system.

Gossip Girl fandom scares me. I think I'm the oldest person in it. I really want to be like, stop it with the chat speak! I can't understand you! In MY day we had to type in real English! And while you're at it, GET OFF MY LAWN.

Yeah.

I really miss rambling on about nothing on my lj. Want me to ramble on about anything or anyone in particular? Possibly with photos? Chace Crawford and how gay he is? An explanation of who Chace Crawford even is? How much writing SUCKS? Leave a comment and make me a request.

Scorpio
a Flashpoint RPF story
David Paetkau/Hugh Dillon
rated R
a random companion speed-ficlet to yesterday's Pull the Pin, also for ds_snippets. Apparently, just by trying to avoid starting a 10 000 word Ed/Sam first-time story, I made myself an OTP of introverted awesomeness. Oh, well? At least it's not the story where Hugh and Callum both bring their blue-eyed Gen Y sometimes-boyfriends to a party and then David and Tahmoh make out for no reason? Or the genfic where Hugh sings punkrock lullabies to Mary Jo's pregnant belly and David rubs her feet? For no reason?

( if i were a train i would never slow down )

along the brittle treacherous bright streets
of memory comes my heart,singing like
an idiot,whispering like a drunken man
--ee cummings

If I owe you something fannishly, I'm sorry, I suck, it's coming. You know that one winter month designed to kick your ass? Mine was just here. (Not that I have high hopes for March.)

Pull the Pin
a Flashpoint RPF story
David Paetkau/Hugh Dillon
rated PG-13
For ds_snippets Rapid-Fire challenge, and 400 words because I SUCK at instructions. And timeliness. My apologies. (This story was named from a Fall Out Boy song for about two seconds. And then I pictured Hugh Dillon's horrified face. So, Stereophonics album. Better or worse? Call me and let me know, Hugh.) BONUS: David and Hugh on Canada AM. Note the leg stroking touching.

( i like to feel the crush / it's alright )

A Piece of What You Need
a Gossip Girl story
Nate/Chuck/Blair
rated NC-17
Future!fic. Completely accidental. I was just in the mood to write something super explicit OMG, and here it is. thanks to llaras for the quickie beta! and for assuring me that this was not, in fact, WAY too much porn to post in public. Love you!

( 1 + 1 + 1 [you can't always get what you want] )

Six days, four posts. Crazy! I know.

Now people don't have to inquire as to when I will write some FPF (really I have written much Entourage FPF, but it is all torturously epic and therefore torturously unfinished and potentially infinite). piacere means pleasure, favour, or to be pleasing, the infinitive. All the Italian that's actually in the story is tourist Italian, too boring to translate. Yes, please, thank you, et cetera. This is more of me shamelessly writing my own prompts for Porn Battle, but this one turned out about 120 words too long, and I didn't really want to cut any of the E/Vince co-dependency. So I flailed for a bit, cut nothing, and now here it is. Takes place after 4.01 Welcome to the Jungle. Prompt: Italy.

( mi piace, ti piace (i would do anything, anything) )

Recently I mentioned that all my Entourage RPF are turning into crazy id-fics, where every kink I have, storytelling and literal, is on display. Even some I didn't have before. (The last time I wrote fic this selfishly, I think, it was early in my Jack/Daniel days and I was all, hmmmn, how else can I get Daniel almost killed by aliens so that Jack can come save him? Daniel whumping for the win.)

Stories where Kevin Connolly gets whumped aside, and I have many, I am currently two three pages into Entourage RPF mpreg.

*hides shame*

I would like to blame carolinecrane, but really she didn't do anything except accidentally goad me into rambling about Kevin Connolly. Which takes very little, these days. And it really stupidly started because Kevin and Adrian both have lovely eyes (that or the crushes are blinding me), and I read this article once that claimed blue eyes will probably be extinct soon because of, um, interracial procreation. I have no idea who is going to be on tv once all the blue-eyed people are gone, the casting directors will be confused, but I thought of that while watching blue-eyed boys be cute on Entourage and then it occurred to me that if Adrian and Kevin (or E and Vince, I am not picky on this one) had a baby, it would have the prettiest, blue-est eyes ever.

(As much as I got into it because I love the awesome first-time stories, there is not enough fun stuff in that fandom. Or any. Like, wingfic or AUs. Or RPF...oh, wait.

Ask me about the E/Vince mafia AU sometime. Merely an excuse to put E in expensive suits and have him defend Vince's honour with violence, you say? How is that different from canon, you say?)

Anyway, repeating that to Caroline made me think, huh, if Adrian were pregnant...and now I am two three pages in. Pretty soon I am going to be researching alternative birthing methods, because if anyone is going to be giving birth in a jacuzzi while a Native tribal elder chants to bring forth the good spirits, it is Adrian "I was born on a commune, let me give you a hug" Grenier.

(Yup. I have moved on, however temporarily, from making fun of Kevin Connolly. The short people and the Irish-Americans and the actual leprechauns are pleased. The hippies and the Native Americans, not so much.)

(And really, the last time I wrote fic this selfishly, RL was sucking and thinking about Daniel getting rescued and then sexed was the perfect disctraction. Which is kind of *exactly* like now, except this year I am grumpier and my health has gotten worse. So I mpreg on. And if you're thinking, oh, that sounds hilarious, then...no. There will probably be lots of references to Adrian's pathetic childhood, and a little single parenting. Why does that cheer me up, you want to know.)

The problem with the porn battle for me right now is that I realised that I don't want to write other people's random prompts. My own, however, are fair game. But really I just want to write about Kevin getting Adrian knocked up.

Please send help. Or more paper.

all these things that i've done
a Numb3rs story
Colby gen
rated PG
for the angst team in the numb3rswriteoff challenge. theme: crack.

"I didn't do it because I believed in it. I did it because I could. Because after Afghanistan, I didn't believe in much of anything anymore."

--Colby Granger, 3.24 The Janus List

( while everyone's lost )

Speed
an Entourage RPF story
Adrian/Kevin C.
rated NC-17
Five location shoots for Kevin and Adrian. Much thanks to shoshannagold, for catching when my sentences are not really sentences. I have a post to make, about how I apparently write Entourage RPF from the gooey centre of my id, but this is not one of those fics. If anyone's id is on display here, it's Adrian's, but he can't help it.

( if you don't know by now, baby, i'm a star )

The Stargate: SG-1 four-shot is on its way to being temporarily usurped by the Entourage walk-and-talk. I especially love the long ones, when they go down the street and around the corner and the camera twirls and stuff. (Possibly what I mean here, is, I enjoy watching Adrian and Kevin walk and talk. I find myself compelled to shout out "he's so tiny and cute!" at random intervals.)

Man, I am so far gone. It's been a while since I've been this far gone. Probably since I almost joined Captain America/Iron Man fandom, and then didn't. I forgot how fun it is. I spend my days coming up with random shit, like, I bet Adrian lives in Malibu. I bet Kevin hates that. I bet he drives aaaall the way down there in the middle of the night for a booty call in his SUV and Adrian is all, your car is evil. I am not having sex with you until you get rid of that car.

Ad infinitum.

Also, writing the RPF is killing me. Kevin Connolly is the most unreliable narrator of all time. Like he puts Jack freaking "I dated identical acrobats one time" Harkness to shame. (Obviously here I mean the Kevin that lives in my head, not the actual Kevin Connolly who is presumably a good Catholic boy who loves his country and his momma and would never say anything that isn't true. Unless asked about his height, right. We never did establish whether, if the fictional people have technically real counterparts walking the earth, if that makes me less crazy or more crazy.) But Kevin is in deep denial, which means you can't trust anything he says. He's all, I don't think Adrian really likes me. And I'm all, so there's no particular reason Adrian's hand is down your pants, you mean? And he's all, I think I'm going back to girls. Tiny, blonde girls who are famous for extremely sketchy reasons (sorry, Kev, I just say it like it is) and are not my hot boy co-star, who doesn't even really like me.

And I'm all, you suck.

And I'm very proud of myself for getting through that explanation without making any Irish jokes. About tiny red-haired boys who tell wrong, sad LIES. Apparently my fannish New Year's resolution is to alienate all the short people of Irish descent. I apologise in advance.

And that's entirely aside from the metaphorical pain of writing about...actors who play actors. Like, Daniel Jackson is a loner who travels to other planets through a bridge in the fabric of space and time, and Michael Shanks lives in Vancouver with his pretty wife and two pretty babies and goes drinking with his best friend on the weekends, and that's totally easy. Well, I mean, I think I don't suck at it. You can think whatever you think about that. Adrian is a womanising actor who plays...a womanising actor. (Again, Adrian, just saying how it is.) Kevin is a nice boy from New York with a serial dating habit who loves hanging with his buddies who plays...a nice boy from New York with a serial dating habit who loves hanging with his buddies. I realise that's why they got the roles in the first place, and Doug Ellin writes them shit he knows they can play, which is awesome for them but makes my life more difficult.

These are my problems. What can I say.

Though I do kind of wish I was into the Supernatural boys or the Merlin boys, in a roundabout way. (Or that the Leverage fandom didn't make me want to call everyone names. Never ask me about that.) But they bore me. Kind of like how this post is boring you, right now. Fannishness is such a weird, ethereal thing. Sometimes people are all wah, I have too much fic to read, I will never catch up. And I am all, seriously, FUCK YOU. (No, but I love you all. Even with your totally inconsequential big fandom problems.)

I know some of you are sad about the Atlantis finale. I wish I could be sad too, so that I didn't feel like such a bitch.

New York, I Love You (But You're Bringing Me Down)
a Gossip Girl RPF story
Ed/Chace
rated PG-13
for fluffyllama in the Pretty Lights Actorficathon 2008. A first-time story. Request was "Ed is a bit of slut, but Chace doesn't mind". I suspect that you could fit a lot of different adjectives in that sentence. Thanks to llaras for betaing despite not really knowing who the boys are.

( new york, i love you (but you're wearing me out) )

For sg1_jubilee: Last Train for the Coast for prehistoric_sea, Cam/Daniel, rated NC-17. Takes place during Continuum, so, an AU of sorts. It's a little sad. This is not my fault. The movie is a little sad.

My other fic for yuletide was Five Winters That Bucky Barnes Lived Through for ceroate, a Captain America fic, Bucky/Steve and Bucky/Natasha. In other words, the one Bucky/Natasha fic that I didn't rec. I can't believe no one guessed that one. It was fun to write. I wish there was more Captain America fic. Or generally, more Avengers-related stuff that wasn't Steve/Tony. I like Steve/Tony, I just think that there is are many other possibilities. But considering even the Steve/Tony stuff wasn't really around this time last year, perhaps I am too demanding.

For Pretty Lights, which has 25 new RPF stories and you should go look, I got Stars in Her Eyes, Michael/Lexa. Mmmn, Michael/Lexa. I will repost my own story tonight when author reveals go up, which means that you have a few hours in which to guess. It is, once again, horribly obvious. Trust me. For Jubilee I recieved Tis Better to Give by evesharmony, Sam/Cam/Daniel. Pretty, sexy, awesome. There were a lot of Christmas-themed stories this year. I'm not really sure what that's about. Oh, and I really enjoyed the other Continuum fic in the challenge, The Year That Was by bluflamingo. Cam/John, and far less depressing than mine.

We are going to work on attracting the het writers next year. I have no idea why we scare them off, unless it's just the usual twelve year old SG-1 fannish politics. Oh, SG-1.

Las Vegas was a lot of fun to write also, and I mention this so that you can all be forewarned of the very real possibility that my lj will be nothing for the next year but the epic documentation of Adrian and Kevin's forever love. (Yes. I have fallen for an RPF fandom that doesn't even exist. It's like SG-1 all over again.) But, you guys. They're best friends. They're best friends who work together. They are best friends who go out looking for girls together and are mysteriously somehow still single. They are best friends who take each other to awards shows.

(The store that Nicky takes Kevin to in that fic is, in fact, the Beverly Center Sephora. I picked it because I have been in it, and I do suspect that Kevin would enjoy the salesgirls. Or salesboys. Whichever. Beware fandoms set in my favourite city in the entire fucking world (yes, really).)

Also, the more I learn, the more my Kevin Connolly affliction gets a bit worse. Because...let me see if I can explain this. Do you remember when I was really obsessed with Michael Shanks and I said it wasn't entirely a sexual crush thing, it was more that he struck me as somewhat similar to myself? And I wanted to go shopping with him and crack sex jokes and talk about how pretty we both were, and then throw back pitchers of La Maudite until we passed out? Yeah, okay. Well, that was four years ago. Four years later, I am still pretty but I have screenwriting books stacked on my shelf and excitedly shout out "four-shot!" whenever I see one on SG-1, because the four-shot is my favourite of all the cliche enemble cast television camera shots. (Stop laughing. It's all four of my favourite people in one frame. It makes me happy. I especially like how Peter DeLuise claims to have invented the thing.) In other words, I am a process nerd. And Kevin Connolly seems like a very sweet guy, one who is all "one-er" this and "Steadi-cam" that and he knows what other films were shot on the Entourage locations and he is a totally a film history dork, y'all. Who almost didn't do Entourage because he wanted to direct. I want to take him home and talk shot lists and make him tell me things about Hollywood. Iin a ninety percent platonic manner.

Shut up.

prehistoric_sea posted her secret santa requests that the authors didn't write in her lj, just as a reminder or as shameless begging. I thought I would do the same. I am not above shameless begging.

( lonely, schrodinger's cat requests behind the cut )

I have signed up for numb3rswriteoff. Please send help.

Las Vegas
an Entourage RPF story
Adrian/Kevin C.
rated PG-13
written for ceares in the Yuletide 2008 challenge. Adrian, Kevin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicky Hilton. Beta'd/shamelessly encouraged by sparky77, thanks baby!

( Like a lot of other probably very bad ideas in the history of Hollywood, it starts in Las Vegas. )

Unlike other people, I do not read in any kind of alphabetical order or anything systematic like that. I skim, grab a fandom, read some of the fics in that fandom, get distracted, pick another fandom, look for recs and read those instead, go back to the first fandom, eat some Christmas cookies, rinse and repeat.

Some fics I read and didn't not even come close to hating. I'm organising by genre, so tv and movies some other time:

COMICS

Five Times Faiza Hussain Meets a Superhero, Captain Britain and MI:13, Faiza gen. Starts out with this totally likely portrait of baby!Faiza! And ends with Faiza's first day as a superhero. Faiza is so feisty and awesome, and such a Captain Britain fangirl that you'll want to cuddle her.

The 3AM Phone Call, Iron Man, gen-ish (Tony/Maya Hansen, Tony/Henry Hellrung). It's a fic referencing a couple of Tony's angstiest moments in comics. It's a fic about Tony being drunk. It's a fic about Tony getting sober, and making his amends. It's angstalicious.

The other two Iron Man stories in the archive are really movieverse stories. I have really strong feelings about whether or not that should be considered cheating. Or I'm just a snobby comics bitch. It is entirely possible that I just need to stop reading Iron Man fic before I alienate everyone, like Tony on a bender, and then my brain explodes.

BOOKS

Moral Fibre, Scott Lynch - the Gentleman Bastards sequence, gen. This challenge is pretty much the only thing that can make me read non-Star Wars book!fic. This story is some really cute, true thoughts about Locke and Jean. Sadly, no kissing. Maybe next time.

RPF

Ed Westwick is Not a Repair Man, Gossip Girl RPF, Ed/Chace. Another impressive feat of characterisation in a rare rpf fandom. Because I write in them all the time, I know how much work that is, because you are starting from scratch and trying to dodge their tv personalities, like a minefield. This does it. Ed is slouchy, slutty, British rock and roll guy, and Chace is apple pie and Texas and all the things that Ed can't figure out. But totally has the hots for anyway. V. awesome.

Often Very Giddy, Firefly RPF, Nathan and Joss gen. Nathan is a shameless, drunken attention whore, and Joss eggs him on. Just like real life.

won't you try to take care of yourself?, Wainwright family RPF, Martha and Rufus. Dramatic, over-emotional fun, much like the Wainwright siblings themselves. Rufus is a drama queen. Martha is a hard-edged rock-and-roll princess and smoking hot. I would. Win. (I confess that I almost wrote a Treat in this fandom, but it would have turned into a Rufus/Teddy Thompson gay country singers story and the recipient would have had to have me banned.)

Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Stargate SG-1 RPF, Ben/Claudia. Set during Farscape times, though, actually. Teasing each other and holding each other and trying to sidestep their feelings and *sigh*.

you and me, saturday night, my bedroom (clothing optional), Gossip Girl RPF, Penn/Blake. I confess to having some very strong issues with Blake Lively, and that little fake pout thing she does that makes me want to turn the TV off. Sorry, to readers of this journal who I know crush on her. I'm way more of a Leighton Meester girl. (Leighton/Chace? Leighton/Ed? Leighton/Adrian Grenier? These are all things that I will have to consider next year.) But this story is a really cool consideration of what the tabloids say and how it might not really be true, which is not something that we bother thinking about a lot in RPF. Besides, I like Penn. Even moreso in this story.

...now to beat my Pretty Lights story into submission.

I realise that it's a little irrational to be all, yay! I got to read fic all day yesterday! like that's not what I do everyday. But I got three (three!) stories for Yuletide and they were awesome:

A World That Does Not Exist, Star Wars RPF, Carrie/Harrison. And, okay. This is brilliant. Harrison's all, bah, humbug, and Mark is all dorky and adorable and adoring and Carrie's all tiny and awesome and packing away the vodka in order to escape her birthright and there are puns. In other words, this is exactly how I imagine it really was, except that probably RL had less making out. But I'm just guessing on that last one. Also, it's so exactly how I like my RPF to be that I have a feeling that this author knows me. In fact, I have a theory on who it is. I could be wrong. But if I'm right, I love it and thank you for responding to my emotional blackmail. :)

And someone else that's awesome has promised me more in this fandom. I am telling the whole world in order to hold her to it. :)

Bits and Pieces, Captain America, Bucky/Natasha. It's almost the exact before and after, Russia-to-Brooklyn story that I had in my head. Bucky's memory is wonky and Natasha is steady, if duty-bound, and they're the cutest couple ever to be brainwashed by the Sovet Union. And she knows, because last week he woke up in the middle of the night, or almost woke up, and began talking about the forties. It's awesomely angsty.

Vultures, Eagles, Captain America, Bucky/Natasha. This is the flipside, a story I could not have pictured in advance. Which is just as cool, if not cooler. Bucky and Natasha meet as communism crumbles and discover themselves now on different sides of the fight. Except that Bucky himself is on two sides of the fight, so things just get more sexy and complicated from there. Also awesomely angsty. (You know what would have been cool? If he had been sent to kill or otherwise neutralise her. That's not criticism, that's me spinning story ideas. My audience might consist of just me, but I want to write lots of epic, angsty Bucky/Natasha. In which there is gunfire. And fistfights, and Bucky crushing things with his metal hand and Natasha flying through the air.)

I have this whole half-baked theory about how unwritten ficathon requests are like Schrodinger's cat, but I can't work out how to share it without sounding ungrateful. But I might write some Power Man and Iron Fist in the New Year.

Feel free to try and guess which fics are mine. I wrote two. One in an previously-written fandom and one that has never been previously written by...anybody. One, I think, is startlingly obvious, the other one less so. If you are one of the people to whom I've been gleefully talking about nothing but the obvious fandom for the last month and a half, then you are clearly not eligible to guess.

I was going to start in on my recs of stories for other people, but some of the recs come with epic rambling (no, I know, they just do) and I've got bunches already, so maybe I'd be better breaking them up. Will stop here and pick up the thread later.

Happy Boxing Day! May the deals be awesome and the leftovers delicious.

I was feeling all full of yuletide joy. I had posted two stories with plenty of time to spare, I had beta'd two cool stories, and I was looking forward to reading my fic on Christmas Day. Then I peruse the Yuletide Treats list, only to notice that...my requests are on it. My requests were, apparently too difficult for someone to handle. The Star Wars RPF thing made someone's brain explode. How sad. (If you are reading this, and you are my backup writer, please note that my whining is in no way directed at you. I am sure that you are doing totally awesome and I love you for offering to write me a story in three days. Write on.)

Also, I am not telling you this so that you can all feel sorry for me and write me fic. No, wait. Yes, I am. A year during which I added seven tiny, ficless, fandoms has relieved me of anything I once had resembling shame.

Taking a break from mainlining episodes of Numb3rs to do the WiP meme. (these are ones I actually plan to finish. As opposed to the other, more common kind of WiP. And, can we even talk about my Numb3rs issues? I have a crush on David. And a crush on Colby. And a crush on David/Colby. Which is really weird, because they are manly men, full of manliness and testosterone and a tendency to run into burning buildings and derailed, smoking trains, because, God forbid the actual First Responders on the scene should get to do their actual job when David and Colby are around, being manly. And that is one hundred percent never my type. Lately, boys aren't even my type. But I totally want Colby to hit me over the head with his club and drag me back to his cave.)

On a different day, we will talk about my completely irrational, steadily growing, actor-crush on Kevin Connolly. A man who, if we were in a movie together, would be required to stand on half an apple crate.

( sg-1, atlantis, entourage! )

There's more, but in my secret Santa fandoms, and I think it will be fairly obvious that no one else would have been crazy enough to write those pairings in those fandoms. So you will just have to wait and see. You know what I found a lot of while I was looking up stories for this? Torchwood fic. Tosh/Ianto and Tosh/everyone. Oh, Torchwood. I am so over you.

I have to do my Christmas shopping. In the meantime, another meme:

Name a character from one of my fandoms, and I'll give you either (a) three facts about them from my personal canon/fanon, (b) a reason he/she sucks, (c) a reason he/she is awesomecakes, (d) five things that never happened to that character or (e) five people that character never fell in love with and why. You pick the character. I pick the letter.

The first person to pick Rodney McKay gets unfriended and shunned.

At some point I said I was casting off the wips, right? And then I didn't? But they're still around, and I am fully aware I am not going to finish them, so...this is 1600 words of Steve/Tony. It was suppsed to be an action-packed story where Tony and Steve get over the fact that they're both stupid boys and commit to each other, but it died when I came upon an insurmountable plot obstacle - or two. And then my brain moved on from Steve/Tony. (My brain does that. About once a week.)

So to clarify, this is unbeta'd and unfinished. And I have no plans to finish it. But here it is, anyway, released into the wind. I think there's a couple of cute moments, even if there's no story. Takes place between Disassembled and New Avengers #1.

( It was only later that Tony would realise how close he'd come to being kicked out of bed by Captain America. Literally. )

Potentially others later.

Okay. Today it suddenly occurred to me that there are 14 days until Yuletide is due. And that my Yuletide source is epic and complicated and I should look at it a little more. And then maybe create an outline. Come up with an idea. Somethiing.

I do have a hypothetical question, people who have actually done Yuletide. Suppose, under the fandom, my recipient picked out a fandom. That I love. And then under the character selection bit, three characters. And then proceeded to mention two of those characters in the optional details. And a third character that she hadn't selected, at all. A character I in fact wouldn't recognise, and would hypothetically have to look up on Wiki. And in her dear Santa letter, more of the same. No mention of what she might want me to do with the third character that she did select. And I can't really throw said third character in a scene at random, because of timeline issues. Either I build a plot around him or her, or I don't.

What does this mean? Do I follow the selections, or the details? The selections, right? Since the details are optional? But then why did she mention that random pairing? Can anyone translate?

I feel stressed. I think I'm having a breakdown.

By the way: I get my comics once a month. At the fastest. Sometimes slower. So, please to not be spoiling me for Secret Invasion, should there be anything to spoil. (Which I get the feeling that maybe there isn't. But if there is.) I did just read my October and November pulls. Nothing really made me do a happy dance, except for Faiza riding on the the Black Knight's winged horse. And then falling off. And Bucky and Natasha (except they call each other James and Natalia! It's adorable! Do you think they speak Russian to each other? In bed?) being ass-kicking, crime-fighting partners, and then cuddling. I am a 'shippy fool. And Scott and Emma claiming that their relationship is built on honesty while not really trusting each other at all. Don't ask me why I find that hot, I just do. (I like to think when Scott shares all the stuff with Logan that he's not sharing with Emma, Logan gives him a handjob to shut him up. Because being trapped in the kitchen in the middle of the night with sleepless, angsty, oversharing Scott is not his idea of a good time, you know?) And all of Cable. I love that book. And am not embarassed.

Okay. Now to work on my outline. As soon as I can magically figure out what my recipient wants. *angsts like Scott Summers*

Why do I do this to myself? I don't know.

sorting through my notebook, wherein "sort" does not necessarily mean improving the mess in anyway, and letting some bits of random go. this outcast is for sparky77.

Tony wasn't used to being caught off-guard.

One of the great things about being filthy fucking rich was that it made outcomes predicatable. People responded in expected ways. Yes, sir. Right away. Of course, Mr Stark.

In his lab, every action had a predictable, measurable outcome. The left side of the equation matched the right side. Things that went up came down. Opening his front door to find Pepper and Rhodey on his living room sofa, informing him that they had managed to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution, did not count as a predictable outcome.

"Solution to what, exactly?" Tony asked.

Pepper only smiled calmy, and passed him a sheet of paper. Along with a martini.

"We made you a chart, Tony."

"We know you love those, man," Rhodey added, and Tony hesitated. They were finishing each other's sentences.

It turned out that what they'd made for him was a schedule. It was was colour-coded. White for the lab, which was most of the page. Red for business obligations. Blue for time spent with James, and yellow for Pepper.

"What's this green section?" Tony asked.

Pepper and Rhodey grinned. They were holding hands.

Tony was in worse trouble than he'd thought.