bofoddity

I've been feeling very depressed about my writing some time now (think a year WAIT HOW DID I LET THAT HAPPEN), and as a consequence I also haven't been writing much. I've been searching for ways to finally break out of that funk, and I finally found one in 750 Words.

The idea of 750 Words is what the title and the fact it's a writing-related site implies: your goal is to write 750 words every day, and you can do that on the site itself in complete privacy. You get points and badges for writing and you can get stats for each entry about how quickly you're writing, what words you use the most, what is the mood of your entry and so on. I only started using it this week but it has already succeeded in encouraging me to write every day, and given how long my funks tend to last that is a huge thing. Thanks to littlebutfierce for introducing this!

The One Who Wakes, part 2, part 3, part 4

Final Fantasy VII gen, Cloud-centric. Written by delladella, illustrated by kimouski (no longer in LJ).

Back when I did a round of FF7-recs for crack_van my biggest regret was that I couldn't rec this story because it was a WIP, but now that WIPness is no longer the case I'm happy to rec it here. The One Who Wakes finds Cloud who is dealing with the aftermath of Zack's death and follows him on his journey to Midgar, showing how Cloud comes to be the man we saw in the beginning of the game. Not only does the story fill up one of the most mysterious holes in canon in a way that makes nothing but sense, it's also an incredible character portrait, its dark themes supported by the atmospheric art. If you want to see Cloud who is done justice (along with a certain other character), this is your story.

mrasaki, thank you so very much for the LJ coupon! It was a wonderful surprise and muchly appreciated. ♥

Meanwhile, Yuletide has been extremely kind to be this year and given me two more gifts in the Madness!

Luckiest guy in the world. is a Cal/Chloe-ficlet for Harper's Island, and it made me all soft and melty inside just all things Cal/Chloe in the show did. It's the story of how Cal decides to marry Chloe, and it's now my personal canon.

Beelzebub Has A Devil Put Aside for Me is a Secret Six-gen with Deadshot and Scandal, set right after Unhinged. Awesome Deadshot-voice and awesome look at Scandal through him. The Queen-reference in the title is an awesome little bonus.

Now, my concentration is worse than ever these days, so I probably won't do much reading this year. But here's a few recs.

First there's Sisters of Bilhah, Handmaid's Tale-fic about a woman who helps out refugees from Gilead, and about refugees she meets. Both the prose and the atmosphere are in perfect sync with the Atwood's original, only this one has a touch of hope in it.

Then we have Impetus, a Good Wife-fic about Alicia and how she gets out of Peter's shadow, and how she gets from Will and Cary to Kalinda. Beautiful and sensual character study.

a little brown haired bride is a Mad Men-fic about Peggy, about her wants and what they exactly are. It also offers some Peggy-filtered insight into Don, Pete and Duck, and it's all wonderfully spot-on.

And last but not least for this post, The Midnight Special is a Lackadaisy-fic about Mordecai and Viktor, about how Mordecai becomes wanted for murder and how he and Viktor become friends. An awesome background story for an awesome character.

ETA: And on a totally unrelated note JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THING

Looking back on this year, I notice I've spent most of the time being upset or angry about something. I guess I should try to make amends for that.

Amend #1: Have Alma, a creepy animated short featuring dolls. Just the right thing to get into that holiday cheer with!

Amend #2: I should have got around to this weeks ago, but Yuletide beat me up. Anyway, ficlet offering time!

Give me a prompt and a pairing (threesomes and moresomes go too, but they'll probably be more on the gen side), and I'll write you a ficlet in return. The fandoms I'm most willing to do are Final Fantasy VI-IX, House MD, Merlin, Smallville, Silent Hill, Nolan's Batman-films, Lost, Supernatural and Dexter, but as usual if you know I know a fandom, you can request for it. Gen, het, slash and femslash are all a go.

In non-faily vein, kimouski's poll about the Fandom Classifieds is still alive and in need of responses! She has also a fabulously evil Phoenix/Logan-drabble that people desperately need to see.

And now, the meme responses!

( Top Five Fandoms )

( Top Five Ships )

( Top Five Things To Do When Bored )

( Top Five Fanfics Of My Own )

( Top Five Fanfics By Others )

Found via fanficrants, A Four-Letter Word, a great essay about the use and impact of the word "slut". Written with a twinkle in the eye, although some commenters seem to misunderstand it..

Dear 2008,

Nobody wanted the fail sequel.

( Short but serious LJ-linkspam )

And so that this isn't all depresso and I'm late to most cool stuff, a general link rec: creepypasta.com is a neat site with micro horror fiction. The quality varies, but there are some really creepy pieces around.

My awesome Yuletide-gift!

The Enemy of My Enemy

It's a Deadwood-fic starring Swearengen, Bullock and Tolliver, a gen with an undercurrent of slash in form of Swearengen/Bullock. It's written like a scene from an actual episode, and I had no trouble visualizing the entire story in my mind, or settling into Al's unique head. A real Christmas-treat, this.

More recs to come later, but I can say already now that Bible- and Fairytale-sections are once again filled with goodness, and Titanic-stories are also worth checking out. Hooray Yuletide!

(Two posts from me during the same day? I'M GASPING TOO.)

Just some short musings. Squee of the week goes to Lost.

( Smallville, 4.10: Persona )

( Supernatural, 3.09: Malleus Maleficarum )

( Lost, 4.01: The Beginning of the End )

ETA: One more X-Men-rec: Illusions, by sevenall. A "common people"-story about a girl with power to create illusions. Somewhat generic, but the last line depressed me for the rest of the day. Therefore, a warning for depressing.

Okay, so I had one more post to make. Quick recs for Yuletide.

( Fandoms: Dexter, MacGyver, Pulp Fiction, Deadwood, Bible, Fairytales, Ultimate X-Men, Batman Begins, Kill Bill, Commercials, Egyptian Mythology, Fifth Element, Discworld )