The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed

THE NOT-VERY-EPIC TALE OF KARLSSON AND ELLER

2012-05-21T20:38:50Z

So. This is Erik Karlsson.

And this is Lars Eller.

And if you'll give me a moment of your time, I'll tell you why 87711988 should write about them boning for hockeyrarepairs.

( Good-looking Nordic Boys and Backstory, HO! )

( The Just-The-Good-Bits Version )

Okay, back to my hockeyrarepairs fic, which is basically an excuse for me to write both sides of an epic chirp-off and hope that I'm as funny as I think I am. We shall see.

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On Superstition and Cookery

2012-05-08T23:20:57Z

So the Flyers are facing elimination tonight, and I decided that I would make Chocolate Chip Comeback Cookies to take with me to the hockey bar tonight. (This isn't quite as weird as it sounds. We usually order in food, and one guy's bringing cheesesteaks tonight.)

My usual chocolate chip cookie recipe makes four dozen. Of the four dozen cookies I backed this afternoon, one dozen burned, one dozen fell on the floor after the wire rack overturned, and the remaining two dozen are the sorriest looking cookies I have ever made in my entire life. They are EPICALLY pathetic.

Needless to say, the Chocolate Chip Comeback Cookies will not be coming with me to the bar. If I knew a way to ritually burn cookies, I would do that instead.

*whimper*

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Just When I Think I Can't Love Ilya Bryzgalov More...

2012-05-02T23:22:20Z

He goes and does stuff like this:

When asked what he would have done if he hadn’t become a professional hockey goalie, Bryzgalov didn’t hesitate.

“Astronaut,” he said quickly.

The media pack sort of blinked back at him. No one was sure whether he was kidding. He wasn’t.

“No, seriously,” he added.

At which point Bryzgalov began a long dissertation about the American space program versus the Soviet/Russian space program and which was superior. He noted that the first two animals in space were Russian dogs, which led to a strange exchange between Bryzgalov and a reporter about who had lost more monkeys in space -- the Americans or the Soviets/Russians. Bryzgalov conceded that too many monkeys had lost their lives in that vocation.

“The problem with monkeys,” Bryzgalov quipped, “they push the wrong buttons.”

WHY IS THERE NOT VIDEOTAPE OF THIS? My soul cries out for Bryz's opinion on the Soviet space program. How does he feel about the historical blind spot in which Valentina Tereshkova resides? Does he agree with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the motivations behind the initial Soviet push? I NEED TO KNOW.

My soul also cries out because of last night's game. I don't really want to talk about it. Bryz was good, everyone else was inexplicably bad, Laviolette needs to yell at everyone, and it should never happen again. THE END. (Except to add that I kind of want to stab this guy with his own pen. "Bryzgalov played well, sure, but Philly doesn't need 'well.' Philly demands A GOALTENDING GOD." Jackass.)

I've been talking a lot (for me) about hockey fandom, but I've also been writing, in an incredibly distracted, ADD sort of way, three stories:

( Cut because I bored even myself with this bit )

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HOCKEY BARS ARE WONDERFUL

2012-04-12T04:00:57Z

Tonight, in honor of the Flyers' assault against the Penguins, I decided to abandon my solitary ritual of a livestream and GChat and venture out into the wilds of my city's only hockey bar.

THIS TURNED OUT TO BE AN EXCELLENT DECISION.

( Spoilers of Awesomeness and Drunkenness both )

THIS HAS BEEN A DRUNK PLAYOFFS POST, I HOPE IT DIDN'T SUCK TOO MUCH. GRACIAS Y'ALL. BLACKHAWKS MANANA POR VICTORY.

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Ilya Bryzgalov, Master of the Universe

2012-03-20T02:42:03Z

WHO WAS THE NHL'S FIRST STAR LAST WEEK... AND THEN AGAIN THIS WEEK?

THIS GUY.

And this is reason enough to get off my ass and post my primer on Ilya Bryzgalov, and Why You Should Love Him.

Disclaimer: I got into hockey about two months ago. I wrote this because the alternative was babbling about my Bryzgalov Feelings to jamethiel until she got sick of me. I may have gotten things wrong. Proceed With Caution.

( Early Career: Russia and the AHL. In Which Not Much Happens, At Least According to the English-Speaking Internet. )

( Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix Coyotes: In Which a Personality Begins to Emerge. )

( Philadelphia Flyers: In Which Someone Finally Gives Bryz a Mic, and The World Rejoices. Except Philly. )

( Sidebars )

This magnificent human being thanks you for your time.

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Fannish History Meme

2012-02-26T17:11:25Z

Because my Dai Stiho Friend/Ship fic won't procrastinate itself, here, have my fannish history meme.

( This )

Okay. Time to get back to writing!

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Things Hockey Fandom Has Taught Me

2012-02-07T20:28:42Z

I'm not dead, I promise! I've just been spending a lot of time in the real world, and also on Tumblr, which requires much less thought than Dreamwidth. However, Tumblr is mostly for my RL friends, albeit a fannish subset thereof. I want to get back into the thinking and writing and squeeing thing in a space where shame is a completely foreign concept because:

I think I might be into hockey fandom now? I mean, I've still never seen a game or anything, but first jamethiel wrote me up a little pimp thingie because I asked her to tell me why hockey fandom was awesome, and then thefourthvine started reccing it, and now it's a week later and I seem to have woken up in a Canadian back alley covered in bruises and jerseys with strong opinions about Jonathan Toews. Help!

It's been an interesting trip, because this is the first time I've read a LOT in a fandom where I knew absolutely nothing. I have cousins who play hockey and a sort of vague hereditary obligation to cheer for the Flyers when prompted, but going into this I didn't even know how many periods were in a game. However! Hockey fandom has stepped in to fill the gap and taught me many things:

Sidney Crosby is a hockey-playing robot.
Patrick Kane is a horrible human being.
Jonathan Toews is a hockey-playing robot and a horrible human being.
No one pines like Geno Malkin.
Alexander Ovechin is a puckish matchmaking spirit of whimsy.
Duncan Keith has no teeth whatsoever, because he gave them all to Brent Seabrook as a declaration of love.
Carey Price is a stoner cowboy.
PK Subban is a big dumb puppy.
Claude Giroux and Daniel Briere are married and have three adorable French-Canadian children. They just haven't realized they're married yet.
Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews kinda know that they're married, but they keep fighting because the make-up sex is awesome.
Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook know that they're married, and spend a lot of time worrying about other people's marriages.
Everyone in the NHL is funny-looking except for Patrick Sharp.
NHL players are the worst at pranks.
Somewhere in the NHL is an entire team composed of players named Staal.
No one in the NHL in the entire history of ever can ever talk about their feelings. Ever.

Obviously this is an incomplete list. So, does anyone have any recs/advice on how to watch hockey without, actually, living in a state where hockey is a thing/owning a TV? Youtube has been helping me out, but it's a bit hit-or-miss.

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Yuletide Wrap-Up

2012-01-02T21:16:49Z

Yuletide has come and gone for another year. I'm going to be a while longer slogging through the backlog of posted fic, though, because the Dread God Real Life has been very active lately, but here, have my reveal and a few recs.

I wrote Automotive Testing Procedures in the Young Wizards fandom. I'm pretty sure it was an easy guess for anyone who cared to take a swing at it, since my affection for Kit and Ronan and penchant for pretentious titles are dead giveaway tells in Young Wizards. I also received fic in Young Wizards, Remaking, a wonderful little slice of Tom/Carl that was exactly what I was hoping for when I asked someone to write me the fic their heart desired.

( Other fic I liked included: )

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A Post of Many Things

2011-11-28T23:41:45Z

1. Kaleidoscope authors have finally been revealed, which means that I get to tell you all that I wrote Experiments in Writer's Block in Y tu mama tambien fandom for venturous! This was not an easy story to write; I came up with the central concept of "writer's block" early in the process, and it proved ominously prescient. That said, I am actually pretty happy with it, and I've gotten some really lovely feedback for it. If you enjoy young men dooming themselves to unhappiness through their own emotional barriers, I recommend you give it a shot. If not, well, I don't blame you.

2. Yuletide assignments are out! My letter, which I didn't post until a few days after assignments went out (oops) is here, with prompts in Young Wizards, The Night Circus, Newsflesh, and Fidelio, should you care to peruse it. The Fannish Exchange Gods, perhaps in compensation for the horrors they visited upon me during Kaleidoscope, have given me an excellent excuse to write a story that's been dying to be written by someone in this fandom for a long time. My only fear is Length; I don't think this one is going to stay short.

3. My Adventures in Tag Wrangling continue apace: I now wrangle Twilight. All of it. Because I have read two of the books (sober) and have seen all of the movies so far (shit-faced drunk) and that's more qualification than I have to wrangle some of my fandoms, and because no one else was taking them. This, apparently, is what the OTW does: makes you make it easier for people to read things in a fandom you completely hate, because you actually do believe that everyone has a right to write and read the Werewolf/Vampire/Spineless Self-Insert Character threesome of their heart. Fandom, what have you done to me.

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Kaleidoscope is Live! And Comes Highly Recommended.

2011-11-22T00:52:11Z

The Kaleidoscope fics are live, and while I can't tell you which fic I nearly killed myself writing until next Saturday, I can recommend quite a few of them.

( Recs in Coffee Prince, The Inheritance Trilogy, Saving Face, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Mongolian History RPF under the cut! )

If those weren't enough, there's a list of all the fanworks, gifts and treats alike, here. Go give them some love.

Now, I need a favor in return: I'm about to embark on a three-day cross-country drive with my father. My type-A, ADD father, whom I adore but who also is not, shall we say, good at transitional periods, change, sharing, or driving for extended periods of time. We have audiobooks and NPR podcasts, but those only go so far. For the sake of our filial relationship, please, recommend to me any good, novel-length fic you've read recently, preferably on the AO3 for ease of Kindle-ing. I don't care about the fandom or pairing, though I have been heavily into the Avengers movieverse lately.

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Writing! It's very hard to love it, sometimes.

2011-11-20T00:52:42Z

Oh my god, y'all. My hair has gone white overnight, my visage is gnarled and twisted, and my friends and relations no longer know my face, but my Kaleidoscope fic is done. Or rather, abandoned, because it works okay-ish and lacks major grammatical and stylistic errors and doesn't completely suck and at five hours until the fics go live (not are due, mind you, but go live), I feel that I have wrung every drop of blood from that particular stone. Writing this aged me. It isn't even like it was particularly long. I was just incredibly stressed out over figuring out what my recipient wanted, exactly, and reconciling my best guesses about that to a very, very tightly closed canon. I know for a fact that I was waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy overthinking the whole thing, but I have never freaked out over a challenge like this before. My brain has been reduced to .gifs.

( A challenge, as told in .gifs. Warning for abuse of bandwidth. )

Now, to go sign up for Yuletide so I can do it all again in a month.

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I went to the post office and I found this...

2011-11-18T15:50:44Z

I can't do a proper Yuletide squee post yet, because I haven't done signups yet, because real life and Kaleidoscope have combined to eat me, but this was too good not to do a quick share before I run off to a meeting:

Proof that America is the land of slash and honey*: Even our government agencies write anthropomorfic.

*Note for the benefit of the slash: honey apparently makes a terrible lube.

Edit: ARGH HTML ARGH NEW POSTING WINDOW ARGH

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What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Thirteen and Nerdy

2011-11-01T22:44:05Z

A friend of mine has a cousin - young, dresses oddly, likes Doctor Who - who's going through a bit of a rough patch. We're trying to collect advice for her - other than the generic "it'll be better in college" - here.

If you could take a moment to tell someone what you wish someone had told you when you were thirteen, it'd be appreciated.

ETA: A number of people have expressed an interest in seeing other people's responses, so I've set up a Tumblr here. The anonymity of all responses will be preserved.

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Sometimes I feel like I'm doing "girl" wrong. Then I shrug and go wrestle a bear.

2011-10-28T06:38:37Z

Right. So A (the artist for the webcomic I write) and I were both up late, trying to beat our publicity materials into submission before a con this weekend. Usually when this happens, we start sending each other little pieces of encouragement, often in the form of photos of half-naked men. This time, however, we went a bit more pornographic.

A: BTW, I fell in love today while I was driving.....
with the Audi R8 that pulled up next to me
It was love at first sight.
Pax: I don't blame you.
Though their front grille is a little derpy.
A: I like the derpy grille!
hehehe
Pax: YAY attachment finally uploaded.
A: Seriously, though, I liked that car more than I liked any guy in my life.
[A's former crush] included.
Is there a word for people like me?
Pax: Probably, but I'm not googling for it. :D
A: hahaaa
Look at this and tell me you'd rather have a smelly boy.
I mean seriously.
I know you like the swooooope.
Pax: Nope.
I mean, I'd take the Ferrari
But, as always, my heart belongs to Lotus
(also, your pretty Swoop-y 458? Has a bad habit of spontaneously combusting.)
A: i can think of no better vessel to be burned alive in.
Pax: *pause*
*think*
Okay, you have a point there.

Priorities: we totally have them straight.

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If if weren't for bad decisions, I'd make no decisions at all

2011-10-19T21:31:29Z

1. On reflection, signing up for every unclaimed K-Pop fandom on my first day as an AO3 tag wrangler may have been a tad over-ambitious. Whatever, I'm like 60% through the backlog of confusion and crossover pairings, with only the Super Junior Mountain Of Too Many Band Members left to climb. RAMMING SPEED.

2. I am uncertain whether I should enlist in yagkyas or not. On the one hand, I promised myself that if I got to the minimum word count in my Kaleidoscope story by the end of enlistment, I'd do it. On the other hand, while I have the minimum, the story's not actually done. On Shiva's third hand, I really like writing Ray Person, but on this fourth hand I just found by the side of the road, I'm completely incapable of writing Brad/Nate, which is the dominant pairing in the Generation Kill fandom by a long shot. Help! I need more hands! Or fewer, whichever one helps me to resolve shit.

3. Ask the Audience: how self-indulgent are you allowed to get with something that you're writing for someone else before you're no longer allowed to give it to them? Only I promised fic to someone a while back, and it seems to be turning into a Lord King Bad Fic despite my best intentions.

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paxpinnae @ 2011-10-11T23:39:00

2011-10-12T04:57:54Z

Imagined night out: Go out to bar, drink too much, discuss Proust with black-turtleneck-clad young things, wake up next morning to find you've got a t-shirt from a frequent drinkers' club and a phone with new texts from a contact listed as "Jeremy Pub 3/10 IGNORE," who you apparently gave your number to, because why not.

Actual night out: Go out to bar, drink too much, get into argument about wind energy prospects in Texas and electricity wastage per mile, go to different bar, salsa dance with middle-aged Latinos, go to food truck, snag delicious Korean BBQ/Mexican fusion tacos, wake up next morning to find you've got a t-shirt from a frequent drinkers' club and a fannish e-mail account with new comments on a Sunbeam/Rainbow dubcon comment fic, which you apparently wrote, because why not.

Ladies and gentlemen: my life choices.

Also, Kaleidoscope assignments have been sent out! The winter gift exchange season has officially commenced! My assigned prompt was, well, pretty non-existent; I'm really hoping my recipient posts a Dear Doer of Darkness letter that gives a wee bit more guidance. But I am excited, nonetheless! TINY FANDOM, HO!

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Dear Doer of Darkness,

2011-10-08T20:34:31Z

You've gotten me for Kaleidoscope. YAY! This means we share at least one tiny fandom, and it also means that you'll be helping that fandom expand by a small but significant amount, and really, that's all I care about. The prompts I gave are just that - prompts. If they don't gun your engine, you're totally allowed to come at things from a different angle. Whatever you write, I'll love.

If you're reading this, you're hopefully just trying to get a better handle on my tastes and preferences. The Cliff's Notes version: I like, in no particular order, gen, het, slash, and femslash, I'm a big fan of badinage and twisty, thoughtful plots that re-examine the source material, and if you throw in obscure factoids or details about the world I will love your story forever.

If on the other hand you're here because you were completely confused by my prompt ("She wants light and fluffy death fic? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAAAANNNNN?"), I've gone on a little bit more about each of them below the cuts.

( Coffee Prince )

( The Inheritance Trilogy - N.K. Jemisin )

( Raging Phoenix )

That's it! If you have any more questions, feel free to check the "dear internet bring me a pony" tag, which I use for exchange letters, or drop me an anonymous comment here. Good luck!

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Thoughts on the G.I.R.L. phenomenon

2011-10-07T04:53:08Z

So, if there are no girls on the internet, and no guys in fandom...

...how do we exist?

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I really need to update more than once a month

2011-10-04T00:09:39Z

Right. First things first: Doctor Who. Because I was travelling for the last two weeks but one, and then sick with the Death Lurgy of the NYC Subway for the next, I watched both of the last two episodes back to back. My reactions to them, respectively, were "meh and ugh and meh and ugh and meh and ugh and mugh" and "WHAAAAAAA?"

( Like the nice lady Madame du Hell In High Heels says: Spoilers! )

On a happier fannish note, I just mainlined two books and a novella in the space of 24 hours. That hasn't happened in a while.

The Newsflesh trilogy, which currently consists of Feed and Deadline, follows two adoptive siblings, Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they cover a presidential election for their blog about 20 years after the zombie apocalypse, known in this canon as The Rising. And y'all, it hit me where I live. Political scandal! Internet culture! Surprisingly accurate epidemiology and viral evolution! The response of a society to apocalyptic events! Pervasive yet not cloying references to Edgar Allen Poe! AND ZOMBIES!

( SO MANY FEELINGS. SO MANY SPOILERS. SO MANY ZOMBIES. )

Anyone have any recs for Newsflesh/want to babble about what you want to see from the fandom? Because I want to babble about what I want from this fandom. Quite badly.

So right now, I think my Yuletide nominations list has been refined to Newsflesh, The Night Circus, and a third as-yet-undecided fandom, possibly Raging Phoenix, possibly Clueless. I'll trust that someone else will pick up Young Wizards.

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Blathering nonsense

2011-09-21T03:37:26Z

So, I was recently on vacation for a week at the beach (granted, the very cold beach, since it was in New Jersey and it's heading into autumn, but still the beach) without internet. I managed to do very well and only twitched a little bit, which was very good, considering I'm usually on my laptop several hours a day. However, I think the internet missed me, because it followed me into real life.

Not. Kidding.

My godson kept running over while I was reading to show the weird things his hermit crab was doing. The boardwalk vendors were selling Troll Face and Cool Story Bro t-shirts. The front-page photo on Sept. 19 was a man in a tricorner hat firing a se'en-pounder from a flagship on the Delaware River.

Honestly, it was like I'd never left. But return I have, to the news that apparently we only have three Yuletide nominations this year?

( This is hard, y'all. This is really hard. )

Long story short, if you're thinking about nominating any of these:

Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
Stand By Me (1986)
Clueless (1995)
Top Gear UK RPF
Raging Phoenix (2009)
Lost Girl
Haven
Diane Duane - The Young Wizards Series

Please drop me a line so we can avoid redundancies, and also squeal about how awesome our tiniest fandoms are.

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NPR's Top 100 SF/F Books Meme

2011-08-13T21:31:00Z

NPR's top 100 SF/F books. Bold if you've read, italicize ones you fully intend to read, underline if it's a book/series you've read part but not all of, ~~strikethrough~~ if you never plan to read.

( Final Verdict: 35 Read, 8 intended, 7 Incomplete, and 2 Barred. My batting average, it is low. )

Do you, like the rest of the internet, feel like this list skewed overly old, white, and male? Wondering why Watchmen made the list and Ghost in the Shell and Y:The Last Man didn't, and where the hell A Wrinkle in Time and The Tough Guide to Fantasyland were? Head on over to eruthros's journal, where she's accepting nominations for Fandom's Top 100 SF/F works in all media!

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Podfic: Thor, "Just Temporary, Ma'am," by sutlers, R, Clint/Darcy

2011-08-11T02:33:49Z

Text: Just Temporary, Ma'am
Author: sutlers
Reader: paxpinnae
Language: English
Fandom: Thor (2011)
Pairing: Darcy Lewis/Clint Barton (Hawkeye)
Author's Rating: R
Author's Warnings: None
Author's Summary: In which Darcy procures a fake boyfriend in order to get Jane off her tits about this "Darcy doesn't have any friends" thing. Which is ridiculous, Darcy has over 300 friends.
Author's Notes: Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, especially persons named Anderson Cooper. For Mer, fixed by fallia.
Length, file size: Without Sound Effects: 32:57, 30.9 MB || With Sound Effects: 36:33, 34.3 MB
Download: Without Sound Effects: Minus || With Sound Effects: Minus
Reader's Notes: Darcy and Ab's text message tones are © T-Mobile. Pepper's text message tone is © Apple. Tony's text message tone is © MGM and Warner Bros. Clint Barton's vocal stylings on "Honey Bee" are provided by Mr. Blake Shelton, the vocalist of the song in question. The intro/outro music is "Because It's Not Love (But It's Still A Feeling)" by The Pipettes, which I only know because it was featured in swing_set13's awesome Clint/Darcy fanmix Four-Color Love Story.

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The Porn Battle made me want more challenges.

2011-08-10T04:55:19Z

The first five people (in theory) to comment in this post get to request that I write a drabble/ficlet of any pairing/character of their choosing. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level.

and yes, there's a DW and a LJ version of this so five for either one counts.

My Delicious has all my fandoms ever, all of which are fair game; my obsessions at the moment are the Avengers movies (specifically Darcy), Haven, Doctor Who, Misfits, Coffee Prince, and Suits.

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"Floriography," Coffee Prince, Eun Chan/Yoo Joo, R

2011-08-07T04:52:26Z

What is this fanfic thing? I think I remember it from ages past. I totally blame thefourthvine and the rest of the K-Drama Cabal for this, BTW.

Title: Floriography
Author: paxpinnae
Fandom: Coffee Prince
Pairing: Yoo Joo/Eun Chan
Rating: Oh god. I don't even know, y'all; no one so much as kisses, but it's still sexy as hell. Let's just call it R, for heavy sensuality.
Warnings: None
Wordcount: 1,344
Summary: Eun Chan, would you allow me to paint you?
Notes: Written for the Porn Battle prompt "Coffee Prince, Yoo Joo/Eun Chan, paint." Thanks to my main Korean, J, for the tidbit about the carnations.

( Is it still porn if nobody kisses? )

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Culture of various kinds

2011-08-05T16:40:17Z

Yesterday I, in no particular order:

1. saw my TV boyfriend Seth Gilliam (perhaps you know him from this little show he did) do Othello
2. fired a handgun for the first time
3. wrote copious amounts of porn
4. learned the meaning of the word "dramaturg."

( Houston Shakespeare Festival: Well, What Do You Want for Free? )

( Sometimes I Worry About How Much I Like Things That Go Boom )

Also, Porn Battle is on! I was inspired by, uh, a lot of things this go-round, and managed to turn two of them into fic - a Yoo Joo/Eun Chan Coffee Prince dealie, and a Darcy/Hawkeye prompt for Thor. Anyone wanna do a beta read for me on either of those?

So, you know, it was a full day of multicultural experiences, provided that you count "redneck," "fandom," and "dirty liberal commie pinko literature snob" as three separate cultures.

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