Life is not a paragraph

I want to tell you a story about Christmas.

When my parents divorced, Dad was left with almost nothing. He had to move out and saw my brother and I only on weekends. I was six or so and sweetly innocent about the world. My mother was not terribly interested in entertaining children for Christmas, so we were with Dad in his little apartment (he'd gotten a three-bedroom so we'd each have our own rooms when we were there overnight, but it was still tiny) and we slept fitfully until finally Christmas morning came and we raced into the living room and found -

A lonely, bare wooden plant stand and a small handful of presents, not a bit of greenery in sight. There was a note taped to it. "This was the closest I could find to a tree," Santa wrote. "It will do just fine! Have a merry Christmas! Love, Santa."

Santa loved me enough to make do. He cared enough to find something that would be tree-like, something he could top with a little tin-foil star. I don't remember what presents I got, but I remember that lonesome little plant stand. And last year, when there was no room for a tree and too much depression in the house to get into the consumerism of the season, I dangled two ornaments from a floor lamp and wrapped it in tinsel. I stayed up all night cleaning enough for us to sit together by it, and I wrapped presents and stacked them so carefully to make them look bigger. I did this not out of a desperate need to fit a certain mental picture of Christmas - I did it because I love my family enough to make do.

I believe in the magic of Christmas. I believe in presents appearing overnight. I believe in the joy of crinkling paper and the smell of pine and pie. I believe in the beauty of carols and snow. And I believe a plant stand or a floor lamp or a ratty old chair can become a beautiful Christmas tree.

Happy holidays, everyone. I hope you find joy in this season.

Happy Halloween! I have a treat, no trick: somewhere between classes and midterms and sleep debt I've managed to find the time to work on a story. At this rate I may have it done by my birthday, but in the meantime have a sample, just a taste...

Series: Transformers (movie-verse, draws from G1 and Animated)
Rating: PG
( The ground was still steaming when they arrived, the comfortable cool of late Canadian autumn condensing even more vapor in great billowing clouds. )

I don't think I've ever done a 100-word drabble before. P.S. This is terrible, I'm just trying to encourage myself to write something more substantial for Transformers. Or to write at all, really.

Title: Duty Born Of
Series: Transformers G1/TFA/whatever
Rating: G
Wordcount: 100

( Duty Born Of )

My friends, I have made a dreadful mistake. In my initial rush through Delicious, I ignored many stories that 1) did not involve Starscream and 2) were hosted on ff.net. THIS WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. I have since realized that Transformers, until very recently, was a small, old fandom and thus was not primarily centered around Livejournal (as my usual fandoms are). I deeply apologize for depriving you of some very excellent recs. To make amends, I present YET MORE TRANSFORMERS RECS. And later, there will be yet more recs! I am not done finding stories. Oh, not by a long shot.

( A little bit louder and a little bit worse! )

The Transformers movie was excellent. I am questioning my sexuality because of Megatron's exceeding hotness. BUT WHY DOES MEGATRON HAVE A PENIS. Please tell me that's photoshopped. Please. Also why is he now a tank instead of a plane. The plane was hot.

Scarring you with something entirely different, I present a Youtube video:


And now the recs! Recs may be G1 or movie or both or something, I don't discriminate against canons. On the plus side, I'll give some warnings this time since I understand not everyone likes romance in their giant alien robots. ( Don't blame me for that crack, I promise the recs won't break your brain. )

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know where I can find more Transformers fic! I've been through all of Springkink and a lot of The Cybertronian, but that's about it. (Especially if you know where to find more stuff by apathocles, omg.)

The recent warnings debate has got me thinking. Thankfully, I've only been exposed to very sensible people (I love my reading list!) who are thoughtful and well-spoken, with a wide variety of viewpoints. As a result, I am revising how I deal with warnings.

I will not lie: I have been in the anti-warnings camp through a mixture of asshattery and privilege. My journal info declares that the content of the journal may be objectionable etc. and should be considered a potential reading hazard; for a while part of my layout did this as well. During my shift to DW I edited the age-restrictions on every single entry. I also have a rating system in place, with an explanation of how I use said system on my journal bio. However, my readers may not see any of these things. They may be linked to a fic directly, or to a style=mine page. They may not read my journal info at all. So, over an unspecified period of time, I will be going through and making warning headers as best I can.

I am privileged enough that I am blind to what I am writing. My best story was both racist and sexist; I have written dub-con without noticing; I forget that Sam/Dean is incest. These are not excuses for not warning. It does mean that my warnings may not be accurate - and on top of this, I do still strongly feel that certain parts of a story should not be stated in the header. As a result, certain warnings may be intentionally vague, such as "potentially triggering issues". I hope this will give a heads-up to readers with known triggers, prepare other readers for the story, and also keep me happy as the author.

I am open to advice! If you can think of a warning for one of my stories, please do let me know. As I said, I am basically oblivious to everything. I'm also totally up for talking about warning and why I'm changing my stance on the issue.

Let's try something new. I'm (very slowly) working on fic, but it only shows up on here once in a blue moon. BUT I constantly read fic. So let's get some recs in here. Remember to read the authors' warnings and ratings.

Let's start with On The Dodge which candle_beck posted last night. I spent the night reading it, unable to tear myself from the beautiful tragedy that is Sam and Dean cast as Butch and the Kid. They're not forced into the roles - they are every inch Sam'n'Dean, a combo I have been yearning for this last season. They're perfect. They're dusty and smell of saddle leather and every moment is bursting with emotions that can't be said and fears that can't be mentioned and it's so achingly, bruisingly perfect. I cannot recommend this enough.

To keep with the AU theme, Into His Hand by drvsilla also has dusty cowboys, but these ones are a wee bit more modern: they bullride. It's origific disguised as RPS and a strange combination of utterly fun and totally heartbreaking. I love their interactions, particularly as they try to figure out what on earth their relationship is. Nothing about this story is stereotypical. It's earthy and understated and dangerous. I love it.

Lastly (for today) is Keepsake by indysaur. J2 ala Wall-E, but also totally different. I am really not sure there is a way to rec this without spoiling it. Instead I will quote a bit from the beginning.
Everything is very quiet. There is no wind. It is 42 degrees Fahrenheit here. The lake stretches and spills out in front of him, glassy blue.
Maybe this time. Jared stares at his reflection. He traces the scar along his right side with his left hand.
"Hello," he says.
The trees come right up to the shore. He can hear the water lap quietly at their trunks.
He leans forward. He touches his fingers to the water. He stays there, fingertip to fingertip with the man in the lake. Until he can't feel them anymore.
"Hello," he says. A little louder. It’s really been a long time.

I'm way too excited about the swine flu, guys. It is highly relevant to my interests. So let's talk about it! The information here is largely copied from my blog Bird Flu Will Kill You (Maybe) which draws primarily from the CDC. All information is as accurate as I can get it.

About the spread of swine flu:
1. The handful of people in the US with lab-confirmed cases haven't died. The only guy that needed hospitalization was immune-compromised, and he got better. Yes, ladies and gents, the USA death rate for this monster swine flu is a staggering 0%!
2. The cases trickling in are cases that happened a 2-4 weeks ago, and we're just now getting genetic results back on the specific strains of flu they had. Basically: swine flu already happened, and we're just figuring it out. It's probably over. EVERYBODY PANIC
3. There are going to be more cases of this. The reason cases will start trickling in is because we're now actively looking for them. It's just that simple.
4. No there won't be a pandemic. You have to die a lot to have a pandemic. Even in Mexico, the death rate for flu-like illnesses that might be swine flu is a staggering .07%. My god, we're doomed!

About swine flu itself:
1. Symptoms include coughing, sneezing, sore throat, fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, and diarrhea. It's a flu! Surprise!
2. It does seem to transmit from human to human rather than pig to human. That means it spreads fast. In fact, it already happened. Did you miss it? It was that fast.
3. Genetically, this thing is awesome. Four different strains of swine, human, and avian influenza! It's called genetic shift and it's something flus do naturally. Because they're whores.
4. It may have some characteristics that are a little like the killer 1918 flu except for the whole part where it's not really killing people, and also those characteristics might be a fluke of Mexico's flu surveillance. They do more containment/treatment than genetic testing of flu-like illnesses, so it's hard to say.

What to do about swine flu:
1. Wash your hands.
2. Cover your face when you sneeze/cough.
3. If you're sick, consider doing to a doctor.
4. Does this list look familiar? Like maybe it's exactly what you do for every other minor illness that's ever happened? Yeah. There's a reason for that.

What to do if you're paranoid:
1. Get a respirator rated N-95 to filter out virus bits.
2. Stock up on water and non-perishable foods.
3. Make signs reading "THE END IS NEAR" and a nice hat out of foil.
4. Repeat steps 1-3.

If you have any lingering concerns or questions, please do ask. I like being useful. Right now I'm laughing at my family, cackling madly: "SEE?! MY OBSESSION WITH THE BIRD FLU IS USEFUL! I KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN ONE DAY!" If you want to wade through a lot of technical and political jabber, check out the CDC or WHO.

P.S. No pig has ever had this strain of swine flu. Pork is safe. Go eat your bacon.