Oh man, yesterday brought me SO MUCH JOY! I spent most of the day (when I wasn't having dinner with a friend and seeing Wall-E---which, cute, but also kind of meh, and why did they have to be HETEROSEXUAL robots, exactly? I did adore his little robot fannishness though, learning the dance numbers from that musical and freaking out when his girlfriend almost destroyed his VHS tape) prepping packages and staring at my inbox for lj notifications.

I made out like a bandit you guys!

I wrote a Fraser/Vecchio kissy thing for sageness's fabulous kissing fest and got loads of joy-inducing feedback, then bullied snoopypez into writing me amazing Frannie/Kowalski (she even threw in implied F/V because she is JUST THAT AWESOME) in exchange for a Shawn/Lassiter kiss. Look how many people are like PLEASE WRITE MORE K/FRANNIE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! \o/ (There's also loads of other great stuff in that post--a Frannie/Elaine ficlet, a Hugh/Callum snippet, a great F/V thing with Ray trying to teach Fraser dating etiquette--definitely worth exploring.)

catwalksalone offered drawings and I somehow managed to be an early bird and get one! Vecchio and Fraser being domestic! (My current obsession, I watch the show and just think about how much I want to watch them make dinner together, or do laundry or something. We do get to see them go grocery shopping and uh, going to the bank together and car shopping together and so on, so, thank you show.) And she did Ray and Fraser dancing, too!!!!

And I scored a F/V Riv drabble from pigtailedgirl, and a Shawn/Lassiter drabble from ifreet!

And sdwolfpup made me my very own F/V icon from a part of their arc that fascinates me endlessly (as evidenced by how often I've revisited it in fic):



Look how beautiful! Look at Frannie! And Fraser's angsty shoulders! omglove.

Time to go work on more packages. That offer is still open, btw.

More Joy Day is here again!! Happy happy joy joy lalalalalala!

OMG someone already gave me a little polar bear!! Awwww. Someday that polar bear's mom will try to eat Kowalski while he's feeding her baby leftover scampi and Fraser will have to shoot her. Thank you anonymous!

So y'all may remember this Frog and Toad story:





So apart from the thing where Toad is totally Vecchio and Frog is totally Fraser, and Sonia and I have a million lame jokes that go like this: "Frog and Toad are Boyfriends," it's true. Most of us don't get stuff by snail mail very often. (And aw! The mailman in the story is even a snail! And this was before the internet! Arnold Lobel you are a GENIUS!)

Very little makes me happier than getting something in the mail. And I have all these books and postcards and earrings and comic strips and cool pictures cut out of magazines and scarves and things I've been accumulating for years and that I really don't need to take with me when I move, and I thought--why not send them to people?

So! If you would like a surprise package from me containing various of these items (books! how can you resist?), send an email to belmanoir at gmail dot com with your screenname and address! Make sure "More Joy Day" is in the subject line. I am happy to send More Joy Day packages internationally!

Notes:

1. If you would like me to include a pretty little fannish oojah in your package in the form of a drabble/snippet/bit of dialogue, include a prompt! Any fandom that I know stuff about (as evidenced by it being in my inksome/lj interests or by me having talked about it at some point), any pairing, any prompt.

2. If you don't feel comfortable giving a random stranger on the internet your address but would still like a pretty little fannish oojah, just send me a prompt! I will e-mail you your snippet instead. (I'll probably end up posting them all in my journal at some point, too.)

3. The following people have EXTRA OPTIONS:

brynnmck because I still owe you More Joy Day art from last MJD, and china_shop and snoopypez because I still owe you sound effects ficlets. (If I owe anyone else fic (Mal and Q you don't count because I know exactly what I'm writing both of you and I'm excited!) plz to be reminding me.) The reason I haven't gotten to them is because I am uninspired, alas. So you have the following choices:

a) Tell me you still want the stuff I haven't made for you yet whenever I get around to it. I WILL get to it, I promise...someday. In this case you're entitled to one prompt for a snippet like everyone else.

b) Cash in your old prompt for TWO new snippet prompts!

c) Cash in your old prompt for one full-length (750 words or more) fic prompt. (In which case, I'll try anything, but run it by me, k?)

4. If you do not have pierced ears, you might want to mention that as I am giving away a number of cute pairs of earrings.

5. THIS OFFER IS NOT LIMITED TO MY F-LIST. IT IS A MORE JOY DAY OFFER OPEN TO EVERYONE. IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOU WANT TO GET SOME MAIL, THEN I WANT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN FOR YOU.

6. This offer is open through Sunday, July 6th.


I wish you all loads and loads of joy--you make me very happy every single day and I love you all! Especially thank you to sdwolfpup for organizing this--I have been looking forward to it for MONTHS, no joke.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

know what i'm sayin'?

I posted my last Ray's Fingerprints fic over at ds_closet!

"Warm and capable of earnest grasping." F/V, NC-17, 4421 words. Ray isn't impressed by Keats' poetry...at first.

I cannot even express how hilarious I find this Dinosaur Comic: "Hullo, T-Rex! I dressed up as a werewolf wearing a stethoscope to try to cheer you up!" Ryan North, how are you everything I want to be in life?

GENIUS Kate Beaton comic about Robert Peel.

I watched "Red, White, or Blue" and "Flashback" yesterday with Matti, and...I had completely forgotten how suggestive the Inuit story Fraser tells at the end of Flashback is! Way to go, Fraser!

FRASER: "Just friends? Are you sure, Ray? Well, if you say so. LET'S SEE HOW LONG YOU CAN HOLD OUT WHEN I START TALKING ABOUT BONDAGE, WOULD THAT BE AGREEABLE?"

Paul has been doing a Jeremy Crawford impression all day, but I think he's unclear on the concept because all the fics he suggests are fics I suddenly HAVE AN OVERWHELMING DESIRE TO WRITE:

twonth: can u write me a fic withh spock making luv to kirk but then he finds out it is mccoy in kirks body pretty pls ???

twonth: i want a fic where the hippies take over the enterprise like the tos episode but instead of hippies it is fred and george weasley can you help me out here please pleas please???

Oh man. The Weasley twins would wreak HAVOC on the Enterprise. The universe might actually end. And then Spock would have to lay the smackdown.

I seriously need to stop having birthday parties for myself. Guys, if I ever try to do this again, please, stage an intervention--I NEED YOUR HELP! Because like, while I know intellectually that if people don't show up it is not because they don't love me (hello, I've missed plenty of other people's parties my own self), when it happens it is hard not to cry like a little baby cow. I mean, I thought it would be okay because it was a joint going-away/Canada Day party with hypergeek and patosa, so like, at least SOMEONE would be there...::laughs hollowly:: Because see, the worst isn't BEING a loser. The worst is other people KNOWING what a loser you are.

A few people showed up early on, but they all had to cut out pretty early (for totally legitimate reasons! like moving, and being parents)...leaving me Helen and Gordon, of course, but also a bunch of their friends. And...newsflash, I always forget this about myself, but while I am super sociable with people I know, take me to meet ten of your friends at once and I'll enjoy myself for an hour or so...and then hate life for the next five. Especially with something like a party at my own house, because I know there is no escape and it just gives me this horrible trapped socially anxious feeling. So six o'clock rolls around, and jarrow came by and I ended up being all "...AND THEN NO ONE CAME AND I JUST WANT TO GO TAKE A NAP IN MY ROOM AND WHY AM I SUCH A LOSER???" He was like, oh good, let's go somewhere else!

So, um, I totally abandoned my roommates and Helen (who, by the way, also cleaned the entire house for this party while I was at work, because I suck in a MULTIPLICITY of ways) and went and watched due South at his and Jen's place for two and a half hours. Just hearing the theme music when he put in the DVD had a wonderfully cheering effect. (Also, note on Vault: I never really noticed before because I was so stuck on wet!Fraser, but all the gleaming droplets and mist and bright lights make David Marciano look pretty damn good too). And jarrow didn't even mock me for how I am totally incapable of watching dS without a running commentary of "RAYYYYY" and "FRASER" and "FRASER YOU SUCK" (I just get protective of Ray, okay?) and "I love this part!" and "LOOK AT THEM" and pointing at the screen and squealing. I felt super lame and guilty for running away from my own party but it was still awesome, so thank you jarrow, you totally made my day not suck. We should watch Friday Night Lights sometime.

And then I went back to my place and brynnmck and zabira came by and hung out for a while and talked about Hugh and Rays and things, and admired my breastcake (Z's new catchphrase: "round and delicious--like a breast!"), so the party ended much better than it had begun.

Pictures of things that were truly awesome:

breastcake! Newbie is so jealous right now.


breastcake+candle:


cookies!


There were going to be badwrongporny cookie poses, but then the camera memory was full and by the time I'd deleted all the pictures of Gordon's furniture (he's selling it on craigslist) the mood had passed. Seriously though guys check out those cookies!!!! Helen and her bf made them and they were FANTASTIC, and then---she and Gordon gave me the cookie cutters!! I really do have awesome friends. There is a maple leaf, and a horse (for Mounties), and a bobby (or a beefeater? I can't really tell) to represent cops in funny hats (sadly there were no actual Mounties at the store), and a rocket ship to represent gayness (this one seemed like a stretch to me but everyone I explained it to was like OMG OF COURSE! so I guess it's just me), and an alligator! Because Gordon is moving to Florida, but in my head also because of Vecchio and Stella. \o/ (I want to thank ursule too because I think the amazing T-Rex cookie cutter she gave me last year was the inspiration for this gift.)

The other good news is that I now have THE ENTIRE WEEK OFF!! A week of vacation and I'm not travelling or anything, just sleeping and reading and watching TV and hanging out with people! I am SO FUCKED EXCITED guys! And that big RL project is done for the moment, so I plan to spend a lot of it WRITING FIC! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And also doing More Joy Day stuff, omg perfect timing! And then at the end of the week is my actual birthday!

I wrote zabira a Vecchio/Stella ficlet for her birthday. Happy birthday Z!

It's up here. Title suggestions welcome.

Oh man, me and Paul just watched a TOS episode, "Patterns of Force," in which this rogue Starfleet dude (Kirk's old professor and um...I think there was some inappropriate student/teacher action going on there) sets up a government on this planet modeled on Nazi Germany (and man, if you weren't sure Shatner was Canadian, his pronunciation of "Nazi" gives the game away). I just...I forget how cracktastic TOS is, when I'm not watching it. And can I say, Kirk has a roleplaying fetish? There were at least four costume changes and this truly GREAT interaction between Kirk and Spock:

SPOCK [after neck-pinching an SS officer]: YOUR uniform, Captain.
KIRK: Yes. It's a shame yours isn't as attractive as mine. Gestapo, I believe.
SPOCK: Quite correct. You should make a very convincing Nazi.
KIRK: [Pauses in putting on his fetching fascist cap to give Spock the evil eye.]

Pictures:

in civvies when they beam down:






Then comes a hilariously gratuitous shirtless flogging scene (Kirk seriously looks like it...tickles? maybe? a little?), after which Spock has to stand on Kirk's back to do some science-y thing with the light and their homing devices that will enable them to pick the lock (he totally doesn't have to stand on Kirk's back by the way. There are benches, and bars to climb, and all kinds of other options):



I may never stop laughing. Then we have yet ANOTHER set of Nazi uniforms, even more flattering than the previous ones:



Oh, boys.

so i was "decluttering" (i use this term VERY loosely as i have thrown away almost nothing) in psychological preparation for my upcoming move, and i came across two balls of yarn--green and silver--that i had bought a long, long time ago in the hopes that inseriatim would knit me a slytherin scarf. inseriatim's dreams of learning to knit have been dust for YEARS now, so i propose a trade of some kind.

is there anyone out there who would be willing to knit me a slytherin scarf? (i'm imagining something sort of like this but maybe a little thinner and with a little thinner stripes--and LONG.) i would send you the yarn (i think it's enough for a scarf? suddenly i am assailed by doubt), you would send me back the scarf, and i would do something for you. i have no idea what you would want as i don't know who you are yet, but some options:

1. i could send you money/a gift certificate.
2. i could write a story to your specifications.
3. i could bake you cookies. (i make a mean rugelach and hamantaschen!)
4. i could send you a care package.
5. ??? i am open to suggestions here, people. which of my many useless talents do you want to take advantage of?

so you may have all already seen this since scally just posted it on melancholydanes but i had to repost it because it may actually be the cutest thing EVER.



OMG DON I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU!

this is my two f/k/v epics, "Lucky in Love" and "He Hadn't Stopped Christmas from Coming":



At first I was disturbed by how much bigger "Kowalski" is than "Vecchio" but then I realized that's because HHSCFC is in Vecchio 1st-person POV. Haha.

It's pretty hilarious looking at everyone's because, to be honest, they all look about the same. There's the boys' names and then you look closer and there's "fucking" and "Frannie" and "Stella" and various body parts...you know, the basics.

hello all! RL project continues, plus brain has been colonized by Frannie/Victoria AU. my first femmeslash! i'm so proud. this means that i watched VS with snoopypez two days ago and am watching it again with inseriatim tomorrow. it's amazing how much less time i spend yelling RAYYYYYYYY and FRASERRRRRRRRR at my screen when i'm thinking about frannie and victoria sexing it up. (IOW, 50% of the time instead of 95%.)

some links so i can close tabs:

i don't even know why i bother linking to dinosaur comics anymore, you MUST all be reading it, but:

T-Rex writes romance novels! Horse puns and celibacy! T-Rex, I am proud to share a profession with you.

T-Rex is basically the person I want to be.

The real nightmare was how poorly my subconscious understands zombies!

Kate Beaton's take on Garfield. OMG why are Garfield/Garfield puns so endlessly hilarious? Although my favorite Garfield parody is actually the Chick tract crossover:



I have no idea where I found this anymore but I would like to thank the artist because it has brought me SO MUCH JOY!

Video: RITA finalists talk trash! For those of you who don't know, the RITAs are the big yearly contest for published books held by Romance Writers of America. This video is comedy GOLD. More people I am proud to share a profession with.

So a few weeks ago I went to an SCA event with ursule because she is super awesome and got inducted into this really prestigious order in the SCA. People made speeches about how fantastic she is, and there was AMAZING food (duck breast! and olives! and cheese! and wafers! and cookies in the shape of bears!), and I got this awesome coin made by glasseye for being an SCA virgin, but really it was mainly a day of Clothing Envy. OMG so much fantastic clothing you guys. And some of the best was ursule's new laurelified garb. Check it out! First of all I want to steal that red dress. But the cloak! And the hat! I never knew how those hats worked and now that I do they are even cooler than they look in Cranach paintings.

Check it: HCL genderfuck cheerleading AU shenanigans over at mrs_laugh_track's! Including but DEFINITELY not limited to a 5 things ficlet by yours truly, classily entitled "Two Things Billie Didn't Expect Jo To Keep In Her Bra, And Three Things She Did, Not Necessarily In That Order."

In other news, I extended the deadline for Ray's Fingerprints stuff till June 19th! So go forth and fic. :)

So I was talking to sdwolfpup on Saturday and she mentioned a certain Billy Joel song that would make a fantastic F/V vid, which I am not going to reveal in the hopes that she will in fact one day make the vid because I WANT IT SO BAD OMG. But this led to me humming Billy Joel songs at work, in particular "You May Be Right." Which is one of my very favorite Billy Joel songs and I have always wanted to figure out a pairing for it and have never succeeded.

So I realized that the song is PERFECT for Shawn/Lassiter! This made me extremely happy. Seriously so cute. But this realization was FOLLOWED by an EVEN BETTER one--this song works perfectly for Fraser/Vecchio! It's just that when I first thought about it, I assumed that Vecchio was the "I" and Fraser was the "you"--it's the natural way to set it up, since Fraser is the more "uptight" one and Vecchio is the one who shakes him up, right? BUT NO! Invert it and the song works perfectly! Look:

Friday night I crashed your party [shot of Fraser asking for "Detective Armani"]
Saturday I said I'm sorry [them hanging out together]
Sunday came and trashed me out again [Fraser almost getting them killed in the bar with his empty gun]
&c.

Seriously what does the girl tell the singer not to do? She tells him not to go to bad neighborhoods and take crazy physical risks! And then when he doesn't die she says that only proves that he's insane!!! TOTALLY FRASER AND VECCHIO. I need this vid, guys. It just may be a lunatic Vecchio's looking for!

This led to a theme in my musings today.

Billy Joel Fanvids I Desperately Want Someone To Make:

1. "Piano Man" as a Geoffrey Tennant vid!

tentative identifications:

"piano"="Shakespeare"
"he says 'Son, can you play me a memory?/I'm not really sure how it goes"=that old actor from Season 3
"John at the bar"=Oliver
"the waitress is practicing politics"=Richard

2. "It's All About Soul" as a Baltar/Six vid! (Mainly Invisible Six with some others thrown in)

"Who's standing now/Who's standing tomorrow?"=that shot of Six pushing Baltar down as Caprica explodes
"And she asks me what I'm dreaming/And I realize I must have gone a million miles away"=Invisible Six teaching Baltar to project.

3. "Don't Ask Me Why" as a Kara/Leoben vid. All the servants in your new hotel/Throw their roses at your feet/Fool them all, but baby I can tell/You're no stranger to the street...\

4. "Matter of Trust" as a Spike/Buffy vid.

"Some love is just a lie of the soul/A constant battle for the ultimate state of control"=Spike/Angel. It totally works AND it's a pun!
"Some love is just a lie of the mind"=Buffy/Riley.

5. "The Stranger" as a Fraser/Victoria vid.

Once I used to believe
I was such a great romancer
Then I came home to a woman
That I could not recognize
When I pressed her for a reason
She refused to even answer
It was then I felt the stranger
Kick me right between the eyes

Eep! But "Don't be afraid to try again/Everyone goes south/Every now and then" would have hopeful F/V scenes from "North."

6. "This Is The Time"=Duck/Dan vid. It's perfect! Making out on the beach, "Did you know that before you came into my life/Some kind of miracle that I survived," and my personal favorite line, "I haven't shown you everything a man can do/So stay with me baby, I got plans for you!" (Actually, my personal favorite line is a toss-up between that and "You've given me the best of you/But now I need the rest of you," but the first one seemed more Duck/Dan appropriate.)

7. "Downeaster Alexa" as a Mal/Serenity vid. Alteratively, as a Deadliest Catch!Hugh vid.


"Uptown Girl," it turns out, is too easy. You can make "Uptown Girl" fit basically ANY pairing. Seriously, think about it! (Also, I wanted to upload music for y'all but it looks like my Billy Joel collection was wiped out with my harddrive! ::cries:: So I'm working on that atm.)

so...me and snoopypez watched Chicago Holiday. and i thought maybe you'd enjoy sharing that experience. (sorry lj-feed readers for the non-working cuts...i tried to bully jaime into posting it but not being as narcissistic as i am she did not. then i tried cutting all the parts about how hot vecchio is on the theory that you all already know we think vecchio is hot, but there wasn't much left after that.)

( don't drink don't smoke )

(04:17:17 PM) petroleuse239: um...so the centurions...
(04:17:27 PM) petroleuse239: there's an obvious jesus parallel to draw here
(04:17:38 PM) petroleuse239: now i really want to see centurions dicing for gaius's cloak
(04:17:57 PM) twonth: :-)
(04:18:07 PM) twonth: somehow i think you will be disappointed
(04:19:41 PM) petroleuse239: me too
(04:19:44 PM) petroleuse239: ::cries::
(04:19:47 PM) petroleuse239: serioulys though they're romans!
(04:20:09 PM) twonth: how so?
(04:21:19 PM) petroleuse239: because of their name?
(04:21:30 PM) twonth: ah
(04:21:34 PM) petroleuse239: duh
(04:21:38 PM) petroleuse239: it was a really obvious pun, yo
(04:21:47 PM) twonth: you're a really obvious pun
(04:21:52 PM) twonth: TOUCHE

in other news, i said there was exciting roommate stuff afoot that would be revealed in the fullness of time...well the fullness of time is now! i am moving in with greensilver and jarrow at the end of the summer! please don't writhe with jealousy TOO much. oh, who am i kidding? WRITHE WITH JEALOUSY ALL YOU LIKE, I AM SUPER LUCKY.

also i realized i forgot to mention the best part of roller disco. they announced the couples skate and then clarified that "three people was okay too"! the roller rink was ot3 friendly! and then we spent a lovely five minutes thinking about fraser and vecchio and kowalski roller-skating. it would be so adorable guys!

Really exciting things!

1. awesomesauce roommate stuff that will be revealed in the fullness of time. \o/\o/\o/

2. blah blah rl project taking up my whole life blah blah

3. roller disco party last night=WIN. happy birthday brynn and kormantic!

4. fraser's grandmothers are lesbians. this epiphany co-copyright mrs-laugh-track. no one else seemed very excited about it at the party last night so maybe we are just giant dorks (um, actually, we ARE giant dorks, but you know, maybe we are gianter dorks than everyone else), but come on guys! he talks about his "grandparents" raising him, but does he ever specifically mention his "grandfather"? (if he does, i totally want to know about it, but i feel like i kept waiting for him to and he never did.) yet he talks about his grandmother all the time! we don't necessarily know he's always talking about the SAME grandmother. and then there's the scene in "bird in the hand" where bob says "shouldn't have left you with your grandmother all that time. you don't know until it's too late the effect women'll have on you." CLEARLY FRASER HAS TWO GRANDMOTHERS. THEY ARE TRAVELLING LESBIAN LIBRARIANS. OMG SO AWESOME.

5. some of you may remember constable bearton fraser, rcmp:



well sonia bought him a friend!!!!! because she is unbelievably amazing. <333 and obviously this "friend" has to be vecchio. so if any of you have a nice close-up of vecchio's face that you think would work, please please please let me know! all my screencaps died with my hard drive. i used this picture for fraser and it was about the right size when i printed it.

also, you know, if anyone happens to spot baby stripy pajamas, I WANT.

Posted birthday fic for kormantic over at aus_to_the_max. I think the title says it all.

Four Times Fraser Would Have Gotten Some If He Wasn't So Uptight About Carpets, And One Time He Got Some Anyway. Fraser/Smithbauer and all combinations of F, K, and V, hard R, 2291 words. Inspired by this Dinosaur Comic.

Happy birthday kormantic! You rule! Seriously guys I feel like I am always reccing her fic but if you haven't read it all go do that now. In Your Corner is my favorite.

Also go read this Kate Beaton comic about Jane Austen: "Is there a make-out scene?"

So last night there was a post on ficfinders, looking for a fic in which Kowalski discovers that Fraser and Vecchio were sex partners and also that Vecchio did not use lube when he fucked Fraser.

I want to stress that this ficlet is not intended as a criticism of that fic. I have read and enjoyed plenty of fics with dark and disturbing characterizations of all three boys and I totally understand the appeal of those fics. It's just that my first reaction to reading that summary was OMG VECCHIO USES *SO MUCH* LUBE! SO MUCH! So here we have it.

( Five Times Vecchio Was Too Careful During Sex With Fraser. )

Exciting RL thing has happened! It means, however, that I'm going to be spending most of my time for the next month working away like crazy on a RL project. (Which I'm excited about but also very anxious. I called in sick to work this morning because I had a headache and a stomachache and felt shaky and nauseous and, um, now it's gone. I think it may have been nerves.) I'm not sure how much I'll be around online and I've had to recognize the sad truth that my last Ray's Fingerprints fic will get turned in late. I'm sorry Q and Mal but your bday fics are on hold too. :( I'll probably be keeping up with flist reading but I'm not sure, so if you actually want to get in touch with me in any kind of timely manner, email me at belmanoir at gmail.

As a parting gift, please take this awesome Dinosaur Comic about T-Rex being cold-blooded (or IS he?) and porn cliches T-Rex finds weird.

Also Inksome is now open for business, guys! You can buy an account here. They are pretty cheap and support Inksome, but if you really want a free account let me know and I will try to figure out where my invite codes are. Inksome is awesome you guys. It is fandom-friendly and homey and NOT LJ. (I realize LJ just came out with a good policy announcement and I am cautiously hopeful, but CAUTIOUSLY is the key word in that sentence.) Look! Inksome has added options other than "M" and "F" for the gender box! ::loves::

::scurries off to work on project::