Okay, as I've mentioned (complained about) to a couple of you (anyone who will listen), I haven't been in a particularly fiction-y mood, reading or writing, for the past few months. But this month's mini-challenge over at kink_bingo is Tiny Bingos, which I actually feel like I am capable of doing! BUT I am a bit spoiled for choice, so I turn it over to you, Internet! Give me some pairings and I'll see if I can manage a drabble for you by the end of this month. Tall order, I know, but I feel like I might just be up to the challenge.

(Here's my card, if that gives you any ideas, although you don't have to include a kink with your prompt.)

Fandoms: Avengers (probably not good for anything with Bruce), Downton Abbey, Harry Potter, Doctor Who (2005 onwards), and of course my reliable standbys of Buffy/Giles, Buffy crossovers, and Aragorn/Boromir/Arwen. Crossovers, AUs, and threesomes welcome, multiple prompts totally welcome, and success is most likely if there's at least one female character in the mix (there are occasional exceptions, but I think Tony/Thor is pretty much the only one for any of these fandoms). Edit: Oh, also Game of Thrones!

Kinda tempted to try last year's game, of all Buffy crossovers, again, but THOR.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

So as part of my Jewmas observance, I went to see Les Mis yesterday! It was fun. Two non-spoilery notes: First, I fucking love musicals. I want way more musicals where it's played totally straight, without a lot of ironic winking at the audience about how it's unrealistic. Second, this was one of the Jewishest crowds I've ever been in. Including High Holidays services. The family next to me were discussing their friends the Cohens. It was so much fun.

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Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

Dear Yuletide Author letter will go here! \o/

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Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

Oh hey look, reveals happened on Rarepair fics! Man, this was a really difficult one to write, mostly because I have a hard time getting a grasp on either of these characters, and Darcy especially can just become a caricature so easily. But if nothing else, I really needed to finish it for the sake of her Twitter username alone, because I have to say, that was fucking genius on my part.

This Account Has Been Suspended
Avengers, PG, Darcy/Loki. With some implied Jane/Thor/Tony/Pepper, because of course there is.

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Whyyyyyyyyy isn't there all of the Tony/Jane. Like, set during the interval between Thor and Avengers. I mean, I could totally go for an AU where Jane has Selvig's role in the Avengers movie, but I would also completely settle for Jane/Tony sexy adventures. Possibly they build a TARDIS and challenge the Doctor to races.

And, you know, also lots of Thor/Tony, but I think I've complained to y'all about the lack of that plenty of times already. I like to keep it fresh.

(Ugh why won't this half-finished fic just write itself already???)

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

Two things, because that was amazing and you don't need yet more people telling you how amazing it was.NBC: still the absolute fucking worst. I don't even know where to start, so will spare you details, let's just say they're the worst and leave it at that. ishie retweeted someone saying that they'd been foolish enough to think NBC learned from how much everyone loathed their broadcast of the Beijing games, and I wish I could RT things a billion times, because yep.
Let's be real, any big spectacular performance that involves a simultaneous tribute to A) children's literature, Peter Pan in particular, and B) socialized healthcare could have the entirely accurate alternate title JULES'S HEART: A MULTIMEDIA INTERPRETATION.I have no real sportsy icons, so have the Doctor instead, because British.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

doot doot doot re-watchin' Thor and drinkin' beer and workin' on my "possession/marking" square for k_bIt's not that Jane doesn't appreciate free room and board, and lab space, and millions of dollars of equipment, and everything. It's just that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Or something along those lines.

The thing is.

The thing is --

Okay, she's not 100% sure she can explain what the thing is in words, but it definitely has something to do with the fact that half of what's around her these days has a Stark logo on it, and half of what's left is from a completely different corner of the universe.

If she's thinking of it when she leaves for the lab in the morning, she has her own coffee mug. Times she's thinking of that: maybe three out of every ten. The rest of the time, it's a Stark Industries mug, or, on one memorable occasion, a goblet Thor insisted on fetching from his room for her.

He keeps them in the cupboard with the rest, which is mostly Stark-labeled glassware.Yep. I really got nothing else at the moment, mostly, I just have this pretty delightful outline worked out on paper, so hopefully I'll actually have it as a full fic before too long. UGHHHH THOR/JANE/TONY HOW SO GRATE.

("I made most of this equipment myself!" No seriously Internet how great would Jane and Tony yelling at each other about inventions and making out be? THINK ABOUT IT.)

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

Dear rarepairfest Author,

Hi! I am working on my application at this very moment, and am trying not to tl;dr all over the "description" field, and kind of failing. This post is mostly a placeholder at the moment, but hopefully by the time you get your assignment there will be actual content here, or at the very least, not long after. In conclusion, watch this space!

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

...it's kink_bingo time again! Internet, oh my goodness gracious, I cannot deal with how awesome my card is.

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rarepairfest is so very much up my alley it's ridiculous. I spent so long agonizing over my nominations, guys, it was absurd. It's Yuletide for people like me, who enjoy big fandoms but invariably end up not giving a fuck about the juggernaut pairings and are into very small weird little ships. ALL OF THE ARAGORN/BOROMIR/ARWEN AND THOR/TONY AND SANSA/DANY, ALL OF IT. \o/

such_heights is hosting an Avengers kiss prompt 'fest and spicedrum knows me too well and left a Thor/Pepper (with or without Tony) prompt, and I am literally going out the door in five minutes and it is tragic. I mean, not that it would break my heart if someone besides me were to write Thor/Pepper(/Tony), because all of that, too.

(Re: going out the door in five minutes, fingers crossed? It's a job interview, and a pretty rad position at a super-interesting place. They've asked for my references, which seems like a promising sign, and ugh, I could use this a lot. Fingers crossed and/or Thor/Pepper(/Tony), please.)

Ugh, I'm having so much trouble with DW lately. I suspect it's related to the modem/router issues I've been having in general and I just need to grit my t...

From a prompt left by some_stars at the prompt post. Slowly working my way through the list, hooray!

he bade the game go on
Avengers (2012)/Thor (2011). Thor/Jane Foster/Tony Stark. Title from "Casey At The Bat". ~550 words. Contains a completely gratuitous reference to Alexander Ovechkin and, as a warning, Tony Stark makes a super-tasteless joke about the Sandusky case. IDEK, you guys, IDEK.

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Ughhhh I was all pumped to write some of those Avengers ficlets as requested last night, but my stomach appears to be having none of it, and I am instead going to take some Pepto and go to bed early. Tragic.

...idek why I informed you all of this, I'm just bored. Hi internet hi. Happy weekend, bbs! <3

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

Right, come on, someone give me prompts to work with, because apparently Thor/Jane/Tony fic won't get produced otherwise.

Here's a snippet of something, if you'd like!Jane punches Tony in the arm because she's really sick of him having comebacks to everything, and he says "Ow," and she thinks he might be making fun of her, but maybe not; she's used to doing it to Thor, and his standards are different.

"Think of something else to do," Jane tells them both, draining her margarita and taking the pitcher from Thor.

"God, I thought you were never gonna ask." Tony gets up, and before Jane can ask him what that's supposed to mean, he's shoving in between her and Thor. "Come on, clear some space," he orders.

"What the hell? Why?" she asks, and then he's kissing her.Come on now. I am promising...200 words. You get 200 words if you leave me a Thor/Tony/Jane prompt. Obvs foursomes with Pepper are totally welcome. Just, any combination of the four of them except for just plain Tony/Pepper, because idk, there's plenty of it already and Thor is the one that actually gets me fired up, writing-wise.

GO.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

In non-miserable, non-job-hunt-related news!

TV: I got the first season of Nurse Jackie at the used bookstore and ugh, Edie Falco, shut your fucking face, you are a national treasure. I am completely unable to crush on her in this role on account of how there are several moments where I can't even deal with how reminiscent Jackie is of my mother (this was not helped by the elder daughter's emerging anxiety/depression issues). As with Korra, I actually feel like this is a character I've seen a million times as a man, and if Jackie were male I would frankly probably loathe this show, but with a woman, ugh, I just can't even. So many interesting women! With so many different kinds of relationships with each other! And man oh man, as with Max on Happy Endings, I really fucking appreciate that they have in Momo a gay man who is not a stereotype. A gay man of color, even! Amazing! Also, because there is no such thing as stating this too many times, Edie Falco is a national fucking treasure. How is she so magnificent, just, how. I realize she's got three Emmys already, but that is not nearly enough.

Movies/Books/RaPS/There Is Good In The World And It's Worth Fighting For, Mr. Frodo: Apparently Dreamworks is making a True Meaning of Smekday movie, and it is going to have Rihanna and Jim Parsons, and any world where that is allowed to happen can't be a really hopeless one. If you haven't read that book, do yourself a favor and read it immediately, because it is glorious and is about a little biracial girl who goes on a road trip to find her mother and saves the world from two different alien invasions with the help of her cat. It is so funny you will cry, and it will make you cry a little with non-laughter tears...

Heard back about one of the jobs I interviewed for last week, and didn't get it, which was a bit of a bummer, but it wasn't my first choice, anyway, so who knows, maybe the universe is just making sure my schedule's clear for the other! Which is a longer commute, but also a longer contract, better-paying, and very exciting work at a really cool place. Recruiter from the first job, though, is keeping tabs on things for me, and actually called me about another job, which I was supposed to interview for today, except that half an hour after she called me to confirm the details she got a call from them that they were suspending hiring for it. SAD TROMBONE. It's still not as interesting as the other one I'm waiting to hear on, though, so here's hoping.

Caught up on Korra! Man, though, reading reaction posts elsewhere definitely has me in a "wait, am I watching the same show?" place.

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Man, taking a couple of Benadryl at about 9:30 last night so that I slept pretty much clear through 'till 5:30 this morning was a great decision. This is not sarcasm; my sleep schedule is still kind of fucked (six months of leaving for work at 1:30 AM will do that, apparently, who'd'a thunk it) and also somewhere along the line I seem to have become a morning person?

Yesterday I mostly just lounged around drinking homemade sparkling lemonade and occasionally mixing it with wine. I read The Girls Of No Return, which on the one hand was a little disappointing because I had somehow gotten the impression that it was a thriller/horror type thing, and it wasn't, but on the other hand it hit me where I live in a lot of ways, so I walked away very fond of it. Also it was...like, "forgiveness is a work in progress", plus the entire story of facing someone you wronged a year ago (well, in the protag's case, a little over a year), and reflection on what the thing you did says about you, and doing that at the end of summer/beginning of fall -- even then it might not have clicked for me except for the mention that the only day the girls really have off at the school is Saturday, because even Sundays they have abbreviated classes but Saturdays are all theirs. This is what I mean when I say that it hit me where I live in some subtle little ways: basically I reached the last couple of scenes and had this oh moment where I realized that even though no one's religion or religious holidays are ever mentioned, this is a Jewish book and a Yom Kippur book in particular.

Also I watched Lost In Austen, which is on Netflix streaming. That was...fun? It was a lot of fun, but it sort of felt like it was an episode short. There were a lot of loose ends still hanging, I felt like. Also man did I have some issues with Georgiana and Caroline. :\ Largely fun, though. I just had an Austen reread a year ago, but I may have to do another, because ...

Okay, so as I've mentioned, I'm working on selling stuff to Tumblr to try and clear some clutter and get a little extra money. Books have been a massive challenge facing me, because lordy-loo does my family hoard books. But schmerica needed some help getting a ticket back home, and I'm not in completely dire financial straits just yet, but job-hunting is...what it is, so the long and short of it is that I would definitely breathe a little easier with a few extra dollars, besides clearing the extra space on my shelf. So here is a first attempt!

There is a used bookstore in town that I'll probably end up taking stuff to if this doesn't sell in a week, but I've got a fair amount of credit with them already, and their cash offerings will end up being a bit less than this (plus they don't take ARCs), so I'd rather do this first.

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could it be a devil in me, Avengers, Thor/Tony Stark, ~900 words. Tony asks Thor to indulge him in a fantasy.

Written for the "consent play" square on a k_b card originally. I have a few snippets of a companion piece, where they actually start to play out the scenes, and possibly fail terribly and hilariously several times, but I cannot for the life of me get them right, and I thought this stood on its own pretty okay, and was tired of poking at it, scrapping it, and restarting it over and over, so here you go, and I will continue poking at the companion piece(s). Title from the Supremes, because girl groups are the best.

Warning: Like I said, it was for the "consent play" square on a bingo card originally. This is a pretty tame take on that -- namely, Thor's reaction to Tony asking him to do some consent play with him, with completely consensual sex ensuing -- but, you know, the overtones are there.

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So obviously the answer to having trouble with writing is to throw my hat in the ring over at the reverse remix thing! I'm offering up five fics at the moment (well, lbr, it's probably just going to be more like double drabbles), and a variety of fandoms.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

In the name of a) clearing some of the clutter out of my closet/bookshelves (lololololol most sisyphean of endeavors) and b) maybe earning a couple extra bucks here and there, I am working on selling some of my stuff. My few experiences as an eBay seller have taught me that I loathe doing that, so I was putting things off something terrible, and then I read a great blog post advising Tumblr, and said "hmm". So here is Jules Sells Her Stuff.

It turns out that the challenge of producing content for a microblog thing is actually the motivation I needed, because now I'm like "WHAT ELSE CAN I CLEAN OUT?????" and having fun photographing everything. GAMIFICATION. Okay, that's not actually what gamification is, but it's sort of making a game out of it, for me anyway. Whatever, I just really like that word. Also, of the four items of clothing posted or in the queue, one is leopard-print, so.

Things are mostly in the under-$15 range, but there are a couple of items of clothing (an XL alpaca sweater, a Donna Morgan dress) that are more, and I anticipate that if I put more clothing up, that's going to be about the pattern: mostly gently-used stuff under $15 with a few like-new, more expensive, items. Slim pickings book-wise, so far, but I have a lot of shelves to go through. A LOT. Plus there's a bunch of stuff in the queue -- I don't want to spam anyone who might be following. At the moment I'm going with stuff that's still in good-to-like-new condition, although I may put some textbooks up if they're not horribly out of date, but if there's interest I may put up some ARCs or more beat-up books and give them to whomever pays for shipping.

Locals, if something catches your eye and you're willing to come pick it up (or, let's be honest, trade for beer and/or chocolate -- or, since it's getting to be that season, cherries), I'll of course waive the shipping costs!

Also, is BPAL still a thi...

HOW DO YOU FICLET???? If anyone has suggestions, they would be fab. I am in the full flush of new fandom, which I haven't felt in ages, but it is rapidly slipping away because of how I will start a ficlet and then it will balloon and I realize that I can't do this in a few hundred words and give up because have you seen my attention span? No really, have you seen it, because I haven't, I'd love to know where it is. :( :( :(

I just am completely incapable of getting a beginning, middle, and end untangled from the mess of a concept I'll be visualizing when I set out to write something, and then I get frustrated because of how long it's going to take and give up. Which I realize is silly because the only way to get better at anything writing-wise is to practice and if I don't do that then it's just going to continue being this difficult, blah blah blah self-fulfilling prophecy, but whatever, I'm sick and it's been an emotionally crappy couple of weeks, I'm allowed to roll around moaning to the Internet for awhile. The fact that less than a week after I posted it, the ridic Jane/Thor/Pepper/Tony I wrote is now my #1 by hit count on AO3 is a decent carrot in terms of making me want to write more, but then I just get even more frustrated and anxious because PRESSURE. Obviously my writing porny ficlets is super-important, everyone's counting on me!!!!!

What I am saying is, who wants to talk to me about Avengers ficlets I could write for them? (Probably these ideas should involve Thor, because completely unsurprisingly given that my favorite characters are inevitably the Gryffinest of 'Dors, he is my very favorite. I was this close to unfollowing someone on Twitter because they said his movie sucked, true story.) Maybe imposing a limit of a few hundred words and doing it on the fly as a casual comment-prompt-ficlet-thing will help shake something loose in my brain. And I can reward myself with doing them as I set to work on producing a coherent second draf...

And what are you going to do
PG, ~4300 words, Once Upon A Time. Emma/Regina. Written for sheeana as part of the rarewomen challenge. No warnings. Title from Mary Oliver's "Poppies".

[AO3 link] Emma dreams of a castle, and of the person inside it.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth. comments; reply there with your DW username or OpenID.

The PEN 15 Club, or Five Times Tony's Refusal To Keep Paper In The Tower Worked Out Well
~2100 words, for a "writing on the body" square at kink_bingo. No spoilers for Avengers, unless you count the fact that there's a tower. No warnings, apart from the stupidest title ever, but it's too late for you to avoid that, sorry.

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