Blow it out.

Sundays have, through no fault of my own, become my go-to breakfast experiment days. I'm finally mastering the stovetop percolator, and today I successfully poached eggs. Not to restaurant-quality specifications, just to first-attempt satisfaction. Next time, they'll be even better.

And thanks to the farmers' market, they were duck eggs.

Now to get on with the rest of my day, which includes catching up with the Snowflake Challenge. As such: Day 6: In your own space, rec at least 3 fanworks you thought you wouldn't like (because they weren't your fandom or they pushed against your boundaries or you thought you just wouldn't be interested) and that you ended up loving.

I don't love these things, since my passions don't flare up for very many things, but I do think of them fondly.

1. The BBC adaptation Sherlock. For a long time I couldn't figure out the appeal since nobody was talking about the content, just Benedict Cumberbatch, and I've never gotten much into Sherlock Holmes fandom. Then someone mentioned Martin Freeman playing Watson, and someone else talked about the cinematography of the use of text messages, and I gave it a shot and found the series to be worth the time investment.

As a side note, there's something incomprehensibly charming about Martin Freeman's career path - Arthur Dent, John Watson, Bilbo Baggins. It's a very specific character type, and it takes a lot of skill to keep them from being either the hero or the comic relief but a character in their own right. Go, Martin Freeman.

2. For Your Entertainment. If I hadn't seen this at a vid show with no prior information, I wouldn't have ever bothered. But I did, and I found out Adam Lambert has actual singing talent, and he doesn't just exude glitter through his pores. From how fandom talks about him sometimes, I wouldn't have guessed. So I suppose this counts for the purpose of the challenge.

3. A History Of Summer. Don't know much about baseball, haven't seen A League of Their Own in years, hadn't finished watching Band of Brothers, never seen The Pacific. Gave it a shot anyway. Ended up reading a story about found families, being lost and finding out where you are, and loyalty and courage. I had a pretty good time with it.

Fics Living In My Head

For one reason or another, I'm never going to get around to writing these. But it's entirely possible someone else will.

- House, AU, the only significant change being that Wilson is about a 4.6 on the Kinsey scale and moving out from there - his knowing that and accepting it, getting a boyfriend, hiding the parts of his life and his struggles to keep them apart even after they come crashing together. I always think of the boyfriend as being a chemist working on his PhD at Rutger's, who's also in the oncology field.

Scenes I imagine: Wilson and his boyfriend showing up at House's place post-infarction, a while after Stacy's left, with House seeing the boyfriend for the first time and laughing he's the other man, and during All In, when Wilson brings his boyfriend, he and House tease each other about who they'd sleep with if they were straight and gay, respectively, Wilson finally bringing his boyfriend to the team when House calls him away from the table, and the morning after, the three men sitting around and joking. (House's answer is Clint Eastwood.)

- House, AU, that sequel to Uniforming (Made to Seem). Cameron dealing with a tumor in her humerus, ending up with her disabled much like House, in part because of all the growth she went through late in life. Very melancholy, ultimately hopeful, as she knows all there is to do is keep moving forward. She'd end up using forearm crutches. It'd also include some dealing with androgynes and their elastic endocrine systems, and her getting closer to House and possibly getting a queer boyfriend.

- House, AU, that sequel to Left of West. House trying to navigate his life after his best friend dies, he's sleeping with his boss, and he has a completely new team of fellows. Kutner has a tail like a rat, not strong enough to support his weight but very telling of his moods, which few people bother to try to interpret, and there'd be some dealing with the culture he's not a part of anymore as well.

- Lost, sequel, Miles/Richard where Miles finds out Jacob's gift to him was actually Jacob giving a gift to his mother so in case of his death, Miles would still have his abilities. Richard explains it was intended for Miles, and that it was a gift to his mother, and "it belongs to you."

- Being John Malkovich, Craig/Emily, with Emily having an imaginary friend in her head all her life named Craig who gives her advice, helps her with spelling, and is always there for her, and eventually gets her to push him out of her head when she's twenty-three, waiting by the car at the side of the New Jersey turnpike to pick him up and take him home with her. If I felt I could do this to the level of disturbing horror it'd deserve, I might give it a shot.

- Pirates of the Caribbean, reincarnation AUs. Jack stumbled onto immortality somehow, and meets up with Norrington in LA in the mid-1990s. Norrington, being reincarnated, is cast as Freddy Rodriguez, works as a narcotics officer, and has about half his memories intact - the half that lets him know he's better off without the rest. Will is born female this time and works as a sculptor with metal as her medium, Elizabeth is born male this time and meets a handsome woman at her gallery opening, and once again it's love at first sight, genderqueered and still pure.

- Supreme Power/Squadron Supreme, sequel to the cliffhanger at the end of Straczynski's run, where Redstone kills Amphibian, setting Joe Ledger off on a rampage which cumulates in the wholesale destruction of most of Southern California and parts of Mexico, and the death of Redstone after Ledger flies him up into space and leaves him there to suffocate. Mark Millar works as a part-time bagger/shelf stocker in an unremarkable grocery store in an unremarkable town. Every so often he goes to see Joe, who lives alone in the barren wastelands, still mourning.

Killing clothes.

Day 7: 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. Drop a link to your wish-list in this post. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.


1. Fanart from, of, or otherwise inspired by my fics, especially my Team Fortress 2 stuff, would have me over the moon. Pretty much anything inspired by something I've written - commentaries, remixes, fanmixes, what-have-you - would be astonishing, and fanart holds the top of what I want, because it's the thing I have the least ability to create myself.

2. Someone to take one of the fics living in my head and claim it as their own. Relatedly, someone to do a Supernatural fic that has Sam and Dean as Castiel's literal pets.

3. Vids that live in my head because I know I can't invest the three years of practice necessary to get the final products to shine as bright as they do in my mind:

a. A Doctor Who vid, of Doctors One through Eleven, to The Divine Comedy's Gin-Soaked Boy. Because the Doctor really is everything in that song and more - the darkness in the light, the undiscovered land, the Christmas morning toy. And the gin in the gin-soaked boy.
b. A Battlestar Galactica vid, Baltar/Head Six, to Neko Case's This Tornado Loves You. Because Head Six's feelings towards Baltar can easily be compared to being loved by a tornado, and who wouldn't love to play with the artificial Cylons being depicted as a force of nature?
c. A The Talented Mr. Ripley vid, a movie narrative, to the string cover version of The Killers' Mister Brightside. Because Tom Ripley is coming out of his cage and he's doing just fine, and the strings match the sounds of the movie just right.

If anyone out there is so inspired to make one of these, I don't know how I'd be able to express my gratitude and joy while still retaining my command of English.

4. A good Team Fortress 2 icon or two, since I talk about the fandom often enough to justify having one around.

Melts and flows.

Day 8: In your own space, talk about a talent (or talents) you have. Everyone's got something they're good at. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Yoga. I'm pretty flexible naturally, so it comes easily enough.

Dreaming. I've been recording my dreams daily for over seven years without missing a single night, and while not every night is a vivid narrative, I find it strange that there are some people who don't remember their dreams at all.

Cooking and baking. I hold it as a point of pride that I feed myself well, how I start from scratch as often as I can, and that what I make turns out to be something good and tasty to eat. I'm still proud I got someone in college to try parsnips when she'd never had them before, and one of the highest compliments I've ever gotten was after I'd baked six small loaves of bread to share at work, the next morning a co-worker told me he'd taken a loaf home and eaten it for dinner along with some jam. Just the loaf. I basically floated on that through the rest of the week.

Writing. It's my chosen medium of self-expression, I'd better be talented in it. I'm good at characterization - it's a skill I've honed over the years, and my thoughts on it are something that I could give their own post if anyone's interested. I can pull off crazy ideas and make them work, I do worldbuilding better than a number of other people out there, and I know how to use words to share what goes on in my head and what I encounter in my life. It's extremely gratifying when I manage to succeed, and to recognize I'm getting better at it.