the mermaid cafe

Yesterday, as mentioned, I made a ricotta and red onion pizza (pics) using this pizza dough (since it only makes enough for 1 pizza, which is all I need; now that I know how easy it is, though, there could be pizza for weekly lunch sometime soon!) and then I cooked it in the new 12" inch cast iron skillet, 4 minutes on the stove top and then 10 minutes in the oven at 500°F (I have decreed that today I will NOT turn my oven on to 500°F again, because it is too darn hot to keep doing that and I have leftovers to eat so there's no need).

I used the frying pan to fry the bacon (I know it's supposed to be prosciutto, but I did not have any and it is expensive, while I had bacon in the freezer already), got rid of the grease (I learned a quick and easy way to do this, as well, but I will go back to doing in the oven in the future as it's easier and less time consuming), then did the onions, wiped it out, and then did the pizza. So that was all very labor intensive, but delicious. I mean, next time, more onions and less cheese, and probably crumble the bacon up into smaller pieces, 'cause it wasn't really integrated into the whole, but overall it is delish and I'd do it again. Maybe not all at once, but with, like, leftover bacon, or something.

I also attempted to make some fresh strawberry lemonade which didn't work out quite as I'd hoped, but I added some honey to it and it was good.

In other news, last night I had a great idea for a Thursday recs set and then realized I had only two complete and two incomplete stories to rec, so maybe you can rec things in the same vein to me if you know of them, and that vein is Lady!Obi-Wan/Anakin:

We'll start with bedlambard's Oxygen and Rust series, of which Dirt in the Machine is my favorite, but all three are worth reading, even if the middle one (Bottom of the River) is abandoned and doesn't actually get into the relationship much.

And fireflyfish also has an ongoing (I hope? it's hasn't been updated since March, but I know the author is working on other things) lady!Obi-Wan/Vaderkin story called After the End of the World, which starts on Mustafar, which goes somewhat differently, and then picks up a few years later when Vader coerces Obi-Wan into becoming the new governess for the twins ( spoiler ). So it's got some tropes going for it and also Artoo plays a large supporting role and he's got no time for Vaderkin's bullshit, and you know I love that.

Sadly, there is a real dearth (pun intended!) of this particular configuration of this pairing, but it's a shift in the dynamic that I find fascinating, so I wish there were more (that I didn't have to write myself - I am still working on Thing 1 and Thing 2!).

***

So I spent most of Sunday waiting for my grocery delivery to arrive - the delivery window was 3 pm - 5 pm, and it showed up at 7:30 pm, so you know that poor delivery guy was having a tough time. I was just like, "rough day, huh?" and he was like, "Yeah." But my stuff arrived eventually, so it's all good. I did a lot of reading (I was in the middle of a very long HP fic about Regulus surviving and destroying the locket and joining the Order in order to hunt the other horcruxes [link]) and some writing, and then yesterday I did some more writing, so I had a story to post last might:

shake the glitter off your clothes now (AO3)
Star Wars; Anakin/Obi-Wan; AU; adult; 5,444 words
Anakin's undercover but he's not under much.

If you want a lady!Obi-Wan/Anakin story where he's undercover as a stripper and covered in glitter and she finds that hot (listen, as per my notes, he is A Lot in his usual state of sweaty and grimy with engine grease, so oiled up and covered in glitter is some next level Extra okay and a woman can only resist so much), have I got a story for you! As I said to snacky, I'm pretty sure this story has an audience of us, but we are definitely amused. *hands* Sometimes, I can't help myself, especially when there are things like this popping up periodically on my tumblr dash.

I also made chocolate banana bread (pic) with some very old bananas and it was very easy and also very delicious, so I'm calling it a win.

And now it's back to work again. Sigh. I've got my yuletide letter up in a Word doc, but I can't decide what I want to ask for. Life is hard.

***

note to self: remember to nominate something for yuletide so you'll have something to offer.

***

So I'm working on this story and it will wrap up shortly after the sex scene, and one of the things I like to do when I'm that close to the end of a wip is start figuring out how to tag it when it's ready to post, and I have run into a slight conundrum. I really wish there were primary and secondary pairing tags available on AO3, rather than having to use additional tags to say "background pairing."

Because this story is basically the first leg of an OT4 story, focusing on one of the relationships involved, though one of the other relationships is briefly mentioned, and another is onscreen at some length but via flashback and also in a rough patch. So I don't want to mislead anyone looking to read about either of those relationships! But they are in the story! When I post it here to DW, I'll just put the other pairings in parentheses, as they are mentioned but not focal.

Oh what the hell, why am I being coy? So what I really wanted was post-The Wrong Jedi Anakin/Ahsoka context-free porn, but in terms of making that work for a whole variety of reasons, what I ended up with was an AU where Anakin walks back his fall (i.e., the timeline is different, he doesn't slaughter the younglings, choke Padme, or fight Obi-Wan) and joins the rebellion, and then several years later, he and Ahsoka have a reunion and have sex.

But he is also at the time trying to win back Padme, who is still very angry about a lot of things (hopefully believably so as explained in the story), and he and Obi-Wan occasionally have comfort sex because he is very needy and Obi-Wan is very sad. (No lie, that leg of this set of stories is basically summarized as "sad dudes have sex between committing acts of insurgency" right now, because that and a title is all that exists of it at the moment and a vague sense of how the story itself will progress.)

The Anakin/Padme stuff here is mostly in flashback and also conversation, and the Anakin/Obi-Wan bit is just sort of tossed off in Anakin's internal narration with no further expansion, so I feel like tagging either of those in the "Relationship" line is misleading, so I was going to put them in as "background" on the additional tags line. And maybe an "eventual ot4" tag? I just don't want to get yelled at because someone was expecting something that is not there in terms of those pairings (but I also don't want to promise all the other stories), and I'm way overthinking this and I don't know why I care right now - I usually don't (and I have also almost never been dinged for this so it's not like I'm working from past experience) - except that I guess it's not a typical combination (like if this were a Barbershop Quartet story, that is a thing that exists and people know what it is, so it could just be tagged that with the understanding that a particular story is focusing on a particular pairing but the other relationships are still there in the background), and because it's not a typical combination...

You know what, that just answered my question because the audience for this particular story is probably me and three other people, so background pairings in the additional tags line it is. No one else is going to care. If I do write all the other potential stories that go along with this (and that is not a guarantee, though I have notes for all of them, and titles, so it's not completely unlikely, and I do find this AU pretty entertaining), then there can be an overall series page with an explanation so that nobody gets upset that their OTP isn't the end-all and be-all of the story. (I am not judging, btw. I am very OTP about certain pairings myself, obviously. Just not in this case.)

Thanks for listening to me ramble! <3

(also, hee! I am amused that this song is playing when discussing this story.)

***

After a very stressful - but ultimately successful - board meeting yesterday, I took today off. Okay, that's not why I took today off - I was supposed to go out to the new apartment to 1. make sure the stove works and 2. meet a contractor. Except that just before I was supposed to leave, the contractor called me to reschedule, so now we're doing it tomorrow after work. Which could be a problem if ConEd hasn't turned the lights on yet (I requested they do it a few days ago but I haven't gotten any word yet that it's actually happened). So I may call the guy tomorrow to reschedule, but regardless, I still have to go check out the stove (the super called me this morning to tell me the gas company had been and gone to turn the gas on).

I have to say, as annoyed as I was to have taken a day that turns out to be unnecessary, a little while later, I got my period, so. It turned out to be better that I'm home on the couch drinking hot chocolate than schlepping around Queens in 20 degree weather or sitting uncomfortably at my desk at work.

So I've used my day to catch up on some TV:

Brooklyn Nine Nine: Game Night / Favor
( spoilers )

As for Runaways, ( spoilers )

In other news, I posted a story yesterday:

After he took from you everything he could steal (@ AO3)
Star Wars; Darth Vader/Obi-Wan Kenobi; AU; adult; 9,560 words
"I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

Contains: dubiously consensual sex, emotional manipulation, an untidy mix of Stockholm syndrome and Lima syndrome, Obi-Wan as a ciswoman, and Vader without the suit.

Since I haven't been able to find any Anakin/lady!Obi-Wan porn (let alone Vader/lady!Obi-Wan), I had to write some myself. The heart, or in this case, the id, wants what it wants, okay.

( my id, let me show you it )

So that's a story I definitely wrote for myself but I'm glad other people enjoyed it too! And on that note, I'm just going to leave a link to this old picture of Hayden Christensen here. I still can't believe how attractive he is there. #my whole world is askew

***

Let's not even discuss the nonsense that was work yesterday. [rant redacted]

And while that was going on, I was being inundated with requests! for! documents! from the loan officer. I'm sorry I don't have a newer pay stub than August 24! We get paid every two weeks! That is the most recent! I can't send what I don't have! At least the bank for some reason switched my statements to the end of the month, so I could send her the August one showing that the deposit check cleared.

I also got the purchase application and ugh, same basic shit, but with some new and exciting twists and also can I just say that the amount of money they charge you for the whole process is bullshit? I mean, the whole thing is a racket, especially for a coop purchase, and everyone's got their hands out. At least this time I only need to send 2 copies of everything. And the loan processor seems really on top of things, for all that she's not the lady I was working with earlier, with whom I felt so simpatico.

We interrupt this post to announce how much I still love this song! Definitely a Top 5 All Time Victoria P. Fave! 3 minutes of pure! pop! perfection!

Anyway, I was so busy collecting and sending documents and then doing work nonsense that it wasn't until I got home last night (I had to stay late on my last summer Friday! How wrong is that?!), and then when I opened a window to post the August monthly writing roundup, I ended up writing a sequel to the story I was posting about!

On the Day After (@ AO3)
Star Wars; Darth Vader, Bail & Breha Organa; AU; g; 975 words
Vader has many questions, and only one place to turn for answers.

Sequel to On the Day Before (@ AO3), and it probably won't make much sense without having read the first one first.

I just really wanted some Bail & Breha being awesome in the face of Vader's...entire existence, but also his demands regarding Leia.

innie_darling once said I wrote stories about people who were dumbasses about their emotions, which explains EVERYTHING about my grudging affection for Anakin/Vader. He's the apotheosis of someone being a dumbass about their emotions in the absolute worst possible way.

Anyway, it amused me to write it. I have another story that I started in the middle of the night on my phone, but while the concept indicates it would be one thing, in the writing - in the POV character - it seems to want to be something else. Idek. I guess we'll see what happens. Writing is hard!

***

So after I posted in annoyance yesterday, L's friend called me and grilled me and then said she'd pass my info along to her friend and now I'm waiting for *her* to call me (my mistake was saying not to call during work hours, but I can't always answer my cell at work! So all this waiting for phone calls is terrible and also makes me feel like it's 1988 again or something).

*

Last night, I dreamt I was talking to someone - one of you, I think, though I don't remember - and they said they'd vidded every one of their fandoms to the same song ("Cure for Pain" by Morphine, for the record), and they showed me their playlist. And I replied, "Next time, ask me for some song suggestions. Like, someone should vid Star Wars to 'Lucretia My Reflection.'"

And then I woke up and thought, Star Wars was around in the 80s. Surely someone vidded it to "Lucretia My Reflection." I mean, you'd have to cut the song down by like 2/3, but I bet you could do it. Also, there should be a Vader vid to an edited version of "This Corrosion," yes? (I mean, probably I shouldn't be trusted because I also think you could do an entire array of Anakin vids set to Taylor Swift songs and it would be both hilarious and true and only like 5% ironic.)

Not that I don't think it would be an interesting project to pick a song and vid as many different fandoms to it as possible just to see what happened. But I am not a vidder, so I don't know what the rules are for that sort of thing.

In other news, silveronthetree added yet another bedsharing story to my list, but this one is completely gen, and hopefully as funny on paper (screen?) as it is in my head. I guess we'll see. It's half written already, and it's amusing me, at any rate. It's a lot easier when you don't have to worry about the sex part.

*

American Gods: The Secret of the Spoon
On the one hand, I thought this was a good episode, because it contained some fantastic stuff in it - ( spoilers ) - but on the other, I can't imagine sticking around if I were unfamiliar with the book, because nothing actually happened. There was no payoff of anything, and since it's being released weekly, you can't get satisfaction from going immediately to the next episode. I'm not sure that was the wisest decision, but I guess they don't really need to reach a huge audience. Idk.

*

Matt Harvey, wtf? I feel like I need to revise my Matt Harvey tag now because dude, wtf?

*

Since I'm at work (sigh), I haven't yet seen the new Rogue One trailer, but I'm excited. I mean, I still wish we could have Steela instead of Saw (and a Temuera Morrison-as-Rex cameo), but I'll take it.

Continuing on the theme, Darth Vader #25 makes for a strong wrap-up of the best of the new Star Wars comics. ( spoilers )

Actually, let's discuss that in more generalities than specifics to this comic.

Vader is the Emperor's blunt instrument for 20-odd years before he decides it's time to turn on him, and when Luke refuses the offer, he seems to give the idea up completely (if it were someone else, I'd say that he'd learned to play a long game, like Sidious did, but Vader was never capable of a con that long. IJS). I mean, he does the "maybe your sister will turn" thing but that was clearly grasping at straws once Luke proved that he wasn't going to be as easily led astray as his father was.

One of Anakin's prime drives was loyalty and one of his major triggers was personal betrayal, so despite the whole thing about Sith apprentices turning on and killing their masters being baked into the very premise of being a Sith, was he just never going to do it? Was he just...I don't want to say content, because I don't think contentment was possible, but ~okay with not having to make any of the long-term, big picture plans for the Empire (since long-term planning was never his strong suit) and satisfied to play to his strengths as a soldier/warrior by being a warlord who got sent in to inspire fear and terror in reluctant or recalcitrant populations (including the Imperials themselves, as per RotJ)? His stated goal was to bring peace and order to the galaxy (apparently even if it meant killing every last damn being in it) and he seemed like a true believer. Was he just bad at being a Sith (he was also bad at being a Jedi)?

(Obviously Sidious has his own motivations, and having one family member kill the other is a plus either way in his book: if Vader wins, he's snuffed out the only person (that he knows of) who could sway his loyalty from Sidious (in addition to destroying a hopeful symbol/hero for the Rebels); if Luke wins, Sidious gets the younger, less damaged model and a better chance to turn him (also a propaganda win for him if it happens), especially since Luke will be a mess emotionally afterwards.)

There's a reason when I write Vader, even from his own POV, that there's a kind of mocking going on, because I think Vader comes to self-awareness very, very late, but he has glimpses of it from time to time, and on some deep level, he knows exactly how much of a fuckup he really is. *hands* Or I just have to tell myself that in order to write him without being utterly creeped out by him.

Which is a problem I have sometimes - I'm writing an AU rom com set mostly around AotC and the TCW timeline (which presents its own problems, as I'm not watching AotC again, possibly ever if I can help it), and every so often, I'm like, "I'm writing a rom com where the male romantic lead is a domestic abuser. (I mean, also a garbage space fascist and a mass murderer, but those are less relevant here - he'll get a chance to outgrow the former and hopefully won't commit the latter if I do it right.) What am I doing?" I mean, he hasn't gotten there in this story and because it's an AU, he won't for a variety of ~reasons, but it's still canon, you know? So I have a little cognitive dissonance sometimes which keeps the story from getting written as quickly as it might (I mean, there are other reasons too, but this is one). #problematic fave #i hate that i have ~feelings about darth vader now

***

I wrote a whole story yesterday:

what it is to be possible (@ AO3)
Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg; 2,155 words
When a reporter shouts, "How long have you two been together?" Steve doesn't expect Bucky to shout back, "Since 1934."

I feel like I haven't done that in a while, and it felt good, even if it only happened because I couldn't sleep and was once again up at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning. I also forgot to bring the story I'm working on to work today, so I can't strike while the iron is hot. Sigh.

Last night, L's friends S&N took us to dinner, and I didn't get home until 10 pm, so I didn't watch Brooklyn 99, and I still haven't watched Thursday's Elementary, so I have TV to catch up on.

Mostly I've still been marathoning The Clone Wars, and oh, I have more thoughts, some of which I already mentioned on tumblr, like how Obi-Wan was clearly the ladies man of the two of them, and how much I enjoyed his bickery relationship with Satine(!!). I mean, I mostly enjoy his prissy bitchery with Anakin, but it also makes me sad, because he clearly has NO IDEA if what he's done (is doing) is enough for Anakin. And clearly it's not in some way, because for all Anakin's good intentions - and I do believe he has them - he can't modulate his emotions or find a balance between using them and giving into them. Of course, it doesn't help that Palpatine is subtly egging him on, either. Ugh, he skeeves me out so much. Palpatine, I mean.

And watching the episodes where Padme gets to do stuff - both political stuff and actiony stuff - makes me angry all over again at the stupid way she died. Not only does it rob her kids of a mother [though I could imagine you could write a great - sad - story of how she had to split them up and leave them anyway, in order to make the OT work (though I am with whoever it was on tumblr who suggested Ahsoka shows up on Alderaan to train Leia)], and us of the awesome stories of her adventures as a rebel leader on the run from Darth Vader, it also means there are no hilarious stories of Darth Vader: Romantic Failboat as he tries [and fails] to win her back, and also kills everyone who is mean to her. He's the only one allowed to stalk her, you fools! (I have to admit, this show is the final nail in the coffin of finding Darth Vader intimidating, after the prequels, I Harth Darth and Vader's Little Princess.)

Also, if you're a woman, not even being an evil Sith assassin can save you from being screwed over hard by men. Ventress, I wish you got your revenge (along with all the hate-boning I know you and Obi-Wan must have gotten up to). ( spoilers, I guess? )

So yes, I've been enjoying the show, even though it is sad to know what the ending will be. (Though god help me, I remember almost nothing of the prequels.)

Which leads kind of nicely into today's talking meme answer:

December 8: lonelywalker asked me to talk about the media [I'm] looking forward to in 2015.

- Star Wars: The Force Awakens! PLEASE DON'T SUCK! But I have to admit, those shots of the Millennium Falcon in the teaser trailer made my secret 7 yo heart sing.

- AGENT CARTER. Ditto on the please don't suck! I know people have said SHIELD has improved (and they've certainly hired some much more interesting actors for this season) but I still don't much care for it, but I have high hopes for AGENT CARTER. PEGGY BEING A BADASS. I also love that Hayley Atwell shared Peggy's makeup secrets, so that I (and you) too can wear her perfect lipstick (Besame 1946 Red Velvet; I think I know what I want for Christmas now!). The funniest part is I was telling L about this last night and she was like, "Oh, I like their reds a lot" and she produced one from her purse. It was a very nice red with blue undertones, which is my favorite kind of red.

- Avengers: Age of Ultron. Let's be real, I would watch two hours of them hanging out with each other and playing with their action figures. Actually, that would probably make me a lot less anxious than whatever it is they're planning in this movie. My confidence in the PTB is never that high (no, not even after Winter Soldier was basically the movie OF MY HEART), and that one piece of casting news was a huge disappointment (I guess I can add Dr. Strange to the list of Marvel movies I have no interest in seeing, along with Ant-Man), and also because I'm still unhappy about RDJ being in Cap 3. If I don't get some quality Steve/Bucky time in that movie, I'm going to be so pissed. Can't RDJ fuck off to GotG or something? Ahem. But I am looking forward to getting the band back together again!

(I do like the TV casting - I hadn't thought of Mike Colter for Luke Cage, but that could totally work. He's really attractive on The Good Wife - and while I'd been hoping for a woman of color to play Jessica Jones, I think Krysten Ritter could be an interesting choice.)

I think those are the big three. *g* Disney apparently owns my soul now. Sigh.

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