X Never Marks the Spot

Welcome to the future! (Keep an eye on Jupiter...)

Reveals are up for both Holiday exchanges I did - for the muncle Down the Chimney Affair, I did the following, indulging in classic h/c drama (big thanks to snarkydame for the last minute beta):

MFU: Save This Dance {~9,600 words} [read it on lj or on AO3]
PG-13; slash, h/c
Trouble on an assignment has Illya considering his newly changed relationship with Napoleon.

And for Yuletide I wrote Futurama fic, of all things. Eheh. Yeah. I'm so glad my recipient seemed to like it, even though the story itself started out Wrong and just got Wronger as it went along...I could blame that on her prompts, but while the pairings were her suggestions most of the rest were mine. Um. Warnings for non-graphic sex with arguably dubious consent, and crack (well, it's Futurama, what do you expect?)

Futurama: Be My Brussels Sprouts {~4,000 words}
PG-13; het, slash?
Concerning jealousy, proper robot maintenance, and the hazards of unprotected interspecies relationships.

Also for Yuletide I got another gift for The Abyss, which was just the Bud/Lindsey schmoop I asked for - squee!: One-Way Ticket. Which makes 3 out of my 4 Yuletide wishes filled, all in wonderful ways - eeee! Had a marvelous time, will definitely have to join in next time!

Also in Yuletide, haven't had as much chances to browse as I'd like, but I did find "Epilogue, Part II", a fic for Bruce Coville's My Teacher Is an Alien series, which is pure happy-making (if frustrating because I thought I had the books with me and it turns out I don't...where'd they go? sigh!) (I also think I saw fic for John Bellairs, which is happy-making just that it exists! The Johnny Dixon series I do have with me...)

Otherwise have been recovering from holiday madness by vegging out on TV (currently alternating Criminal Minds with Xena, which is fairly complementary, as camp is a good antidote for darkness-overdose and vice versa). (on s4 of CM - great show, even if it is dark, and I adore all the chars pretty equally (even if I do keep trying to figure out how to make Penelope/Derek viable in my head, because yeah, I can see why they aren't like that, why their relationship works as it is, but they would be SO CUTE zomg) - and s1 of Xena - my first time watching it, excepting one ep; even this early on Xena/Gabrielle is adorable, and provides the female-friendship I've been craving...)

And watched Doctor Who last night. Still processing that.

So mfuwss is holding a Bulwer-Lytton style worst-opening-sentences challenge, and since I cannot resist any excuse to extrude outrageous purple prose:

Illuminating was the day when Napoleon Solo's milk-chocolate-hued orbs did happen to lift from the blizzard-like expanse of paradoxically white red-tape covering his desk, and fell upon the pulse-pounding vision of Janet St. Claude, his most recent flame in a libidinous and continent-spanning candelabra, with her lithe arms encircling the sable-suited shoulders of Illya Kuryakin, his steadfast partner in profession and comradeship alike, and also, so the surprising stab of jealousy's searing hot poker occasioned Napoleon to realize at this singular instant, his one and only true love--excepting, of course, his still-mourned wife, the tragically married Clara, that THRUSH scientist chick who (it occurred to him in passing) he'd quite forgotten the name of, even as she had forgotten everything but his own name; and perhaps a dozen other women and a couple men of unsurpassed fairness and virtue--but really, the important thing was the unexpected epiphany that he wanted in Mr. Kuryakin's off-the-rack but oddly flattering trousers at the nearest possible opportunity, and Miss St. Claude would have to wait (until tomorrow morning at the very least.)

I wrote! New fic! Go me! Even if it is ridiculous fic. Initially inspired by a mfuwss discussion on our favorite secret agents' living spaces, and plotted on the journey back to America in collusion with gnine, who came up with half the pranks. It's slash (which, for me, seems to involve Napoleon having sex with lots of women. Yeah, I dunno. It's all in good fun?)

(Oh, and I drabbled again.)

MUNCLE: For Every Action {~6,000 words}
PG-13; slash, humor
A man's home is his castle, and Napoleon and Illya are laying siege on one another in a fierce, relentless, and very silly war of retribution.

( Illya rarely invited people over to his apartment... )

Classic, absurdly indulgent h/c, because gnine asked for it, plotted on the nighttime streets of Hanoi a couple weeks ago. If you've read my fic in other fandoms, you might well have already read this story - with other characters, and there's sand instead of snow, and hyperthermia instead of hypo-, but really, same difference. My only defense is that for a series that lends itself to outrageous h/c, I haven't gotten as much as I'd like in MUNCLE...

As is my wont with h/c, this is noodling right on the edge of gen; you could call it smarm, or pre-slash, whichever. (I tried to keep it gen, but Napoleon was...uncooperative...) And much thanks to gnine, utopiantrunks, and naye for shared cheerleader/beta duties!

MFU: Sand Trap {~13,000 words}
PG, gen, h/c, action/adventure
Injured and pursued by THRUSH, Illya and Napoleon must survive a trek through the Sahara to get vital information to U.N.C.L.E. in time.

[Read it on AOOO]

gnine has made another vid! At my, er, suggestion. My wicked so-wrong-it's-SO-RIGHT suggestion. (Come on! It's Russian! It's perfect!) In case you've been wondering: yes, here is definitive proof that MUNCLE (and Illya) really is that gay. Seriously, it was the Merlin of its time.

Malchik-gey

(And then there's the delightful My Brown-Eyed Boy, which offers compelling evidence that Napoleon is in fact even gayer than his partner, or at least swishier...)


Just finished watching the Scrubs finale. Loved it myself (I think this season's been really strong, am hoping it is the last, because it would be nice for it to go out so brightly) - the themes of goodbyes, the way life inevitably changes...yeah, resonating really strongly with me now. It was pouring all day today, and the the streets smelled clean and wet when I went out tonight, more like rain-damp stone than concrete. I never thought that a city could smell good, but Kyoto can. I'm going to miss my city...

For everyone on the flist who's been looking at my recent posts, wondering what the heck is up with my latest obsession: five graphic reasons to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

1) Because in the '60s, they hadn't yet invented the concept of "personal space."


Or at least David McCallum & Robert Vaughn never got the memo.

( show me more... )

We have thoroughly succeeded in bringing utopiantrunks over to the MUNCLE dark side - Illya is far too blond and tiny for her to resist. She responded by writing her own fabulous tag to "The Gurnius Affair" - and unlike certain slash fans, she can actually write the NC-17, and write it well. Hot stuff, and awesome character insight, what more do you want?

I keep forgetting to say it - big huge thanks to whoever nominated my fics for the Stargate Fan Awards! Very cool.

Last Thursday's Supernatural (4x18) entertained us as much as it entertained everyone else - as naye relates here, with five fangirls in the room it was quite the deafening experience. We kept having to pause and rewind to catch lines missed due to the squealing. Ah, I am gonna miss our fangirl gatherings so much...

Another ep tag, and hardly more than a ficlet, indulging gnine, who craved more Illya h/c at the end of "The Concrete Overcoat Affair."

MFU: Island Getaway {~2,300 words}
PG; gen, h/c; missing scene from the end of 3x12 "The Concrete Overcoat Affair, Part 2"
"There's just one thing--we better leave before the bombers get here."

Read it on AO3

It's almost 9 AM. No, I didn't get up early, I just haven't gone to bed yet. But I'm writing! I am putting words together in (hopefully) new ways and (hopefully) making them say things and now I have 7,000 of them arranged in a more-or-less readable fashion and oh I have missed this! I am not myself when I'm not writing, but now I am, and so I am, and it is good.

--Unfortunately I am not writing what anyone wants me to be writing, but it is still infinitely preferable to not writing at all. (Also I need to arrange maybe another thousand words to reach a conclusion, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as right now I am hard-pressed to remember what order any of them are supposed to go in.)(You may have three guesses as to what I am writing, and the first two don't count. And yes the icon is a hint. By the way, this is supposed to be a GIP, because look at this icon. The screencap was not manipped or edited. See? See?!)

Top Secret Note for those who recommended Sapphire & Steel: why did none of you warn me that David McCallum in his later forties was if anything hotter than David McCallum in his early thirties? He's not Illya, but still. A girl needs to know to brace herself. I'm dreading the new NCIS tomorrow, because right now his voice is doing things to me, and his voice hasn't changed...

Yaysleep!

I've been on an old skool kick of late, and have just for the first time discovered the joys* of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The thing about some of these old fan shows, they ran on subtext. Not the nudge-nudge wink-winking of Merlin, but the less deliberate stuff - and not just slash or UST, either. Most character elements are more inferred than stated. There are no clear backstories, just miscellaneous hints, supplied to move an episode along and forgotten afterward. Relationships - not only romance, but friendships or rivalries, or anything else - are strictly professional, because we never see the private relationships, or private sides of professional relationships - the characters are their jobs, and we almost never see them on downtime, never see them not working. Most character development is incidental, often accidental, an inadvertent byproduct of a plot twist or clever line.

It can be frustrating; it makes the characters less convincingly real people, more silver screen idols, icons rather than human beings. It's also fantastically fun, for a fangirl, because it allows for the subtext game, the careful close watching, gleaning for hints, ferreting out the little clues that describe these characters' true selves, describe what they really mean to one another.

( Don't get me wrong... )

* To wit, Illya Kuryakin. He is l'essence de fangirl bait in a tiny blond package of snark. He is fangirl bait before it was common knowledge that fangirls could be baited; he is perhaps the proto-bait, or one of the first. Spock, Daniel Jackson, Dean Winchester - they all have a bit of Illya in them. Rumor has it that David McCallum** received more fanmail than any other MGM actor, and watching four decades later, I have no question why.

** And yes, since you asked, as an NCIS fan, it is fantastically brainbreaking to be fanning on a much-younger Ducky. Not that I didn't love Ducky all along, but there's loving the cute little old ME, and then there's Illya. My fangirl heart, she twists and flails. Especially since David McCallum retains much of Illya's mannerisms and pretty much the exact same voice (once he dropped the light faux-Russian accent of season 1.***)

*** Whyyyy~ did he drop the accent? It was adorable!!