I have moved my journal over to Dreamwidth (gwyn) and won't be posting here actively anymore.

You are still able to comment on unlocked posts, but there's a chance I may lock this down, or delete entirely, in the future.

I can't stop you from linking to public entries, but I would prefer it if you contacted me first and I DO NOT give permission to take excerpts or copy posts wholesale. Just basic courtesy of contacting me, I'm easy to message at DW or through openID or AO3.

I'm kind of reluctant to post this anywhere just because the only two people who even want this ship are me and the person I wrote it for as a birthday present, but in the interest of finding something to post when I'm this down, I'm doing so. This is only baby's second crossover, and with an even smaller audience than the first one!

Four Times Quinn Encountered the Winter Soldier, and One Time the Soldier Engaged (4076 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Homeland, Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Quinn
Characters: Peter Quinn, James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Assassins & Hitmen, honey traps, Spies & Secret Agents, Precious Fucked Up Assassin Babies
Summary:

What a fucking waste if they’re keeping him somewhere off the grid when he’s not on the clock; he’s a walking wet dream. “I’m not in the habit of not reciprocating a fantastic blowjob.”

I constantly tell myself I will post more than just fic and vid announcements, and then I don't, because reasons. But the foofaraw with LJ means I feel like I have to at least say that DW is my primary choice for journaling interaction these days, and if we're not already following each other, my user name over there is gwyn.

My plans are vague: I think I will do what a couple people have said they're doing, and lock all previous posts to friends lists. I think most of the gay porn horses are out the barn, but the fact that I can't actually read the new TOS but the journal is held hostage to it anyway bothers me. I also plan to stop crossposting after this one, but I will probably keep reading because there are a few communities that won't migrate that I don't really want to lose. I'm pretty sure at some point they will be disappeared by the new overlords, but for now having an LJ still, even if I don't use it myself, means I can communicate with them.

I had an interesting experience in the last go-round with the servers--as an experiment, I made a password that was basically an alphabet/numbers version of fucktheR******* and immediately I could no longer crosspost, I couldn't even post directly from LJ, but I could get into it. So I changed it to something benign, and suddenly I was able to crosspost and post directly again. Sure, maybe it's coincidence, but that sat really badly with me, and the fact that you can't securely browse the site left me pretty convinced they are paying attention to what people do. You can't have that much of a mass exodus of users and not pay attention. I deliberately don't support businesses and agencies that have agendas in opposition to my own, so I'm not going to support this one just because I won't be arrested in the Russian federation, or whatever the other mocking things people have said about those uncomfortable doing business with the new overlords. (Just for the record--it wasn't my friends list/people here on DW doing the mocking, it was some really hostile comments in a community I watch.)

And considering what happened with Syria, I just want to hunker down with people on DW and curl into a ball of anxiety and despair. I know everyone talks about how creating art in times like this is so important, but it is harder and harder to do that, you know? I have a lot on my plate: the Cap Reverse Big Bang, a WIP that needs a chapter update soon, a vid for Club Vivid and then figuring out some kind of vid for premieres at VVC, and work. Procrastination seems to be the order of the day for me, followed by a chaser of hopeless misery.

For some reason, I don't know why, I'm having a lot of…I don't even know what to call it. I can't stop thinking about my sister lately, having flashbacks to the last few days of her life and watching her die. I'm just going about my day and it's there suddenly. I was in California on the anniversary of her death, trying to just…enjoy myself and keeping it inside so I didn't bring anyone else down, but usually by now it eases off. It's so weird that Bucky's birthday is the day my sister died, I have emotional whiplash whenever I post a story for his birthday.

Anyways, hopefully I'll still be able to comment on LJ posts for as long as the journal is still there, but I'm signing off on new posts there for now.

Celluloid Hero (18494 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Golden Age Hollywood Actors
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steve Rogers, Bette Davis, John Garfield, USO Tour Dancers (Marvel), Original Characters, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, William Powell, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott
Additional Tags: Golden Age Hollywood, Hollywood Canteen, World War II, The Star-Making Machinery, Propaganda, someone's going to get his V-card punched, and by someone I mean Steve, Letters, Period Typical Attitudes, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, First Motion Picture Unit
Summary:

The talk of the town last night was Captain America’s star-spangled appearance at the Hollywood Canteen, where the ladies swooned and the gentlemen cheered. Rumor has it he will be meeting with studio heads to discuss bringing his patriotic man with a plan to the silver screen.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get all my ducks in a row for posting my vid from Escapade: my laptop refused to work on any of the hotels' wi-fi while I was traveling, I guess the OS is just too old or something, so I couldn't post it to all the usual places. Anyway, at some point soon I hope to have this it's now up on my vids site (gwynethr.net) for a HQ download, but in the meantime streaming's all I got.



All We Do
Artist: Oh Wonder
Fandom: Political Animals (and let's be real, Sebastian Stan)
On AO3 on Tumblr


I've always wanted to do a TJ Hammond vid, and I'd originally planned to do this song for Jack Benjamin in Kings, but chatting with vidder Secretlytodream, it really did seem to belong to TJ. I was roundly mocked for my interest in Sebastian's different roles this weekend, but you know, whatever, I like his face. Anyway, thanks especially to przed for the helpful beta!

To the Rescue (4360 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, Jacques Dernier, James Montgomery Falsworth, Chester Phillips
Additional Tags: Dogs, Military Dogs, Bucky Barnes the Dog Whisperer, the Further Adventures of Bucky and Gretel the Howling Commando, Rescue Missions, World War II
Series: Part 2 of War Dogs
Summary:

“You never kiss me like that,” Monty commented.

“That’s because you never lick me like that,” Bucky said with a smirk, as Gretel did just that, licking his hand and his neck.

Celluloid Hero (13688 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steve Rogers, Bette Davis, John Garfield, USO Tour Dancers (Marvel), Original Characters, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, William Powell, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott
Additional Tags: Golden Age Hollywood, Hollywood Canteen, World War II, The Star-Making Machinery, Propaganda, someone's going to get his V-card punched, and by someone I mean Steve, Letters, Period Typical Attitudes, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, First Motion Picture Unit
Summary:

The talk of the town last night was Captain America’s star-spangled appearance at the Hollywood Canteen, where the ladies swooned and the gentlemen cheered. Rumor has it he will be meeting with studio heads to discuss bringing his patriotic man with a plan to the silver screen.

It snowed last night, but while I was up it was "wintry mix" snrain, mostly, and I'm so used to the snow they keep promising us not appearing, but nope, when I got up to take care of the terrors and nightmare mum, there was lots more white stuff, and when I woke up there was about three inches--a rarity in Seattle. We do get snow, sometimes lots of it, but then we'll have a couple years like these past ones where nothing happens. It's still coming down in fluffy wet flakes. All my bamboo is bent over, and I just made a perimeter check to make sure nothing looked like it would snap any lines.

I took mama out in a little jacket, just to show her the snow and see if she'd go under the trees to potty, but she didn't like it and went under the deck. If she peed there, I don't know, but then she came out and whined because she didn't want to walk through it to get to the stairs.

The babies are getting so big, and they are strong enough now to pull the potty pads out from under the pen, and then eat them. I'm afraid one of them will get an obstruction in their belly. The rescue group has pretty much abandoned me--tough shit, I guess, if they need to be split up and I'm overwhelmed. There's a potential the mama had ringworm, which means a lot of people won't take the babies, but the culture takes TWO FUCKING WEEKS and so here I am, in this nightmare scenario with potentially ringwormy babies no one will want. The other foster fell through because of that. They need to be split up badly, they are overwhelming at this point--they're awake a lot more, playing and fighting, and being seriously desctructive. They also should stop nursing, but they haven't, and that's a problem in its own right.

And now with snow I'm even more a prisoner in my own house. I'm so depressed sometimes I with I could just walk out and leave and never come back. But all the animals need me, so here I am.

Anyway. It's pretty outside.




ETA: This is what happens when we get snow or windstorms, or super heavy rain, especially in my area where there is tons of old-growth parkland or greenbelts--this is the street over from me, heading downhill toward the water, which is my primary walking route when I have time to do that.

Would anyone be willing/able to beta a Political Animals TJ Hammond vid? I need someone who has at least a passing familiarity with the series, can do it super fast (because I still have a bit to work on tonight but the deadline for the Escapade show is the 5th), and is okay with vid feedback, at least a little more than just "nice use of video clips" in this case. You can contact me off list if you want at gwynethr at gmail.

Celluloid Hero (7806 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steve Rogers, Bette Davis, John Garfield, USO Tour Dancers (Marvel), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Golden Age Hollywood, Hollywood Canteen, World War II, Actors, Movie Studios, The Star-Making Machinery, Propaganda, someone's going to get his V-card punched, and by someone I mean Steve, Letters, Implied Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers - Freeform
Summary:

The talk of the town last night was Captain America’s star-spangled appearance at the Hollywood Canteen, where the ladies swooned and the gentlemen cheered. Rumor has it he will be meeting with studio heads to discuss bringing his patriotic man with a plan to the silver screen.

Oh look, it's another stupid WIP. Brought to you by my obsessions with Old Hollywood and thinking about what kind of actor Steve would be in the movie we see him in briefly in Cap 1.

I am in that fugue state where you have had so little sleep for the past however many days (in my case, since Thursday) that everything seems kind of trippy and weird, and people talk to you and you have no idea what they're saying, and your body aches and you're exhausted yet you can't, paradoxically, sleep.

All of this brought to me by puppies. If I ever try to sign up to foster a puppy litter again, shoot me. Just put me down before I even get close. I am numb with exhaustion, and I keep trying to find time to just write or do something other than clean up shit and pee, but it never happens. A lot of it is because the mama is not housetrained, and she will use potty pads but she misses more often than not, or tries to poop in strange places like she's upset and doesn't know what else to do. Always at the wee hours of the morning, too, and then first thing when I get up I'm cleaning poo off the little kiddie pool the puppies reside in, and I'm cleaning up her poo and puddles of pee, and oh my god, it hasn't been a week and already I am at the end of my rope. The laundry is never ending, because they pee and poop on the blankets of course, they're babies, and now that they're eating mush they are pooping real poo.

And then they're super cute and mouth on my fingers and lick my arms and hands and get all excited when they hear my voice and I'm like "oooooo" and almost all is forgiven. Mama will go outside during the day, but she has to eat pretty much all day long to nurse the pups so she poops constantly and that means at night, when I can't take her out all the time--or at least, I take her out at night, but she often just wanders around and doesn't do anything--I end up having to clean it up, and let me tell you, for a tiny, skinny, undernourished little 10 pound doggo, she poops for a dog about six times her size. And of course, there is, to me, no worse smell in the world than dog crap.

The babies also seem to love being active at night, and they whine and wail because Mum has taken to hanging out in her crate away from them as she gets closer to weaning, and they're like "whyyyyy have you forsaken us?" So far one of them--I think it's Kara Danvers, or it could be Winn Schott--has escaped the pool and I've had to go rescue them, you'd have thought they were being murdered. And Blues is hostile, of course, to Mum and so she's in a constant state of terror about coming out to the living room or office and she's already super, super timid and afraid, but when he's gone after her there hasn't been any contact though from the screaming you'd have thought he had cut her throat. I am just stressed the fuck out.

blackbird777 came down on Saturday and actually stayed with them all for an hour so I could go out and run some errands. It's tough to be away for long, what with all the problems and the fucking drama. Tomorrow I'll probably have to move them into a pen, which will be harder for the mother to get into and out of, meaning I'll have to be standing by a lot more. Ugh.

They are cute as hell and funny and their personalities are coming out, but wow, is this killing me. I'm trying to post at least a pic a day, if not video, on Tumblr and Instagram. Hopefully if I'm ever stupid enough to try this again, I'll look at my feed and remember this.

I don't have a lot of joy today, much as I'm trying to feel the spirit. But I do have something to share that I think a lot of people will enjoy--I'm fostering a litter of four-week-old chihuahua puppies and their mum for Motley Zoo Animal Rescue, the group I sometimes foster dogs with. This is the first time as an adult I've been around puppies full time and let me tell you, it is…not as much fun as it seems. :-D There's the wonderful stuff: snuggling little babies as big as you palm and that have that delish puppy smell, and having them mouthing on your fingers and hands is a trip. But there is also a lot of pee and tons of poop now that they're eating puppy mush, and they are indiscriminate about where they go.

So is mum, to a certain degree, as she isn't really housetrained and has a lot of issues, which is typical for rescue dogs. She's been through a lot--emergency c-section, shelter, and may have come from a hoarder so of course has a skin condition and other serious problems. She's terrified of me because I had to give her a medicated bath first thing. And I need to bathe the pups too, but haven't yet.

Still--there is cuteness! And it might give you Joy!

I can never figure out how to put anything up on DW (this is still my biggest grrrr about the site), so I'm linking here:

Minute long video of no-holds-barred puppy fight at 3:30 a.m. : http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/156135774205/for-more-joy-day-i-give-you-a-minute-of-wild

Short video of snuggles plus Mom: http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/156056355785/im-fostering-a-litter-of-four-week-old-puppies

Sleepytimes pic: http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/156103318125/post-prandial-sleepytimes-puppies-pupsters

My instagram and my tumblr are both under "teatotally" and I'm sure I will be posting more puppy and mom related joy in the near future. I am going to try to avoid the pics of me having poo and barf and pee related meltdowns or things like my pounding headaches and severe lack of sleep. Oh, wait…I guess I did. :-D

If you're in the Seattle area and would like to meet them, they will need socializing. I can't let them come in contact with other dogs until they get their vaccines in a couple weeks, but they are snugglable and need the socialization!

ETA: I keep forgetting to add: the best part of this is that it's the Supergirl litter! Mum is Cat Grant, and the babies are "Males = Tan male (Winn Schott) and black male (James Olsen) Females = Tan female (Kara Danvers), black and white female (Lucy Lane), black female with little white (Lena Luthor)"

Skipping ahead again, because I'm so behind:

Day 13
In your own space, write about a moment in fandom that meant a lot to you. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

A long, long time ago, when tapes were still the norm for people trading vids and there really was no viable streaming medium (and anything you put online had to be super low quality and the size of a postage stamp), feochadn and I were finishing up compiling a bunch of vids for what would become our first collection together, primarily because I really wanted a way to get our Magnificent 7 vids out there and Jo's Band of Brothers vid to Ebben? Ne andro lontana. I'd posted asking if people would be interested in a collection, and because she is one of the kindest people on the planet, killabeez offered to make us a DVD if anyone would prefer that instead of videotape. The times, they were a-changing, but there were still just as many people who had no way to play discs as had no way to play VHS tapes, and I was so blown away that not only could someone take our VCR-made vids and make a playable DVD but that she was volunteering to do so.

I made a poll to see how many people would prefer discs and there were enough, so we put together a master tape with all the vids, and sent them off to killa, and she sent me a test disc and I couldn't believe my eyes! It was magic! Sorcery! I had only just gotten a computer that was capable of vidding, but here were vids on a lossless medium! It was amazing. And then on top of that she created the title cards for each of the vids and I think if I recall correctly duplicated them for us so we could mail them out to people who had purchased them. It was amazing! And all I could do really was write fic with a pairing she liked, which still feels wholly inadequate. But it meant so much to me--I didn't have the technology, but I knew people were interested in the vids, and I wanted to move into the 21st century, but I didn't know how, and like so many times since then, killa's been my guiding light about how to do that, has helped me through tech problems that I don't know how to solve myself. ♥ ♥

I'm skipping a few and yet, somehow, still behind. I've either been doing what the challenge was about, or it's something I can't do, like name three things you like about yourself.

Day 10

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I've talked a lot before about my predilection for found families, how much I love friends to lovers, and a lot of other tropes. So this time I thought I'd go with a kink--I do not have a bulletproof kink, because writing quality is my overall dealbreaker and I will gladly forgive a lot for the things I love but not that much, you know? But the closest I can come is hair washing and shaving. I mean, I suppose any kind of ablutions given from one character to another--I have only very rarely indulged my kink in writing, or at least, in more than passing mentions, but I loooove to read it, especially if one character is injured and it's the other character doing the hair washing or the shaving or helping them bathe or whatever. But god, give me one character shaving the other (head, face…other things…) and I will probably melt if you have even the slightest writing skills, and if they're washing their hair I will squeal with joy.

I suppose that has something to do with why I've been more passionate about Steve and Bucky than almost anything I can remember, and why they've lasted so long for me: there's an inherent quality about Bucky post-Winter Soldier that gives Steve the opportunity to show his love through that kind of caretaking, plus Bucky has long locks that need tending and lots of stubble. :-D And pre-serum Steve is a great chance for Bucky's caretaking, too, although I can absolutely see that as a quality that brings out Bucky's personality--Steve's attraction to danger, getting injured, needing care, and Bucky being able to give that to him. Ack, now I almost feel a story coming on post-Civil War where Bucky has to work around being one-handed but taking care of Steve… (And if you have any good, well written hair washing or shaving recs in Cap fandom let me know!)

It's incredibly intimate to rely on someone to do those things for you, and it often leads to make-outs and/or sex, but I also love it when it's platonic, or at least not acted upon as sexual. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think washing someone's hair or shaving them is feckin' HOT, but I've also read it as platonic or familial and been super happy about it. It pairs well with a nice hurt/comfort, which I love too (see above re: someone being injured), or for people who are into sex kinks, aftercare.

One of my favorites that I could recommend is devilpiglet's Rock of Ages

I was trying to remember the times I've used it prominently, and I think that it's only been in a few: Don't Wait Up for Me for Steve/Bucky, Ciudad de Estrellas in The Fast and The Furious, and Broken-Hearted Savior in X-Files. I'm probably forgetting some (I can't remember most of my stories, it's sad, and possibly there was something in Buffy or Mag 7, but…who knows!).

So I've changed my password yet again, and put it in the DW settings, and…I guess I'll see if at some point this fucking LJ thing decides to allow me to crosspost again. ::fights urge to kill::

Day 06

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.

1. This is a hard thing for me, and something I've been fighting with myself over talking about for a long time. But I guess I might as well bring it up here. A few years ago, I had a hard drive crash and lost all the video files for the digitally remastered Media Cannibals vids, not to mention a lot of media I had ripped or downloaded for my own vids, and the originals of a number of my own vids that I only have less than stellar copies of, and can't replace with better copies now. The only way I can get those files (at least the MC ones, I can live without the other stuff even though it would be nice to have it), is to give it to a data recovery service. There's one near me, and I know from experience and people who do this that it'll cost somewhere in the range of $1,000-2,000, which I don't have. Or at least, I might be able to eventually pay for it, but the truth is, that's all I have for stuff I want to do, like go to a con or on a vacation, or stuff I need to do, like the animals or the house or whatever. If it comes to that, I'm not gonna spend money on data recovery, you know? Which is why it's sat there for years.

So I've talked about this with people and a lot of folks have said that for the MC vids and the possibility of us putting up a site with all the old MC vids (not remastered, just digitized and put online), they'd be willing to contribute to the data recovery, but I don't know that enough people would be interested to make it actually happen. I suppose any little bit would help, and I could try to make up the rest. We'd need those files if we're ever going to build a Cannibals vid space (a WHOLE other issue, which makes me cry, but I'll deal with that later), but something that might help me now is just having a sense of whether it's even worth starting a funding-help campaign or something--because things are hard for almost everyone I know now, and it's probably just going to keep getting worse, and I feel like this is a lot to ask people when people are losing homes, not able to pay vet bills or their own medical care, and so on. But just knowing it might be feasible would help me make a decision, before it becomes impossible to get any data off the drive. (And yes, I now have my external hard drives backed up to a service, but that drive WAS my backup, at that time, rather hilariously.)

2. Since that's a big ask, I guess the other thing is just the standard that I think most fan writers ask for: I'd love to see translations or podfics or artwork or fanmixes of any of my stories. It's just such a kick when someone makes a fanwork of your fanwork.

3. I'm trying to work on a vid where I'd like some external source. I got some stuff from a friend but I still can't find anything like what I'm looking for, and so maybe someone reading this might be able to direct me toward some media. I'd love some video footage that shows what looks like two (white) guy's hands together--holding hands, twining fingers, or just touching each other. This, close-ups of hands, is a thing that seems to be difficult to find in moving images that I can use and manipulate a little for the vid (it always seems to be what's identifiably male and female hands). I'd also love some atmospheric shots of maybe a white guy with dark hair walking or sitting alone, doing something that could seem melancholy, or even just landscape shots of like windswept beaches or cliffs or walkiing on a city street and brooding or something. Anything that conveys that sense of isolation or melancholy, that could be used to intersperse with the footage of the source material as a way to build atmosphere. Recs from YouTube or Vimeo are fine, music videos, clips from films, or trailers, or things that a person might be able to get hold of in the US would be great.

from Dreamwidth, after changing my password on LJ like everyone was advising us to. I'm really not inclined to do a lot of manual copypasting just to keep crossposting--I hadn't intended to take this page down, just crosspost, but I guess LJ is forcing my hand. If future crossposts don't work (yes, I've changed the password on "Other Sites" on DW), you can find me at just gwyn over on DW. Add me and I'll add you back!

This whole thing really blows, man. It's so frigging annoying and I hate losing all this history.

I'm skipping 3 and 4 since I don't do very well with goal-setting and I've been interacting with a lot of people lately already.

Day 5

In your own space, post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

It's always good when this happens after a big challenge has just finished up!

I loved this Good Place story in Yuletide, it captures so much of what I love about the show.

Strange as Angels (3055 words) by burglebezzlement
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Good Place (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop
Characters: Tahani Al-Jamil, Eleanor Shellstrop
Additional Tags: Burglary, Limitations of soulmates, Drinking, ambrosia, Michael's truth cube, Tahani's little Jianyu problem, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

How do you solve a problem like Jianyu? Certainly not by breaking into Michael’s office with Eleanor’s help. Tahani wouldn’t dream of it.

This Losers story is utterly amazing. I just...I can't even.

Solid Copy (14668 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Losers (2010)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Additional Tags: Telepathy
Summary:

Jensen shifted his gaze to Cougar. “I really thought that if I ever had to say the words ‘telepathic disaster,’ it’d be a lot cooler than this is turning out to be.”

This Kings story is the kind of thing we rarely ever get in this fandom--long, plotty, great writing, fantastic characterization.

Single Use Weapon (67407 words) by Fahye
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Kings (TV 2009)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jack Benjamin/David Shepherd, Michelle Benjamin/David Shepherd
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Loyalty, Politics
Summary:

"The king is dead," says Samuels. "Long live the king."

A story about fealty and destiny, spies and secrets, and the things we do to hold onto power.

I'm super late with the second entry; trying to bust a move on my book edit and had to put everything aside (other than running off to see Rogue One, augh, I hate this, I want to vid something so bad and NO SOURCE).

Day 2

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Okay, so, speaking of Star Wars. My answer to this is that, but it's also something many people have tried to get me to put down in print for a long time, because it's a fannish history not a lot of people had (I know a couple other fans who were at a theatre opening night, now, but for a long time it was something I rarely heard about).

In 1977, there wasn't a lot of decent SF in theatres--it was a really crappy genre to be in love with if you were a fan and wanted to see things on a big screen. It was very much a literature fandom, and cons, what few there were, were fan-run experiences whose main focus was on lit, not film and definitely not TV. Star Trek had a modicum of respect, but that was it. For every 2001 or Silent Running, there was a Logan's Run or Saturn 5 or whatever. Most of it was schlock, is what I'm saying, and even the decent things were often quite flawed. I hung out with a lot of guys who were fans of the genre, some who were just plain movie buffs like me, and we'd been hearing about this movie being made by the guy who'd made American Graffiti and THX-1138. Starlog was THE movie magazine for SF and horror and fantasy fans, and that was where you got information--there was no Internet, nothing. You read newspapers and magazines and watched shows on TV that might tell you about new films.

I was a junior in high school in '77. My friends were telling me they planned to go see the movie when it opened, which, for a teen, was kind of a big thing; most of my friends were older than me by a year to three years, so it wasn't a big deal for them to schedule around as it was for me. I ended up ditching my last classes of the day (it was a Wednesday), the first time in my life I ever skipped class. I was one with the Rebels, and I didn't even know there were rebels in the movie! No one knew anything about the movie--there was just so little information. There'd been a few pics in Starlog, some discussions, speculation, and hilarious bits of news with incorrect names and stuff, but overall, we just didn't know what we were getting into.

Which was also part of the fun--it could have been just another schlocky piece of crap, which was honestly what we expected, or it could be cool, who knew--THX had been somewhat interesting, and American Graffiti was pretty good, but a lot of the excitement was simply that sense of going into something blind. A lot of people don't know that Star Wars only opened on 32 screens (but it opened up an additional dozen or so by that Friday because buzz was so high), so we had to go downtown to the UA150 here, which was this amazing round moviehouse that had a full, curved 70mm screen and that I still miss like hell to this day--I saw all my favorite movies of the '70s-'80s there and they were stunning. Since I and one other guy were ditching class, we waited to go stand in line for the second showing, in late afternoon.

Standing in line, outside of large cities, was still pretty unusual, too. It was for primarily the biggest of the big event movies and not something you tended to see in smaller cities or rural areas, and it was still common practice, too, for double features, and for an event movie to only play in a downtown theatre if it played a city at all. Single-screen houses were the norm for films; the UA was a really unusual theatre in that it had two large screens, but the 150 was the half of the theatre that had that glorious huge wraparound screen. But we dutifully drove downtown and got in line, somewhat close to the front, though where we were standing was outside the exit door at the rear of the auditorium.

People were filing out after the first matinee, and they all had this dazed look on their faces. We started asking them "what was it like?" "was it good?" and they were all speechless, just kept saying "you'll like it so much" or "you're gonna have suuuuch a good time." By the time they let us in, we were crazy psyched about it. In the lobby they had cardboard boxes with buttons that said May the Force Be With You. We had no idea what it meant, but a few of us picked them up; after the first screening, we ran back out to the lobby and gathered up as many as we could.

It's hard now, with it being part of the zeitgeist, to imagine what it felt like when the curtains parted, and parted, and parted to the entire width of that enormous screen, and then to hear those first notes and see the crawl begin. The crawl seems…normal, now. Enough that when I saw Rogue One I was heartsick that there was no effing crawl and I muttered darkly at my companion. But on May 25, 1977, it was mind-blowing. We just hadn't seen anything like it, not in modern-day cinema, certainly, and not on such a beautiful, majestic scale. And then the battle cruisers come into view and we gasped. We all, including my cynical, jaded, I've seen everything friends, dead-ass gasped when those ships came on screen, I swear to you. And when Darth Vader strode through the hall and spoke in James Earl Jones's voice, I thought I would faint from excitement.

I felt like no time had passed when we got to the end, and the music started up. I suffer from an inability to suspend my disbelief, I guess I've just been writing too long or something, but it is so vanishingly rare for me, even back then, to get completely immersed in a film or book, enough so that I don't notice time passing. And people cheered through at least a minute of the closing credits, people literally stood up in the theatre. My friends and I all looked at each other down the row, and I said, "I want to go again." And they all said hell yeah, so we stayed for the, like, early evening showing.

That was another thing that was so different, and that Star Wars changed completely--up to that time, you could not only often go to double, even triple features of first-run movies, but that also meant you could stay in the theatre without buying another ticket. The ushers came through to clean, but they didn't shoo us away; the friends who saw it two days later told me that they were clearing the theatres after the showing. After Star Wars, I never saw first run double features again, either.

While people were filing in for the next showing, my best friend was throwing handfuls of May the Force Be With You buttons out into the seats; people were mingling and talking, someone would catch a button and ask, "What's this for?" and we'd shout "JUST YOU WAIT" or they'd ask, "What was it like?" and he'd yell, "Prepare to get your mind fucked!" We were just silly and giddy and so so happy to have gotten a good, well made, interesting space fantasy that we didn't feel like we had to cringe in horror about having seen, the whole place felt like a big party. It was almost as exciting when the crawl came on screen the second time as it had been the first time. And then, because we had some kind of happiness high, we stayed for the last showing, too. I confess, during the really quiet times, it started to drag a little but I'd also been up since about six a.m. with nerves over skipping classes, so I was pretty ragged, plus, I knew I had to be at school the next day. My parents were used to me staying out really late, though, thank god, and I'd called them before the early evening show to tell them I might be home really late, but I had never expected we'd sit through all three showings.

The next day I wore my button to school, and everyone asked me what it meant. No one knew anything about it, had heard of it, but between my evangelizing and the news media, they quickly learned about it. I was so enthusiastic about it that, without knowing anything about conventions or fan groups, I hunted around till I found out about a group of local fans who wanted to put on a Star Wars convention, and started going to meetings. And I would like to point out, for anyone who identifies as female and gets shit about women not belonging in SF or insisting it's a new thing that they care? The makeup of that group was 70-30, in favor of women. I didn't stick with them long enough to see it come to fruition because of a lot of emotional issues that had come up around that time and family trauma, but it was the first experience I would have with organized fandom like that, which I would learn more about in a few years when I got invited to be a panelist at the big SF con in Seattle.

I was still pretty fannish about it after Empire, in a slightly different way--I collected every picture and article I could about Harrison Ford, and had all the things about Han and Leia in a box or scrapbook, because we didn't have the interwebs and that was really all you could do. By Return of the Jedi I was working as a film critic, and there was so much I didn't like about it that kind of overshadowed what I did like, and that was sort of the beginning of the end for me. By then there was also a lot of SF and other creative genre stuff coming out, and the landscape had changed considerably. I knew that a lot of those things--the scarcity of showings, the dearth of information, the specialness of the theatre--played a part in what made it so magical, and there was no way to replicate that or catch lightning in a bottle again. Then Lucas's endless tinkering with the originals while refusing to let us have them on home video, and the awfulness of the prequels, killed any enthusiasm I'd once had for it.

But those first few years, those were magical. I found a site that says Star Wars (it's always been Star Wars to me, I cannot think of it as A New Hope, it just doesn't compute) played longest in Portland, but I…sort of question that, because after Empire Strikes Back finished its run at the UA150, Lucas gave Seattle a gift for playing the first movie longer than any other city, which was to show the two films back to back for free, as part of our late summer arts festival here. It was the first time anyone had seen Star Wars onscreen since it had left theatres, and the first time it was shown with Empire. We waited in line all day, and I have to say, that was almost better than when we'd seen it the first time, and even more of a fan party. And on New Year's Eve 1977/78, the theatre had timed the Death Star to blow up at midnight, so we waited in bonebreaking cold for hours and hours just for the chance to see that--it was worth it, totally totally worth it.

I haven't even included stuff that isn't related to the movie, of which there were many monumental things that night for me, too. But to say that Star Wars changed my life is putting it very mildly. I literally can't imagine my life now if I hadn't cut class and gone to the theatre on May 25, 1977.

I'm late! As always. But I thought I'd try to do as much of it as I could, to keep posting on a regular basis. (I know, I say that every year.)





Day 1

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I thought I'd try to pick a theme again this time, and so I'm doing fanworks that were created for challenges. This first one was a Yuletide story I was always really proud of, though I think a lot of people were scared off by the slash, which I mostly included because of references to a past relationship Charlie and Ted had in prison.

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen (4190 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Life
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Charlie Crews/Ted Earley
Characters: Ted Earley, Charlie Crews
Additional Tags: Pre-Series, Friendship, Rescue, Prison, Past Relationship(s), Backstory, Origins
Summary:

When Charlie found Ted.

The second was for Festivids a few years ago, for Kings, part of my Kings Winter, I guess, since both my Yuletide stories were for it as well.

[vid] Monsters (180 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kings (TV 2009)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jack Benjamin, David Shepherd, Silas Benjamin, Joseph Lasile, Rose Benjamin, Michelle Benjamin, Thomasina (Kings), Ephram Samuels
Additional Tags: Fanvids, Video, Angst, Terrible Human Beings, Poor Jack, Festivids 2014
Summary:

Here there be monsters.

And the third was for my entry in the Stucky Big Bang this past year.

Still Let Me Sleep (40500 words) by gwyneth rhys, Riakomai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel 616
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Thor
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter, Jimmy Jupiter (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Heimdall (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel), Jim Morita
Additional Tags: Dreamsharing, Dreamscapes, The Land of Nowhere, Road Trips, Asgard, Grief/Mourning, See the USA in your Chevrolet (with an Asgardian prince), We're Dream Engineers
Series: Part 1 of Still Let Me Sleep
Summary:

When the Valkyrie hits the water, Steve doesn’t die. Instead, he crawls out of the wreckage and finds himself in an amazing, confusing land that could be the alternate universe of Nowhere—or it could be his dreams. And he gradually realizes he’s not the only one. Steve doesn’t know if he’s even alive, but he’s certain of this: Bucky’s there with him, sharing his dreams, and outside their idyllic world, he’s suffering. Something is terribly wrong. Steve has to find Bucky—if he can. But how does he do that when he awakens in a new century where he feels like he’s all alone?

So I didn't realize I forgot to add a cut tag to my end of the year fic wrapup. Whoops! Sorry about that. It has been fixed. (Though I suppose with everything being a desert these days, long posts aren't as terrible as they once were, I know I barely notice them anymore.)

st_aurafina is doing a friending meme, which, since so many people are migrating here from LJ in the past few days, is a great way to start off the year, I think. I know there are plenty of people I'm still trying to find here.



And I will probably be doing the Snowflake Challenge, but starting a little late, hopefully tonight if I can get a few chapters of my book edit completed.