Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Everything seemed to take longer than it should with my car today which was a lot of my doing. I had a 9am appointment at the car place which is literally next door. I dropped the car off on the way back from bloodwork at 8:15. They asked, "are you dropping it off?" I said "yes." Not realizing that "dropping it off" meant, "leaving it here so we can tend to everything but your car for the next goodness knows how long." I walked back over at 10, they still hadn't started on it. So aggravating. I didn't get to the DMV til 11:30 and at that point the line was going to take me past the opening faceoff for the Gold Medal game (priorities!) so I left. It moved much quicker when I got back later in the afternoon.

I think the PWHL has spoiled me a bit in that it's so nice to see the best hockey players in the world more than once every four year. Still the Olympics are special and both of the Medal games went to OT today. I was really happy to see Switzerland taking bronze and had mixed feelings about the Gold Medal game. The PWHL has affected me there too because the team that I despise the most there had six players on the USA team which made it a little hard to root for them. I was happy for Hilary Knight and am glad she got to go out on top.

Choir tonight was depressing as only four people showed up. We decided to abandon the idea of singing for this weekend and if we can't get enough people to commit to sing with us for Easter, we're probably just going to stop choir altogether.

I did get to see the moon on my way home. It's a crescent moon right now, only the crescent was rotated on the bottom so it reminded me of a lunar eclipse in a way. Very beautiful.

I finished "Bugonia". Odd film with very strong performances. So that's three of the Oscar nominees that I've seen and "One Battle After Another" is still leading the pack.

Wrote two drabbles today for hardtime100. I'm going back through the list and writing on the prompts that I haven't gotten to yet.

That's it for now. See you all tomorrow.

One of my favorite things to do, particularly in HBO's OZ fandom is to take a minor or barely seen character from the ensemble series and flesh them out. Take the details found in canon and then create a backstory from those details. I did this to great extent in my (still unfinished) fic series "Great Risks", where I took Dino Ortolani, a character featured in just the pilot, in which he's the star, until he *spoiler alert* gets killed at the end of the episode, and envisioned a whole backstory connecting him to Ryan O'Reily. There are also the families and significant others of the characters who can interact in therapy sessions, regular visitation, or conjugal visits. And don't get me started on the staff who are never seen outside the prison walls (yet I have a very vivid image of Sean Murphy's place in my mind.)

I think it's one of the gifts that we have as fanfic writers that we can breathe life into characters who might have been a throwaway line or passing through in just a couple of scenes. It brings more to the table and even have people looking at a character or a relationship in a new way.

All this to say, I wrote a thing for the Public Works Bingo - By Proxy - which involves Mavis Woodson (aka Jefferson Keane's bride). Check it out.

Here's what I wrote in 2023.

( The List )

It's thundering and lightning like crazy outside and I am not a fan, particularly when these storms hit right at the time I need to be in bed asleep. I've tried it with a pillow over my head but it doesn't work very well and it's hot. Wah! So I'm up.

I've done a little writing lately, not as much as I'd like, but it's never as much as I'd like. I did some more painting tonight before all this nonsense started. It's another abstract on metal. I got some glow-in-the-dark paint and first painted the whole thing with a blue/green/black mix and then let it dry and did a bunch of lines with the glow in the dark paint- they're not quite as heavy as I'd like, but it's still pretty nice looking. One of these days I'll take pics of the three newest ones but today is not that day.

I trimmed my dad's hair tonight. Didn't think he'd take me up on the offer, but it was driving me crazy and he's half bald so he thinks going to the barber is a waste of money. It turned out okay, but I know the folks at the salon would do a better job.

Might try wrapping this up for a bit. Maybe there's a hockey replay I can watch for an hour or so.

sidleypkhermit tagged me for this writing meme so I thought I'd play along.

1) How many works do you have on AO3? 476 and counting, but really 627+ because I have an entire collection of drabbles in one work

2) What is your total ao3 word count? At the moment, 307,896

3) How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they? 37 – primarily, OZ, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Firefly, and The Departed

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
1. Wandless Magic (Harry Potter)
2. Sheldon Cooper's Road to Recovery (The Big Bang Theory)
3. Sleeping Patterns (Justified)
4. A Mere Request (Game of Thrones)
5. Reason Number Seventeen Why Geno Shouldn't Answer His Phone at Midnight (Men's Hockey RPF)

5) Do you respond to comments? Most of the time. Sometimes things slip past or I mean to write something and don't come back, but I'm trying to get better

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? There's a drabble in the HardTime100 collection entitled Thoughts on an Interrupted Ride Home. If you know OZ, you know that Kathy Rockwell's innocent inner monologue isn't going to end well (or really end at all). For a longer work, Somewhere in the Andes, a Butterfly Flaps Its Wings (OZ) looks at the what ifs in the lives of the O'Reily brothers

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? Most of them. I'm a sucker for a happy ending. A Series of Awkward Moments (OZ) is probably a good example because it takes so long to get to the payoff.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written? Very rarely. My Firefly-OZ crossovers are definitely on the unusual scale

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Not really. Folks are pretty kind. I did receive a comment from a teacher on a script I wrote for one of my college classes which said at the end “I don't know why you wrote this.” Pretty harsh, but I wound up changing the ending and it was better for it. I still got a high grade on the assignment

10) Do you write smut? What kind? Yes. BDSM. I don't like to worry about whose body is where and doing what at each point in time, BDSM seems to have an emotional/spiritual component in addition to the physical that I enjoy exploring.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge

12) Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. A couple of my L.A. Confidential fics were translated into Chinese

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not really. I tried to have a “writing partner” when I lived in LA, but it didn't work out

14) What’s your favorite ship? Tim McManus/Sean Murphy, OZ

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Great Risks- my Dino Ortolani/Ryan O'Reily epic series that's close to hitting the point where the TV series begins. It's been languishing for years.

16) What are your writing strengths? Dialogue, being economical. It comes from years of screenwriting. Humor.

17) What are your writing weaknesses? Long lyrical descriptive passages and action scenes

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic? I try to avoid it unless I'm absolutely certain the translation is correct

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? OZ

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written? I can't choose just one, so here are three that I really count as some of my best, all from movies - One Tear (The Departed) – it's more poetry than a fic, has alternating voices, and is in second person, Alternate Ending (The Wizard of Oz) – I wrote it for the Halfamoon Fest and this Dorothy turned into a justice warrior, and Another Time, Another Life (L.A. Confidential) in which I rewrote the ending of the film highlighting all of the slashy subtext.

If you want to play, feel free to copy/paste and jump in with your own answers.

So, just about 10 years ago, Trillingstar went around randomly pairing up different icons in her collection for what was called "The Crossovers of Guh meme". One of these pairings was Malcolm Reynolds of 'Firefly' and Ryan O'Reily of 'OZ'. Never having met a rare pair that I didn't like, I jumped at the challenge to write the couple, beginning with How Ryan O'Reily Escaped from Oz, Trillingstar jumped in with Breaking Atmosphere. These were followed by You Always Wanted to Travel and In Limbo. Trillingstar has made the most recent contribution to this series in 2018 with The Haunting of Ryan O'Reily. Flash forward to today and this way-beyond-a-drabble came into my head as I was looking for an entry for Femslash February. As always, anyone is welcome to jump aboard and contribute to this 'verse wherever they see fit.

Enough of the drabble-length author's note. Here's the fic:

( The Replacement )

Here's what I wrote for LJ, DW, & Ao3 during 2020 (grouped according to fandom)

( Batwoman - 3 fics )

( The Big Bang Theory - 2 fics )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 7 fics )

( Desert Hearts - 2 fics )

( Firefly - 4 fics )

( Game of Thrones - 16 fics )

( The Godfather - 2 fics )

( Hockey RPF - 6 fics )

( L.A. Confidential - 4 fics )

( Life - 1 fic )

( Now, Voyager - 1 fic )

( OZ - 43 fics )

( Prodigal Son - 4 fics )

( Queer as Folk (UK) - 1 fic )

Because I'm terrible about posting this stuff over here

1/2 - OZ - Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller - Starting Over - LJ link
1/3 - Life - Charlie Crews/Dani Reese - Couples Therapy - LJ link
1/3 - Prodigal Son - Dani Powell/Jessica Whitly - Trying to Fit In - DW link
1/3 - Game of Thrones - Cersei Lannister/Sansa Stark - No Place for Fragile Creatures - DW link
1/3 - Desert Hearts - Cay Rivers/Vivian Bell - Imminent Departure - DW link
1/3 - OZ - Claire Howell/Diane Wittlesey - Stolen Moments - DW link
1/4 - OZ - Ryan O'Reily - Kitchen Accidents (A Love Story) - LJ link

I'm currently surrounded by boxes as I'm in the midst of my annual room clean & purge. I've got a bag of clothes, a box of miscellaneous stuff and a couple of boxes of books and DVDs that I'm going to be donating. It's a little after 10 now so I doubt I'm going to finish tonight- still have the filing cabinet and a couple other shelving units to go.
( writing/reading/goals/hockey )
That's all I've got for the moment. I'd like to say that I'll update about my personal life more regularly, but it always seems to start out ok and then I'll go from March to August without anything. So, we'll see.

Here's to a terrific 2021!

QUESTIONS

Ed drives to Bisbee, knowing that it's a mistake. He doesn't have to see them after all. Seeing them would cause more trouble than it's worth. He just wants to check in on them, make sure they're still okay, make sure they're still together. It's been on his mind these past few months. Has Bud's arm healed? Is Lynn running that dress shop that she'd talked about? Is her hair still blonde or has it changed back to her natural color? Is she still beautiful?

Is Bud?

Has Bud found a place to work? Is he bored out of his mind and dreaming about going back to L.A.? Does he think about Ed at all? Does he think about the two of them together, how in sync they were, if only for a moment?

God knows Ed does.

He spies Bud walking down the main street, slow and deliberate, with a slight hitch in his step. Bud looks worn and tired, until Lynn comes out to greet him in front of the dress shop, then the smile lights up his face, and he transforms.

Ed is taken back to one of those nights, when he and Jack Vincennes were on stakeout outside of Lynn's home. Bud, sitting on the couch, Lynn's feet in his lap, looking more relaxed and at home than Ed had ever seen him. That was the moment Ed knew he was in trouble.

From a distance, Ed watches the two of them together, and it answers a question that had dominated his mind all the way up here- is there still a place for him in their lives?

He turns the car around and drives back to L.A.