forget your Unified Theory of Everything

Bidding open

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 16:10:47 GMT

Bidding is open for the Fandom Trumps Hate auction. Basically, you bid on me to write a fic for you; the money goes to charity and the fic goes on AO3. If you take a look at my sign up, you’ll see me saying I’m not super good at writing to exact specifications, but if you have broad ideas or things you like, I would try really hard to make something you appreciate. I offered for three different fandoms--HP, MCU, and TWD, so if you want specific fandom fic from me, you should definitely bid!

My signup is here, and bidding ends March 1. You can contact me here with any questions.

eta: Apparently they don't actually open until 8pm EST today! So check it out tonight.

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Fandom Trumps Hate auction

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 00:48:10 GMT

I put myself up for the Fandom Trumps Hate auction. Basically, you bid on me to write a fic for you; the money goes to charity and the fic goes on AO3. If you take a look at my sign up, you’ll see me saying I’m not super good at writing to exact specifications, but if you have broad ideas or things you like, I would try really hard to make something you appreciate. I offered for three different fandoms--HP, MCU, and TWD, so if you want specific fandom fic from me, you should definitely bid!

My signup is here, and bidding starts Feb 26, so start thinking about whether you want to make a bid. Take a look at the other offerings as well! I’ll post a reminder when bidding starts. You can contact me here with any questions.

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Runaways Vol 1 Pride and Joy, by Brian K Vaughan

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 00:02:25 GMT

I’m a fan of Rainbow Rowell, and a friend of mine sent me the first two volumes of Marvel’s Runaways by her. I started reading them without knowing anything about Runaways, but I liked them well enough that now I’m starting at the beginning. Therefore, I read Vol 1 with some preconceptions, which made it very interesting.

( Thoughts on Runaways Vol 1, which are too long. )

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Into the Spider-verse

Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:15:49 GMT

I liked this movie so much I have difficulty distilling my feelings into points, but I want to, so here you go.

( Here are some feelings about Into The Spider-verse. Contains spoilers. )

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Recognizing things

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 04:58:44 GMT

What defines an object for you? And is there a word for the traits you define it by, which might be different than the traits other people use?

My mom says my purse is just like my old purse. I think they are completely different, because of the shape, strap, and hardware. She doesn’t think the shape and strap are that different. I realized the things that matter to me about the shape and strap are different, thus making it feel like a completely different object. The reason it matters has to do with how I use the purse, but I feel this isn’t an issue of me comparing function while she’s comparing form—I’m sure she’s considering function too, but because she uses it differently, she doesn’t see the same things I do (and I don’t see the things she does).

This made me think about casting in movies, when a child and a blood-parent have to be cast, or a young-version and an old-version have to be cast. You can usually see which features were selected by the casting director to “carry” over into the descendent/parent or younger/older!versions—but it’s not always what you personally think makes someone look like them.

For my work I had to do some research on how the brain recognizes objects. When you encounter an object, you notice various aspects—it’s shape, color, size, texture, etc. When you encounter like objects (called the same thing) several more times, your brain creates a category that links these things. When you see a new object and enough criteria are met, you recognize the object—therefore, you can look at a car you have never seen before and recognize it is a car. But if you encountered a banana that was blue and a pyramid shape, you would probably not recognize it as a banana, even if it tasted, felt, and smelled the same.

Think about this enough, and you’re back at Plato’s forms, in which there is a form that is Cat. You define cats as furry animals with four legs and pointy ears, but a hairless cat is still a cat, and a 3-legged cat is still a cat, and in fact a hairless, legless, earless cat is still a cat. They have in common their catness, because they reflect some essential Cat form.

And after thinking about that you arrive at the Ship of Thesus, in which a famous ship sits in a museum, but over time pieces of it rot or break and are therefore replace. Over centuries every single part of the ship is replaced; is it still the Ship of Thesus?

Tl;dr, my mom and I are never going to agree about this purse.

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Freelance editing

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 22:02:35 GMT

First of all, apologies to those of you who follow me on various platforms, since I am basically putting this everywhere. I just finished writing my novel (yay!), and while I work on editing and eventually querying some agents, I'm hoping to do some freelance editing work. This makes me an independent contractor (right?), and I'm confused about some of the legal aspects. Does anyone who feels like they understand tax-speak want to talk to me about it for a bit? I've found a bunch of relevant legal info for my state and city, but it'd be nice to talk to someone about some of the terms/issues.

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the typical fic

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 02:23:33 GMT

There is a Typical Fic in the 2K - 8K range, and approximately 1/3 of this Typical Fic is the Advertised Porn. Sometimes it's closer to 40%, sometimes closer to 25%, but 30% is the most common ratio.

The remaining fic is usually something like 50-69% Getting There, 1-10% Sex is Next, with 1-10% Aftermath. "Getting There" most typically includes groundwork for the trope (we are best friends realizing our feelings; we're enemies but we're in prison together; aliens are going to make us do it! etc). Groundwork for the trope can be laid by talking about the trope (which was set into motion pre-fic, e.g. the enemies start in prison) or plot to make the trope happen (e.g. the enemies team up against a Bigger Enemy and get caught and thrown in prison).

"Sex Is Next" refers to the denouement of "Getting There." The best friends confess they love each other, the enemies get bored and one mentions there's nothing to do but The Do, the aliens who are making them do said do are herding them toward the arena. In other words, the plot is either resolved or stops; the other characters go away; there is a moment of They're Going To Do It before they, you know, Do It.

The Advertised Porn is whatever kink or tropes are referenced in the title, tags, and/or summary (usually all three).

Aftermath length can vary wildly depending on whether Getting There involved Plot (the enemies have to get out of prison) or Talking About It. The aftermath for the latter is usually How They Feel about each other, usually with a little nod to how they Got There ("Why did it take us so long?" "See you next time you're in prison!" "Let us never speak of that planet again.")

I don't have any particular value judgments about the Typical Fic as I've laid it out. I have come across examples both terrible and amazing. I was just wondering if you have thoughts about it, including but not limited to: how did we arrive at these ratios, is this a pwp, what are your thoughts on yaoi

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Away Childish Things fanart

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 19:30:16 GMT

Just wanted to share this amazing fanart for my fic, Away Childish Things. The fanart is of de-aged!Harry and adult!Draco, who is reading to Harry, and they are surrounded by a swirl of magic. The way they are surrounded by beautiful color is exactly how I imagined that scene, and the wonder in tiny!Harry's eyes is ADORABLE; I love it.

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Fandom migration stuff

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 03:28:57 GMT

This post by greywash is the best post I've seen that discusses a lot of the ideas going around about fandom spaces, ideal fandom spaces, etc. In particular, I found the part about an ideal fannish platform addressed all the needs I'm seeing people discussed elsewhere, while the part about problems they foresee with such a space seemed more thoughtful and better articulated than most. Highlights include:

Mention of a "whisper space," which is (imo) a neat term for how people used tags on tumblr as a way to comment on something and have conversations without that part being reblogged. In discussions about reblogs on DW and elsewhere some of the discussion is centered around things you might not want to get reblogged, or tags you might want for you but not for universal purposes, and the complications in coding that causes.

Discussion of the OTW, how useful it would be for them to be involved and the difficulties in that. They point out that the OTW has done a whole lot to secure a legal standing for fanfic, which is great. But when you are talking a social network platform you are talking images, and images open up a much bigger can of worms. It would be nice to work with the OTW, but it remains unclear whether there are really enough resources to commit to that when they are already working on something else (namely, defense of fanfic).

Discussion of actual child porn, which frustratingly gets left out of a lot of these conversations. Basically, any time you make it easy and free to host lots of images, lots of people want to host images there, including pornographers. If you want to allow the fandom content we want but prevent actual exploitation of children, then you've got to have a way to monitor and sort, which requires time and resources.

Anyway, check it out, it's good.

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don't mind me

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 07:25:41 GMT

Just posting Harry/Draco smut.

warnings: dirty talk, stuff with come, naked people

( Read more. )

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Mon, 19 Jan 2015 01:11:00 GMT

I'm low and sick and depressed and I've failed at everything else, so I started posting fanfic. Here you go:

Sincerely, Your Pal

It's Steve/Bucky epistolary fic. It's a work in progress with extremely short chapters as they're delineated by the letters. I've written about 13,000 words, which will probably split to a little over 20 chapters, but there will probably be 30-40 chapters at least. I can't decide whether the second part, which is current day Steve/Bucky emailing, is the same fic or a sequel, so that's a whole other kettle of fish. I guess I didn't want to have to decide so I just posted.

Anyway epistolary fiction is like crack to me, but I can't tell if I just gravitate towards things that are difficult and obscure. Oh well!

I'm sorry to everybody I haven't replied to lately. I will; I'm just slow at everything.

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Thank you!

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 23:48:35 GMT

I wrote a Harry/Draco fic for hd_erised. The mods were nice and everyone who responded was nice, and it was nice writing for my requester and my gift was extra nice! So thanks, everyone.

I wanted to thank icmezzo. She beta'ed my 120,000 words of fic in about four days. And probably she only took that long because I sent it to her in pieces out of order, not all at once. But that's not even what makes me so particularly grateful. It's the fact that like a day before my absolutely final extension due date, I freaked out and she held my hand and encouraged me and went over the entire piece again with a beautiful, beautiful highlighter of excess wordage. Those who know me know that I have a terrible problem with excessive verbosity and it was wonderful to have someone help me. I actually ended up fairly happy with the fic which tends to be rare with my H/D fic. So yay!

In other news, hi!

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apparently i just wrote gotham fic...

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 07:31:16 GMT

Title: They Grew Up Young
Fandom: Gotham (TV)
Rating: PG-13
Length: around 5,000 words
Characters: Bruce Wayne and Gordon, a little Alfred, Cat on the periphery
Warnings/additional tags: this is gen, but there are sexual overtones that involve an underaged person. There is nothing explicit, and I assume you could read it and not see any of that, but I put it there purposely, so there you go.
Summary: Snapshots of Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne as they get older. Bruce fucks up a lot and Gordon wonders what the hell to do about it.

Link: They Grew Up Young

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Days of Future Past

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 02:42:31 GMT

I actually really enjoyed X-men: Days of Future Past, which is interesting to me because I really disliked First Class. But it should be stated for the record that Erik/Charles was basically my first ever slash pairing, maybe after Emerson/Thoreau RPS and Sirius/Remus. But in spoilery news:

( The one thing I wish was different in Days of Future Past )

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Twitter again

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 05:21:34 GMT

So I'm a lying liar who lies. I found myself not able to talk about porn on my personal Twitter, so I made a fandom Twitter account. If you want fannish stuff and you followed my personal account, you can unfollow the personal one and follow ilettered, and I'll follow you back. Sorry, I thought I could make all my lives one but it just proved too difficult.

<3

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fic

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 05:22:58 GMT

I've had this sitting on my computer for months. I realized I was never going to finish it and that it works as a stand alone, so I posted it: Five Times Steve Rogers Almost Got Beat Up, about the first five times Steve and Bucky met.

I wish there was somewhere I could post all my unfinished fic where I wouldn't feel like I was being, idk, rude for posting unfinished fic. People get so het up about reading unfinished fic and I don't want people to feel like they got short-changed. I just want to get it off my chest. Idk maybe I could post it here, since fewer people read fic on journaling sites these days.

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Outdoor Star Trek

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 07:09:56 GMT

Hello Earth Productions is proud to announce its fourth episode, "Mirror, Mirror," in its Outdoor Trek performance series. Performances will be Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm in Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park’s amphitheater (in the Central District, Seattle) on the weekends of July 19-20, July 26-27, and August 2-3. The classic episode has the crew of the Enterprise transporting to a mirror universe in which their counterparts are brutal and savage. The show is free and open to the public.

Outdoor Trek is a community project which celebrates the diversity of the original series, while at the same time adapting it to the 21st century, outdoor theater, and community. The inspiration is half sci-fi, half Shakespeare. Shakespeare in the park is a well-loved tradition, offering free theater, a social gathering in the sunshine, and a familiar, classic story. Hello Earth presents a new classic, just as beloved, only this time in outer space.

Hello Earth Productions produced the Star Trek episode “The Naked Time” in 2010, “This Side of Paradise” in 2011, and "The Devil In The Dark," in 2013. The company happily accepts donations during the performances, but there is no charge. It is recommended for spectators to bring cushions, as the amphitheater seating is concrete. You can learn more at www.helloearthproductions.org or on Twitter at hello_earth.

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email hack

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:58:28 GMT

I don't know what to do. People keep getting spam emails from me. I changed my password, which didn't help. Advice?

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best vid ever*

Thu, 17 Apr 2014 06:25:08 GMT

Hey so did you guys ever notice that in the Captain America vid The War Was In Color, on the line, "let's start at the end", on the word "start" it shows them stamping 4F on Steve's form and then on the word "end" it shows 1A

and the 1A is the A on Stark Tower?

Yeah I never noticed that either.

*okay after the Doctor Who No Handlebars but srsly guys. This vid.

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Okay, Captain America, but Peggy.

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 06:05:44 GMT

No seriously guys, Peggy.

I really loved Cap 2! Some day I will write my thoughts on it. But tonight my_daroga and I were wanting more Avengers-related things, so we finally watched some of the extras on IM3. I didn't know there was a short. About Peggy. A short about Peggy.

I wanted to like Peggy. And I did! I thought she was cool. But basically before this short there just wasn't quite enough for me to be interested in. I mean, I like that she was tough and I liked that she liked Steve, but that was basically all I got from Cap 1? And then Cap 2 spoilers spoilers spoilers. But anyway, I wanted to like her, but mostly felt kind of indifferent.

Now, however, I am in love with Peggy Carter, and ( here are two fics I want to write but also wish were written so I could read them. )

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FIC: Fall of the Veils, fandom: Harry/Draco

Mon, 07 Apr 2014 01:23:55 GMT

Okay so I wrote this fic. It was really hard, because it was more plotty than most things I write. I'm pretty happy with the result, but I kind of wonder whether it was off-putting to some. Lots of people hate my summaries, so I tried a different kind of summary with this one. I feel like it just made the story look boring, so I have now changed it to a summary that makes me want to click on the fic, instead of trying to write the summary I thought other people wanted. I never really know what to do with summaries, so I figure I should have just tried to make myself happy!

Anyway, this story was stressful but I'm really happy with it, and thanks to kedavranox for her original story and icmezzo for all her help!

Author/Artist: lettered
Title: The Fall of the Veils
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings/Content: Draco is asexual. Harry has a noncanonical power. A lot of minor character deaths occur in the backstory. There are OCs.
Summary: Muggles find out about wizards. This makes Harry feel bad. Draco doesn't love Harry back. This makes Harry feel sad. Then there's conspiracy and intrigue and working together and Legilimency and murder and adventure and suspicion and magical things, and all of this makes Harry feel mad. So this fic is about Harry feeling all the feelings, and then everyone else feels feelings too. Even Draco. (Remix of “Ellhorn,” by kedavranox.)
Word Count: ~62,000
Disclaimer: Characters from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. An important part of this story is based on “Ellhorn,” by kedavranox. In some ways this story is also a remix of Mercedes Lackey’s novel, Arrow’s Flight.
Author's notes: kedavranox, I don’t think this is what you meant by a remix of what happens before your fic! But as I thought about your wonderful story “Ellhorn” more and more, I focused on the line about Harry’s mind and who his captors were. The story spun out (of control!) from there, managing to pull together several ideas I’d always wanted to write. I’m sorry that the background for your short story turned into such a long piece, but thank you for letting me imagine a world behind your fic.

An impossible amount of gratitude to icmezzo for listening to my idea, encouraging me, and beta’ing. And inspiring a scene and giving me ideas! I’m really glad I met you. I can’t even begin to describe what all your help means to me.

The Fall of the Veils

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Cap 2

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 08:52:47 GMT

I can't even deal with this movie. Seriously I can't even. I can nothing. I have no can.

Please tell me all your thoughts. Spoilers in the comments (hopefully!). Please come talk to meeeeeeeeeeeeee.

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The Winter Soldier.

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 04:50:13 GMT

Guys so I have this problem. I'm super excited about The Winter Soldier. And the problem is that my hopes are so high by my expectations are quite low. I really just want Steve and Natasha to be forever-bros; is it too much to ask; I guess it is, but it's all I want. And he tries to be all nice to her but she just looks at him a lot and tightens her mouth and doesn't say anything. And he guesses it's because she's Russian or something but he does stuff like invite her out for coffee and the thing is she says yes. He tries to make conversation but she doesn't say much, but she does drink all of her coffee, and kind of licks the rim a bit. And then he just wants to feed her and give her warm places to sleep, but he knew if he said that to her she'd look at him like he was crazy and he guesses he's just old-fashioned. And then the coffee shop is attacked and she knocks over the table to get behind it as a shield, but then when she sees her opening she steps on the edge of the table and then onto Steve's back because he's already bending over so she can use him as a stepping stool to jump on these guys and she tackles them. And when Steve and Natasha are done Steve gives her a hand up and then he says, "You have some . . ." and points at the corner of his mouth and she wipes the blood away with the back of her hand.

And then Steve pays for the coffee.

That's really all I want; is it too much to ask?

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My mom is the coolest!

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 22:44:20 GMT

A while ago I decided we should do something with our bar. Like maybe mod podge it with a bunch of comics. And then my_daroga said that it should be the Avengers room. So we decided the dining tables should have four different chairs, and that each chair should represent an Avenger. Then my_daroga pointed out we have two bar stools who could be Hawkeye and Black Widow. Then I pointed out that the dining table should obviously have the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo. This story might only be based on a true story. It could be that all the things I said I thought up were thought up by my_daroga and all the things I said my_daroga thought up were thought up by me. Who actually knows at this point.

So we went to Good Will and bought four distinct chairs that we felt represented Avengers. They needed some work, which we thought would be a fun, cool project. Periodically we looked at them and talked about what we should do with them. And then we'd look at them some more and talk about it some more. Every once in a while my_daroga would say, "So . . . when do you wanna work on those chairs?" And I'd say, ". . . Some other time."

Meet my mom, the craziest mom on the planet. Guys, my mom is a famous artist whose ceramics show at a bunch of fancy galliers and the Houston Intercontinental Airport and win thousands of dollars all the time and stuff. But the thing about my mom is that everything she makes could win awards. She's a fabulous painter, cook, seamstress, carpenter, handyman, and . . . everything. I mean, she'll do things like decide the island in the kitchen needs a new top. So she'll make the tiles. Then she'll tile it. Then she'll soak the wood to bend it around the rim and affix the wood and finish the wood. She'll take about three days, but only because it took three days with the wood tied to the dock to get it bendy enough. So anyway she's kind of nuts.

Mom gets here for her 10 day visit (she lives in Houston so I only see her a couple times a year) and says, "Well, this Avenger chair project is going nowhere fast. Let's see if I can help." So she helps my_daroga and I with the Avengers chairs. We're still not done with the table, bar, and stools, but we did do this:

( Avengers chairs. )

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Support live fan theater!

Sun, 16 Mar 2014 19:03:42 GMT

I am the co-creator, co-producer, and director for Hello Earth, a theater company which has produced Outdoor Trek three years running. Outdoor Trek is a live theatrical adaptation of an Original Series episode of Star Trek performed in Seattle's Blanche Lavizzo Park, and auditions for the episode "Mirror, Mirror" are tonight and Tuesday. Please help me by spreading the word to anyone in the Seattle area who likes Star Trek, theater, or having fun. Even if you aren't in Seattle, if you have friends on Facebook or other social media outlets, you can help by spreading the word. Below is further information if you want to get involved in this fan-run project:

Auditions tonight (Sunday, March 16, 2014) and Tuesday (March 18, 2014) from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, at Theatre Puget Sound, in the Armory/Center House on the 4th floor in Seattle Center, Studio C (Sunday, March 16th) and Studio I (Tuesday, March 18th).

Needed: Actors to fill all roles (except Kirk, Spock and McCoy), which will be cast without regard to the gender or race (or ability, size, age, etc) of the original series characters. We are not looking for impersonation. We are looking for creative people who want to be part of the process both on and off stage.

Auditions will consist of cold readings. Please be prepared to stay for the entire time; we may not need you for that long but we will be holding callbacks after hearing everyone.

Performances will take place at the end of July and beginning of August outside at Blanche Lavizzo Park.

Kirk and Spock

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