The final chapter of Twisted Loyalties is now up. Not sure what I'm going to be working on next yet; I'm currently suffering a bit of a brain-drain from having been running back and forth having meetings with people all week and doing editing in between, so I'm mostly spending my free time sitting staring blankly at walls.

I have one more trip to London Monday, and then, I think, I'm probably going to hibernate until January. Or maybe August.

It's done! Third in the series, following Twist of Faith and A Twist of the Knife. This is chapter one of eighteen; the others will be added on a daily basis as per usual. (Although things may get a bit erratic when we hit December, when I have to go up to London literally three times in the same week. Eep.) The fic is 52,000 words in total.

Twisted Loyalties
As the search for the Passenger begins, Sydney makes a deal with the devil with Sloane in order to track down her mother.

This is not necessarily the 'end' of this story - I don't do series with ends, I create open-ended universes, it's a failing - but it comes to a conclusion without any massive cliffhangers or too many loose ends, so I'll let the series rest here while I work on other things. Quite probably more Alias fic, since that seems to be where my fannish brain is these days.

Oh, and I also wrote a short post-finale fic recently, Faces From the Past, and another slashy Jack and Sloane story set between seasons 3 and 4, Victories and Defeats.

I feel I should probably assert that I am not in fact dead, only lurking, so in lieu of actual content, a meme:

Give me a character and/or relationship from one of my fandoms, and I'll tell you the song(s) I associate with them and why. (The more recently I've written for/talked about said fandom, the more likely you are to get an epic list and lengthy rambling, but hey, you never know.)

Warning: This may tell you more than you need to know about the strange mix of obscure and embarrassing that is my music collection, and why we should probably all be grateful that I lack the technology to make vids.

+++

In other news, work on the third Twist of Faith story continues: it's about 85% finished now so, barring random acts of who the hell knows, it should probably arrive in October/November as promised.

Oh, and I wrote a slightly slashy Jack and Sloane story set in the 1980s, because apparently Alias's ability to eat my fic-writing brain knows no boundaries.

Tell me what you want me to write! There's relatively little chance I'll act on it, given that my writing brain obeys random whims of its own, but hey, at least I'll know what you guys are interested in.

The "You Should Write..." Meme!
my thread here

So, after a fun time playing Goldilocks and the Three CPU Fans (The standard sized one was too big! But one size down from the standard sized one was too small! But the one I special-ordered off the internet was just right! Aside from the screw-holes being fractionally off, but seriously, sod it!) I have installed a new case fan in my computer. It's still audibly whirring, albeit on a less scary level, which leads me to conclude that either, A, it's actually something other than the case fan, aargh; or B, the only reason I had silent running before was because the fan was gunked up with enough dust and cat fur to have knitted a hamster a sweater. ...To be honest, I am leaning towards B.

So we will see. Since the computer seems to still be running fine and not in any immediate danger of blowing up, my current plan of inaction is to get a portable hard drive to back up all my crap and wait to see what happens. I can afford to replace the computer if I absolutely have to, but I'd rather not dig into my savings unless forced.

Nothing of interest to report on a fannish front, really. Am still working slowly but steadily on Twist of Faith III; I give it a cautious ETA of October/November, though as usual, don't hold me to that. My recent flood of inspiration for writing short stories seems to have dried up, curses. But my HP muse has been muttering away quietly to itself since I saw HBP, so with any luck it will at some point spit out some sort of idea that doesn't require writing an epic multi-part million-word novel series. Maybe.

And now I really should stop rambling and go and do my day job.

My computer has suddenly started making a scary whirring sound. Doesn't seem to be in immediate danger of death, so I suspect (hope!) it's the fan that's crapped out rather than the hard drive, but... aaiee. I really ought to replace this thing stat before anything permanent does go wrong. But oh, I do not want to have to afford that right now.

Guess I should pop open the back and have a look. If you never hear from me again, assume I broke it.

Why do these things always happen at one a.m.?

My third trip to the cinema this year, and it's only July! I think this may be a lifetime record. Also, did I just get hopelessly gouged for being dumb enough to see Harry Potter in its first week out, or have cinema prices actually jumped up like twenty percent in the two months since I saw Star Trek? Ouch.

But anyway, the movie!

( Outlook is positive, with scattered spoilers. )

Also, I saw a trailer for the RDJ/Jude Law Sherlock Holmes, and wow, doesn't that look like a slice of cracktacular cake with crack icing and cracktastic sprinkles? Not really my scene, but I await fandom's reaction with interest.

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.