Chaucerettescs

Winter 2010

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:50:54 GMT

So, I have my schedule for next semester. It is 22 credits, which will enable me to get my Liberal Arts Transfer Associate's, so I can, well, transfer somewhere. And, before you ask, yes, I am required to take a MACRAO-approved, lab-based natural science course.

Mondays:
9 - 11:55 Fundamentals of Speaking (required)
12:30-2:55 First Year French II

Tuesdays & Thursdays:
9-10:25 Intro. to Human Sexuality (yay, psychology!)
11-12:25 20th Century History
1-2:55 Human Development and Learning (whoo, more psych!)

Wednesdays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
12:30-2:55 First Year French II

Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab

Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab
Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab

Murder me right now

Fic: Spaghetti, Showers, and Soho - Rufus/Nik - NC17

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:29:31 GMT

Jessica Gets a Double Birthday This Year! Sorry this took so long to get up, but the internet went out this morning. >:(

So, I'm totally broke, but I needed a present for Jess (as she gave me one of my favorite birthday presents ever this year - an awesome, suade Swacit journal she had custom-made for me). So I did what I usually do in this situation: I started writing her something. Now, what I originally started writing is still in the works and will come as a super, super late birthday present. It just ended up being much bigger and needing more development than I thought it would. So I realized about four days ago that there was no way I'd be able to finish Project # 1 in time for Jess' birthday (this one is still a day late, lol), so I formulated Project # 2 -- that old standby: Rufus/Nik fluff.

And it certainly started out as fluff. And it certainly does contain a lot of fluff.

The thing is... it also has porn. I don't recall if there were ever a bet about which couple would be the first I'd actually write porn for, or with whom the bet was (it could've been with myself for all I know). All I remember is the consensus was that it would be Ru/Nik. Well, the consensus was right. I've never written any sort of even mildly graphic sex before ever and hadn't had any real plans to, but in the rush to get this fic done, I took it to class and worked on it...and somewhere between the Christian Youth Pastor I was sitting next to in my Abnormal Psych class muttering under his breath when our teacher reminded us that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and the girl behind me in Comp class bringing up the fact that Middle Eastern countries execute homosexuals because their religion teaches them that homosexuality violates nature... as though that made it all ok or something... this story descended from strictly fluff into open, feverishly written pornography.

It's also long as hell (25 pages double-spaced or in ~manuscript~ form). It's the biggest chunk of writing I've done in ages (unfortunately, I can't read it without wanting to hide my face). I've never tried this before, so it isn't terribly well-written porn. Fun fact: Several times while writing this, I would stop mid-word and actually babble "OHHEYPORN" or "OHMYGODTHATISPORN" (not in the iddle of class, of course). I actually face-palmed at a few moments. True story.

Things I've Learned From the Experience:
1) Erotica is hard to write without repeating several words (mostly verbs) and phrases too many times.
2) Even things you enjoy reading are a real bitch to write
3) Not writing about Rufus and Nik for a while will lead to an outpouring of fic
4) While Rufus may not be following the family tradition of becoming a hotelier, it's good to know that he's following the family tradition of being total sex maniac. I love him all the more for it. Seriously, Ru seems ready for sex at the drop of a hat. I also kind of love how much dirtier he is than Nik and yet what a total bottom he is.
5) Rufus is the only male character that I can use the verb 'giggle' for and have it sound totally natural. Again, with the love.

Anyway, fic-time

Title: Spaghetti, Showers, and Soho (Rubbish title, I'll fix it later)
Pairings: Rufus/Nikolaj
Word Count: 6,983
Rating: NC-17
Timeline: Summer, 2002; After Graduating King' College, Ru and Nik are moving into their first real flat together
Disclaimer: Well... they actually are my intellectual property, so I can do with them as I damn well please (though perhaps shouldn't be allowed to). This one is canon as far as I'm concerned.
Author's Note: Done for Jess' 22nd birthday. And it's taken me until just now to realize that Rufus and Nik would be 22 when this story takes place. It was only meant to be fluff, but it's...this. It is something you will either enjoy or something you and I will make sure to never mention again. Um... Happy Birthday? There is another, decidedly less porny, gift for you in the works.
Warning: Boysex (hooray!), swearing (though if you're reading this, it's nothing you haven't heard me say a million times), references to godawful pasta and doing debauched things in the shower. Again, I've never written explicit sex before, so don't expect it to be terribly good. Features a few words I dislike writing, but which have no synonyms that aren't either clinical or silly-sounding. Gah, I can't believe I'm posting this. For those of you strictly interested in porn, just know this contains long bits of exposition and fluff that only I and a few other people care about.This is apparently my new method of building character histories -- writing smut. I'm sort of at peace with that.

***
Rufus has never cared much for money. He knows that this is probably just the complacency of someone who's always had it, but money has never held the appeal for him that he knows it holds for, say, Ben.

He loves that it meant not having to live off bananas and peanuts while they were at university, or that he can buy the pricey, yummy-smelling shampoo that Nik likes, but it isn't until he's standing in his and Nik's new flat, surrounded by boxes and pieces of furniture, that he acutely appreciates what money can really afford. If it weren't for the money, he and Nik would be moving into a grotty bedsit with even less room than dormitory suite they shared with Geoff and Alan for the past three years. Instead, they've had options.

They knew it had to be in Soho. Rufus had decided on that when he was fifteen. He'd wanted Old Compton Street, for the sake it; the sake of living right at the heart of the gay district, but Nik had shied away from it. Though he didn't give a reason, Rufus figured part of it was that Nik didn't want to have write that address on his job applications. That had really riled Rufus, but when a nail bomb had exploded in The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton the spring before they arrived in London, it became something of a moot point. After what had happened to Gaél, London was supposed to be asylum. It was the place he and Nik had dreamt about— that Gaél had dreamt about— where not everyone knew every one else's business. When the explosion happened, it shook them and, for the first time, Rufus felt hopeless in finding a place to go.

The day after they moved into the dormitory, they took the tube from Waterloo to Tottenham Court Road and wandered around Soho. The Admiral Duncan, when they found it, had already been completely restored. In two months, it's purple façade had been put right, the residents of Soho more than rising to the occasion.

Rufus had left the Admiral Duncan flushed with possibility (and affordable beer). The Admiral's thriving crowd and their lack of paranoia had rejuvenated him. He'd held Nik's hand all the way back to the dorm.

The dorm had been alright: one double and two single rooms branching from a tiny living area and kitchen. It had been tricky finding a sure way for them to live together. For the suite, they'd needed two more people… and the only couple they'd known was split up, but still dancing together in Covent Garden. Rufus was grateful to Geoff and Alan for how readily they'd accepted the invitation and how little they cared about the suppositions people made about them for living with him and Nik. They'd all had their privacy, but sex was uncomfortable whenever Geoff or Alan were in. Surreptitious sex was something Rufus was no amateur at, but after three years of it at his parents' house, it was something he very was tired of.

After graduating, Rufus had thrown himself into finding a place. He'd acquiesced to Nik's request and stayed off Old Compton, which, in the end, didn't matter, as he found just what he was looking for just across Soho Square.

It was on Denmark Street, which Rufus couldn't have planned any better if he'd tried. It was a brown brick storefront with a flat upstairs big enough to squeeze in his piano. The street was lined with music and record shops, tiny film studios and agencies. It was the British Tin Pan Alley. The Beatles and Rolling Stones had recorded on this street. Elton John had written "Your Song" on this street. It had a space to rent for the record shop; G-A-Y was two blocks north; there were bookshops and theatres and Indian restaurants within walking distance. The windows were long, the ceilings fairly high, and the bedroom was twice the size of the one they'd shared at uni. It was perfect.

It was also expensive.

His parents had come to look the place over with Rufus, bringing Rebecca with them, who had sat on the counter of the shop downstairs, doodling. They'd seen how much Rufus had really wanted it and when Rebecca spun her away across the living room, declaring it perfect, that had truly settled the matter for all of them, his parents giving him the loan and Rebecca giving him her doodle, stating that it'd keep him safe. Rufus couldn't make much sense of the drawing— a series of numerous, precisely round circles— but it was the first thing he'd put up in the flat, tacking it to the refrigerator. He vowed to pay his parents back someday, though they wanted to hear nothing of it (not that it mattered as Nik has been saving quid in a jar since he was sixteen).

When he stops and considers just how much contact many of his new neighbors have with their families –or how much Nik has, for that matter— he figures he ought to simply shut up and be grateful.

The first afternoon he wakes up in the new flat is strange. Nik had already gone to his new job at IBM (at some ungodly hour, Rufus has no doubt) and it is the first time Rufus has been entirely alone in longer than he can remember. He nudges at one of the dozens of boxes on the floor with his big toe, snarling a hand through his peaks of brown hair, which is even more bedraggled than usual. "Bugger," he sighs at the disorienting stillness of the flat and goes to his piano. He taps out a few bars of "Across the Universe", beaming when the notes reverberate deep and rich in the relative emptiness of the room. He plays the rest of the song, thinking briefly what a pity it is he can't keep the room this way, before pulling himself up to get some semblance of work done.

He spends an hour scooting a pair of arm chairs around the living room floor until he thinks they look just about right. He unpacks the silverware and considers unpacking the dishes next, but can't, as he soon finds himself bored senseless. He decides, instead, on the clothes next, which proves to be much more enjoyable, if only because he's always found a kind of pleasure in mixing his clothes in with Nik's, breaking up the line of dove gray and white and black with fuchsia and viridian and bright blue. He tucks his magenta anorak that always draws curious gazes on the tube next to Nik's sensible, black pea coat, pausing briefly to enjoy the faint, Nik-ish scent infused in the wool. Unpacking, while certainly easier and more uplifting than packing things up, is not the most enjoyable of activities. One has to find ways of amusing one's self, Rufus supposes, draping a few colorful scarves over the special hanger that holds Nik's ties. It hardly bothers him as, in many ways, Rufus lives to amuse himself and can find humor in just about anything.

Except cooking. Cooking is complete fucking rubbish, Rufus decides hours later, peering into a pot of what should be pasta sauce, but clings to the sides of the pot like maroon tar. Cautiously, he sniffs at it and pulls a face. It smells like poison gas, noxious and cloying; an odor that knocks the breath right out of you.

He damn near calls out for Alan, out of habit, who could always remedy Rufus' atrocities before Rufus had been banned from the kitchen altogether. But Alan isn't here, and so all he can do is poke sadly at the sludge with a fork.

It isn't until 7:00 that Nik appears in the doorway in one of his neat, dark suits; his blond hair smoothed back in a way that Rufus has to admit does make him look gorgeous, though that doesn't stop the itch it gives him to go and ruffle it up. Rufus gives Nik only enough time to get his shoes and suit jacket off before literally catapulting himself into Nik's arms, snogging him soundly.

Nik mmm's with satisfaction, lifting him off the floor a bit, and then peeks over Rufus' shoulder. "You lost a shoe."

"Did I?" Rufus asks, planting his feet back on the ground. "Ah well." He kicks off his other sandal and makes a small, profoundly touched sound when it lands, spangling, on Nik's sensible business shoe.

"That was certainly a good first 'Welcome home'."

"C'mere!" Rufus says suddenly, tugging Nik by the tie into the living room. "I want you…" He steers a now grinning Nik into an armchair, "…to appreciate these chairs." He sits in the adjacent one, beaming. "Because these chairs are entirely ours."

Nik strokes the arm of the chair gamely. "Mmm, such opulence."

Rufus leaps up from the chair and goes to his piano. "Or this," he sits down on the bench. "Notice how it can actually fit!" He bangs out a melody and waits a moment. "See… no angry flat mates trying to study!"

"We'll have to see about the neighbors."

Rufus ignores that, jumping up from his seat. "Here's another good bit!" He stands in the center of the light, open room, stretching out his arms for effect. "These walls… have never had Ben's shrew voice bounce off them. And they never will. Hee!"

"…Did you just say 'hee'?"

"Hee!" he repeats, flopping onto the sofa.

Nik sinks deeper into his chair. "It is very nice," he says quietly, his accent suddenly conspicuously thick. He looks so sweetly thoughtful that it makes Rufus want to go sit in his lap.

So he does.

"Oof," Nik exhales as Rufus clambers onto him and sits astride his hips.

It's silly and self-conscious, Rufus knows, and not entirely comfortable in the tight jeans he's wearing, but the intimacy of it is soothing and when Nik's hand slides under his shirt to idly trace his fingers on the small of his back, a familiar warmth begins to coil just below his belly. He begins fussing with Nik's tie and smiles when Nik's fingers pop open the bottom button of his shirt. "Missed you today."

"Missed you," Nik replies, his eyes and voice taking on a focus that makes Rufus shudder a little.

He loosens Nik's tie and then concentrates on undoing the first few buttons of Nik's crisp, white business shirt. "It was worse than at school. Being here alone all afternoon with nothing to do."

"There was plenty you were supposed to do," Nik reminds fondly, finishing off the last button of Rufus' shirt.

Rufus shrugs it off and it falls to the floor in a little pinstriped heap. "I was being indolent and housewifely."

"I would think those would be mutually exclusive."

"Bugger your mutually exclusive," Rufus grins, leaning down for a kiss. It's slow and deep and sweet and remains that way for quite some time and Rufus thinks to himself that he will never, should he tire of everything else, get tired of kissing Nik. The taste and heat and smell of him, like clean cotton and grass and soap. Nik's little sighs or the way it felt having Nik's fingers in his hair. He can't really explain it and doesn't much care to; he knows simply that he's calmer when he's touching Nik. That it somehow funnels all of his berserk energy into one blazing point of competency.

His hands fall on Nik's belt, undoing the buckle with well-honed speed and shivers again when Nik's fingers trace the rim of his navel.

"What are we doing?" Nik asks, a slight thrill in his voice, and Rufus tries to remember the last time they were able to fool around anywhere outside of their bedroom without being interrupted.

"Christening the flat," he says, tossing the belt to the floor with a small clatter. He loosens Nik's collar a bit more, lowering his head to nuzzle at Nik's jaw.

"Is… it that…" Nik tries to say, wriggling when Rufus' teeth graze his earlobe. "What about…"

"Shh," Rufus murmurs. "S'best part. It's just you…and me."

"Suppose s—mmph!" Nik gasps when Rufus puffs a breath across the sensitive spot just below his ear and begins pressing hot, slightly rough kisses on his neck, nipping and sucking at certain, well-known spots, drawing soft "ah!"s from him. "… you're going to leave marks," he whispers, not complaining.

"I planned to," Rufus grins, admiring the purple-red love-bites blooming on Nik's skin. He yips, startled, when Nik sits up straighter, dipping him back a little.

"Why? Fancy the notion of me going to work tomorrow with your handiwork under my clothes?"

"Something a lot like that, actually, yeah…" Rufus nods, practically unfolding to Nik's touch, as his boyfriend's fingers skate dangerously low on his belly. Nik's fingertips slip under the waistband of Rufus' jeans, brushing the vulnerable strip of skin there, and Rufus leans as far back as he can to give him better access, loosely gripping Nik's tie for a bit of leverage.

Nik slides an arm under his back, bracing him far better, and Rufus is glad they're both so flexible because when Nik leans forward to kiss his chest and ribs, it feels ridiculously, obscenely good. He bites his lower lip, letting his eyes slide closed, his arousal strangely enhanced by the knowledge that all that's keeping him from falling to the floor like a prat is Nik's arm beneath him.

"Fuck," he hisses as Nik palms him through his jeans and suddenly his eyes pop open at the strange smell in the flat. "Fuck!"

"Hmm?" Nik mumbles distractedly, darting out his tongue to tease at Rufus' nipple.

"Pasta!"

Nik lifts his head up at that. "…what?"

Rufus wriggles uselessly and Nik helps him sit up. For a moment, he simply stares at Nik's bewildered face and thoroughly mussed hair. If there's a sight sexier than Nik in his business clothes wonderfully rumpled and flushed, Rufus hasn't found it yet, and he vows that he will see the pasta suffer a hideous, noodly death for interrupting them. He reluctantly climbs off Nik's lap, leaping toward the kitchen. "I think I burned the pasta."

At the stove, Rufus peers down into the pot and feels Nik appear behind him.

"… you cooked?" Nik asks hesitantly, still hazy from what they had been doing.

"I've burned it."

"I don't think you can burn pasta, to be honest."

"Well, not the pasta. The, um, sauce." Rufus' nose wrinkles at the last word, knowing that whatever hell-stew he has brewed cannot be fairly called a sauce. He's not entirely sure if it's even still a liquid anymore.

"Oh…" Nik says, glancing into the pot. He can't seem to think of anything else to say.

Rufus pokes it feebly with a fork and Nik swears he sees the maroon whatever-it-is actually shrink away from the tines. "I just don't understand how I could bugger up pasta. Maybe it's salvageable…"

Nik gently tries to pry the fork from Rufus' hand. "Darling, I think it's maybe better if—"

But Rufus moves quickly to dump the noodles into the colander, wearing a less-than-convincing face of determination. He shakes the colander— he thinks he remembers Alan doing that—and uses the fork to scoop a bit onto a plate. He dips a ladle into the sauce… and tips it over the plate. It falls with a quiet 'splat!' after a painfully long moment and the two of them just stare at the plate.

"…Oh. My. God." Nik says without meaning to.

Rufus quirks his head. "Bloody hell. You couldn't really see the brown bits from the top…"

Nik raises an eyebrow at the expression on Rufus' face, which is half verging on laughter, half pulled into a sad little frown. He picks up the fork, prodding at the pasta, and figures that pasta can't be that thoroughly ruined, really. He whorls a noodle around the fork, popping it into his mouth, and makes an unaffected face of such intense sadness that Rufus completely dissolves into hysterical laughter.

"Leave it," Rufus wipes at his eyes, laughing like a complete loon. "Leave it. It's completely fucked. Look at it."

"Right. Indian takeaway, then?" Nik goes off to the phone, leaving Rufus still giggling madly as he bins the entire mess. After a few minutes, he manages to calm down and calls to Nik in the hallway. "Did he say how long it'd be?"

"Half of an hour. …I'm for the shower, then," Nik replies and Rufus catches the clear invitation in his voice.

Rufus doesn't need to be asked twice (or… at all, really) and wriggles out of his jeans right there in the kitchen when he hears the shower start to run. He heads for the bathroom and kicks off his boxers, noting Nik's clothes folded neatly on the counter with a smile.

He finds Nik already under the spray, the pale skin of his shoulders and chest and neck flushed pink by the steam, the water slicking down his hair and beading off his shoulders. For a moment, Rufus just stands and stares at him, marveling, as always, that he's allowed to. The lines of his body; the flex of his arms as he rubs lather over stomach; his arse (which Rufus has an admitted reverence for); the quiet bliss on his face as he lifts it to the spray. It's the way the heat curls the hair at the nape of Nik's neck, of all things, that sets him to motion.

As soon as he's stepped into the shower, Nik turns and meets him, pulling him –practically lifting him— into his arms . He groans a little to find Nik already hard and allows himself to be steered under the water, which manages to tame his unruly hair. His eyes slide closed at the sudden, pleasant, wet heat, grinning when Nik noses at his neck.

"Dangerous, this," Rufus says, as if he's the least bit concerned and feels Nik's lips pull into a smile against his throat.

"Worth it, I think," Nik murmurs and nips at Rufus' earlobe in a way that makes Rufus' leg jerk once and press himself closer against Nik's body. He hisses a little when his erection slides against Nik's and pulls him down for a deep, hungry, open-mouthed kiss when Nik's fingers slip over the sensitive spot where his hip meets his groin. Nik's hand wraps around Rufus' cock, uttering a low word in Danish that nearly undoes Rufus completely. "Wait" he manages, thinking suddenly of something he wanted to do last time they did this in a shower. "W-wait."

Nik pulls back, his eyes glazed.

Wordlessly, Rufus pushes Nik against the widest wall of the stall, half-sitting him on the porcelain ledge that juts out there, knocking down bottles of shampoo, which clatter into the tub and echo, making Nik suddenly tense with residual paranoia.

That settles it as far as Rufus is concerned, as he can't remember a time they've ever had sex without having to stifle themselves in one way or another. For once, he wants Nik to completely let go, as it's Nik who's usually had the harder time keeping quiet, much to Rufus' amusement. Of the two of them, it's Nik who is the yeller; Nik who is most likely to accidentally get them caught. And it upsets Rufus, because he happens to find the fact sexy as fucking hell, but Nik has always hated it, embarrassed by his vocality in bed.

Well, we're not in bed, Rufus thinks, pressing Nik against the wall and sinking to his knees, dragging his fingers down Nik's thighs, with deliberate, agonizing slowness. He nuzzles Nik's stomach for a moment and kisses the tender spot just below Nik's left hipbone where he has a single freckle. He gently noses at the dark blond curls between Nik's legs, brushing his lips along Nik's cock, making Nik's knees buckle a little. He takes Nik into his mouth and hums at the pleasant, faintly soapy taste of him.

Nik exhales at the sudden, tickling, wet warmth, his head falling back and hitting the wall with a soft 'thud!'. Rufus darts his eyes up to see if he's hurt, but Nik hardly seems to have noticed, his fingers twisting in Rufus' hair in a way that probably ought to hurt, but doesn't – that feels completely brilliant, in fact.

Rufus draws in him and out of his mouth, and when Nik's hips instinctively begin to roll, he steels his forearms against them, practically pinning Nik to the wall. Nik wails a little at being restrained and when Rufus looks up at him, he notices Nik's hand creeping up over his mouth to try to muffle himself in the unforgiving reverb of the shower. He closes his hand over Nik's wrist, pulling the hand back down. "Don't," he whispers," I want to really hear you."

A sort of calm settles over Nik's face and he manages to nod, moaning unsteadily when Rufus begins to suck him again, harder and harder.

Rufus feels Nik tug at his hair again, sharper this time – a warning for Rufus to pull back a little; a warning Rufus doesn't need as Nik is making little, telltale noises that makes Rufus' pulse throb in his ears. His fingers seek out and press the spot behind Nik's balls and Nik's back arches, something in him finally cracking. He lets out a long, low moan that echoes off the shower walls as he comes, dissolving into pleasured whimpers and heady groans.

Rufus easily swallows most of it and grips Nik around the hips to keep Nik from slipping as the blond sinks to his knees beside him, shaking and undone. Nik's hands slide around Rufus' shoulders and he buries his face into the crook of his neck, raggedly trying to catch his breath.

Something constricts in Rufus' chest as his mouth brushes the juncture of Nik's jaw. "Better than the pasta, then?" he asks, suddenly smiling.

Nik lets out a quiet, throaty laugh that makes Rufus wonder what other meals he can botch. "Brilliant…" Nik manages and gently bites at Rufus' shoulder.

Rufus whimpers a little when Nik's teeth graze his pulse point, and when Nik's mouth begins worrying at a particularly sensitive bit of his throat, it makes a distant part of his brain— the part capable of linear thought— laugh, because he knows Nik's paying him back for the purple marks blooming on Nik's neck. In a rush, his mouth seeks out Nik's, suddenly absolutely starving for him. He half-moans Nik's name and then manages only, "Nngh…love… shower."

Nik lets out a soft, tired laugh. "…What?"

"What." Rufus repeats stupidly, his brain short-circuiting as Nik begins to stroke him.

It doesn't take him long at all to come, his body shuddering up against Nik's just as the doorbell rings. "…oh, fuck off." Rufus gasps in surprise.

"Shit," Nik mutters with a tiny laugh and shakily pulls himself to his feet. He offers Rufus his hand, but Rufus shakes his head.

"I think I'm going to just… sit here a minute…if that's ok," he smiles from the shower floor.

Nik pulls his white waffle robe from it's place on the back of the door where Rufus had put it hours earlier, pulling it on and heading out to answer the door.

Rufus sits in the shower stall and thinks that he can't believe that in all this time—the six years they've been having sex— they've never really gotten the chance to do something so fun in a shower before. He manages to get up and turn the water off, thinking how rigorously he plans on making up for lost time, and stands in the doorway, watching Nik return from the door with a bag full of cartons, which he places on their tiny table.

"I think I startled the delivery boy looking like this," Nik confesses.

Rufus eyes him appreciatively. "I'm willing to bet you didn't."

Nik grins cheekily at him, bringing out his dimples in a way that makes Rufus' brain go embarrassingly blank again, and then laughs when he sees Rufus. "What are you doing?"

"I'm walking naked through our apartment," Rufus says, doing a little strut for good measure.

"I see," Nik rolls his eyes, but can't seem to stop smiling. He sets the cartons on the table where Rufus attacks them.

"I'm sitting at the table naked… in our apartment," Rufus says with a feverish new lease on life as Nik sits across from him.

"You are defiling innocent furniture…in our apartment."

Rufus shrugs, humming happily as he starts to eat. "I'm eating chicken tikka naked… in our apartment."

"Would you pass me a samosa… naked… in our apartment, then?"

Rufus scoots the waxy, white box towards him with his fork. "…I just keep expecting someone to come home or something."

"Or for Ben to come parasailing through the window?"

"Eh," Rufus cringes, "don't say The Name." He stuffs a bit of naan in his mouth with sudden, petulant animosity, "Besides, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named can't parasail."

The corners of Nik's mouth twitches. "One doesn't need to parasail… when you can disapparate."

Rufus grins and kicks him under the table.

"He wouldn't come here anyway," Nik waves his hand, dismissively, and lifts his eyebrows with posh condescension. Nik's talent for mimicry is something Rufus has always had exclusive access to… which is a pity, Rufus has to admit, as Nik really does have quite the flair for it. His Geoff is particularly good (and can often be achieved by no more than simply scruffing up his hair and stumbling around the kitchen), but his Ben is dead-on.

Nik smirks, squaring his shoulders back, and folds his arms across his chest. His eyes shift and narrow suspiciously at the Indian food, his mouth pursing into a little moue of distaste as Rufus starts to giggle. "I wish there were something that could be done about it," Nik says, miming Ben's pompous murmur with frightening accuracy. "It's no concern of mine if you prefer that little… Swedish boyfriend of yours to actual responsibility. Now, if you don't mind, I have lurking to do." Nik adopts a face of intense— nearly constipated— brooding that leaves Rufus practically paralyzed with laughter.

"D-don't! Ugh, it's like having him here!"

"As though I enjoy being here," Nik drawls, "God only knows what you two have been doing on the furniture. I'll have to go rinse the residual poof off me in the shower."

"You're barking," Rufus croaks, "Ack, please don't make me picture my cousin in that shower. That shower is sacred."

"It certainly is now," Nik agrees, back to normal. "Did you start mapping out downstairs for the shop yet?" He asks, going to the icebox and coming back with two water bottles, one of which he tosses to Rufus, who beams at the question.

"I just have to make some phone calls tomorrow. Business loans. I feel terribly grown up."

"That's a little frightening, love."

"Do you think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Or-Be-Allowed-In-Our-Shower would kill me if I named it The Pink Rabbit?"

"Yes. And then He'd call His lawyer."

"Olly wouldn't come after me." Rufus dismisses and then considers that he no longer knows enough about Ben to know if Olly actually is his lawyer. The thought heartens him. Still, after a few moments, he scrunches his nose thoughtfully. "It's a rubbish name anyway."

"It is," Nik nods, nicking the carton of chicken tikka from Rufus' side of the table.

"Mum's still the word about starting up the shop to mum and dad though," Rufus says.

"They are still hoping you'll take over up the street?" Of the hotels the Fairchildren own in London, The Black Rabbit is the smallest; 100 rooms or so, right by the American Embassy, which is indeed, Rufus thinks, practically up the street. Expanding it had been one of the very first projects given to Ben when he'd joined the company two years ago and, though Rufus knows it's a little immature, he can't help but feel it's sort of tainted now.

Rufus shrugs. "They think it'd be convenient, but… I prefer job security. I'd just be fired when He fully took the reins."

Nik looks like he's considering disagreeing with that, but doesn't, knowing better than to doubt Rufus on that matter. "That's fine. I would like there to be at least something we don't owe your family for."

"Wouldn't want to start another fund jar."

"Don't make fun," Nik smiles, and Rufus closes his hand over his on the table.

"I never would."

"Promise?"

"Ye- why?" Rufus pauses at the look on Nik's face, which is a mix of pride and intense embarrassment; the look he usually gets when he's gone and done something decidedly un-Nik-like. "What did you do?" He asks and when he finds Nik already blushing, he bounces in his seat, beside himself with predatory glee. "What did you do?!"

"I might have gone into a shop…"

Rufus' ears perk up, knowing already what he means. "What sort of shop?"

"You know what sort of shop, Ru."

"No idea what you mean," Rufus insists innocently while Nik goes wonderfully, insanely red.

"A bleeding… the bleeding sex shop up the road."

"Bollocks," Rufus laughs and Nik goes to where his briefcase lies by the door. The little pot he brings back is a little anti-climatic, but when Rufus rubs a bit of the slippery stuff inside between his fingers, it feels ridiculously nice. It's an embarrassing fact of life, but finding stuff like this had always been particularly tricky. Back home in the village, it had been damn near impossible and they'd spent the first three years of their sex lives experimenting with all manner of things (some of which were alright and some of which Rufus prefers to forget). Even at university, it hadn't been easy; what most pharmacies did carry had been especially for ladies, or had been too sticky, or had been flavoured (an invention that Rufus finds stupendously asinine as when he's having sex, he wants to taste Nik, not mangoes).

"It's, um," Nik clears his throat and Rufus grins at just how much like the sixteen-year-old he once was he sounds like again, "It's specifically for blokes…"

"Who use it on other blokes?"

"Yeah. Yes."

"So, let me see if I have this right… you went into a sex shop in your business suit, bought anal lube, and then tucked it into your briefcase?"

Nik folds his arms, his blush intensifying. "…yeah?"

"I love you so much, you don't even know," Rufus laughs, positively glowing. "Sneaky bastard," he murmurs, admiration clear in his voice. "How is it you managed to go into one when I still can't?"

The corner of Nik's mouth twitches a little. "Well, you are an Englishman."

"Mmm, but one who gives brilliant head apparently," Rufus smirks and suddenly smacks the table with disappointed realization. "The shower! Why didn't you tell me this before the shower?!"

"Well, you did sort of jump me at the door," Nik shrugs, looking sheepish again. "Besides it's not like…we can't make use of it now."

The rest of the night is spent making use of it and noshing on the takeaway. They make use of it on the sofa and then the armchair. They do some unpacking and rearrange a few pieces of furniture that were too heavy for Rufus to move on his own, sliding Nik's desk up against the wall opposite Rufus' piano before making use of Nik's purchase atop both. They unpack the dishes, casting the waste basket holding the Great Pasta Monstrosity dark glances, and don't make use of it on the kitchen table only because the gang will be coming for dinner tomorrow and even Rufus has to admit that'd be a bit skeevy.

Bed is much welcomed and comes fairly early (for Rufus, at least).

Perhaps a little too early, as when Rufus wakes the next morning, it's barely light outside. Of course, it also means that Nik is still asleep beside him and that he can snuggle up to the warm line of his body and nuzzle at his neck, which is infinitely better than waking up alone.

Eventually, Nik's eyes blearily blink open and he smiles beatifically to find Rufus awake. "Hallo."

"'lo," Rufus murmurs, rubbing his cheek against Nik's chest, and Nik kisses his forehead, sleepily petting at his hair.

"Why're you 'wake?"

Rufus kisses him back. "Dunno."

"Timizzit?" Nik yawns, languorously stretching out his long legs beneath their white duvet.

"Bloody 6 a.m."

"Mm." Nik's hand slides up the curve of Rufus' arse. "I've half an hour before m'supposed to get up for work," he offers.

Rufus gives him an affectionate shove, but eagerly responds when Nik starts kissing him. Their legs wrap together and for ages they just snog with sleepy contentment in the fuzzy, purple-grey light, the thought of having only a half an hour disappearing completely from their minds. That's one of Rufus' favorite things about sex (aside from how easily it makes people unabashedly do silly things): how time halts. How the very concept of time can so easily be forgotten and replaced by the immediate cause-and-effect of their bodies. How it doesn't matter that the day outside is already promising to be rainy and crap or that he still has so much unpacking to do today because none of the things in those boxes are what really makes this place home for him. Having to deal with the bank, being rubbish at cooking, worrying about how Rebecca was at home, wondering what to get his mum for her birthday (or how he could ever possibly thank her for everything she's done for them), wondering if he should even bother trying to ring Ben on Ben's birthday this year or not, wondering what the hell he was going to feed the gang that night… he could forget all of it for just a little while. With Nik there, nothing else exists outside of their room (Rufus is dubious of even anything outside of their bed).

He stops Nik when Nik begins to kiss his way down Rufus' stomach with great purpose, pulling him back up. "No… I want you to fuck me," he says softly, though the more appropriate word would be need. He touches their foreheads together, staring right into Nik's eyes. "I want to still be able to feel you after you've gone."

"Christ, Ru," Nik manages hoarsely and his hand fumbles for the little pot of lubrication that Rufus may or may not have deliberately left out on their bedside table last night. He dips his fingers into it and traces slow circles at Rufus' entrance, teasing him open until Rufus is writhing and pressing against Nik's fingers, more than ready. Nik dips back into the pot, coating himself as Rufus adjusts himself on his back, lifting his hips up a little so Nik can position himself between them.

They've tried numberless different ways, but this is how Rufus prefers it (though he's hardly unenthusiastic about any of the other ways). It's simply that this way he can watch Nik's face; this way that the largest possible amount of their skin be touching.

Nik presses into him, deeply enough that their chests touch, drawing a strangled little cry from Rufus as his neck arches back. Rufus whimpers at the loss of that wonderful, filling pressure when Nik has to pull back a little, but when Nik slides back into him, tracing a line up Rufus' throat with his tongue as he does (like the brilliant, brilliant man he is), it finally, fully occurs to Rufus that he really doesn't have to try to stay quiet as possible. Something in him cracks and he lets out a low, shaky moan – possibly the loudest he's ever made in his life.

It's loud enough to startle Nik, who stares down at him with flushed, glassy-eyed surprise. Rufus half-laughs, half-sobs and kisses him, knowing with frightening certainty that he'll never love anything half as much as the man inside him now; that he'll never be more competent or more happy doing anything than doing this.

Above his head, his hand seeks out Nik's where it's braced against the mattress, brushing their knuckles together as Nik begins to slide in and out— slowly, at first, and then faster when Rufus begins to rock his hips back.

For a moment, Rufus just watches him, a sharp spark of pleasure in his belly every time Nik bites his lip or tenses his jaw, and thinks how fucking gorgeous Nik really is like this, hot and flushed and moaning. He slips his hand down between them, deliberately skating them across Nik's stomach, and wraps it around his own cock, seamlessly picking up the rhythm of Nik's thrusts as he strokes himself, and suddenly it's impossibly good. It's one of those miraculous times when everything is working phenomenally in sync and all he can do is drop his forehead onto Nik's shoulder, his entire body instinctively curling up closer to Nik's as they rock together, back and forth and back and forth, each thrust drawing a desperate, quivering gasp from him, which he lets ring out in the room.

"G-God…Nik," he whimpers, "Nikki."

At that, Rufus feels the muscles of Nik's stomach tense and shudder against his fingers, Nik's thrusts becoming unsteady and shallow as he comes. Slow, ragged moans tear from Nik's throat that push Rufus over the edge and he comes harder than he has in weeks just as Nik's arms give out, writhing and gasping with such abandon that it's ages before the blood stops roaring in his ears and he comes back down to earth.

Eventually, his eyes refocus, the light freckles on Nik's shoulder coming into startlingly definition. He leans up, kissing the little patch of them, and Nik murmurs from where his face is buried in the crook of Rufus' neck.

They stay this way for a few minutes, before, slowly, Nik rolls off him and onto his back. "Jesus," he breathes and Rufus tries to formulate a smartass reply, but finds he can't.

"Guh," he says instead, feeling terribly profound for a man as sticky as he is.

"That was…"

"Guh," Rufus supplies again, resting his head on Nik's chest.

"Yeah." Nik's fingers thread through Rufus' and he grins, clearly quite chuffed at having rendered Rufus momentarily incoherent.

"I want to get in the shower… but I think if I try to get up…my legs won't work."

"Is that an excuse for me to carry you?"

"Please carry me, O Scandinavian God of Chicken Tikka 'n' Tasteful Lube 'n'…Briefcases."

Nik quirks his eyebrows. "Briefcases?"

"Yes…. Samsonite, God of Briefcases," Rufus murmurs with a bleary giggle and yelps with surprise when he's suddenly pulled into Nik's arms.

Nik carries him to the bathroom, setting him down only to turn on the water.

Rufus slips into the shower behind Nik… to really shower this time. They stand together under the spray and just relax, distracting each other with long, drowsy kisses that lead nowhere and don't have to. They clean each other rather than themselves and Rufus takes advantage of Nik being tired enough to allow him to sculpt his hair up into wild, soapy peaks. Sleepily, Nik smiles and smears a little lather down on either side of his face, creating makeshift sideburns that look just like Rufus', "I'm showering naked…in our apartment. Hurr hurr."

Rufus pinches him in the ribs once and Nik squirms away. "Arse," he accuses fondly as Nik rinses his hair.

They towel off, heading back into their room, where Rufus is content to simply slump on the bed and burrow under the duvet while Nik heads to the closet. He watches Nik dress, smiling beatifically at Nik's comfortable lack of reaction to the Jackson Pollack painting that is their closet, and his smile stretches when Nik selects the only tie Rufus has ever gotten him (in the full knowledge that Nik wouldn't wear it). It's a bright shade of coral and, indeed, Nik has worn it all of once. Nik flings the tie across the back of his neck and knots it, the color (which Rufus really can't wear himself) bringing a healthy flush to his face and making his eyes seem startlingly too-blue. Nik adjusts his crisp white collar to hide the marks Rufus left on his neck last night, and Rufus shivers as he remembers what he said earlier. …still be able to feel you after you've gone.

Nik glances towards the bed and catches the half-lidded look in Rufus' eyes. "Don't," he laughs. "I'm already dressed."

Rufus snuggles deeper into the duvet with a sly grin. "Can't move anyway. M'bones are jello." He genuinely yawns. "Maybe this is my sleepy face. Did you consider that, you conceited thing?"

"Hard to tell the difference between one default or another," Nik shrugs, pulling on his jacket.

"Bugger you," Rufus snickers, finding it hard to keep his eyes open. "Noooo," he mewls when Nik sits on the edge of the bed and nuzzles the back of neck, "Bones's'puddin'."

"Have to go, love," Nik explains softly and makes to get back up.

"………. noooo."

Nik kisses a spot close to his ear, which prompts a happy, lazy snuffle from him. "You're very wonderful, you know?" he asks after a moment, his accent, unbidden, catching in his voice.

"M'not. M'rubbish at pasta."

"Don't care. Jeg elsker dig."

"yelsinoreday," Rufus manages, and drops off back to sleep, truly free for the first time in a long while of any stress and knowing that when he wakes up, the rest of his new life will be waiting for him.

***

So, to tally:
Pasta Dishes Ruined: 1
Sexy Danes: 1
Accurate Impressions of Ben Being a Pompous Ass: 1
Items of Furniture/Showers Christened: 5+
Sexual Acts Within a Period of 12 Hours: 6
Sexual Acts Actually Shown "Onscreen": 2 (sorry)

It needs to be said that I find the notion of Rufus, Nik, Geoff and Alan living together at university ridiculously hot. I'm a bad person. I'm a little afraid that now that my smut-writing-virginity has been broken, none of my characters are safe.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have to go find somewhere to die.

Hitachi Horror

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:11:43 GMT

Our conversation on Fahrenheit 451 in class today ended with discussing vibrators.

And it was Mr. Avinger who brought them up.

This class is amazing.

The rest of the pics are on Facebook

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:32:58 GMT

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

HALLOWEEN

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:37:13 GMT

For Sean. I was bored:

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I adore Halloween and am so.pumped.for.the.party. As I mentioned to Leah, Nick and I might be up to a half an hour late. Neither he nor I have the gas money this week for me to go get him, so his parents need to do it. Problem is, his mum can't get there until 6-6:30, putting him in Brighton around 7:45. Wonderful. And I can't go on ahead because he needs to come to my place for part of his costume. Being dressed like Marie Antoinete will probably make waiting around even more depressing.

In other news, I changed my own earrings without assitance and/or flailing, which is good. The one ear is still very difficult to work with since it has a big bump at the site of the piercing, making it hard to find the exit hole.

Finally, I need to go in and talk to my counselors this week as I would like to finish my Associate's this upcoming semester. However, that means taking 22 credits when the maximum is 17. But it's only six classes (only one more than what I'm taking this semester) and only 4 more hours of class a week than what I'm taking his semester. Which I'm more than capable of handling, but I know they're going to dick with me. That's the only thing I dislike about Community College, the counselors can be very condescending. They don't mean to be; they just are. Take the average bumbling counselor and multiply it by 3. It's like they assume that because you're at Community, you must be stupid, which is an implication I resent as stupid people are the exception there, not the rule. Our teachers don't treat us like morons, so why should the administration? Whatever.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:45:35 GMT

So, today a Muslim family in their traditional headgear came into my dad's work to buy a car. And no one besides my dad would help them. All the other salesmen went and hid or passed them along to someone else. One of the salesmen got pretty mad when my dad kicked him out of his east-facing office (interrupting a very involved game of Farmville), so that they could have a place to pray. Even the clerk refused to fill out their paperwork and made my dad do it.

So, in other words, these salesmen just refused service to a couple of doctors with sparkling credit in the midst of an economic disaster just because they're too busy being cowardly little prejudiced fuckrags?

I really fucking hate it here sometimes.

People like this make moving seem all the more desireable. That claustrophobic feeling is creeping back in, btw. The land-locked feeling. Granted, that may have something to do with the fact I spent most of the day browsing Florida real estate, but seriously... when a glimpse of the ocean out the window in a photo of someone's kitchen makes you want to start crying, I think it's time to go back to the damn beach (I haven't seen the ocean in four. fucking. years.) I seriously want to cry just thinking about it right now. And it is the stupidest thing to be upset about ever, but I just can't explain it. You know what? It's actually quite similar to how I feel when I have caffeine withdrawal. Seriously.

In other news, today I perfected my Marie Antoinette costume. It looks pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

P.S. My dad did manage to find them a nice car, btw. (It's for their son).

OMG OMG OMG DAVID

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:50:55 GMT

Oh my God, guys, I am on Cloud 9. I just went and saw David Sedaris for the first time ever and briefly got to meet him when he signed my books!

I am so happy right now, you don't even know.

Me and Katelyn got tickets last minute for The Wharton Theater in Lansing (I absolutely had to go. I've missed it everytime he's come to Ann Arbor and he won't be back in Michigan for two years). So we went to Noodles & Co. and Katelyn patiently put up with my childlike squee the entire night. Including standing in line with me for an hour and 40 minutes to get my books signed. Because she loves me. And I love her. And I owe her so bad now since she still had homework to finish and what no.

I have to say seeing David isn't the weird part... hearing him is. It's surreal to hear that voice come out of someone in front of you instead of, you know, an iPod. Anyway, he read a lot of new material (including a fiction piece skewering ultra-right-wing house wives) and told us about the book he has coming out next year (a collection of morality tales "Though since I don't have very straight morals, they're more like... stories with animals.") He also recommended "Our Dumb World", a parody atlas put out by The Onion which David describes as "very naughty". It's fucking amazing (Katelyn spotted me some extra cash... because she loves me. And I love her.)

BUT THEN BUT THEN I GOT TO MEET HIM. (I am still on such a buzz). He really is so sweet with his fans. He took time to talk to everybody and sign everything that they want signed (hence why the line moved at a crawl). I had him sign my copy of When You are Engulfed in Flames and my sad, beat to shit copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day. This second one I brought alone hesitantly, but mom insisted I bring it for sentimental value.

Mom: You could tell him you've had it since you were 12!
Me: ........I don't want to make him feel old.

I laughed so hard when he wrote that. I put my battered copy on the table and he sort of looked at it, all amused.

Me: Heh, I've had this one since I was twelve.
David: How old are you now?
Me: ........21.
David: *depressed little moan* *writes*
Me: LOL

He asked me if I knew anyone with Swine Flu. I mentioned a couple kids in my French class have been out with it. He asked me how long I've been taking French and if I enjoyed it. I said two years but that this was my first serious semester and that I loved it. He taught me a new word (the most important/used word in French, he says) "conneries" which means "bullshit". Then he signed my other book

LOL WHUT?

(Katelyn quite cleverly thought it might have something to do with the upcoming animals book.)

Anyway, I thanked him and moved on. I really wanted to talk more...actually I wanted to tell him the masochistic fact that Me Talk Pretty made me start writing but
a) I was much too shy to open that embarrassing can of worms
b) He only had a half hour left to sign and there were still a ton of people behind us. So, I wanted to be courteous...unlike the dozens of people ahead of us who had him signing 5/6 books and just had to tell him every mildly funny story they could think of in the hopes of making it into a book.

If I meet him again, which I plan to... perhaps I'll mention it then. It just seemed such a clichéd thing to say.

Though I have to say... I knew he'd be nice, but he's so much nicer than I could've imagined. I don't think I could stand meeting someone whose work I loved and have them turn out to be a dick (like Philip Pullman is rumored to be). But David is really wonderful. He really seems to love what he's doing (not that I blame him) and to love talking to people.

And the Venture Bros. premiere is on!

Best.Sunday.Ever.

It's in the Eyes... No, Seriously

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:51:03 GMT

I read Stephen King's treatise on the horror genre Danse Macabre this month. It's a very cool book and dead useful when writing papers on horror. The whole book is more or less a stream of awesome quotes and anecdotes, but I really love this notion:
I remarked to an interviewer once that most great writers have a curious childish look to their faces, and that this seems even more pronounced in the faces of those who write fantasy.

He goes on to describe what he means, citing a few specific examples, and expalins that it's really in the eyes. How, even when they're old, so many writers still have very child-like eyes. And, of course, being the dork I am, I did some research!

Jacob Grimm (the hot one)

Wilhelm Grimm

He gets a proper picture instead of a younger portrait. I had a hard time finding an actual decent photo of Jacob.

Hans Christian Andersen

Mary Shelley

Lewis Carroll

(He may just have opium eyes)

Edgar Allan Poe

Jules Verne (Poe's number 1 fanboy)

Bram Stoker

J.M. Barrie

L. Frank Baum

H.G. Wells

Lol, omg, aw.

H.P. Lovecraft
The same look is in Lovecraft's eyes—they startle with their simple dark directness, especially in
that narrow, pinched, and somehow eternal New England face.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Young!RalphFiennes-esque!Tolkien

Isaac Bashevis Singer
But perhaps the look I'm trying to describe (or indicate; actual description is really impossible) is most visible on the face of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who, while regarded as a "straight" writer of literature by the critical establishment, has nonetheless made the cataloguing of devils, angels, demons, and dybbuks a good part of his career. Grab a Singer book and take a good look at the author photo (you can read the book, too, when you're done looking at Singer's picture, okay?). It is the face of an old man, but that is a surface so thin you could read a newspaper through it. The boy is beneath, stamped very clearly on his features. It's in his eyes, mostly; they are young and clear. --King

Guys, holy shit, seriously.

Jorge Luis Borges

(Borges was blind)

Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House)

Ray Bradbury
[The Look] is perhaps most noticeable in the face of Ray Bradbury, who retains very strongly the look of the
boy he was in Illinois—his face retains this indefinable look in spite of his sixty-plus years, his graying hair, his heavy glasses.
[...]
Ray Bradbury has the dreamy eyes of a child.

Jack Finney (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)
So, behind his thick glasses, does Jack Finney.

Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, Hell House, Somewhere in Time, What Dreams May Come,"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and tons of inspirations for other "Twilight Zone" episodes. Seriously, just bow before this man's awesomeness.)

Robert Bloch (Psycho)
Robert Bloch has the face of a sixth-grade cutup, the Klass Klown, don't you know, although he is past sixty (just how far past I would not venture to guess; he might send Norman Bates after me); it is the face of the kid who sits in the back of the classroom—at least until the teacher assigns him a place up front, which usually doesn't take long—and makes screeching sounds on the top of his desk with the palms of his hands.

Frank Herbert (Dune)

Ira Levin (my home snake) (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives)

Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison has the face of a tough inner-city kid, confident enough in himself to be kind in
most cases, but more than able to fuck you over royally if you give him any shit.
[...]
Harlan Ellison, in spite of his rapid jive-talking shoot-from-the-hip Nervous-Norvus mode of conversation (talking with Harlan can sometimes be like talking with an apocalyptic Saladmaster salesman who has just taken
three large bennies), has those eyes. Every now and then he'll pause, looking away, looking at something else, and you know that it's true: Harlan is bent, and he just thought his way around a corner.

Isaac Asimov

Arthur C. Clarke

Stephen King

Peter Straub
Peter Straub, who dresses impeccably and who always seems to project the aura of some big company success, also has that look in his eyes. It is an indefinable look, but it's there.

V.C. Andrews (all her books are filed under horror in the bookshop, but to me the only ones of any real significance to the genre are Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina. I learned Wes Craven wanted to do a film version of FitA, but couldn't get funded. This makes me very sad, because instead of the dark, fairytale-like version he wanted to do, we got highly sanitized crap).

Also... she looks a lot like my grandma in a way I find unsettling.

Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park)

Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman

(I'd prefer not to speak on my massive crush on Neil. Let's move on.)

BFFS!

♥ God, they're awesome.

Thomas Harris (The Hannibal series)

Hee, I love this one.

J.K. Rowling

Aw, Jo.

Philip Pullman

Max Brooks (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide)

He has the most badass parentage:

Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks aka the most adorable Hollywood couple ever

They're all adorable.

Paul's Doin' Some Smitin'!

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:34:04 GMT

So, I just got back from seeing Zombieland with Nick (yes, I know, another zombie date). I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Not Shaun of the Dead good, but good.

On our way out, Nick (bless 'im) pointed out a certain poster featuring a certain lanky, blond Brit.

Ok, so.......... Paul Bettany as the angel Michael?

Why do you keep doing this to me, Hollywood?

The movie (Legion) doesn't look terribly good, though I suppose having an apocolypse brought on by God rather than Satan is an interesting film concept for a change.

The effects are just a tad too lulzy. Like that crap Constantine film, which really isn't the sort of thing I'd go to see. But with this poster:

...what option do I have?

I expect to make many HolyBibble jokes.

EDIT: It might be a tad premature, but... Michael/Gabriel OTP.

ARGH, why are these so fun?!

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:54:02 GMT

I think I've found one indicative of what goes on in my head all the time.

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I cannot watch this without losing my shit laughing. Gael's little dance! The tattoos! Their big bobble heads! Their apathetic expressions! The way the mouth lines keep showing up so that they look like marionettes!

I need to spend less time on the internet.

(I swear this will be the last of these I post.... for now)

Ben Needs a Pony Ride!

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:24:11 GMT

Oh my God, the mood I'm in today. Lol, you have no idea. You know those moments when writing gets a little too dark? This is one of those moments. And here's the remedy:

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French French French

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:56:08 GMT

I wrote my first completely-in-French e-mail yesterday. My professor wrote back in French and I actually understood everything he said. He said I express myself very well and it's hard to find mistakes with my grammar. *is terribly chuffed*

Of course, now if I could just speak it as well as I can read/write it.

I have such a perverse fondness for things that desecrate my childhood.

Frollo: ......excuse me?

Hee!

I've been watching Disney movies in French. That is a thorough mindfuck. I think it's the voices being different, it doesn't quite jibe with my 21 year experience with these characters. Especially the villains. No one can be as chilling a Frollo as Tony Jay. And it's no good knowing the dialogue verbatim because it's changed so drastically in another language (song lyrics are often not even remotely the same). And since the subtitles are for the English language track, they're no use either. That's good though, I guess, since my sound recognition needs work.

And I know it's an unfair comparison, since foreign lyrics have to be molded to fit the melody of the song, but:
Have pity, Maria / Protect me from this bad fate / from this evil flower and her body / Destroy Esmeralda!/ Let a curtain of fire be her only shroud! / Or else make her mine and mine alone!

Just isn't as effective as

Protect me, Maria / Don't let this siren cast her spell / Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone / Destroy Esmeralda! / And let her taste the fires of hell! / Or else let her be mine and mine alone.

For the future: just watch French films instead.

Reading The Sorceror's Stone in French is easier (again, I know the source material inside and out and so can use context clues to figure out the meaning of new words). However, that is very slow going. Having to read so slowly is disorienting and gives me quite a headache.

Curioser and Curioser

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:44:27 GMT

Today, Chase saw a man in an all white suit sitting in a van outside. He was taking photos of our house and when Chase drove past him, the man startled and a colorful parrot tried to fly out of his window.

Are pirates scoping my house?

Procrastination

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:42:12 GMT

I'm in the middle of writing an essay on Ira Levin, and am right in the middle of a paragraph discussing that the occult/possession horror genre is considered to be the most feminine of the subgenres due to the obvious metaphor of women being more "enterable" and the fact that the female sexual anatomy does more closely resemble the notion of strange, powerful, but unseen forces going on than the male's does... when I get my period.

Sorry that the first time I've posted in weeks had to be such an over-share, but I do love it when life has a sense of humor.

You know my writer's block is bad when I don't even feel like writing a brief paper on feminism in Ira Levin novels. Well, actually, it's not so much about feminism as it an argument against the argument that Levin's work is becoming obsolete because feminism has come so much farther since 1972. And, ok, #1 the idea that sexism no longer exists is a tad naive, I think; and, #2 the fears in Levin's works which are so often identified as female, aren't just female fears. I don't think anyone likes the thought of body invasion. Or having your fear brushed off as hysteria. Or being heinously betrayed by the person you love. Or losing your individuality. I mean, yeah, The Stepford Wives film is a bit camp. It's a satire (William Goldman wrote the screenplay, for God's sake). But, one with an ending that scared the hell out of me. And everything about Rosemary's Baby as a horror novel is perfect to me and nothing will ever convince me otherwise (I think I chose to write on this topic just so I could discuss what a fucking scumbag Guy Woodhouse is. If I can ever write a character who is as unspokenly and complacently vile as Guy Woodhouse, I will die a happy girl. I mean, how reprehensible does a character have to be to beat out Satan for the title of The Book's Most Despicable Villain?). And I don't know why I'm rambling about this other than I'm procrastinating and don't actually want to work on the essay itself anymore tonight. Which is odd, since under normal circumstances I could write a thesis on this subject. And with the argument of whether or not sexism still exists, a thesis would be what it took to get all my thoughts out. Which is why I'm focusing more on the female fears vs human fears thing since, unfortunately, I really need to stay under 6 pages. Blah.

And now for something completely different!

Yesterday in the car, my mum was talking about some crap, suspicious situation a childhood friend of her and Aunt Candyce's has gotten into, and said... and I quote, "Something stinks in Denver."

I laughed far harder than I can properly express to you. Hamlet, you may not know, took place slap bang in Colorado. Hee, mum and I have been cracking up over her slip for days now. Thankfully, she has a good sense of humor about such things. Seriously, you guys... LOL.

I think I only forgave her because she immediately thereafter told me a story about Aunt Candyce on the phone with her friend Jami (the same childhood friend), who was describing her boyfriend(who proves that sexism still exists by being a misogynistic, emotionally abusive asshole)'s cheating as being like Ulysses and the sirens (...yeah, ok), to which my aunt replied, "Ulysses S. Grant?"

Oh, Aunt Can.

P.S. Gah, I still have to write this fucking essay. And I have an argumentative paper due on Thursday and I haven't even picked a topic. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Oh God, I am Actually Plotzing Over This Like You Wouldn't Believe

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:03:05 GMT

You know, this birthday has put something in perspective. That despite being now 21 years old, there are still some things in life that reduce me to girlish, incoherent squealing:

1) A really awesome antique book (I'll make another post about this later)
2) Sesame Street characters, whose names I'm incapable of saying without adopting a loving, high pitched edge to my voice
3) Walt Disney World

Despite my many, many, many qualms with the Disney Corporation (mostly brought on by reading Disney: The Mouse Betrayed when I was only 10), the fact remains that I adore Disney World. I adore the escapism. I adore the art direction of the attractions and hotels. I adore the films and their characters. I adore that gay Disney employees receive health benefits for their live-in partners, thus thoroughly pissing off the religious right. Living in Florida, my family and I went to Disney 5-9 times a year and I had fun every.single.time I went. Going there immediately puts me back to a time in my life when I was perfectly happy. When Gaga was still alive, the family were all still in one place, and there was never any financial stress.

Now I was recently pretty pissed off when it was announced that Disney has acquired Marvel comics, meaning that Universal Studios Islands of Adventure will have to start cutting Disney part of their merchandising proceeds, because I despise when Disney tries to completely monopolize on anything (including Orlando). But no sooner am I glaring their way, than they give me an awesome birthday present (which does say something, I imagine, about the masochistic nature of my and Disney's relationship).

This morning, Disney announced it's plans to renovate the thoroughly blah Magic Kingdom. Girlish incoherence ahead:

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG

It has the same setup as Epcot, only with the films! And, and they're building Lady Tremaine's house! And a complete Dumbo circus with a rollercoaster! And an enchanted forest with Snow White's Cottage and Peter Pan's treehouse! AND THEY'RE PUTTING THE LITTLE MERMAID RIDE BACK! ONLY NOW IT KICKS ASS!

KICK ASS!

And then there is that which I am freaking out more about than anything else... they're building Belle's village! With that twat Gaston's tavern and everything!
If there is a little bookshop, I will totally lose my shit.

And they're building her house! Her house, Katelyn, her house! I can't even begin to tell you how much I wanted that house when I was little. Fuck castles! Look at this house!

FUCK YES!

And they're building the Beast's castle! And it's going to have a nice restaurant inside the ballroom and... and... GUH *flails*

Ok, now that I have that out of my system... um, it's not slated to be completed until 2013 (meaning that I'll be 25 and my delirious excitement will be all the sadder). Seriously, between this and the Harry Potter theme park, I'm more than ready to move to Orlando forever.

I just hope the Beast's Castle doesn't include his library, because if it does...

........just expect to never see me again. I will have poofed into the gleeful ether.

The End is Here: Carrie Fanmix

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:40:11 GMT

It's fanmix time again (I haven't posted one in yonks). Anyway, one of our projects in Horror/Scifi is a creative, alternative media project, so naturally... I did a fanmix. Because I'm a fandom geek. And, of course, I picked Carrie to do it on because it's one of my favorite horror novels/films ever. I saw the film/read the book the first time when I was just starting middle school, a time in my life that had me relating to Carrie more than I'd care to say.

Stephen King's first novel Carrie is the cautionary tale of Carrie White, a seventeen-year-old girl who's spent her entire life being emotionally and physically abused by not only her overbearing, fanatically religious mother, but also by her classmates at school.

Graffiti scratched on a desk of the Barker Street Grammar School in Chamberlain:
Carrie White eats shit

What goes unnoticed by her classmates and teachers (though certainly not by her mother) is whenever Carrie is in great distress, strange things happen: Lightbulbs pop and fizzle, ashtrays throw themselves off desks, ...meteors rain from the sky. Carrie has been born with a recessive TK gene, and after having her very traumatic first period in the locker room shower, Carrie's telekenetic powers begin to more strongly manifest themselves than they did when she was a child (allowing her more control over them).

However, when the ultimate humiliation is levelled on her on Prom Night, her mind snaps and, and in a telekinetic coma, she destroys not only the gym with her classmates inside, but the entire town in a cataclysm of death.

o1. O Death - Jen Titus
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over another year?
Well, what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me?
When God is gone and the Devil takes hold
Who will have mercy on your soul?

O, Death
O, Death
No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell

O, Death
O, Death
My name is Death and the End is here...

o2. Blood Theme - Daniel Licht
Never having been told about menstruation, Carrie has her first period in the locker room shower and assumes she's bleeding to death. She reacts hysterically, to the disgust and amusement of her classmates, who begin throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her, chanting "PLUG IT UP PLUG IT UP".

Sue was throwing them too, throwing and chanting with the rest, not really sure what she was doing-a charm had occurred to her mind and it glowed there like neon: There's no harm in it really no harm in it really no harm- It was still flashing and glowing, reassuringly, when Carrie suddenly began to howl and back away, flailing her arms and grunting and gobbling.

The girls stopped, realizing that fission and explosion had finally been reached.

Instrumental

o3. The Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson
"Per-iod!"
The catcall came first from Chris Hargensen.

Christine Hargensen & co.
And I don't want you and I don't need you
Don't bother to resist, or I'll beat you
It's not your fault that you're always wrong
The weak ones are there to justify the strong

The beautiful people, the beautiful people
It's all relative to the size of your steeple
You can't see the forest for the trees
You can't smell your own shit on your knees

There's no time to discriminate,
Hate every motherfucker
That's in your way

"She can't get away with it!" She opened a door at random, pulled out a pair of sneakers and hurled them across the room. "I'm going to get her! Goddammit! Goddammit! See if I don't! If we all stick together we can-"
"Shut up, Chris," Sue said, and was shocked to hear a dead, adult lifelessness in her voice. "Just shut up."
"This isn't over," Chris Hargensen said, unzipping her skirt with a rough jab and reaching for her fashionably frayed green gym shorts. "This isn't over by a long way."
And she was right.

o4. The Attic - Christopher Young
Carrie's house.
Instrumental
Bright daylight disappeared and was replaced by brown shadows, coolness, and the oppressive smell of talcum powder
[...]
the room was actually dominated by a huge plaster crucifix on the far wall, fully four feet high. Momma had mail-ordered it special from St. Louis. The Jesus impaled upon it was frozen in a grotesque, muscle-straining rictus of pain, mouth drawn down in a groaning curve. His crown of thorns bled scarlet streams down temples and forehead. The eyes were turned up in a medieval expression of slanted agony. Both hands were also
drenched with blood and the feet were nailed to a small plaster platform. This corpus had also given Carrie endless nightmares in which the mutilated Christ chased her through dream corridors, holding a mallet and nails, begging her to take up her cross and follow Him. Just lately these dreams had evolved into something less understandable but more sinister. The object did not seem to be murder but something even more awful.

o5. Hands on the Bible - Local H

Margaret White
"O Lord," Momma declaimed hugely, her head thrown back, "help this sinning woman beside me here see the sin of her days and ways. Show her that if she had remained sinless the Curse of Blood never would have come on her. She may have committed the Sin of Lustful Thoughts. She may have been listening to rock 'n roll music on the radio. She may have been tempted by the Antichrist. Show her that this is Your kind, vengeful
hand at work and-"
"No! Let me go!"
She tried to struggle to her feet and Momma's hand, as strong and pitiless as an iron manacle, forced her back to her knees.
"-and Your sign that she must walk the straight and narrow from here on out if she is to avoid the flaming agonies of the Eternal Pit. Amen."
She turned her glittering, magnified eyes upon her daughter. "Go to your closet now."
"No!" She felt her breath go thick with terror.
"Go to your closet. Pray in secret. Ask forgiveness for your sin."
"I didn't sin, Momma. You sinned. You didn't tell me and they laughed."
Again she seemed to see a flash of fear in Momma's eyes, gone as quickly and soundlessly as summer lightning.

Hands on the Bible
Scared Like a Child
God holds you liable
For what you've done
Homicidal
Stare down your idols
A pretty baby never born

You can't believe it, you didn't mean it
but they saw you do it and they know your name

Rats in the attic
Toys in the cellar
She's an addict
He wants to learn
Hands on the bible
Egomaniacal as you screw yourself into oblivion

Worn and faded
Stoned and jaded
You'll have to face it on your own
Smashed on the pavement
Stunned in amazement
Everything you made comes crawling back to you

o6. Summer: Tense - Clint Mansell
The Powers
Instrumental
Her mind had ... had ... she groped for a word. Had flexed. That was not just right, but it was very close. There had been a curious mental bending, almost like an elbow curling a dumbbell. That wasn't exactly right either, but it was all she could think of. An elbow with no strength. A weak baby muscle. Flex.

Feeling guilty for her part in what happened in the locker room, Sue Snell has her boyfriend, (ultra popular, ultra goodlooking, ultra everything) Tommy Ross, take Carrie to prom in the hopes of giving Carrie at least one happy night. Catching wind of what Sue has done, Chris Hargensen (still livid over not being allowed to go to prom because of her refusal to serve detention for what she did to Carrie) formulates a prank along with her skeeze boyfriend, Billy Nolan, that will completely humiliate Carrie at the height of her happiness. Two buckets of pig's blood are set up in the rafters over the stage where the King and Queen of the Prom will be crowned.

o7. The Alternate World Waltz - Lisa DeBenedictis
The Prom.
The first thing that struck Carrie when they walked in was Glamor. Not glamor but Glamor. Beautiful shadows rustled about in chiffon, lace, silk, satin. The air was redolent with the odor of flowers; the nose was constantly amazed by it. Girls in dresses with low backs, with scooped bodices showing actual cleavage, with Empire waists. Long skirts, pumps. Blinding white dinner jackets, cummerbunds, black shoes that had been Spit-shined.
A few people were on the dance floor, not many yet, and in the soft revolving gloom they were wraiths without substance. She did not really want to see them as her classmates. She wanted them to be beautiful strangers.
Tommy's hand was firm on her elbow. "The mural's nice," he said.
"Yes," she agreed faintly.
It had taken on a soft nether light under the orange spots, the boatman leaning with eternal indolence against his tiller while the sunset blazed around him and the buildings conspired together over urban waters. She knew with suddenness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory.
She doubted if they all sensed it-they had seen the world-but even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognizable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. Her soul knew a moment's calm, as if it had been uncrumpled and smoothed under an iron.

Now I am home
And we are wrapped in our red sheets

Women step out
of their dark houses to clip their red grass
Down at the church
You can see history done in stained glass
In the beginning, there was a big bang, angels
And in the end, we will all go to a beautiful garden

When the heart makes such heavy demands
Take my hand in your hand and we'll dance

I've got a white magic 8 Ball that always lies
Shake it around and ask if we'll be alright
It says "Not likely"
but here that's a good sign
The Alternate World Waltz...

o8. I Like Pretending - IAMX
Tommy and Carrie
While he held out her chair, she saw the candle and asked Tommy if he would light it. He did. Their eyes met over its flame. He reached out and took her hand. And the band played on.

But your silver skin soothes my aching curses
and reminds me that you're worth it.
The whole world's insanities
The bleeding hearts and tragedies
Won't distract me from the deathwish

Are we pretending?
Are we pretending?
Are we pretending?
I like pretending

Are we pretending?
Are we pretending?
Are we pretending?
'cos I like pretending

o9. Meltdown (short) - Clint Mansell
The Prank
Instrumental
When the buckets fell, she was at first only aware of a loud, metallic clang cutting through the music, and then she was deluged in warmth and wetness. She closed her eyes instinctively. There was a grunt from beside her, and in the part of her mind that had come so recently awake, she sensed brief pain.
(tommy)
The music came to a crashing, discordant halt, a few voices hanging on after it like broken strings, and in the sudden deadness of anticipation, filling the gap between event and realization, like doom, she heard someone say quite clearly:
"My God, that's blood."

1o. Spookshow Baby- Rob Zombie
Carrie snaps
The lobby doors all slammed shut. The sound was like hands clapping. Somebody in the back screamed, and that started the stampede. They ran for the doors in a rush. I just stood there, not believing it. And when I looked, just before the first of them got there and started to push, I saw Carrie looking in, her face all smeared, like an Indian with war paint on.
She was smiling.
They were pushing at the doors, hammering on them, but they wouldn't budge. As more of them crowded up against them, I could see the first ones to get there being battered against them, grunting and wheezing. They wouldn't open. And those doors are never locked. It's a state law.
Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lublin waded in, and began to pull them away, grabbing jackets, skirts, anything. They were all screaming and burrowing like cattle. Mr. Stephens slapped a couple of girls and punched Vic Mooney in the eye. They were yelling for them to go out the back fire doors. Some did. Those were the ones who lived.

Red rain, no pain
Fallin down over you yeah
Wicked man yes I can a walkin all over you yeah

Hunger! Inside you
Hunger!
Hunger! Destroy you
Hunger!

She's a killer!
She's a thriller!
Spookshow baby!
She's a killer!
She's a thriller!
Yeah Spookshow baby!

11. Falling Down - Oasis
Carrie decimates the town of Chamberlain.
She had gone in only five minutes before, after opening the gas main (it had been easy; as soon as she pictured it lying there under the street it had been easy), but it seemed like hours. She had prayed long and deeply, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. Her heart thudded and labored. The veins on her face and neck bulged. Her mind was filled with the huge knowledge of POWERS, and of an ABYSS. She prayed in front of the
altar, kneeling in her wet and torn and bloody gown, her feet bare and dirty and bleeding from a broken bottle she had stepped on. Her breath sobbed in and out of her throat, and the church was filled with groanings and swayings and sunderings as psychic energy sprang from her. Pews fell, hymnals flew, and a silver Communion set cruised silently across the vaulted darkness of the nave to crash into the far wall. She prayed and there was no answer. No one was there-or if there was, He/It was cowering from her. God had turned His face away, and why not? This horror was as much His doing as hers.
And so she left the church, left it to go home and find her momma and make destruction complete.

The summer sun, it blows my mind
Is falling down on all that I've ever known
Time will kiss the world goodbye
Falling down on all that I've ever known
Is all that I've ever known

A dying scream makes no sound
Calling out to all that I've ever known
Here am I, lost and found
Calling out to all...

We live a dying dream
If you know what I mean
All that I've ever known
It's all that I've ever known

Catch the wheel that breaks the butterfly
I cried the rain that fills the ocean wide
I tried to talk with God to no avail
Calling Him in and out of nowhere
Said if You won't save me, please don't waste my time

12. The Noose - A Perfect Circle
"Oh Momma help me!" Carrie cried out.
She fell forward on her knees, head down, hands raised in supplication.
Momma leaned forward, and the knife came down in a shining arc.
Carrie, perhaps seeing out of the tail of her eye, jerked back, and instead of penetrating her back, the knife went into her shoulder to the hilt. Momma's feet tangled in the legs of her chair, and she collapsed in a sitting sprawl.
They stared at each other in silent tableau.
Blood began to ooze from around the handle of the knife and to splash onto the floor.
Then Carrie said softly: "I'm going to give you a present, Momma."
Margaret tried to get up, staggered, and fell back on her hands and knees. "What are
you doing?" she croaked hoarsely.
"I'm picturing your heart, Momma," Carrie said. "It's easier when you see things in your mind. Your heart is a big red muscle. Mine goes faster when I use my power. But yours is going a little slower now. A little slower."
Margaret tried to get up again, failed, and forked the sign of the evil eye at her daughter.
"A little slower, Momma. Do you know what the present is, Momma? What you always wanted. Darkness. And whatever God lives there."

Recall the deeds as if
They're all someone else's
Atrocious stories
Now you stand reborn before us all
So glad to see you well

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about
Making your amends to the dead
To the dead

13. Feather Moon - Vienna Teng
Carrie's Death
She walked over to where Carrie lay on her side, unable to hear her own footsteps under the hungry crackle of the fire. She looked down at the curled-up figure with a bemused and bitter pity. The knife hilt protruded cruelly from her shoulder, and she was lying in a small pool of blood-some of it was trickling from her mouth. She looked as if she had been trying to turn herself over when unconsciousness had taken her. Able to start fires, pull down electric cables, ahere unable to turn herself over.

Seven sins
God of stone
All is true
Down to the bone
Feather moon
Scarlet sky
I love you endlessly
Not knowing why

Breathe in breathe out
Exhale and inhale
Breathe in breathe out
Exhale and inhale
Breathe in breathe out
Exhale and inhale

Bonus Track: 14. Getting Scared - Imogen Heap
The only times of my life
The sun was meant to shine for me
You made it pour down, pour down with tears of rain

Dug my pride with a knife
Encaged by your obsession with me
Time for some mental torture and screams of justified pain

So ya gonna chase me now, boy?
Yeah ya gonna corner me now, boy?
You think ya gonna threaten me now, boy?
Well, somehow I don't think so

Yeah, ya gonna stamp me down now, boy?
Yeah, ya gonna crush me down now, boy?
You think ya gonna threaten me now, boy?
Well, somehow I don't think so

Who's getting scared now? Tell me,
Tell me, how does it feel?
It feels so good from where I'm standing...

ZIP
(Zip titled: Gettingscared.zip)

Ren Faire!

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:19 GMT

Whee! I went to the Ren Faire with Katelyn and Steph (whom I hadn't seen in 2 and a half years) today, which was brilliant and dorky as usual:

1. I find myself marvelling how, every year, the Ren Faire is precisely the same. The same shops in exactly the same place selling exactly the same (overpriced) things. I like this, as finding your way around is already difficult enough as it is.

2. We were fairy dusted by a persistant old shopkeeper. The only trouble was that Katelyn and Steph were wearing fairly low cut tops and most of the glitter ended up in their cleavage. Steph got it so bad, she looked like a Christmas ornament. Or, as I put it, like Edward Cullen had just came on her chest, which prompted laughing fits from both of us. I have truly missed getting my lech on with Stephanie.

3. Speaking of lechery, I firmly stand behind Margaret Cho's statement that there is an eerie connection "between Star Trek, leather sex... and the Renaissance Faire".

4. I saw The Ded Bob Show, which was actually hilarious. I was briefly hit on by a skeleton ventriloquist dummy. Namely, this thing:

Is it odd I feel strangely accomplished? (Yes).

5. As always, there were about a million costumes I wanted (I never outgrew my love of playing dressup), but, in particular, there was a men's yellow, silk pirate coat with a brown fur collar that looked just like Chaucer's coat in A Knight's Tale. Needless to say I wanted it very badly... in all honesty, to cuddle it and/or force my boyfriend to wear it.

6. Speaking of A Knight's Tale, our section's knight at the joust was named Sir Ulrich, which prompted Steph and I to break into a hearty round of "HE'S BLOND, HE'S PISSED, HE'LL SEE YOU IN THE LISTS, LICHTENSTEIN! LICHTENSTEIN!" We sang the entire song. Also, props to Stephanie because when I started to sing "Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain, And stream that falls from hill to plain! ..." she was able to finish the song. I always go with the more obscure of the Hobbit drinking songs and appreciate it when someone is willing to dork out with me.

7. Katelyn bought me my first pair of real earrings! They are little bottle green stones set in silver. I like them very, very much. :]

8. There was a Robin Hood Show that advertised not only The Sheriff, but also Sir fucking Guy of Gisborne, so naturally I fucking plotzed and squealed and threw myself all over Katelyn with glee. Of course, the actual show itself was a desecration of everything good and wonderful there is about Robin Hood.

Honestly, Gisborne isn't a thumb sucking momma's boy! He has no momma:

lol, get it right.

Alright, I'm off to take a bath because my feet hurt and I have my first day of class tomorrow.

It Never Ends

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:33:08 GMT

So today I finally had to take out my starter studs because they were way too tight and weren't giving my ears enough room to swell/breathe. Not to mention the fact that butterfly clasps are very hard to keep clean, which is probably why my ears keep getting all swollen and weepy in the first place.

So... when my piercer said you have to give the backs of the starter a good tug to get them off... what she meant... was that you have to yank them so fucking hard that you practically rip the earring from your head. My ears are not too happy (of course, neither is mom who's taken to muttering darkly whenever she glances at the studs where they now reside in a cup, bubbling merrily away as the peroxide eats the flakes of flesh trapped on them). I'm never getting pierced with a gun again. At least, not a stud gun.

I'm switching over to hoops (much easier to clean). The problem is getting the new earrings in. As you'd imagine, my ears are puffy and irritated from the abuse (read: blunt force trauma) they've endured and the first two times I tried... seriously, being pierced in the first place didn't hurt as much. So, I'm letting them rest for a bit (as long as I get the earrings in by tonight, the holes will be fine) and giving them salt water soaks and what not.

To make a long story short (too late), GAH FUCK YOU, PIERCINGS, FUCK YOU

EDIT: Ok! Finally got the new earrings in.... That sucked! lol. I didn't switch to hoops since the only hoops in the house are either sterling silver... which oxidizes when coming in contact with bodily fluids and I don't feel like having grey ears... or a $1600 anniversary gift, which... no, that's ok, I don't need that kind of pressure in my life. I just switched to a pair of my mom's studs, ones with backings far easier to get off and clean (they are diamond studs. I prefer not to ask how much they were because, again, I don't need anymore anxiety in my life). The one ear is still very swollen. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on it since it had a bit of pus in it this morning (hence why I was nervous about not being able to get an earring back in it. All I need is an abscess.)

Moving on, I have a bad/good feeling I'll be making a lot more of these:

Edit: also, you know what's cool? Watching Nosferatu while listening to the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. It honestly does sync up pretty well.

Edit: Is it just me or does this seem a little... Famine ala Good Omens?

Sweet Rapier, Bro

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:06:22 GMT

Dream Team Colorbars

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:05:59 GMT

Dream Team is awesomely geeky love
[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/Dreamteam.png"][br][u]Dream Team is awesomely geeky love[/u][/center]

[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/Englishgrade.png"][/center]

[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/dtheart.png"][/center]

Dream Team is ♥
[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/skillz.png"][br]Dream Team is &(removethisspace)hearts;[/center]

The lulzier one:

[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/keepingitsexxah.png"][/center]

Dream Team: Voluptuous readers
[center][img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/chaucerettescs/Colorbars/sexxah.png"][br]Dream Team: Voluptuous readers[/center]

Put one on your profile page. You know you want to. Just copy the code for the one you want, paste it on your profile and change all the [ ]'s to < >'s. To get the little heart beneath the fourth one, remove the spaces where it says (remove this space). There should be no space between the ampersand and the text hearts;.

lol, this'll be two entries in a row where I'm pimping something

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:42:27 GMT

Hey guys, Jess and I are co-moderating a new community for play-by-post writing. It's a sort of forum for posting Letter Games and other epistolary shenanigans that help with Writer's Block.

If any of you are interested, please join penandinkling. You know you want to. :3

YUM YUM YUM

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:49:51 GMT

Love A Very Potter Musical?
Join ontdpigfarts

No, seriously, do it. And ~get sorted~

The Four Houses

(I even made those icons, so you know it's totally awesome :D )

In other news, it's 4:47 AM... why aren't I sleeping?

I saw it on a fan community and couldn't resist actually doing it

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:12:24 GMT

Ten points to anyone who gets the joke.

Ten more points to anyone who knows me well enough to know I'm keeping it that way.

Buffy versus Edward Cullen

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:02:29 GMT

This is the greatest thing ever.

Buffy: *bolts awake* *Sighs* ... Get out.
Edward: I like watching you sleep... it's, um, it's kind of fasc-
Buffy: Get out or I will drop you out, head first.

I'm Having a Weird Day

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:47:25 GMT

So, today I got my ears pierced for the very first time and found out Great Aunt Jean has breast cancer. I'm a bit discombobulated at the moment.

The piercing did not hurt as much as I thought it would, though it did feel like being snapped in the head with rubber bands...which is not terribly pleasant. They also sting quite a bit (I've only had them for about twenty minutes). But I did it! And I didn't flail and fall over when they did it!

I don't really know what to say about Aunt Jean other than I'm very worried. I'm trying to be positive as breast cancer isn't automatically a death sentence (it could be worse -- it might've been pancreatic cancer like it was with grandma). However, she had a mammogram six months ago and there was nothing... and now suddenly there's a mass AND it's spread to her lymphnodes. That's disturbingly fast. She has to go back in next week to schedule a mastectomy (I have the feeling she'll want both removed), so things are going to be miserable for the next few months.

Also, WCC just emailed me to inform me that the state of Michigan won't be paying off any more promise or merit scholarships, so I shouldn't expect that $4000 anytime soon. Fuckers.