I would just like to say, with exasperation, that there is apparently not a single tablecloth in my parents' house that isn't holiday-themed.

And now, onto the fic.

Title: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 5/7
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 60,000
Rating/Pairing: R, Giles/Willow
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
Feedback: Would be really, really nice, even if it's just to say hi.
Summary: When a cult that worships the First Evil makes Willow their target, Giles finds himself on a quest in the Amazon to save her - and world (again) - with the help of bloody Ethan of all people. Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: This was written for summer_of_giles over the course of about six weeks. It was an incredible experience that I hope to never have again, and it would not have been possible without certain people. Thanks to my Amazing Narcoleptic Line-Editor fuzzyboo03 for holding my hand, helping me piece together the damn action sequences, and forcing me to tame my clauses. Thanks also to kivrin for beta reading and looking at the Big Picture when I couldn't see it anymore. Last but not least, thanks to twitchylizard for her mad Wiki skillz, which were invaluable during the research process.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

( Giles was deep in the Grimoire when Ethan arrived back at the houseboat just after five o’clock. )

Date:	2007-08-03 15:53
Subject:	Goddammit, LJ! (And that WIP meme.)
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed

So, now we have Strikethroughgate 2.0, which is gearing up to be even more annoying than it was the first time around. I am more annoyed, at least. This post here makes it pretty clear that LJ doesn't want fandom, they have no interest in hosting fannish content, and will make arbitrary and unpredictable decisions about what has artistic merit as they seen fit. U.S. obscenity laws allow them to do just that. And their new "report abuse" button frankly scares the hell out of me, not because it might affect me (chan is something I have no interest in), but because of the way it invites people to behave, turning each other in and reporting on each other as though we're living in a totalitarian regime. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but that's certainly how it feels.

At this point I have both a Greatest Journal and a Insane Journal. If I migrate anywhere, it will probably be to Insane Journal. I get a nicer vibe off of them than off GJ. And perhaps fandom is being paranoid, but I don't think so; I get the feeling that this is merely the tip of the iceberg and with LJ's nifty new "report abuse" button, a lot more people are going to get screwed. On the other hand, as many people have pointed out, this is likely to happen at any U.S.-based host eventually.

Still . . . leaving would be sad. I have non-fandom people on my flist that I would hate to lose touch with. I just can't put up with this crap anymore though, and LJ is relying on people's lazy and self-centered tendencies to keep them here. I hate to prove them right.

And now, that WIP meme, gacked from antennapedia and kivrin and a bunch of other people. It's funny, you know, I was just thinking the other day that I wanted a nice WIP meme. Sometimes fandom is telepathic.

When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.

( From the untitled floofy Harry/Luna post-war, pre-DH, first time fic )

( From the untitled Remus-POV sequel to Five Full Moons with Nymphadora Tonks )

( From the untitled Spike/Wood fic )

( From the Coupling-esque Harry Potter fic significantowl and I batted back and forth for awhile last year )

( From the untitled Stephanie/Ranger/Morelli fic )

( From the untitled Snape/Lupin post-war, pre-DH fic )

( From Death Penguins (the untitled Vorkosi-verse novella) )

*sigh* The only one of those I can really envision finishing at this point is Death Penguins. The Snape/Lupin intrigues me though; I still want to write some Harry/Luna, but it'll probably be something totally different.

Title: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 4/7
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 60,000
Rating/Pairing: R, Giles/Willow
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
Feedback: Would be really, really nice, even if it's just to say hi.
Summary: When a cult that worships the First Evil makes Willow their target, Giles finds himself on a quest in the Amazon to save her - and world (again) - with the help of bloody Ethan of all people. Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: This was written for summer_of_giles over the course of about six weeks. It was an incredible experience that I hope to never have again, and it would not have been possible without certain people. Thanks to my Amazing Narcoleptic Line-Editor fuzzyboo03 for holding my hand, helping me piece together the damn action sequences, and forcing me to tame my clauses. Thanks also to kivrin for beta reading and looking at the Big Picture when I couldn't see it anymore. Last but not least, thanks to twitchylizard for her mad Wiki skillz, which were invaluable during the research process.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

( It was just after eight o’clock in the evening, and the sun had set in Macapá nearly two hours earlier. )

Chapter Five

Date:	2007-08-01 13:49
Subject:	Post-Mortem for A Heavy Darkness Falling
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

summer_of_giles

antennapedia

Title: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 3/7
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 60,000
Rating/Pairing: R, Giles/Willow
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
Feedback: Would be really, really nice, even if it's just to say hi.
Summary: When a cult that worships the First Evil makes Willow their target, Giles finds himself on a quest in the Amazon to save her - and world (again) - with the help of bloody Ethan of all people. Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: This was written for summer_of_giles over the course of about six weeks. It was an incredible experience that I hope to never have again, and it would not have been possible without certain people. Thanks to my Amazing Narcoleptic Line-Editor fuzzyboo03 for holding my hand, helping me piece together the damn action sequences, and forcing me to tame my clauses. Thanks also to kivrin for beta reading and looking at the Big Picture when I couldn't see it anymore. Last but not least, thanks to twitchylizard for her mad Wiki skillz, which were invaluable during the research process.

Chapter One
Chapter Two

( It was a rather blustery day for a walk to the sea. )

Chapter Four

Date:	2007-07-31 15:05
Subject:	Mostly Deathly Hallows
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

Oh, it is so nice to no longer have to spend every moment I'm not at work chained to my keyboard. Fic (both fics, actually) is posted and I can stop wibbling and worrying it won't get done in time. I celebrated yesterday by going shopping with my sister; Ann Taylor Loft was having an amazing sale and I got a $60 pair of crop pants I can wear to work for $12. Yay clothes! I generallly hate shopping, but having dropped a few pounds recently is making it a lot more fun.

Work is good. My advanced students are well-behaved and wonderful. Annoying co-working and I have achieved a truce by simply not speaking to each other, which is probably the best I can hope for - except now our mutual students are complaining to me about him, which is awkward, but at least they're not complaining about me!

Oh, and my visa came! It's funny how different all the visas are. My visas for Germany are pink, the one for Ecuador is just stamped in with some handwritten info, and the one for England is yellow and is the only one with an actual picture of me on it. A really, really atrocious picture of me, unfortunately.

What else? Oh, well, I guess I should talk a little bit about ( Deathly Hallows )

I was going to do a post-mortem on A Heavy Darkness Falling but I don't know that I can yet. I think I want to, though; in my opinion, it's hands-down the best thing I've ever written, but there were things I could have done better, I think. I must ponder.

Like I said a couple days ago, I'll be posting this year one chapter at a time over the course of about a week so as not to flood the flist. However, should you wish to read the whole thing now, here is a link to Chapter Two over at summer_of_giles, which contains a link to Chapter Three, which contains a link to Chapter Four, and so on and so forth.

Title: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 2/7
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 60,000
Rating/Pairing: R, Giles/Willow
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
Feedback: Would be really, really nice, even if it's just to say hi.
Summary: When a cult that worships the First Evil makes Willow their target, Giles finds himself on a quest in the Amazon to save her - and world (again) - with the help of bloody Ethan of all people. Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: This was written for summer_of_giles over the course of about six weeks. It was an incredible experience that I hope to never have again, and it would not have been possible without certain people. Thanks to my Amazing Narcoleptic Line-Editor fuzzyboo03 for holding my hand, helping me piece together the damn action sequences, and forcing me to tame my clauses. Thanks also to kivrin for beta reading and looking at the Big Picture when I couldn't see it anymore. Last but not least, thanks to twitchylizard for her mad Wiki skillz, which were invaluable during the research process.

Chapter One

( The coven in Westbury was housed in a rambling stone building that had once been a convent )

Chapter Three

Date:	2007-07-29 23:10
Subject:	FIC: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 1/7
Security:	Public
Mood:	exhausted

ETA: I really should not even attempt to write summaries when I'm exhausted from having spent two solid days at the computer, writing and editing. Is slightly less ridiculous now, I think.

Title: A Heavy Darkness Falling, Chapter 1/7
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 60,000
Rating/Pairing: R, Giles/Willow
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
Feedback: Would be really, really nice, even if it's just to say hi.
Summary: When a cult that worships the First Evil makes Willow their target, Giles finds himself on a quest in the Amazon to save her - and world (again) - with the help of bloody Ethan of all people. Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: This was written for summer_of_giles over the course of about six weeks. It was an incredible experience that I hope to never have again, and it would not have been possible without certain people. Thanks to my Amazing Narcoleptic Line-Editor fuzzyboo03 for holding my hand, helping me piece together the damn action sequences, and forcing me to tame my clauses. Thanks also to kivrin for beta reading and looking at the Big Picture when I couldn't see it anymore. Last but not least, thanks to twitchylizard for her mad Wiki skillz, which were invaluable during the research process.

And now, on to the fic!

( Giles thought of Willow, shivering under that blanket, and strained his eyes against the dim light. )

Chapter Two

Date:	2007-07-29 11:32
Subject:	DONE!
Security:	Public
Mood:	triumphant

60,658 words.

Now I just have to edit and code and all that crap. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Date:	2007-07-28 22:52
Subject:	Not dead.
Security:	Public
Mood:	sad

Obviously, since I just posted fic. But really, I have been doing you all a favor by keeping my mouth shut this week, because this is what my posts would have been like: whining about writing, whining about work/my asshat co-worker (who attempted to trick me into swapping classes with him), wibbling about sick kitty and whining about how my sister is never home, whining about how fucking tired I am, and whining about how I have no time to read Deathly Hallows. Are we seeing a pattern here?

So yeah, I didn't have a great week. Mostly I've just been really lonely without my sister around in the evenings; on the other hand I wouldn't have been able to spend much time with her anyway due to the double ficathon deadline on Monday.

However! My visa for England did get approved and I did, just about an hour and a half ago, finish Deathly Hallows. I'm pretty traumatized by it being over and I haven't yet read the epilogue, so I think I won't say much more about it for now. And I will be reading some more of The Sharing Knife: Legacy tonight before bed as an antidote, in hopes I will wake up tomorrow less traumatized.

I've been writing like a fiend. One of the stories I just posted; the other one for summer_of_giles is, er, mostly done, though chapter six isn't editted yet and chapter seven is refusing to be finished. I am currently squirming over whether or not the story actually needs pr0n at the end. I'd planned on it, but I don't know if it does; some stories don't. Or am I just being lazy and don't want to write it?

I have no idea. *sigh*

Incidentally, I think I will be posting the Fic of Doom here more slowly than at summer_of_giles since I don't want to flood the flist. I'll post a chapter a day here for a week, whereas everything will be posted on Monday at summer_of_giles.

So. See you then.

Date:	2007-07-28 22:42
Subject:	FIC: Five Ways Ekaterin Never Met Miles at Twenty
Security:	Public
Mood:	sad

Title: Five Ways Ekaterin Never Met Miles at Twenty
Fandom: Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (Not ADS 'verse)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Lois and Baen's Universe.
Summary: Regret . . . And what if she and Miles had met at twenty, instead of she and Tien? It had been possible; she'd been a student at the Vorbarra District University, he'd been a newly minted officer in and out of the capital. If their paths had crossed, might she have won a less bitter life? - pp. 534, A Civil Campaign
Author's Notes: Thanks to fuzzyboo03 for hand-holding, reading as I wrote, and encouragement. Thanks to firefly_124 for beta reading. This was written for ekaterinn in the ficathon over at bujold_fic. I fudged a little on the request, which was for Ekaterin at university; this . . . is not quite that. But it is a young Ekaterin (or, well, five versions of a young Ekaterin) and I hope that suffices.

( Five Ways Ekaterin Never Met Miles at Twenty )

Date:	2007-07-22 20:16
Subject:	Am not done yet! Am on page 480 or something like that.
Security:	Public
Mood:	sad

( Deathly Hallows spoilers within. Or, well, one at least. Okay, two. )

Anyway, so. Today was my stay home and write day, which went very well. summer_of_giles fic now stands at roughly 53,500 words (and no, I'm not done yet, though I am on the last chapter). Bujold fic . . . er, let's not talk about it. I'll have it by the 27th, I swear.

New icons! Many of them! All Giles/Willow, all by angryteabag. They are awesome.

In other news . . . went to Santa Cruz this weekend for the book release, which was INSANE. Also went to the beach, where I went swimming in denim capris (not really recommended, but fun nonetheless). The rest of the time I've been at home, pretty much, since my sister is never here and sick kitty cannot be abandoned for long periods of time anymore.

Speaking of sick kitty . . . I think he's getting worse, actually, and I'm pretty freaked out. I'm also fairly annoyed and getting more so with my sister and her vanishing act. I get that she has a life and her job is really insane right now because the play is going into tech, but I do not enjoy being left at home alone with the terminally ill cat. Taking care of him is a lot of work right now - he gets pills three times a day and you have to kinda keep an eye on him and she's doing none of it, really. Plus, it would be nice to have someone around to say, "No, he's fine" when I get worried. Right now it's just me and I'm being really neurotic and there's no one to really talk me out of my tree.

Anyway. The new boy is moving to LA next week, so she'll at least be home in the evenings after that. Maybe it'll get better then, I don't know. And sick kitty is sick, but he's still eating and he still goes outside and he purrs when I pet him and stuff.

Last class with the French brats tomorrow. Or, well, with these French brats. I get new French brats on Wednesday.

Date:	2007-07-19 21:34
Subject:	Ecuador Pictures, Round 1
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

summer_of_giles fic is at about 47,700 words. To celebrate this insanity (and no, it's not done), I decided to make the first of the photo posts I've been threatening.

( Cuenca! )

A few days ago I was on the Ryanair website, looking at prices for flights from England to Germany for before my program starts. They were cheap, but not cheap enough. It would have come to about $50 before the taxes, so about $100 after, and that is way more than I am willing to pay for a Ryanair flight. I decided to wait.

Today I checked back and low and behold, everything was .01 pounds! With the taxes it came to $50, round trip, Stansted to Luebeck. Hence, I win at life.

My students, however, do not. They LOSE. I had the worst class ever of my teaching career on Tuesday. But I'm done with them. They go home on Tuesday. So HA.

Deathly Hallows in two days. I'm kinda terrified. Am not staying off the intraweb, however, but rather foolishly trusting that people will be good and not post spoilers in the subject lines or anything like that.

Saw Order of the Phoenix yesterday with antennapedia, nemaihne, plus the other halves of same. I was pleasantly surprised, though it helps that I hadn't read the book in four years, so I basically went in as a blank slate. I don't think I'm going to do a full on review, since there are a lot of those floating around already, but I will say that I agree with ubiquirk that it did lose a lot of the moral ambiguity that makes the book . . . not good, but interesting.

They also left things in that I would rather have seen taken out, but I imagine we'll see why after DH comes out next week.

And, okay, Buffy canon question: Is the woman at the coven who helps Willow in S7 Miss Hartness or Miss Harkness? I thought it was Harkness, but then I checked the subtitles on my S7 DVD's (way back when I started writing the current WIP) and it said Hartness. But they were the Spanish subtitles, which I had on so I could pretend I was doing something for my language skills while watching Buffy, and I've seen it as Harkness in so many places that now I wonder if the subtitles were wrong.

I guess I could also pull the DVD's out and check, but I am lazy. So, all knowing flist, is it with-a-k or with-a-t?

Date:	2007-07-12 21:25
Subject:	Because Gmail's advertisements stray pretty far from the herd sometimes.
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

I'm really not sure why the email with sheron and my comments thread on my last entry got an ad for Sharky Butler. Which, er, is a three-foot-tall shark wearing a Hawaiian shirt who carries a platter and apparently retails for $264. But if you go through that link you can get it for a measley $149! And really, who doesn't have $149 to spend on a shark butler?

WTF, dude. WTF.

Someone got sent home for going AWOL. Students were all o_O today. Which is good because I forgot all my lesson plans and books and everything and was in San Rafael before I realized. *facepalm* Oh, well. Let it never be said that I can't think on my feet.

Also: I just crawled under the dining room table with cat food on my finger in pursuit of sick kitty to try and give him his pills (which were disguised in the catfood, but apparently not well enough). I kept going, "Simba, will you please eat it? Please? Please?" And he was all, "Not off your finger, bitch. And you can't make me."

He, er, isn't real happy with me for coming home. I moved back into my bedroom, you see, and that's just not on because it was his. I feel sorry enough for him that I actually considered sleeping on the couch and letting him have my bed, but then I realized that was insane.

I will write tonight. Right after I buy plane tickets and read antennapedia's summer_of_giles offering. Come hell or high water, Ethan is getting kidnapped tonight.

I don't have a website, but I'm pretty stoked about this, so I'm sticking it here.

Other that that, it's been pretty lather-rinse-repeat here. School is okay; zee French teenagers are starting to drive me a leetle crazy, but what can you do? One of the other teachers has the tendency to treat both me and the students (who are mostly seventeen or so) like we're four, but whatever. I will never draw up a "behavior contract" with anyone, period, because really - gag me with a spoon. My afternoon classes are much better.

I have to say, pretty much the best thing about this job is that I get to go to work on a college campus every day. Dominican is super small, but it's pretty and the flowers are all in bloom, and there's just a nice vibe of academia that I enjoy.

What isn't happening like it should is the writing. I need to sit down and write the stupid fight scene for the summer_of_giles story, because after that it's all fun and games. Once it's in beta, I can worry about the fic for bujold_fic. At least I have my concept all figured out. And, as if I needed this, I have a plot bunny for a Temeraire fic, which probably came from re-reading Throne of Jade. But both it and the Caz/Palli and the Vorkosi-verse novella that's still limping along will have to wait until August, when I possibly have more time. Or possibly not.

Oh, look. It's The Simple Life Goes to Camp. This after Engaged and Underage. My sister's TV viewing habits are nothing if not classy.

ETA: Okay, now it's Planet Earth. That's better.

Date:	2007-07-08 18:05
Subject:	Tag-FIC: This Time (the First Time)
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

Title: This Time (the First Time)
Fandom: Vorkosigan, ADS 'verse
Pairing/Rating: Light R, Ivan/Ekaterin
Disclaimer: Not mine! They belong to Lois McMaster Bujold and Baen's Universe.
Summary: First times are rarely easy.
Author's Note: This is a missing scene from Seeds, specifically the fade-to-black scene from the first part, so you should have read that first. It is also, as mentioned in the subject line, tag-fic. The way tag-fic works is that the first person to comment gets to come up with my next prompt; rules for the prompts may be found here. The request was made by betony11 and it was for anything about Ivan and Ekaterin. Unlike my other tag-fics, this is not unbeta'd; I'm so twitchy about posting Vorkosi-verse porn (even though this would really only be considered porn by people who make annual contributions to the Family Values Coalition) that I ran it by firefly_124 first.

( This Time (the First Time) )

First person to comment gets to pick the next prompt!

Hey peoples, I'm headed down to Santa Cruz shortly and I'll probably be there through Sunday morning or midday. If you'd like to see me, either shoot me an email (sahiya@gmail.com) or call my cell, which is the same as it was before.

Work today went well, though six out of the seven kids in the first class brought neither paper nor pen to class. *rolls eyes* Ah well, for what they're paying me, I'll put up with a lot.