So I was playing with the new random fic feature at the Refuge, and was pretty much shocked when it threw up a couple of fics that I couldn't remember reading (I've read at least 90% of what's there, at one time or another, but had NO memory of either of these). They're both fairly short and extremely sweet, and a few years old, so people who have joined in the past year or two may have missed them.

• Stranger Things Than Runaway Dreams by SnarkyBubble
  David's dreams have run off to be with Jack's. (Jack/David, ~450 words)
  
  
• Seasons and Spices by Lyse
  The seasons change, and so does Mush, at least a little. (Hints of Blink/Mush; ~1,500 words)
  

Incidentally, I updated my massive recs list last night.

PS: Spot/Blink/Race. *review whores*

I actually managed to fix something at the Refuge without breaking the place further! Two bugs that have been around since the site upgrade two years ago seem to be resolved -- you should now be able to reply to and delete reviews without getting an error message. If you still have any trouble or run into new and exciting problems, let me know.

The Refuge birthday stuff is up! Hooray!

REMINDER! There are only a few days left to send me stuff for the Refuge's birthday party! And since I've only had one submission... guys... I WILL CRY. Not an idle threat. You don't want that, do you?

Hey! The Refuge is turning four years old! And we're celebrating! And if you're in the Newsies fandom, you should come play! Or...I'll cry.

(Seriously. Not to emotionally blackmail my friendslist, but if people don't participate? I will be horrifically, cripplingly saddened. So. You know. You should participate.)

I beat Paper Mario today! Yay me!

Anyhoo. Thing that is making me giggle: Rachel and I were watching Pride & Prejudice just now, which happened to have been on Oh! network. They're promoing a month of movies, which I can't pick out a theme to, but Honey is among them. Which means that skeevy adult David Moscow's "Now that... that is sexy," is one of the taglines in the ads.

Sadly, him being slapped by Jessica Alba is not in the montage of chicks slapping dudes that the ad ends with.

Speaking of D-Mos, his (presumably terrible) made for TV movie on Spike airs tonight. Oh yeah. The TiVo is set up.

In a fit of productivity, I did various bits and pieces of updating and cleaning up around the Refuge -- chiefly tweaking the main page layout. Ha. My mad web producer skills at work. Look at me, all cutting and pasting things to other places. So it's nothing major (definitely not a redesign) but I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. So... hooray!

So I'm still coughing up a storm and, due to the napping today, have totally fucked up my sleep schedule and am now not going to get much sleep tonight, which sucks. I'm going to work tomorrow, though; I just hate taking days off and I really don't feel sick enough to justify it. I have no symptoms other than coughing, wtf? (Well. And now my throat hurts, because it's the really raw, racking kind of cough that causes ache, apparently.)

Today was actually pretty nice, though. The cat barely attacked me at all! And I spent it mainlining Newsies fic, which was excellent. I read everything I hadn't already ready by lielabell and then everything I hadn't already read by cymbalism219. They are both so good. I really just feel like the Newsies fandom is excellent right now; it's small and fun and full of goodfic and nice people. I know I go through phases of being super into it (like, oh, now) and times when I'm not so much, but I'm always so happy it's there to go back to. It's like coming home.

♥ to everyone on my flist.

(ETA: in my last entry, btw, I discuss various pairings: Jack/Race, Mush/Blink, Spot/Race, and -- totally not my fault -- Teddy/Denty. More requests are welcome; I'm having fun!)

So long as I am home sick I am totally going to spam my flist, SO THERE. I mean, what?

Anyway. I've spent the last couple of hours reading all of lielabell's newsie fics; I'd read some of them already, and decided that since I loved everything I've read by her, I should, you know, read EVERYTHING by her. And so should you. Because she's great, and her characterizations are pretty much all excellent.

If you're looking for somewhere to start, however, I recommend The Wages of Sin. It's sort of a collection of short stories, tied together by setting and theme: the boys are all frequenting an upscale brothel. Which means that there is (gasp) het in this fic, clearly, since... you know, brothel. But there's also slash, and -- I can't say gen, but something like it, pieces which are more about the boys' personalities and characters, rather than relationships, regardless of the fact that pretty much every chapter (in fact... I think every chapter) involves someone gettin' it on.

So, read that! Especially if you want (shh, don't tell FFnet) Jack/David smut. And then read A Mother's Love, because it's about Medda being awesome, and then check out the various Bits and Pieces at the Refuge, and your heart will BREAK. Probably. Mine did.

So yes: lielabell. She's great.

Okay, and now the meme. Though I still have to write the actual journal entries from the last meme. Perhaps I will be even spammier this evening.

Comment with any ship from a fandom you know I like or am familiar with. I will then go on about said ship for at least one hundred words. Perhaps more! Feel free to comment with ships I like, ships I hate, or ships where my opinion is neutral or unknown. I'll be honest and diplomatic about all of them, with a bit of added flail for the OTPs.

So last summer, Jess (poisonivory), Jen (harmonyangel) and I drove to Georgia to spend a lovely few days with Margot (second_batgirl). It was, as you can imagine, awesome! And I brought a recorder to keep track of all of our hilarious hijinks, which were also awesome. I was originally going to transcribe and edit the audio for all of it, but it turns out we actually produced a full gig of wackiness, and I'm lazy. But because I'm in such a Newsies mood -- and we all (mostly) met through Newsies fandom -- of course we talked about them a lot. So I dug through and found this, a truly awesome conversation, had on the way to Six Flags. Sadly, no audio track, but transcript ahoy!

Warning: lots of naked newsboys, not for the feint of heart or innocent of soul (read: my parents), complete silliness, and ... well, that's it, really. (And sadly, Margot didn't talk much, as she was busy being a responsible driver...)

[ETA: Um, thanks to find and replace, and me being a loser, Margot's name is in all caps. And I am waaaaaay too lazy to fix it. Whatevers.]

Thing that is hilarious: When harmonyangel reviewed my last chapter of Gents & Dames, FFnet informed me she'd said, "and don't be so ** yourself!" It took me, like, half an hour to decipher that as "hard on." Oh, FFnet word censor.

Anyway! As anyone who has spoken to me in the last week knows, I'm kind of going through a Newsies phase. It wasn't my first fandom, but it's my favorite. Ever. So I'm going to post about it. Hooray!

First off: I know most of the people on my flist who I met through this fandom have moved on with their lives and fannish interests, which, fair enough. It is, after all, a kids movie, and most people grow out of it, and lord knows most of y'all are busier than you used to be. But on the off chance that any of you happen to read this and are interested in poking your noses back in, I'd like to point out that a valiant few have been working hard to get the forums busy, and so there is indeed fun discussion going on there.

Like...
Jack: used car salesman? Spot: responsible, upstanding community member?
Pairings you love, even though they totally destroy your OTP. Jack/Race? Spot/David? Dare anyone even suggest David/Mush?
And, do we, as slash fangirls, tend to assume that everyone is gay? (Hint: yes.) Which, of course, ties in to, "But that's so gay, guys, no, really! It is!"

But wait! I hear you say. You've been gone for awhile, and there's no way to possibly catch up on all the fics you've missed, is there? Where would you even start?

Lucky thing for you I come bearing recs. I assume you are shocked at this. Shocked! Anyway. Starting with some folks who've been in fandom awhile and ye olde timers might recognize:

In New York by falco_conlon. If you love Spot, or if you're into history, you MUST read this fic. Yes, it gets caps and bold. It is fantastic gen fic about post-strike Spot. I sat down planning to start it and spent the rest of the day reading the whole damn thing, because it is seriously freaking amazing. Also, if you don't swoon over Kill (an OMC) after reading , I don't know you.

Vaudeville! by hilaryscribbles. Now, I know you all probably have read this, of course. When Hilby left (by which I mean was tragically torn out of) fandom, it was most upsetting. But on the off-chance someone missed the flailing and squeeing of last summer, she is back, and Vaudeville! was finally completed, after a three year hiatus. Miracles happen, people!

But of course you all probably knew that, since the squeeing was very loud, indeed. I mostly mention it because, a) every Newsies rec list should have Vaudeville!, just because, and b) because Hilby is now writing a new fic, Lunch with the Captain. It's an AU set in and after the Korean War, and as you might assume (what with it being by Hilby and all) Race is fantastic, and the Spot/Race banter will blow your mind.

Fine, have something short and beautiful, given that everything else on this list is epic: Through Other Eyes by lielabell. It is Blink/Mush. It is their relationship. It is perfect. This is one of the fics I would point to and and squeak "OTP 4evah!!!" with flaily arms. (In fact, I just did. Squee!)

Behind Blue Eyes by clio21000. Race is a college senior; Spot is his angry-at-the-world roommate. Jack is dating Sarah, but he and David are, uh, close. Blink is straight (OR IS HE?), Mush is not. Drama! Angst! Plot! Characterization! REALLY HOT SMUT! Seriously, if you're into Spot/Race, read this one.

Sharps & Flats (or with more chapters at FFnet...) by cymbalism219. Were you one of the people in fandom who was borderline obsessed with marching band? Then this is the fic for you! David (and Mush, and Blink, and [spoiler redacted]) comes to terms with being gay in a very heteronormative, religious college; the marching band learns how to deal with them. Scandal in the school paper! Snyder and the Delanceys exist, and are villainous!

Not enough fic for you? I always have more, people.

And speaking of recs, I'd like to point out that I finally figured out how to update the featured fics at the Refuge without breaking things. (It's not like I've been doing this for going-on-four years...) This may be redundant, given that I've already recced them all, but there you go. Mostly I thought the people who were newly-featured might want to know.

Anyway, in summary: Newsies! Hooray! (And PS: you can expect more of this kind of nonsense over the weekend. Maybe. Whatever; I feel like celebrating my One True Fandom.)

Tags: fandom

HA I FINALLY FINISHED THE MANIFESTO. Here it is. Hooray for not being stressed about it anymore!

(Yeah, I was stressed about it. I don't know why. Possibly because it's the first fandom I've been in that's more than four people? *g*)

ETA: And now this is also a GIP. Ahahahaha, Chad.

What part, exactly, of Ryan's tiki warrior outfit requires batteries, and what does it do?

So I decided to take a couple of caps for my manifesto, just to make sure I get some of the cuter gestures and loving glances and whatnot...

I just finished capping all the way through I Don't Dance. I've got 199. Keep in mind, that's 199 shots that are either of Chad or Ryan (or both!). There are other characters in the movie? Really?

Incidentally, Corbin Bleu really suffers from, uh, Aaron Lohr syndrome -- he only has two facial expressions, "desperately in love," and "completely heart broken." Guess which one he has around Ryan? *g*

ETA: Does the green shirt that Chad wears in the scene where Troy and Sharpay watch Ryan choreograph everyone say "My mom thinks I'm rad"?! That would be awesome. (I'm sure if it does someone's already noted it.)

Also, I was sulking because it's pretty much impossible to get a clear cap of the two of them with their arms around each other right before they high five, but then I realized it's TOTALLY CLEAR because they are in front of a MIRROR where you can, you know, see their arms. :D :D

ETA2: Ended with an even 250 pictures. Now I just need to write the damn thing so I'll know which ones will be useful.

Okay, so I marathoned some of the Flight 29 Down episodes that have been taking over the TiFaux. The show is terrible; for serious, Corbin is one of its strongest actors. The characters are all terrible and I'm sad most of them didn't die in the crash. However, Mr. Bleu does keep up his awesome streak of being unable to pick out heterosexual roles, and is fairly hilarious.

#1: The episode where he gets stuck, uh, under the plane. It doesn't hurt or anything, but he can't move, he's trapped on the beach, and the tide is coming in. Oh, noes! So the only other guy around can't move the plane off him...so instead cuddles him. Like, arranges it so Corbin is lying in his lap. So they can hold each other. Oh, Corbin. That wasn't manly at all.

#2: Less manly! He wears his wet shorts for too long and gets a horribly painful groin rash. This leads to hijinks, of course, and ends with him wearing a skirt. I may be mixing up episodes, but there's a super-intense shot of him running they use on the promos/"be right back" pre-commercial material. Where you only see him from torso up. Because yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where he's wearing a skirt. Still not manly!

This show is so bad, y'all.

So there's a series of HSM junior novels. They aren't very good, not shockingly. But Jess bought me two for Chanukah! Specifically, the ones about Chad and Ryan. Kind of. And not together, unfortunately. Anyway. I just finished the Chad novel, and to spare you from having to seek it out and read it yourself--you know you want to, for certain values of "you", um, and "want"--here is the recap and relevant excerpts. Enjoy!

Back cover copy:

Get your rhyme on!

Everyone at East High is freaking out. In one week, the students in Ms. Barrington's English class will have to recite an original poem in front of the whole school! Chad is usually happy to ham it up no matter who is watching, but the embarrassing memory of a past poetry performance is seared onto his brain--and he's not sure he'll be able to pull off this assignment. Troy enlists Gabriella to teach Chad and the other basketball players that there's more than one way to bust a rhyme. But will she be able to save them from schoolwide humiliation?

(Hint: yes.)

( Stories From East High #3: Poetry in Motion )

Next time: Broadway Dreams, in which the whole gang takes a trip to New York City so Sharpay and Ryan can audition for a real Broadway musical! It should be amazing.

So I just watched what must have been about the second episode of Flight 29 Down, the Discover Kids show starring Corbin Bleu.

Thoughts:

-Most of the acting is about on par with Corbin's, which is saying something. Except the for the chick who's his rival (I guess? I'm not clear on who they were or what was going on, except, you know...plane crash) was terrrrrible. So was the obligatory stupid, shallow chick. But the Adorable Young Child was pretty much non-annoying, and also didn't sexually harass anyone, and thus Discover Kids is head and shoulders above Disney

-Corbin assaulting a coconut tree? Genuinely adorable.

...

You know, I thought I had more thoughts than that. It wasn't a very deep (or good) show. But it's co-masterminded by the guy who brought us "Are You Afraid of the Dark?", which failed to scare me when I was, like, ten (and afraid of the Goosebumps books, for god's sake, and please forget I said that immediately), and also the Pendragon book series, which I hated. (In the first two, which was all I read, because...hatred.) So it's actually better than I expected.

Mrr. I want to write some Chad/Ryan but the fic I'm trying to force out is going nowhere. Someone give me ficlet prompts?

Recent (and semi-recent) blogging I've done:
-Hannah Montana Part II (a follow-up to Part I, of course), about the serious problems with gender and sexuality in the show.

-Review: Among the Hidden, an interesting little dystopia, over at AV.

Hooray, the blogs! (...I volunteered to write about 30Rock for Hathor, too, didn't I? I should get on that.)

In other online, but not quite as, er...political, I finally have a due date for my Chad/Ryan manifesto, and a couple of plotbunnies for that pairing, too. And I'm almost done with the next chapter of G&D in the Newsies fandom; I just need to fix the build up at the end, because I'm not satisfied with it yet. (And I have Refuge secret slash to write.)

So hopefully I will be writing lots in the upcoming few weeks. And being super productive at work, but that's another entry for another day.

Heyyy, this is yoinked from ryuutchi and I'm pleased every time it goes around. So.

Every person who wants to gets to request a drabble (real drabble: 100 words exactly) from me. In return, you have to post this in you journal and write a drabble for me.

Post all fandoms you're willing to write for. Your friends can pick a relationship, a story arc, a missing scene, or pretty much anything they want, unless the author has previously mentioned that they will not write it. They comment with what they want, and you write drabbles and post it in your LiveJournal.

Fandoms: Newsies, HSM (Chad/Ryan, obviously, but I'll try anything else that isn't Ryan/Sharpay, because ick), Sky High, VM (I still haven't seen much of s3, so nothing requiring spoilery knowledge), FNL, early-season West Wing, Terminator...other things you can think of that I'd know, I'm willing to try. (No Supernatural. I always say I'll try it, and invariably never come through on it. Oops.)

(Okay, I was informed, just now, by harmonyangel. Shh.)

Scott Porter (Jason Street of FNL) is playing Rex Racer! You know. Racer X? Secretly Speed's older brother who left home years ago? This could only be better if Zef was playing Speed! (Alas.)

In other news, I am not mature enough to work in an office. Because the editor in chief and the managing editor had this conversation, and I did nothing but giggle from my desk:

EIC: Look, we have to be more specific. First off, does the question specify if it's a male-male or female-male blowjob?
ME: It doesn't specify, but it doesn't matter. The question is about receiving, which is male or female.
EIC: Now, wait, do you mean receiving as in, receiving the blowjob? Or as in receiving the sperm?
ME: According to our style guide, receiving means receiving liquid.
EIC: Now, really, I think the problem with this blurb is that we need to make it more interesting. Why do people care about giving blowjobs?

(And on for a good ten minutes. Luckily, it's not just me; one of my coworkers informed me that everyone giggled through the safe sex pamphlet they published. Our style guide specifies, by the way, that blowjob and watersports are neither hyphenated nor spaced.)

My job went much better today, clearly.