two plus two is ten

Dear Yuletide Author,

Well, looks like that time of year where I brush off my DW account and write a long rambling letter about my requested fandoms! Since tumblr is my primary fannish hangout these days, I've provided links to specific tags for a few of the fandoms here. You don't have to take a look, of course, but it's there if you need it. If you want to get a sense for what I'm about when it comes to fic, I post under patho (recent) and ghostsoldier (a little older) at AO3.

So! I am SUPER EXCITED we matched on one of my requested fandoms! If we matched on more than one and you like that request more, feel free to write that story instead. I'm utterly in love with all the fandoms I've requested, and would be over the moon to receive fic for any of them. I trust your authorial judgment. For the most part, I prefer slash and gen to het, and I definitely want you to stick with what you're comfortable writing. I'm not opposed to receiving explicit fic by any means (although I'd prefer something that's not simply PWP), but I also love stories on the less explicit end of the spectrum as well. Write what you feel okay with writing.

A general list of things I love: weird and nightmarish imagery (if it fits the context), characters navigating relationships with each other (romantic or otherwise), ambiguous villainy, ambiguous heroism, assholes with hearts of gold, "so we saved the world...what now?", "so we destroyed the world...what now?", explorations of what it means to be human in a post-human world, the intersection of technology and the lived human experience, dysfunctional families, found families, dysfunctional and/or found families learning to be functional, meta, backstory expansion, worldbuilding, alternate universes and "what if?" stories, and playing with, lampshading or subverting common tropes.

A general list of things I'm not crazy about, for the purposes of Yuletide: angst without purpose, heavy focus on kink, stories where characters in relationships cheat, break up, or are otherwise needlessly unpleasant to each other, downer endings (I have a few exceptions for this, but they're fandom-specific), PWP, crossovers.

On to the specifics!
( Deus Ex: Human Revolution )
( Spec Ops: The Line )
( Redshirts - John Scalzi )
( Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant )

Oh my god. I think I've been doing yarn-overs wrong for the past FOUR YEARS. How have I not noticed this before?!

I've been knitting a lot lately, because I like having something to do with my hands and I really like hobbies that result in stuff I can wear. I can't sew, mostly because I'm terrified of sewing machines, but knitting? Knitting I can do. I can't always do it well (see: the YO issue above), but it's still pretty nifty that in only two or three nights of work, I can have a fair isle Cthulhu hat. You can't say that's not awesome.

Speaking of awesome things, I've been enjoying the HELL out of Dishonored. I really wish Corvo wasn't your typical "faceless and voiceless FPS protagonist," because I'm dying to know what's going through his head during the course of the game. The fact that we don't know makes for great fanfic material, but still -- I am utterly convinced that he and Jessamine were hooking up, and I'm also convinced that the Outsider is into him in a creepy, bad-touch, trickster god sort of way. NOTHING WILL DISSUADE ME FROM THIS HEADCANON. NOTHING!

( Some spoiler talk here! )

Last night a possum got into our chicken coop and killed one of my favorite chickens. I love all of our little ladies, but Wheatley was one of the sweet ones. Atlas and GLaDOS are both kind of "meh" when it comes to people, and Peabody must've been a purse dog in a previous life because she's totally chill with being picked up and carried around, and Wheatley and Chell are -- were -- the lap chickens. You sit down, they want to perch on you. Usually on your knees, but sometimes on your shoulder. These ladies, they like gettin' their ups.

It's totally our fault, too. Normally, we close up the coop when it gets dark because the ladies put themselves to bed and we just have to make sure everything's locked up. We even remind each other of it all the time. "Are the chickens in?" "Are the ladies closed up?" "Chickens secure?" It's like if one of us forgets, the other person remembers.

But last night, we both forgot. The ramp door was open, and a possum found its way through a hole in the wire roof of the run and got into the coop. And Wheatley, one of our prettiest, friendliest little chickens, our gold lace wyandotte, our lap chicken, paid the price for our forgetfulness.

The other four ladies seem to be okay. Nate caught the possum in the act and it doesn't look like the others have been hurt at all. I just feel so awful about it. Awful, and guilty. I know there are plenty of people who will say that it's stupid to grieve over a chicken -- we eat chickens, after all -- but our chickens aren't food. Our chickens are pets, and they have personalities, and they're so incredibly vulnerable at night. That she's dead is 100% our fault. I feel like I failed her.

I'm so sorry, Wheatley. You were an awesome little bird. I'm going to miss having you perch on my knees.

I'm pretty jazzed that yuletart is back this year. So many of the prompts are right up my alley that I'm going to have a hell of a time narrowing down my choices. I'm signing up for two pieces this time around instead of one -- in previous years I was working full time and doing my nursing prerequisites, so time was in short supply. This year? Good lord, if there's anything I have right now, it's time. Even if I do somehow manage to land a job in the next month or so, I'll still have more free time on my hands than I've had for the past four years. 12-hour shifts + no school = lots of free time for Kathleen.

I'm also thinking of doing Yuletide? I've never participated before but always wanted to, and I can definitely think of a few fandoms that I would give my left arm to see some fic for (*cough cough THE LAST LOVECRAFT cough*). But I also want to do NaNoWriMo this November, so...we'll see. I didn't even try for NaNo last year, since that was my first quarter working with Real! Live! Patients! on the trauma floor and I was determined to hang onto my 4.0 in pharmacology and pathophysiology, but this year? ♫ Tiiiiiiime is on my siiiide, yes it is ♫

...and now that song is stuck in my head. Dammit.

Tomorrow I think I'll mail off my Washington nursing license application and maybe watch The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 again, because IT WAS SO GOOD OH MY GOD I THINK I LOVED IT MORE THAN THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Carrie Kelley has always been one of my favorite Robins, and while I think my go-to old!Bruce will always be the one in Batman Beyond, this old!Bruce is pretty fucking awesome. And the animation is just...hnnnnnggggggh. So gorgeous. All of my love for the animation.

What's funny is that I reread the comic again after I watched it, just because I was curious about the changes, and I really like the alterations they made to the story structure and whatnot. It works well for a two-part film, with the Mutants and Two-Face as Act 1 and the Joker and Superman (I'm assuming) in Act II. I also like that they didn't have Bruce's inner monologue as a voiceover? Which is odd, because I generally prefer it when Batman is kind of bugfuck, but I think Frank Miller narration gets to be a little over-the-top when it's used as voiceover. The dialogue works well, but adding an inner monologue on top of that? Too much noir manpain for me. I can't take it seriously. And since Bruce Wayne is already the REIGNING KING of noir manpain...the changes are good, is what I'm saying.