Distracted By Something Shiny

My obligatory I Voted selfies! I usually don’t have one of these pics because I tend to vote absentee. But there was a clerical error/kerfuffle with both mine & Sis’ absentee ballots not coming for some reason, so by the time we got it sorted, it was too late. We ended up squeezing in our votes in-person between the drs & the dentist. Upside, I got a sticker this way and like, James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is offering a personalized reply over on Twitter, to anyone who tweets their voting sticker selfie at him. I mean, I’ve met the man, that should be enough, but I don’t care, I’m tweeting my selfie at him anyways! Also, I could not have been representing the nerd & geek communities any harder, because I showed up to vote carrying my Rogue One bag and wearing my Jayne Cobb ‘Fighting Elves” shirt & my Gryffindor hat!




Sadly, I’m not wearing the hat here, you can’t see my bag, and you can’t tell that is my Fighting Elves shirt

( A convo with one young adult I know who didn’t vote. )

Anyways, that was my Election Day ramble. Excuse me while I go see if James has gotten to my tweet yet!

A few of my favs from Motor City Comic Con 2018 thus far. Sis said, “I always knew Rey & Supergirl we’re friends!” Negan had the voice down pat, “Well shit, Rick, I’m having a damn good time!” Was surreal just chatting in line with Pennywise - everything except the boots was handmade by this cosplayer, count me impressed.

Just let Groot chill while engulfing our heads with his hands! Sweetums may have been the coolest one I saw all day!

And Michael Rosenbaum enthusiastically yelled, “OMG, you’re the shit!” when he saw that I was dressed as Kaylee from Firefly & had decorated my wheelchair with a stuffed Serenity and a bunch of plastic toy tools. That made my day!

( Pics under the cut! )

See you nerds tomorrow for Day 2!

So, here are my totals for last year. My goal was initially to do 500 words a day. Then I cut it down to 1,000 words a week. Most months I didn’t make that goal, especially in the last six months of the year when word count production was cut in thirds due to stress and like no free time for myself. Also, I am just ridiculously amused that my highest fandom total was for SPN. Like, I don’t even go there anymore! It’s Dean/Cas, they won’t let me go! And, yes, 8 ½ fics completed totally makes sense because I wrote a chapter of a book that I hope to continue on writing this year and actually finishing. It was an idea that my grandma put to me and I laughed it off and she called me out and demanded I write it. So I wrote her a chapter for her Christmas present. Which I count as the ½. I finished the chapter in time for Christmas, but I have not finished the book. Thus, the ½. Hopefully, I’ll keep at that one.

So, here are some numbers:

Words Written In 2015!

( By Month and Fandom under the cut. )

January had my highest monthly count at 6,650 words.
September had my lowest monthly count at 450 words.
Supernatural had my highest fandom count at 13,330 words.
Leverage had my lowest fandom count at 250 words.
11 Fandoms written in.
16 Fics worked on.
8 1/2 Fics completed.
13 Fics posted.
23,600 words written in the first six months of 2015.
8,450 words written in the last six months of 2015.

32,050 total words written in 2015!

So, how’d you all do this past year with writing and posting?

So on Saturday we had a little house party with my sister's coworkers. We had burritos and played Geek Out - (the game where you have to bid against the other team as to who can name the most in a category, ie movies where a child is kidnapped into another realm, educational science tv shows, etc). See, my sister's co-workers are all a bunch of geeks and nerds. Once they got in trouble at work for spending too much time talking about The Avengers and actually scheduled a 'lunch meeting' for them to talk about The Avengers. I mean, they are Electronic Records Managers, they could only be bigger nerds if they were accountants.

( More under the cut. )

I woke up not feeling that great - waking up and getting going takes me a couple hours these days - and I wasn't sure I could do the party at all. It was super important to my sister and I knew everyone wanted to meet me, but I felt so awful and I made myself so anxious about having a lightheaded spell during the party, like 'what if'...but I did it and I am so glad. I was sweating and having hot flashes through the whole thing - and the next day started my Awesome Time of Month so that explains that - but I am super glad and proud I did it. It was wicked fun and I can't wait for them to come back this summer for a Geek out cookout!

Important Notice 1: For those of you who plan on watching TNT's new series, "The Librarians", starring Noah Wyle, Rebecca Romijn and Christian Kane, they are replaying the original movies (also starring Noah Wyle) this weekend. Sunday, the 7th, starting at noon, all three movies will air in order. I don't think it will be necessary to have seen the movies to watch the TV series, but if you are interested, the first movie at least is loads of fun. I've only seen the first one, but this time around I am recording and watching all three. Anyways, I know some of you were interested in catching the movies first and even if you don't plan on watching the new series, you should give the original movies a try. Noah Wyle looks like he had a ton of fun making them!

Important Notice 2: It's rhymephile's birthday!! The big 40! (Am I not suppose to announce that to people? Oops, too late!) Rhyme and I met through LJ, where I commented on a fic she wrote, in such obsessive crazy squeeful delight, that she friended me and I friended her back and we have been clutching each other and screaming about fannish things ever since. I awesomely got the chance to meet her in person last year (yep, still excited that we ate in what used to be an old Chicago fire-house) and she's basically the coolest fucking person. But here's a funny thing, like seriously, there was a brief period when we were talking online that I thought, "Does my sister have a sockpuppet journal, where she writes HS AUs, because I think I just accidentally friended my sister's sockpuppet journal." She is obviously not my sister, but still...I was actually really suspicious for a minute there! Anyways, Rhyme, babe, for your birthday, I am still working on that art project I started for you last year. (Still as in, I fished out the already finished bits and set them on my dresser. But I'll get there!) In the meantime, I thought maybe tomorrow, the forces of my life willing, that I might dig out an old X-Files fic (Krycek-centric , of course) and post it up for you, in your honor. Whaddya think?

Important Notice 3: FYI, if you are writing a Firefly fic and then try to send your brother an email immediately after, be aware that it is really hard to get out of Firefly-speak once you've started and your brother may end up side-eyeing your entire email.

That is all.

So, the other night my dad called to ask me if I watch Castle. This is not a new thing for him. One time he spent five minutes telling me everything that happened in an episode of Castle he had just watched. He really likes that show. A friend of his from the hospital turned him onto it and he’s been catching the reruns on TNT. I told him what I always tell him about Castle, that I watched the first season and occasionally catch reruns but it’s not one of my regular shows. “Well”, he says, “do you know who the guy is who plays the writer dude?” See, my dad is a huge Firefly fan. When he first discovered it, it was all we talked about for weeks. It didn’t surprise me - growing up I remember my dad’s two favorite things as Star Trek and John Wayne westerns, so Firefly is right up his alley. Anyways, he’d suddenly realized Castle is Mal and was sure that my sister and I needed to know this information immediately. It was actually kind of adorable and sweet. And it’s always fun when he finds a new thing to fanboy over, even though he doesn’t know what a ‘fanboy’ is and would probably balk if he thought someone was putting the ‘geek’ label on him.

Normally, when I think about where I get my fannish tendencies, I always think of my mom. She legit serious fangirls over Gilmore Girls, The Unusuals, Northern Exposure, Magnum PI, Quantum Leap, etc. She also gets fixated on one particular actor in a heavy way - she revisited her Ricky Nelson love when I was about ten. I have seen Rio Bravo so many fucking times because of that - a John Wayne western costarring Ricky Nelson who sings a song with Dean Martin during the movie - my parents weren’t letting that one slip by. But anyways, then I think of my dad’s mom and remember that at least some of these tendencies I get from her - (you should hear the pervy things she used to say about George Clooney). In her younger days, she was all about Frank Sinatra. So my dad’s side of the family certainly has some of those things going on as well, it’s just not something that was ever encouraged growing up in the hicks on a farm.

But my dad was big into Star Trek: TNG and no one was allowed to talk while he was watching an episode. Also, he was the one who got us into The A-Team and I think he came there through Battlestar Galactica. My dad certainly wasn’t crushing on Dirk Benedict, but I think when The A-Team premiered it was a, “Look it’s Starbuck, let’s watch this!” moment. Granted, he was never as big of an A-Team fan as me, but it was appointment TV for him. He was also into Buck Rogers, Star Wars and Quantum Leap…that was both my parents. We’d all sit down to watch Quantum Leap, along with any friends or family that wanted to join us. New QL episodes were a big deal around our house. He also fanboys over monster movies, Mel Brooks movies and he went through big Marx Brothers and Smother Brothers phase.

My parents don’t engage in what I typically think of as fan hobbies, but their fannish traits are hard to ignore, especially when my dad is reciting an entire Castle episode to me that veers off into random Firefly quotes, and my mom has to pause the DVD and call me every time Adam Goldberg does something hysterical in The Unusuals (which is all the time, cuz he’s really fucking funny). I was just thinking about it after that phone call with my dad and it’s nice once in awhile, to forget all the other bullshit with them and enjoy the things we have in common. I got some bad traits from them, I’m sure, but the fangirl thing I totally own and celebrate!

I started this year with 26 unfinished WIPs on my computer. That is 26, at least from the beginning of 2010, when I started really writing again. All I have worked on since the end of December are my WIPs - (I'll be interested to see what that number looks like by the end of the year). But I have finished two of them! My Dean/Cas PWP, which I have been picking away at 500 words at a time since November, is with the beta and my Johanna/Annie fic, which I started last summer and then let sit for like seven months, is at that final editing stage. I think I may reward myself by starting some new porn this week, maybe Teen Wolf or Justified, depending on my mood.

So I thought, to help myself along with the Finish All The WIPs Project, I'd make up a little meme. Steal away, if you like!

Write up the following for the works-in-progress you currently have; Working Title, Current Word Count, First and Last Sentences/Paragraphs thus far.

( My WIPs Under The Cut. Beware The NC-17. )

I don't expect to have them all done by the end of the year, since I have many other ideas I want to work on, but half would be nice.

CONGRATULATIONS to the San Francisco Giants on winning the National League Championship!!! I was hoping they would take it. I have a bit of a soft spot for the Giants. I blame one of the old West Wing authors I used to read, who a few years back was writing fanfic about Posey, Zito and Lincecum. It made me kind of love those guys. Though since I read all those fics, I actually started to pay attention to them on the field and I have to say, I have a little crush on Buster Posey for sure. So it'll be nice to watch the Giants play a few games...until the Tigers crush them, that is.

I talked with The Canadian Brother the other night and he said that he had heard The Tigers were going to the World Series. Then he said, "Don't get too excited. They still have to win it. They haven't done anything yet." He seriously does not understand baseball at all. I had to very calmly explain to him that they had, in fact, done something by winning the American League Championship for only the third time in my life. That's something right there. Only two out of the 30 MLB teams get to play in the Series each year and this year, the Tigers beat their way into being one of them. That's a big deal. Then he said, "Was the last time back with Alan Trammell and Whatever Whitaker? Those guys you like?”. At least he got Trammell’s name right! He reminded me how I had a poster of the 1984 Championship team on my wall when I was little. I had forgotten all about that.

In Fandom News, the het_reccers poll is onto the next round. Leia/Han and Zoe/Wash lost in the last round. I AM SO DISAPPOINTED IN THE FANDOM WORLD RIGHT NOW. I am a fan of Natasha/Clint and I absolutely adore Pepper/Tony but come on, those pairings only won because Avengers is the current popular fandom. I just can't wrap my head around the great epicness of Leia/Han losing out to anyone. I said it before and I’ll say it again - OTP SINCE 1977! And Zoe/Wash - well maybe Firefly isn't as popular as it seems in my neck of the internet-woods, but I still can't think of a better married couple than those two. I really hope Scully/Mulder take this thing. I will be pleasantly surprised if Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy end up winning it all, because who would have thought, but I’m voting Scully/Mulder OTP. Vote here!

I swear, I very rarely ever vote in these types of polls and I especially hate the ones where you can vote as many times as you want because it just stacks things unfairly in favor of the, er, uh, let's say 'really dedicated' fandoms. But vikingprincess pimped it out, so I headed over to het_reccers to check out their shipping poll, just to take a look. And now...I can't stop checking the stats! I have voted in every round since! But you guys, there is something bizarre happening in the universe, because Leia/Han are losing. I can't even with that.

( Here are the pairings for round four. )

Dammit, vikingprincess, look what you have done to me! I JUST CAN'T EVEN THAT LEIA/HAN & ZOE/WASH ARE LOSING! Thank goodness for dedicated X-Files fans or I would be having a triple meltdown right now. Vote here!

In TV news - American Horror Story starts back up tonight! The thing is, my Tivo wasn’t picking it up despite people insisting it was coming back this week. Turns out, they are calling it “American Horror Story: Asylum”, so if you have it programmed into your DVR from last year, it may not be recognizing this new season. Check your DVRs and shit, people! Also, Ian McShane will be in this season and I heard he will be an adversary to Jessica Lange and that…that just sounds like the best thing ever.

Well, eleven days into the month and I am finally getting my word count up for February. I actually hit a pretty good count last month. Not quite as much as in January, but still well beyond my goal of 500 words a week.

Most of my words seemed to be Dean/Cas, but I also managed a little Firefly. And I wrote some Without A Trace fic for the first time in probably five years. I don’t even know where that came from or what just happened there. There is this image I have had in my head for years of Martin trudging up the stairs to his apartment and finding Danny sitting there, head bowed. I sat down to meet my word count and out of nowhere, the story for that image just wrote itself. After all this time, that was quite a nice surprise. I also wrote my first real Justified fic - (not counting that drabble I wrote last year and intended to flesh out but never did). Finding Raylan and Boyd’s voices took me a minute but I am really happy with how it came out.

( My word count for February 2012, as well as a look back at Fic of Februarys Past. )

I did sit down and write that Hunger Games fic that has been needling at me. I am unsure if it is any good or fits very well in canon, since it’s been awhile since I read the first book, but writing it was definitely a cathartic release that I desperately needed. And it’s Sunday today, which means I should be writing some Firefly Apocalypse fic, but I really just want to go read more Catching Fire. Decisions, decisions.