Diary of a Suburban Squeen

Thing the first: I have somehow managed to plot a 12-book school series allegedly written by Josephine M. Bettany, and then get super invested in the characters. I will be sharing this extensively. I cannot lie.

Thing the second: Remember this time last year, when I was obsessively posting and filling prompts at the Awesome Ladies Ficathon? I have (embarrassingly) only just got round to listening to a podfic that podklb made of my Alice Longbottom fic, blow me bluebell bubbles, that I wrote for a Harry Potter prompt. The podfic is here (download here), and it is SUPERBLY read. Please do listen, because she did a truly smashing job.

Thing the third: Nellie, darling, remember that Bones vid I was going to show you in Dorset, only to be scuppered by the failiness of our internet? This is it. BEST BONES VID EVER.

So, peeps, here's the thing: I want to write some fic, not having written any for a little while, but I find myself devoid of the demon inspiration. So I thought I'd have a little drabble challenge.

Thus, please suggest a fandom, character (and topic/quote/other character/vague scenario/just any kind of prompt for the love of esmerelda!), and I will try and write a little fic. Don't be shy! I can write any fandom I've written before (check out the fic tag if you're not sure), and am open to writing anything for TV shows/films/books/stuff I enjoy.

Please do suggest something - I really miss writing!

I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAVEN'T LJED IN SO LONG! I am genuinely shocked by my own lacksadaisical approach at telling you about what I've been doing. SHOCKED. GENUINELY. So, in the seven minutes available before the Lego Head Man lets out his traditional plaintive cry that dinner (in today's case, chicken cacciatore à la Nigella - tasty tasty) is ready to be fettled, I shall update you.

This is, of course, hampered by the fact that I can't remember what I've been doing.

♥ WEDDING! Jess got married to Douglas in the darkest depths of Gloucestershire, and I, along with Katie, Pim and Katherine, went to watch. It was really nice, and we saw various people, and Megan and Hannah were bridesmaids and supercute (they went off rollicking on the grass at the reception place and in their white dresses and Megan's hair up like a little C17th girl, they did look like they belonged in a timeslip story). So, wedding was good, speeches were very good (Jess, I love you and your mother forever for both doing one), realising that the Kate and Fliss I'd been talking were in fact chiasmata (well, Kate was), which fact apparently everyone else knew, was VERY EMBARRASSING but tant pis. Plus Travelodge/Little Chef hilarity, SO MANY TAXIS, and CELIA IMRIE being awesome. A good weekend.

♥ Our balcony garden is not yet dead. I know. We're amazed too. In fact, it's thriving: herbs are merrily growing away, we have tiny green strawberries, and our tomato plants are AS TALL AS THE SKY*. There has been a lot of watering, and also spraying of the mint with washing up liquid, as it has traumatically become infested with greenfly. Boofaces. Still, the washing up liquid is doing its promised job (god save Katie and her arcane childhood knowledge), so all is not lost.

♥ I feel I should let everyone know that, when the apocalypse comes, FT can survive for a month or so on baked beans, orange juice and yogurt. But I cannot share this information without attaching a grave warning: don't, when you find yourselves stumbling along the Strand, dodging zombies and trying to scavenge ginger nut biscuits from the bin (I'm looking at you, Helen: I know your tendancies), attempt to breach the barricade of 22 The bally old W. We will react strongly and sternly, and you will find yourself tumbling back down the stairs with the tiny remnant of a hacksaw sticking out of your eye.

♥ So, about that tiny remnant of a hacksaw. We bought a garden cane to be a curtain pole for the balcony door. So far, so good. But we knew it would be too long, so we bought a little hacksaw to cut it down to size. "Hmm," said Katie dubiously, "a hacksaw won't actually saw through wood." "La," said I, ever the optimist, "it will be fine." Came the day, came the garden cane/hacksaw attempt. Which lasted approximately three seconds, up to the point that the hacksaw blade snapped into three. "Ho hum," said I, and began my attempt to saw through a garden cane using the aforementioned tiny remnant of a hacksaw. It was about two inches long. My progress was not inspiring. After a while, Katie came to see what havoc I was causing. After putting newspaper down in a bid to stop me getting sawdust everywhere, she attached herself to one end of the tiny two-inch hacksaw blade remnant. I maintained my grip on the other end. Together, in a thrilling display of teamwork, we sawed that fucker in half. Oh, how we chuckled - near insensate with mirth, we were, and then I said (hilariously, I think we can all agree), "And then they realised they were punching a baboon!" which led to more laughter. Good times, readers, good times.**

♥ In other news, I cracked open my sewing machine, and hemmed the curtain that is to go on the hacksawed garden cane. I also made a top (rough draft with not-so-great material), which needs some work before I make it with proper material. But it's fun to be sewing again - I haven't really for ages (except for curtains etc when we moved in).

♥ Also, I have done other things with my time. I did the Remix Redux challenge, which was quite exciting because I've never done a proper challenge before. Maybe this will be the year I actually sign up for Yuletide! I wrote a Merlin fic which I quite liked in the end, so I will post that here soon.

♥ In other fanfictional news: Chalet School. Zombies. Coming soon to an LJ near you.

♥ Anyway, returning to the previous point. Other stuff. Katie and I went to see Iron Man 2, which I loved because RDJ is the king of ace. We went to a party at Nellie Dean's new house, which was vee nice. Also nice: the gather, the highlight of which was undoubtedly drinking many cocktails (and stealing bits of Kathryn's kumquat liqueur-themed ones) and trying to sing along to Joseph without Helen changing the playlist. After the gather we went to Ikea, and Katie and I bought things we needed without going crazy (the ultimate Ikea challenge). TRAGICALLY AND INEXPLICABLY the Swedish shop did not provide us with salmon paste. We are confused and desolate, just as if a treasured chum had kicked us in our lady bits.

♥ I have become indoctrinated into Criminal Minds. OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SHOW. I love everything about it. I love how the nice people at the beginning don't happen upon a grisly corpse, thereby setting in train the events of the episode. Oh no. They are the grisly corpse(s) setting in train the events of the episode. Also, Garcia is so rocking awesome. And Spencer Reid is made of love. And Jane Lynch may be the most superdooper thing ever. And Hotch is so stern and so adorable, and Morgan is just so stalwart. Anyway. Love.

♥ People should read this fic: Bredon in Narnia - The White Witch tries to tempt a child of Peter and Harriet and fails utterly. As, of course, she would. Also Rain Check - An investigation takes Hotch into Harvelle's Roadhouse. Because it's so just who Hotch and Ellen are.

♥ So, there you are. The last month or so of a squeenly life. I clearly haven't written this is the seven minutes before the Lego Head Man let out his plaintive cry. I have now nearly finished both my dinner and my yellow milk. And so I bid you adieu.

xoxo, Suburban Squeen ***




* Or about two feet tall, depending on how you view the situation.
** Which no one will appreciate, because no one ever does appreciate our hijinks. :-(
*** STILL AMUSING IN MY HEAD.

OH MY GOD, WHY AM I ALWAYS SO STUPID? WHY? I need to be in bed and asleep now because of getting up at some godawful hour tomorrow to go to Sheffield pour visiter la grandmère, except there's an awful lot of faffing going on, and we watched Bones and Supernatural when Katie got back from Brownies. Firstly, can someone please to be explaining to me ( a spoilery thing )? I do not understand. Also, I want to write fic RIGHT NOW with Jo finding Dean/Jo porn online, not to mention the Merlin fic I got three-quarters of the way through today, and the Dean/Jo fic I've been messing around with for the last month or so. CAN'T SLEEP, FIC WILL EAT ME. Actually, it's more CAN'T SLEEP, WILL NOT GET UP IN TIME.

I LOVE TV. I LOVE FIC. I LOVE THE INTERNET. I LOVE THAT RPATTZ DOES NOT BOTHER TO WASH BEFORE PIMPING THE NEW TWILIGHT FILM AND THE GFY GIRLS SEEM TO HAVE GIVEN UP ON HIM. I LOVE JIM PARSONS ON CONAN O'BRIAN. I LOVE THE STUPID CHEESY OPENING CREDITS FROM LAST WEEK'S SUPERNATURAL. I LOVE THAT A ONE SECOND SNIPPET FROM A MERLIN TRAILER MADE THE CAMELOT_LOVE COMM EXPLODE. I LOVE THAT BOOTH COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT (HEH). OMG, HOW IS THE WORLD SO AWESOME?!

Think of me in this post, if you will, as a sort of eerie Ariel, both comic and tragic, scampering about the stage in wispy veils.

1. The Trag

(a) I got half way through an actual, proper, nailing-my-colours-to-my-shipping-mast Kirk/Rand fic, when I decided it was actually shit. Does anyone want to beta for me and tell me if it actually is shit? Anyone? Bueller?

(b) I have fucked up my back and it's really uncomfortable and I am as a cripple of old. Cath's going to have a crack at it tomorrow if rotatey stretching and anti-inflammatories haven't worked their magic. Just FYI for everyone there. I'm sure you're fascinated.

(c) Fucking tipping it down yesterday. I got soaked. Everything I was wearing got soaked. EVEN MY SOUL GOT SOAKED. This situation was made worse by the fact that, along with Kathryn and Katie, I went to see Mock the Week being filmed last night, which does of course involve waiting outside the BBC for about fifty hours whilst they prance about not letting anyone in. However...

2. The Untrag

(a) Mock the Week was highly amusing and Frankie Boyle - well, there's no delicate way to put it. Frankie Boyle mimed raping Big Bird. We're all fairly confident it's unlikely to make it to the final cut. Neither, sadly, will the trials and tribulations of Mario, Dara O'Briain's Filipino lady-boy.

(b) I am making tuna lentil spectacular for dinner tonight. Mmm. Good times.

(c) Tonight will also feature the last week's ep of Supernatural (which, of course, we are dreading a bit, due to the total Fail! of Supernatural generally - we have been contemplating, actually, starting a new LJ comm, to be named something along the lines of Come On, Ladies: One More Series, We Can Do It) and, far more excitingly, this week's One Tree Hill! OTH, people! I wonder what ridiculous randomness this series will have in store for us? Also, it's Merlin on Saturday, and next week NCIS, Bones, The Big Bang Theory and Castle all start up again, so woo!!! I ♥ TV!

(d) OUR INTERNET IS BACK! REJOICE! REJOICE WITH US!

Mon dieu, today is clearly being one of those days. Have been reading random bits of fic that I started writing and never finished (and found that one that I had finished - no idea why I didn't post it!!). I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that two STXI fics I started a while ago have disappeared off the memory stick I was saving them on, so boo. That's about it, really. I ordered two pairs of shoes (same style: one pair black, one red, both in the sale). I'm trying to be excited about Arcadia tonight and the bank holiday weekend, but mostly I am just DYING for today to be over. Am vee tired and bored and fed up. So let's have some random recs!

Starstruck by pandarus [CWRPS; AU; J2]
J2 version of Notting Hill, featuring Chad Michael Murray as Himself as Spike. It's beautiful and awesome and Jared owns a comic book store.
“Fucking Twilight,” mutters Katie, apropos of nothing. Jared nods, because it's always a valid sentiment. “God, this place is dead today.” She starts fiddling absentmindedly with the reproduction sonic screw driver on the counter.
“Mind you, the werewolf guy looked kinda hot, in the trailer,” Jared adds, after a moment. They'd seen the trailer when they went to see G.I. Joe the night before. They've spent most of the morning detailing all the ways in which G.I. Joe sucked, and agreeing that they still enjoyed it, even though they know better, because there is a lot to be said for hot people and things that go fast and blow up.
Katie rolls her eyes.“You are dead to me, Padalecki. Dead.”
“I'm just saying. The guy with the dreads was cute too.”
“Look, fine, okay, I'll grant you that there's some eye candy. Blah blah blah Rpatz whateverthefuck. But, seriously – sparkly vampires? Swooning Mary Sues? Did we learn nothing from Joss Whedon?”

"Wargames" Didn't Play Out Like This by aurora_novarum [SG-1/Leverage, Gen]
Hardison wasn't kidding when he said he'd been to Area 52. Nice crossover, with Hardison being extremely Hardison-esque.
Hardison did the only thing he could do when faced with some sort of sci-fi nightmare. He screamed bloody murder and tried to get away. Since he was handcuffed to the chair, he only succeeded in knocking himself backward onto the floor, still in a seated position.

And Today We Have Naming Of Parts by medjai_trowa [SPN/Leverage, Gen, Wee!chesters]
John Winchester rescues a couple of kids in a diner. Young!Eliot. So sweet. I want a sequel!!
"Bit younger than mine, officer," he tells the man as the trio re-emerge from the bathroom, the two boys having traded shirts, something which goes unnoticed with their similarly coloured, equally short hair and the two officers having only caught the briefest of glances of them as they hurried off.

The Tragic, Doomed and Epic Life and Loves of Elizabeth Jean McKay by captanddeastar [SGA, Sheppard/McKay]
Sheppard and McKay's Ancient-produced daughter has a thing for Lorne.
Lorne is the best, nicest, most handsome man in the world, because he totally ignores the big pile of awkward that she just dumped on his feet, with the blushing and the stammering and the secret doomed love. He just gives her a thumbs up, and then winks. By the time Elizabeth has recovered from her second embarrassment-induced heart attack of the evening, Lorne is gone and Daddy and J-Dad are staring at her.
"What?" she says, crossing her arms and scowling.
"That's pathetic," Daddy says, then gets the special wince that means J-Dad kicked him under the table. He gets that look a lot.

Mother Tongue by tree_and_leaf [STXI, Amanda/Sarek, baby!Spock]
Amanda bitchslaps Vulcans WITH LOGIC and is awesome. And Sarek is hilarious.
“It seemed unreasonable to deny the child the advantage of learning Standard as a native speaker,” he said, levelly. “I speak to him in Vulcan.”
“But Standard is an easy language to master, compared with Vulcan. The average Vulcan school child is fluent in Standard by the age of ten,” said T’Larr.
“Perhaps, wife, Sarek has reason to believe that young Spock will require more intensive teaching.”
Sarek felt a sudden sympathy for his fifteen year old self. He ought not to have broken Skorr’s jaw, of course, but he had, he thought, forgotten quite how severe the provocation had been.

Count the Stars by igrockspock [STXI, Gen]
An awesome, albeit brief, look at Number One.
Each of the stars has a name: McAdams, Chang, Seekins, Kal-bevek... She remembers the date too, and the story, what she said to their husbands and wives and parents and children on recorded subspace transmissions. She hates that the ship is always too far out for a live feed.

Oh em gee, darlings, how long has it been since I updated properly? An age, is how long. I've had so much stuff to LJ about I've forgotten most of it. I wish I could say that it means you only get the wheat and not the chaff but, to be brutally honest, I mostly tend to remember the chaff.

Anyway. Moving on. I went to the beach a couple of weekends ago with katie__pillar, weird_bird and the rest of the King clan on our annual West Sussex coast pilgrimage. Ah, the beach. The beach. There are no words sufficient in the English language to fully describe the beach experience. So Katie made a video of me at the beach:



In other news, we went to see Harry Po at the kino, which was highly enjoyable, though mostly, I have to admit, for the lolz. There was atmosphere of high hilarity in the cinema. Loved some of the design though: Draco in his shirt sleeves and those birds in the cages - ace.

Last weekend, I went with Katie and klo_the_hobbit to the Ben & Jerry's Sundae on the Common, WHICH WAS EXACTLY LIKE HEAVEN WOULD BE (if I believed in heaven). We had lovely weather, and there were bands and free ice cream and grass, and it was all perfectly lovely. I re-read Fray over the course of the afternoon and I now want there to be more Fray. I also want to read some kind of Buffy -> Fray -> Firefly mélange, because I think that would be awesome. On Sunday, Katie and I were domestic. Well, Katie was domestic. I mostly napped.

Um, what else? Last night, Emma and Ben (though not Bob, because she foolishly forgot and double-booked herself) came for dinner, and we were joined by Katie and Chloe, who were breaking from their epic Thames Path walk in Barnes. Ate grilled halloumi and watermelon salad, butternut squash risotto and garlic bread, and chocolate cheesecake, which was all quite nice, and watched the pilot of Glee (joyous). Emma forgot to get her home-brewed wine out of the fridge (her description: "rancid"), for which relief much thanks. We drank white grenache instead, which was much nicer. I had two glasses. Go me. There was a reason for this untoward drinking on my part, viz HIDEOUS HORRENDOUS DAY AT WORK CAUSED BY SHENANIGANS I CANNOT GO INTO PUBLICALLY but which has now mostly been resolved. Go me for being a tiny bit assertive.

Also, I bring happy news. One of the fake hookers who killed the midget wrestlers has been arrested. Still worried that there's another one on the loose, though...

Well. I've had a shower. That's one thing I can tick of my OMG Epic Saturday To Do List. As for the rest, I have to go to Paddington to (hopefully) get the train tickets, pop in to work because I forgot Richard was having his Bupa meeting next week, and he only had a hard copy of the stats I did, and has probably lost them by now, so I mun email them to Emma. Then I have to, um, pack. And clear out the kitchen. And put more laundry on if I want any clothes on holiday. And buy some toothpaste. And transfer desirable TV to the tiny tiny shiny laptop. And charge every electrical device I own. And probably loads of other things I will forget until the last minute. Goddamn holidays.

But for now, I'm sitting here in my towel, eating a healthy breakfast of Oreos, and contemplating my outsider POV fic I've been not-writing for the past month. Heigh ho.

♥ Meh. It's one of those Saturdays when I've hardly done anything at all. Well. That's not quite true. I made scrambled eggs for me, Katie and Helen. I've watched one and a half series of Waiting For God and started a Wikiquote page for the same, so that's productive, y/y?

♥ In other news, I have done a load of laundry, put it out to dry, and put another load going. I finished Dear Enemy and have embarked upon When Patty Went to College (because Jean Webster rocks). I have done a bit of washing up, and plan to do more anon. I have also started half-heartedly putting away some clothes and tidying my room a bit (giant tip, as per), but am clearly currently procrastinating from that.

♥ I have a lovely fic idea where Jed Bartlet is the President of the Federation, and had some lovely lines etc on my way home last night, but it's all fallen out of my head now, so maybe I'll be radical and take a little walk tomorrow and hope it comes back, because I think that could be a beautiful, beautiful fic.

♥ I also plan to do another rec post tomorrow, so look out for that!

♥ Also: shit! I have a Father's Day plan to carry out which I had temporarily forgotten. Well, there's still time.

Anyhow, I should get on with my tragic domesticity. Boo. Why is our flat not self-cleaning and, more to the point, self-tidying? Why, when I click my fingers, do my clothes not automatically dance into my wardrobe? Fuck you, world, for taunting me with these possibilities in my susceptible youth...

So, I have decided to assuage my tragic existence by reccing some more fic. Multi-fandom, this time.

Famous Last Words [SGA, Sheppard/McKay] by thegrrrl2002
Sheppard can't work out why everyone's telling him DADT has been repealed... DADT is el giant theme in SGA (mainly, natch, because if anyone actually found out about Sheppard and McKay's THEIRLOVEISSOTRUE romance, Sheppard would get kicked out of the Air Force), and this is hilarious because Sheppard's all WTF? over how happy everyone is for him.
Rodney. Him and Rodney--doing things. Together. That's what Elizabeth, Cadman and Teyla had been thinking and it didn't make any sense at all. They obviously suffered from over-active imagination, because he and Rodney were friends, that was all. Friends who watched movies together, played chess, went whale-watching, okay sure, ate dinner together most of the time--none of it was unusual. Just typical stuff that friends do together.

The Hard Prayer [SGA, Sheppard/McKay] by rheanna27
I'm fairly sure this has been recced all over the shop, but whatevs, it's awesome. Post-apocalyptic earth, in which John and Rodney seem to the only two survivors. They're both fucked up, and life is weird, and this fic is beautiful. Plus, who doesn't enjoy a post-apocalyptic road trip fic? No-one, that's who.
John drinks the last of his coffee and watches McKay finish packing. John doesn't believe there's anything left at NORAD or Colorado Springs -- he doesn't believe there's anything left anywhere -- but he can see McKay does. Maybe that means McKay's not as sound of mind as he first appeared, but John is uncomfortably aware that he's skirting the borders of normal himself. McKay, at least, has managed to hang on to two things John lost a while ago: hope and a sense of purpose. Being around him makes John feel like a drowning man offered a glimpse of land; even if it's a mirage, the sight of it might be enough to keep him swimming.

we could be heroes [Supernatural, Gen] by missyjack
How mythic heroes are created. I love the fragmented structure of this, it really suits the nature of the story. Beautifully written.
Dean and Sam Winchester traveled the highways of America in a black Chevy Impala that had submachine guns mounted on the hood, and a water cannon that sprayed holy water on the roof. It could reach speeds of 300 miles an hour and travel from San Diego to Baltimore on a single tank of gas.

One Shot [Supernatural, Gen] by InsaneTrollLogic
This is one of my all-time favourite SPN fics. A woman buys a haunted Impala. So, so, so much love for this fic. SO MUCH I CANNOT EXPRESS IT. ♥
There’s about half a second of complete silence before the radio squawks on suddenly and Black Sabbath’s blaring out of the speakers. There’s an odd sort of static under the music. Your head snaps around to investigate, but your gaze snags on a figure in the passenger’s seat. Tallish, shaggy brown hair, he’s not transparent, but he’s flickering. He cocks an eyebrow at the radio. “You know, there’s EVP on that.”

Snogging Rose Weasley [Harry Potter, Rose/Scorpius] by drcjsnider
Yes, yes, yes, JKR's epilogue to Deathly Hallows was like a particularly bad bit of fanfic and, yes, fic writers seem to mostly use Rose/Scorpius to rehash Draco/Ginny and Draco/Hermione (and pretend that Draco wasn't such a wet blanket as he ended up in canon compared the dashing darling of fanon), but I really like how this writer characterised her leads.
“She’s been planning on dating whoever was Head Boy ever since Fifth Year,” Lily told him. "You just happen to be the bloke who is going to get the position."

The Holes in the Ground [SGA/Doctor Who, Gen] by mercurial_wit
Rodney meets various incarnations of the Doctor, and time is bendy. I don't read much Doctor Who fic, but I really, really love this, and not just because of the crossover.
"Weeell," the Doctor says, looking shifty, and runs a hand through his hair. "Spacetime is a bit more durable than people give it credit for. More like rubber than tissue paper. Bendy," he finishes lamely.
Rodney thinks this sounds like a whole lot of elusive nonsense, and he should know, but he contents himself with scowling and echoing, "Bendy," in tones that are as flat as he can manage.

The Absolutely, Positively True (Sort Of) Fictional Adventures of Hot Pilots in Love [BSG, Kara/Lee] by widget285
I JUST SPENT OVER HALF AN HOUR SCOURING THE INTERNET FOR THIS FIC. THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE IT. Starbuck and Apollo discover that someone in the fleet's been writing RPF about their UST. Absolutely beautifully hilarious.
Her heart beating loudly in her chest, Mara turned to find herself face to face with him: Captain Vee “Adonis” Dodonna, her CAG and best friend and the object of her most romantic fantasies. Mara was in love with Vee, but it was a hopeless, doomed passion. Not only did the regulations forbid it, but there was a deep, dark and painful history between them of which they never spoke, but which kept them apart.

For the Most Part [The West Wing, Josh/Donna] by Jen
This is a lovely, lovely look at a couple whose marriage isn't perfect, but then, neither are they. I really, really like this.
Fighting is different than it used to be. Now it’s quieter and after the kids go to bed. But that means that things fester and build up and by the time they discuss something, it’s gone from nothing major to something that ends with them on opposite sides of the bed trying to fall asleep without hearing the other one say ‘I love you.’ He hates that; hates it more than anything. It’s the worst downside to parenthood he’s found.


There will be more. I'm on a roll.