After my little freak-out last week, I took several large breaths and asked myself why I put myself through this when I don't have to. It's my life, why torture myself? But the truth is, it's not torture.

It's hard work. I get depressed. I'm not going to lie and say that I hate the holidays because I'm torn away from my students, because obviously I am not that person.

Underlying all of that, I believe I can make a difference. I believe in these kids. I know things will get better with time, consistency and hard work.

Maybe my eternal optimism makes me a schmuck, perhaps I should let my inner realist reign free, but it appears I'm not that person either. The part of me that admits there have been other people before me who have been passionate and loving, but look - some behaviours and attitudes are still there and continually upsetting - gets tamped down by the part that reminds me of kind acts and unnecessarily sweet gestures. Take yesterday, for instance, when my students and I all painted our faces during a patterning lesson. One of my most disruptive students grabbed a washcloth and helped me clean my face. It was... tender and caring and thoughtful. This is the ring leader of some of the very worst behaviours in my class, but he can be so hilarious and so darling --- and here he was, taking care of me, not because I requested it (I didn't. I was happy with green paint all over my face), but because he wanted to.

I'm going to assume the best of people, even if logic should make me wary. I'm going to constantly believe things will be okay. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and go to work and hate some parts, love others. I'm going to keep trying. I'm that person.

So, over two weeks late and quite a few dollars short (that should be the title of a film, imho...), I finally fulfil my obligation to this year's ficathon. With massive thanks to lozenger8 for the amazing organisation.

TITLE: Hit Parade
AUTHOR: m31andy
FANDOM: Life on Mars
RATING: Blue Cortina for smutty language. Het and Femmeslash (and implied slash).
WORD COUNT: 1,300 words
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the Life on Mars 2009 Ficathon, for iicaptain, prompt: "Phyllis, promiscuity with one/all others". Song titles used are listed at the end. With thanks to cuvalwen for the beta and encouragement (and ice cream) and with many apologies to iicaptain and lozenger8 for being so pathetically late with this! Also, huge thank yous to darthfi who came up with the fic concept (and then made me write the blighter!)
DISCLAIMER: Life on Mars is copyright Kudos and the BBC. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.

Hit Parade

Title: Flipside
Author: fawsley
Characters: Sam, Glen
Warnings: implied future character death, but nothing we don't know from canon (you only have to look at the character listing!)
Rating: white Cortina
Word count: 1270
Disclaimer: All the property of the BBC and Kudos
Summary: There are some things that can only be said in a letter...
Notes: An idea I've been toying with for years but only got around to writing yesterday evening. With thanks to nepthys_uk for the late-night seal of approval.

( And now I owe you an explanation. )

 It's not too hard to figure out who the characters are in this, but the way I wrote doesn't name either of them. Given that, I thought I shouldn't specify who they are in the subject line. I'm completely willing to change that, though.

Title: Late Nights
Rating: White Cortina
Word Count: 453
Notes: I wrote this a while ago, but I'm fairly sure I never posted it here. Contains implied slash.
Summary: What two officers of the law get up to at the station when everyone else has gone home. (Sadly enough, this isn't as dirty as the summary may sound.)

Link to my journal, because Livejournal's coding is trying to make me break things today.

Not finished yet, but it goes with the others, if you saw those. I dunno, I was thinking I'd put them all back up on DA once I finished.

Maybe there should be a pretty blue butterfly coming to life and flying off the little paper he's got, like he drew it and then used magic to animate it (haha, because he's an animator in real life, get it?). Or maybe it's like osteomancy or craniognomy or something. I should put that on the spine of that big red book maybe.

I had a really fantastic relaxing weekend in Alice Springs in which I did everything I said I would, and ate pizza at a restaurant and saw Bruce Greenwood in Mao's Last Dancer, so I am feeling pretty good.

Title: The Philanderer and the Thief (8/11)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1974 this part; approx 20,000 overall
Rating: blue cortina
Genre: buddy cop, humor, mystery
Warnings: language, mild violence
Summary: Fed up with their constant bickering, Gene sends Sam and Ray out to a remote village to stop a local crime spree. Will they solve the case before they kill each other, or will someone else get there first?

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5   Part 6   Part 7

( Read more... )

Title: Far Too Young and Clever
Fandom: Psych
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,500 words
Notes: Shawn/Gus, pretty much of the fluffy PWP variety. There's a very obvious nod to Futurama in this story (as opposed to all those other times where I pretend to be subtle.) Title from the song 'Come on, Eileen.'
Summary: He and Shawn were naked in bed together and they'd done stuff. Intimate, heart-rate increasing, hands in places stuff. Stuff Gus had only ever briefly entertained doing with Shawn before, and even then, had dismissed out of hand because it would make everything too complex.

( Far Too Young and Clever )

Title: They've got a comm troll...
Author: fawsley
Characters: Sam, Gene, mention of various others including implied Aragorn/Boromir
Rating: cracky green Cortina crossover silliness
Word count: 370
Disclaimer: All the property of the BBC, Kudos, Bernard Cornwell and JRR Tolkien
Summary: Manchester faces disaster, but there's still time for Sam to instruct Gene on political correctness.
Notes: I thought all my fics were here on the comm but realised that this one wasn't. It's from a couple of years ago when there was a spot of nastiness going on, in reaction to which I wrote probably the only (thankfully) Mars/Sharpe/Lord of the Rings crossover...


( They've got a comm troll... )

Remember when I drew on my books a while back? Well, this is way better. Or worse, depending on how you feel about that kind of thing. ;)

Fore-edge painting used to be big. The paintings aren't the same as what I did. They're only meant to be visible when the book is lying open. When the book is closed, the pages are flush, and the painting becomes invisible.

Here's an example from "Les enfants de l'amour" by Eugene Sue:




And "The Pit and the Pendulum" scene from an Edgar Allan Poe collection:




( more examples )

From Atlas Obscura (the same folks responsible for Curious Expeditions) : The Greatest Spiral Stairs in the World

"Technically, there is no such thing as a spiral staircase--spirals are by their nature flat--and all spiral stairs are actually helical stairs."

Thank you to this community and the terrific people here who supply me with copious amounts of wonderful, wonderful Sam/Gene slash fics. I've become so addicted to this pairing that I really cannot get enough of them. And so, in dedication to every single person who has ever posted a Sam/Gene slash fic I present to you my first ever slash fanvid (and only my 10th video ever made).

( Slashy, cracky vid with a side of fluff here )

As a favour I am linking some of my favourite gen SGA fics or links to good searchs for them.  People how useful search comms are they can have a wealth of links.

( Links here )</div>

.

Your choice of one word prompts (remember you don't have to actually *use* the word in your drabble):

MEMORY
MOUSTACHE
MAGAZINE
MEDALLION
MATINEE


PLEASE try to remember to make each drabble a comment in response to the original post. That way, if the comments start to collapse, the drabbles themselves should remain visible. Thanks.

The rules, such as they are:
1) A drabble is, by definition a 100 word story. As this is a drabble challenge and not a “snippet” challenge, all responses should be 100 words exactly, no exceptions.

2) I have been asked to keep this to a single posting a week to avoid cluttering people’s flists. So, drabbles will be posted as individual comments under the posting. IF you would like to post your drabble on your own LJ and link to it that’s all right too. Just put that link in a comment under the posting.

RATING: Rather than worrying about individual headings I’m just going to say that any drabbles posted for these challenges might be a Brown or even Red Cortina for content/language, so let the reader beware!
.

here at brightedelweiss

Title: Out of Time
Author: valentineskid
Rating: Brown Cortina
Pairing: None of yet. Later Sam/Ianto, Sam/Gene.
Word Count: 2,809~
Spoilers: Torchwood, Children of Earth.
Notes: Written for the Life on Mars Ficathon 2009. This is going to be in a few parts. Though, I keep playing with my ending so unsure of yet.
For time_testudinem I'm so sorry this is late. I suck. Hope you like this part, lovely!

Her prompt was Torchwood/Life on Mars Crossover: Ianto Jones didn't die, he woke up in 1973.

 

( “I-I’m Special Ops. Outside the government, beyond the police.”  )

 

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
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I was looking at the new Merlin books.  They released the book based around the episode poisoned chalice on the front is a large pic of Gwen!  Why she was in for much. Why could it not be Merlin or Arthur.  i do wonder.

Bisexual 06
Pairings: Gene/Sam, Ray/Sam, Chris/Sam, Sam/Annie, Phyllis/Annie
Rating: Brown Cortina over all
Warnings: PWP, minor spankings, slash, het, and lots of multi-partnered sex
Notes: I've wanted to do this sort of fic for a while now. It's mostly just smut. Also, Sam is an actual bisexual in the physical sense as well as emotional.
Words: 3,194
Summary: After accidentally admitting to being a bisexual to the majority of the team, Sam finds himself the target of lustful fulfillment.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Life on Mars; the song 'Rebel, Rebel' is by David Bowie.

All parts found here.

~**~
( Sam had just finished showering... )

I am watching Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home, which I haven't seen since I was teeny tiny, and omg, this film is of the cracky glee. LOVE!