sara's writing and recommendations.

Title: What Music They Make
Author: Sara (paintedponyxox @ flowrs4ophelia)
Previous chapters: Prologue + I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV | XV-pt.1
Characters & Pairings: Jacob/Bella, Edward/Bella
Rating: R
Summary: Being a vampire only makes it even more complicated for Bella to be in love with two people when an unexpected conflict with the Volturi brings Jacob back into her life.
Notes: Just clarifying that this post is the SECOND HALF of the last chapter, which starts here.
ETA: I've done a master post for this fic with lots of extra stuff including the soundtrack playlist you can download.

( one two three four five six seven / all good children go to heaven )

Title: What Music They Make
Author: Sara (paintedponyxox @ flowrs4ophelia)
Previous chapters: Prologue + I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV
Characters & Pairings: Jacob/Bella, Edward/Bella
Rating: R
Summary: Being a vampire only makes it even more complicated for Bella to be in love with two people when an unexpected conflict with the Volturi brings Jacob back into her life.
Notes: IT'S DONE. HOLY SHIT. A very heartfelt thank you to everyone who's followed this story and left me comments. Plus huge thanks are due to Layla (ninety6tears) for being my ever-reliable beta reader through this whole madness.
It probably seems kind of like beating a dead horse to finally post this last chapter after all this time, especially because Chapter 14 actually functions okay as a final chapter. But I still have a big attachment to this fic and I really wanted to end it more or less the way I always imagined ending it since I started the fic over two years ago rather than just give up and call it finished. It'll be interesting to see if I even get many comments, but it was something I just needed to do before I could move on with my life. LOL.
The chapter ended up pretty long so it's posted in two entries, with a link to part two at the bottom of this post.

( in dreams I'm moving through heavy water / the love is enormous / it's lifting me up / the water rising over my head )

By that of course I mean New Moon. (LOL, you'll get it if you see it.)

This was actually unexpectedly more than decent. Maybe I'm easily impressed this time because this is the only one of the books which I like very much, though I did actually enjoy the first movie in a fun and weird way that only a fan like me who's in the "I can't get out of still caring about this as much as I'd like to" camp could; I saw it twice but just never posted any kind of review for it. But still, by contrast Chris Weitz's handling of the story makes Twilight look even more bad, if that's possible.

( It would be nice to not want to kill you all the time. )

I found this one thanks to caprican_dame's review and had to second the rec. The descriptions of the quiet atmosphere of mourning during simulated night on Cloud Nine are beautiful. Lee and Kara's interaction and dialogue has just the right touch of not-too-much-but-enough to fit them. And the very last line is perfect.

Title: At the Battle, With Faithful Arrows
Author: daygloparker
Characters & Pairings: Kara/Lee
Rating: PG-13
Summary: On the day that Laura Roslin dies, nothing else in particular happens.
Link: All of these earthy sensations are inexplicably linked to Laura Roslin...

Title: The Golden Phase of Dying Leaves
Author: Sara (paintedponyxox @ flowrs4ophelia)
Characters & Pairings: Jacob/Bella, Emily
Rating: R
Summary: When Bella returns from Italy after failing to save Edward, Jacob isn't sure if he can do anything to pull her out of her state of numbness this time.
Notes: This actually started as a drabble for the anonymous drabble contest at SOB, and obviously it ran away with me and got way too long. Other people can come up with the loveliest things under 500 words, but this seems to prove once and for all that I just plain fail at such things. But I guess it ended up being less inspired by the specific Death Cab lyrics chosen for the prompt than it was inspired by the whole song and wouldn't really have been appropriate as a contest entry anyway.
I'm not completely sure how I feel about this one yet. It's a little...different. LOL.

( as we walk in the dimming light / always understand that everything ends )

Better late to the party than never. I'd heard of Skins for a really long time but knew absolutely nothing about it (I didn't even have any idea it was British), and a while ago a friend of mine with very reliable taste (he's responsible for getting me into Doctor Who and Mad Men among other things) recommended it to me and burned me a bunch of the episodes which I finally got around to watching recently. He was insistent about starting me on Series 3 (they bring in new characters for a mostly new cast after every two seasons so you can easily jump in at that point). Now that I’ve also seen the first two seasons I have to agree with him that they're also really good but the series really finds its feet by the time of the version 2.0 cast. The show’s whole “each episode following and exploring a different character” formula seems to accomodate the overall story better in Series 3 than before, without leaving anything that feels too much like excess. Though the first two seasons are really rewarding to get through, they're a little slower and harder to get into, and I might never have been interested enough to get through the whole show if I'd started with it from the beginning.

( Read more... )

IT'S BAAAAAACK YAY.




I'd been trying not to get too excited about Heroes coming back in case it continued to be as bad as Season 2 and a lot of S3 was, even though I've been more optimistic about it than most people. I think fans should stop expecting the show to return to exactly what it was in S1 when that's just not going to happen, especially because once they decided to scratch the idea of starting out with mostly new characters and a new overall story with every season, that made the whole concept and structure that the first season followed completely impossible to repeat.

Even if they've obviously struggled at times to keep giving all the characters they kept around enough importance and something interesting to do, I've become so attached to a lot of them I can't seem to regret that they made that choice and just don't see the series as a dead horse with no potential for improvement. In some parts of the last season I didn't even find it to be as bad as I'd been lead to believe it is. And while it's still obviously no Season 1, if this premiere is any indication of what this season will be like then I'm guessing I was right to be (cautiously) optimistic.

( This was the day of the Slushy Incident. )

Since I've acquired a whole lot of new friends from different fandoms during the past...oh...six months and haven't done a post like this in ages, here's some questions you guys can comment with and answer to tell me a little more about yourself if you're new enough not to have been around the last time I posted questions like this. DO IT. :D

1. What's your name? / Where are you from? / Job? / Give any other general information about yourself you'd like to tell
2. What was your first fandom?
3. What five music albums would you want to have with you if stranded on a desert island?
4. What five movies would you want to have?
5. What's your favorite word?
6. What all do you do in your fandom(s)? (Do you read/write fic/make graphics, vids, or art/just generally partake of the lolz and commiseration and squeeing?)
7. Who is one of your favorite fictional characters ever?
8. What's your most favorite fandom that you can't imagine ever leaving?
9. Rec me something (a fanfic, a book, a TV show, anything)
10. What Hogwarts House do you belong to?
11. Got any pets? Kids?
12. Coffee or tea?
13. Vampires or werevoles?
14. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
15. Cats or dogs?
16. Star Wars or Star Trek?


( And as usual I'll fill it out myself to tell you something about me... )

I make it no secret that Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite directors, ranked right alongside live-action creators like Ang Lee and Tarantino. In the world of Japanese animation which to some can seem unvaried and constrained by the redundant conventions of its style, and at the same time among all animation from anywhere, his work has always stood out as having a very unique vision. Possibly one of his most widely accessible movies, Ponyo is just as entertaining for viewers of any age as this summer's Up and every bit as stunning and wildly imaginative.

Something I especially love about this one is simply the setting and the way it plays into the story. Most of it takes place in a pleasant little fishing town where a boy named Sosuke lives and his mother Lisa works at a home for the elderly. Their house is on a cliff by the ocean where Sosuke's father can signal to them when he passes by in his ship at night.

Parallel to this ordinary world and right outside Sosuke's door is the extraordinary and magical one of the ocean, easily unnoticed by grown-ups and other kinds of boring people. A formerly human sorcerer who lives down in the sea has to swim with difficulty through the townspeople's garbage as he comes near the shore in search of his runaway daughter. The ocean itself is an expressive character; at one point some sinister dark waves with angry eyes chase Sosuke back to the land after he takes something from the sea that belongs there. The sorcerer Fujimoto is responsible for maintaining a balance between these two worlds, but as the story progresses they become more and more merged until eventually part of the town ends up completely under water. ( Read more... )

This story's premise is kind of silly and even mundane, but the execution makes it a really hilarious, touching, and meaningful "buddy fic." That's just what this has to be called, as it's totally adorable without ever going anywhere that can only be seen as shippy. In some ways the story is so simple it could be easy to miss the deeper implications of what's really going on in Spock's noggin to make him suddenly have trouble communicating properly, and how unsettling it would be for a Vulcan of all people to realize there's something going wrong with his head, and that the problem could actually be emotional and therefore especially difficult to pin down and address. (All this underlying angst and yet it never goes close to the cheapening territory of hurt/comfort with the ways Kirk is there for him...if that's even possible in a gen fic. I don't know.)

This was written for the st_episodic challenge as a ST universe counterpart to the Boston Legal episode "Word Salad Days," which explains where the silly and odd concept comes from but doesn't mean you need to have seen the episode to understand/enjoy it. Layla does a great job translating the character-oriented drama/comedy tone of a show more like BL to a Trek fic, also giving the Kirk and Spock friendship some shades of the very openly affectionate bromance between BL's Denny and Alan without them getting OOC.

Title: Speech Bubbles
Author: Layla (ninety6tears)
Characters & Pairings: Kirk, Spock, some McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After the Enterprise's first officer starts speaking gibberish at a diplomatic event, McCoy diagnoses the otherwise mentally well Spock with acute anxiety and demands he take some serious R & R.
Link: "So I'm worrying about you. Deal with it."

Unsurprisingly, there's not much out there as far as Mad Men fic and I've never been terribly interested in reading any, but something made me check this one out when I saw it posted. This short fic about Father Gill is mostly gen with some hints of controlled attraction for Peggy, and to me it makes a very believable and natural extension of what we saw in the show of this character who I quite liked while he was around.

Title: Clothes Make the Man
Author: orangesparks
Characters & Pairings: Father Gill(/Peggy)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Temptation is created, stirred, by dice well-oiled from the palms of sinful men and the cold gleam of alcohol in highball glasses and the overexposed flesh of film starlets, not young girls who attend mass with their families and live alone and speak so quietly and can't meet a man's gaze head-on.
Link: He prays for her because no one else does.

Kirk and McCoy by seiko_assasin

Uhura by celestialsoda

Kirk/Spock + another Kirk/Spock by damien007
GUH, so pretty.

Scotty comic by katharynne

Massive art dump of hilarity + another art post of hilarity...I know, I'm not being very specific with my links today :/ by taconaco

Several drawings with Kirk/McCoy, Joanna, and Spock by mangotrills

"The Planet Vulcan" (Spock) + "Terra" (Kirk) + "Sickbay...?" (Kirk/McCoy) + 2 Kirk/Spock Prime drawings [NWS] by jou

Kirk and Spock and...rock creatures by nemoed

Scotty and Bones + Kirk/Sailor Moon lol + Kirk/McCoy + Spock and Uhura + Chekov/Sulu [possibly NWS] by sensualcoco

3 of McCoy and Chapel by jbadgr

"The Week In Space" (general comic) + Kirk/everyone comicby anadapta0801

2 of Kirk/Spock by randomslasher

Silly Trek/Powerpuff Girls x-over art w/ Pike by midnight_city

4 of Kirk, Bones, and Spock by scapegoat1989

5 art prompt responses w/ various characters by sidhefaer

"Not Now, Captain" (Kirk/Spock) by mith_maulin

Request art post w/ Gaila and Uhura + Kirk/McCoy + Kirk/Spock by kilala10

"When Spock Dumped Kirk" (Kirk/Spock comic using screencaps) by le_culdesac

1. Wow, I hadn't even realized how much I've missed Mad Men. This episode makes me so excited for this season.

( It's BRITISH INVASION TIMES )


2. I finally watched all of the TOS Star Trek movies that I had never seen...

( There is an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon can go to China. )

I have so many recs and other little things I've been meaning to post but can't seem to motivate myself to go ahead and do it. And I also owe you guys fic commentaries for the stories that won in my poll a while ago. The obvious solution is to give myself more little things to do, so...

Ask me my fannish top five anything and I will answer them all in a new post.

I may change it to Top Ten if I feel like it because I just like making lists of things, LOL.

If anyone needs a refresher, my biggest fandoms these days are Battlestar Galactica, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Mad Men, Doctor Who, Avatar: The Last Airbender, DC Universe, Twilight, and Heroes.

The WIP meme: post a single sentence from each WIP you have (or as many as you want to pick). No context, no explanations.

1. "You're only getting warm from sitting so close to that green-blooded space heater."
2. She decides to extend the plotline, go to college, live with roommates, go to movies, end up always having to clean up after her roommates, turn in essays with coffee stains on them, struggle.
3. It was over in fifteen seconds, and then Jim was silently walking out with quite a lot of eyes following him, leaving him groaning and bleeding from his nose on the floor.
4. "Exhibit A: my boyfriend can turn into a giant wolf."
5. After she tells Peter that she is naming him Noah, it does not entirely escape her notice that he looks vaguely uncomfortable for a moment.
6. Zak hadn't had that much to drink, had he?
7. His voice stiff and unsure, he just said, "Right...well...stay in good health, Edward.”
8. "You are blood to me."
9. "It makes me feel better to know that you'll be around for Katara if anything should ever happen to me."
10. Lee wonders if she's a real blonde.
11. "Who's that girl who kept picking all the lousy music?" Quil asked.
12. "Do I look like a goddamn Romulan to you?"

Just when I thought nothing I could read could make me love my OT3 any more (especially considering there's such a tragic shortage of fic for it!), here is this short fic written for the "We're all going to die!" prompt at cliche_bingo which shows a very easy-going, hilarious, and totally cute dynamic between Kirk, Uhura, and Spock. Is it even that shippy? I'm not sure. It's just awesome.

Title: Optimist
Author: penknife
Characters & Pairings: Kirk/Spock/Uhura (sort of)
Rating: PG
Summary: They have a lot of near-death experiences.
Link: "It might be a little challenging in zero gravity. Not that I'm not up for it."

• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
• NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.


Oooh ~self expressive~ okay...

( click for randomness... )