You know how sometimes two ideas collide in your brain that really, really shouldn't?

I have no explanation for the creation of the following icon. None.

( Cut to spare you from minor Star Trek film spoilers and major crack. )

My brain. Boy, I don't know.

So, I invite you to guess what I did today. Did I:

A, Sensibly get to work on making up for the full day of writing I lost going to see the Trek movie (and then rambling about it on LJ for hours) on Monday; or did I:

B, Go and see the Trek movie again?

( A few things I didn't notice or forgot to mention last time, with spoilers. )

...And now, I really have to go and do some actual work.

The movie has sparked off a nostalgic surge of Star Trek fannishness in me, so naturally, this means... pixelart!



Take it if you want it, credit is appreciated. (Also, if somebody with greater nerd-fu could confirm whether I've got Chekov and Sulu the right way round, that would be even more appreciated. It's sad how much the uncertainty is bugging me.)

I'm not a huge Trek person - I've seen snatches of most of its incarnations, but it's something I tend to stop and watch if I happen to channel surf by rather than actively keep up with - but I know the TOS characters well enough, the flist reaction has been generally good, and I haven't seen a film in ages, so I went.

( And, on the whole, had fun! Spoilers, some quibbles, and much rambling within. )

So, all considered, I definitely enjoyed it! It had its flaws as a film, but it succeeded remarkably well as a TOS adaptation, and really that was the angle I was most worried about. The nods and injokes were cute but not overplayed, and I would definitely recommend it to Trek fans both fanatical and casual. And I'd be quite happy to watch more voyages of this Enterprise.

Some icons which are sort of black and white, except for how they're actually red and green. But in a very subtle way. 16 Alias, 12 Stargate SG-1, 8 Stargate Atlantis, 12 West Wing.

( Alias )
( Stargate SG-1 )
( Stargate Atlantis )
( West Wing )

My usual rules: grab anything that takes your fancy, I'm not fussy about being credited, but comments are appreciated.

A few Alias ficlets reposted from alias500. Although they're probably not strictly ficlet-y, since they're all around 1000 words.

* Considerations (season three: Irina contemplates how best to handle Sloane)
* Comfort (a what-if AU set in 1982: Jack receives a late night visitor)
* Knife Edge (set during the missing years: Jack investigates a lead into Sydney's disappearance)

Twist of Faith III is, um... started? I have about a chapter and a half written, but it's been stalled because I've spent most of the last four days in bed with some sort of flu-type bug. (Not, to the best of my knowledge, swine-related.) So I think I'm going to stick with my not-so-optimistic finishing estimate of, "Hopefully sometime this year. Unless not."

It lives! Sorry, this is a little later than I'd hoped: it was on course to be done in January, but then The Novel That Ate My Life... did, and I pretty much stopped working on it for three months. But hey, April is still technically 'early 2009', right?

This is the promised sequel to my Alias story Twist of Faith. This one's come in a little shorter, at seventeen chapters and 51,000 words. Slightly less Sloane and more Sydney-centric this time around, although the heart of the story is still based around all sides of the Sloane-Jack-Sydney relationship triangle.

A Twist of the Knife
As the CIA race Irina to put together the pieces of Il Dire, long-buried secrets threaten the relationship between Jack and Sydney.

New chapters will be uploaded to ff.net daily, as is my wont.

There will definitely be a third story in this universe, probably called "Twisted Loyalties". It's fully outlined, should be about the same length as this one, and, if you're lucky, may even arrive before we roll over to 2010. Or not.

68 female character icons created for halfamoon. 20 Alias, 4 CSI (Original Flavour), 4 Due South, 12 NCIS, 8 Stargate SG-1, 8 Stargate Atlantis, 12 West Wing.

( Alias )
( CSI )
( Due South )
( NCIS )
( Stargate SG-1 )
( Stargate Atlantis )
( The West Wing )

My usual rules: take anything you like, I'd appreciate a comment if you do, but I'm not bothered about credit.

In honour of b5_revisited, which has finally prompted me to replace my old tapes with DVDs, I give you: pixel Babylon 5.



Feel free to grab it if you want it, but I would appreciate being credited because of the sad, sad hours of effort I put into reproducing teeny little pixellated clothes. Cheers.

Reposted here because I just recced this to somebody as good-mood music, and also because I believe there is/was some sort of More Joy Day thing going around recently:

"Time Is Tight"/"Soul Limbo" by Booker T. and the MGs (Youtube Video)

For great stress removal. (Warning: may cause involuntary shoulder wiggling.)

Spotted in several different variations just about everywhere.

( The fic )
( The questions )

Last night, I put on my ski jacket to go downstairs and clean my teeth. Despite a sneaking suspicion that it was not actually that cold in my house and I might, possibly, be a teensy bit ill (the bunged up nose and repeated squeaky coughs were also a clue) I decided that today I still would make my usual trip into town for lunch.

This just in: fainting in the branch of Subway where you eat practically every day is just a tad embarrassing. Especially when you have to explain to the nice people trying to call you an ambulance that no, actually it's extremely common for you to faint when you have flu and low blood sugar, you just thought you'd make a two and half mile walk without eating breakfast anyway. *facepalm*

On the plus side, the other thing I do when I'm feverish is write. So I give you slightly bizarre Alias time travel fic:

Visitation
Jack is confronted with a visitor who claims to be from the future. [750 words]

Also, how is it that I've had this Dresden Dolls album for months and not noticed how awesome this song is until now?

Okay, I am now caught up with all the icon requests, so if you asked for something, check back at the original post and your icon(s) should be in the comments. I'm still quite happy to keep taking more requests if anybody wants anything else.

I did this back in 2006, and meant to do it again last year but never got round to it, so, er, not quite an annual tradition. But still.

Anybody want some icons?

Fandoms I Can Do:

- Alias (all seasons)
- Blackadder (all series)
- CSI (season 1)
- Due South (season 1)
- Iron Man (movie)
- Life on Mars (season 1)
- NCIS (seasons 1-3)
- Red Dwarf (season 4)
- Stargate SG-1 (all seasons but not the movies)
- Stargate Atlantis (seasons 1-3)
- Star Trek TNG (seasons 1-2)
- Supernatural (season 1)
- The West Wing (seasons 1,2 and 4)

I can also do PixelArt pairing/character icons like the Stargate ones in this post for any fandom I'm familiar with.

Just make a request, as vague or specific as you like, and I'll have a crack at making it for you. Here's how it worked last time.

Requests from lurkers, friendsfriends and random strangers welcome!

A short post-finale Alias fic:

Revelations
Jack has a talk with Arvin after the series finale. [1000 words]

The sequel to Twist of Faith is now about two thirds finished. I'm still projecting it should be done by some time in January, though I'm a bit overloaded with other writing work at the moment so no guarantees.

In celebration of my finishing watching Alias season five, a small batch of icons. 20 Alias, and 12 non-fannish text and miscellaneous (on the theme of, "Random stuff I found while clearing out the 'My Pictures' folder").

( Alias )
( Misc, Text and Cartoon Icons )

As per usual, take anything you like; I appreciate comments but don't really care about credit.

And now I shall wander off to see if there are any active Alias icon comms still out there.

Inspired by the updates I've been doing to nomads_gen_recs and a random side conversation in fanficrants: a poll on what assumptions you make when you see different length labels on a fic.

Link people here if you like, but I'm not doing anything grand with the research, just indulging in my love of pointless statistics.

( drabbles, ficlets, and novellas, oh my )

Okay, the final chapter of Twist of Faith is posted, so those of you who prefer to wait until things are finished to wade in, it's now safe to go into the water. As I mentioned, the idea managed to evolve into a series while I was writing it, so I'm working on the second story, "A Twist of the Knife", right now. It's about 20% finished and I give it a cautious ETA of the beginning of 2009. But as usual, don't hold me to that.

The Alias novel is finished! Amazingly enough, in line with my ultra-optimistic estimate for getting it done, when I was actually expecting it to take until the end of the year. It's 60,000 words almost exactly, and, um, was supposed to be a stand alone story but has sort of turned into the start of a trilogy. Oops?

It's a season one and two AU, featuring pretty much the whole ensemble, but centred around Jack, Sloane and Sydney.

Twist of Faith
When someone else makes a grab for Page 47 at the same time as Sydney, Sloane's actions in response change the course of Alias history.

This is part one of twenty. As per my usual pattern, new chapters will be uploaded daily, my crappy internet permitting.

Incidentally, because I keep forgetting to mention it here, I've also posted a few short Alias pieces over at alias500. (Me, writing fic to prompts. I know. Did I mention this fandom has eaten my brain?) I will hopefully get around to reposting them to my ff.net account at some point, probably when I've finished posting Twist, but for now, you can find them all here.

Right. Now to get started on part two...

Many moons ago, Don Sample (of Buffy/HP and Buffy/SG-1 crossover fame) contacted me for permission to write a companion piece to my Buffy/West Wing story "Donna the Vampire Slayer". And now here it is: Plausible Deniability, a 4000 word story covering the events of DtVS 1 from President Bartlet's point of view. Good stuff!