I tried making homemade pie crust tonight, and now four mini pies are in the oven. I'm not sure I like the mini pie pan we have (no one has used it before), and probably it was not the greatest plan to use untried equipment for a new recipe (and not just a new recipe for the pie crust; I've actually never made a pie before even with pre-made pie crusts), but it is what it is. I really liked the pie crust recipe itself, and will try it again in a regular pie pan before I make any decisions.

The filling turned out delicious, though: granny smith apples, butter, cinnamon, a touch of sugar, and ground cloves. Nom.

I've been reading a cozy mystery series (I think that's right) by Sarah Graves, the Home Repair is Homicide series. The blurb that turns up on a lot of the covers is from the Denver Post: Think Diane Mott Davidson with a tool belt instead of recipes!

I don't actually read Davidson's books (though I would, I just haven't), and I'm still not sure how I ended up with this series. I think the first one I read was a dollar book from Half Price Books, and it sat on my to read bookshelves for awhile, but I finally read it when I unpacked it recently, and liked it enough I picked up a handful of others from a used bookstore. (I went down to watch more college hockey with Sister K a few weeks ago, and had some extra time before she got off work, so I ended up at a used bookstore near her workplace. It's overpriced and the staff was unfriendly, but I found a couple more Graves books, so that was nice.) I'm on my third book now, and the style frustrates me, the pacing is uneven, and I often dislike the main characters, but the stories keep sucking me in. There's a point where I can't stop reading, because I have to see what happens. That's pretty impressive, considering the rest of it.

These books are set in Eastport, Maine, where the author lives, and I have to say, they've made me want to visit that part of Maine, maybe stay awhile. Maybe I should write a Maine werewolf story, and go do some first hand research.

Other than that, still unmedicated and unemployed, had a pretty massive breakdown the other day, but I keep pushing through.

December Talking Meme Master List

Nothing prompted for day 16. Day 17 prompted by das_hydra: Five fictional places (lands, realms, etc) you wish you could visit.

Well isn't this an interesting question. This varies depending on when I'm thinking about it, but right now, in no particular order, here are five fictional places I would like to visit:

o Tortall, from the Tortall series by Tamora Pierce

I'm not really a fan of feudal systems in general, but omg, how much do I want to be a lady knight? SO MUCH. Kel, character of my heart, has been an inspiration from the first moment I started reading her story. (I read Alanna's story and Daine's story before hers, and enjoyed the hell out of both of them, but Kel's story, The Protector of the Small, is the greatest ever. EVER.) There's magic and people who can talk to animals and immortal creatures including dragons and lady knights are becoming a thing again and SO MUCH YES.

(Thankfully, the magic means a lot of the downside to medieval life doesn't exist.)

o Santa Carla, from The Lost Boys

This is basically cheating, because Santa Cruz feels so, so close to Santa Carla already, just minus the supernatural creatures (...or is it), and I've spent plenty of time in Santa Cruz. But it's such a great setting: rock and roll, ocean, flashing lights, loud games, wild rides, super hot vampires on motorcycles... the energy is amazing and so much fun. I love the boardwalk, I love walking up the hill along the beach to the fancy beach houses, I love the lighthouse museum and the parks, I love the Santa Cruz Diner, I love the fun little shops. So Santa Cruz + vampires and werewolves (even if we don't get to see much of the werewolves) would be an excellent place to party.

Right up until I became vamp chow, but, you know, whatever.

o Cedar Ridge territory, from the Raised by Wolves series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Speaking of werewolves, this is my favorite YA werewolf series, in part because it is so very much about chosen family and humans + werewolves holding territory together. I want to visit and watch them run and just -- werewolves, man. Werewolves.

o Space, the Final Frontier, from Star Trek: The Next Generation

So much space. All space, all the time. I want to peacefully meet new people and see new places and not at all try to colonize them, so probably I should have chosen another space setting (Pitch Black but not that particular planet! Firefly! etc.), but I imprinted on ST:TNG young. I want to have all the adventures in space and hang out with Worf and warp speed, people, warp speed.

o New New York and beyond, from Futurama

Space + technology + awesome snark + robots. Bring me there immediately. Immediately.

(I don't talk about it often around here, but I love space and stars and flights of imagination and the future and, oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I could visit other planets, other solar systems, I want to climb into a space craft and take the most epic road trip (space trip) ever.)

December Talking Meme Master List

(There are still some days left open in the meme, if you want to suggest a(nother) topic.)

Day 7 suggested by alasse_irena: A crossover you want to read that you've never seen...

An epic crossover of women from werewolf movies and tv shows, both women who are werewolves and women who are werewolf hunters. I'd love to see characters from Never Cry Werewolf, Ginger Snaps, Cursed, Dog Soldiers, Supernatural, BtVS/AtS, early Teen Wolf and on and on. Toss in characters from fandoms that don't have werewolves to make it an epic werewolf crossover AU: Gemma and Tara and Donna from Sons of Anarchy are werewolves. So are the women of the Fast and the Furious series. Danny from the Carmilla web series. The Blue Crush surfers. Basically, I just want all sorts of awesome women tossed into a story with monsters and magic, and boom. Crossover werewolf AU of my heart.

I never nearly wrote this one time, but it would take thousands and thousands of words, probably hundreds of thousands, and I just don't have the writing time to create an epic fanfic like that anymore.

So tell me, what are your favorite crossovers? I'd love recommendations. I read even if I don't know one (or all) of the fandoms.

(Between this and comments on yesterday's werewolf post, I'm going to do a follow-up post where I talk about specific werewolves in fiction. So excited.)

I watched Werewolf: The Beast Among Us for the first time this month, and it is cheesy and ridiculous, as I expected, but I think I may request it for Yuletide next year, because I want awesome stories about

( Spoilers )

So, that was a thing. A fun thing, but a thing.

Title: Howl at the Moon
Author: escritoireazul
Written for: femslash_today's Fireworks 11: The Semi-Annual Porn Battle, prompt Crossover, Ginger Snaps/Cursed, Ginger/Ellie, pack dynamics
Author's note: This is a transformative work of fiction for the movies Ginger Snaps and Cursed. Set after Cursed, and veers away from the portrayal of werewolves in Ginger Snaps.
Rating: 16+
Word count: 1500+

Summary: When she asks, how do you live with being so much less, Ellie doesn't have an answer.

( Howl at the Moon )

Stop! Self-awareness time!

I was reading this fantastic post in which toft talks about Mercedes Lackey's books and I realized why I have so little patience for -- well, I'll put it in toft's words:

7) I love that all of the books that I've read so far punch my talented-outcast-child-is-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-school narrative kink right in the kidneys and throw it down the stairs. In a good way.

Now I read this post after watching the first three Harry Potter movies with Mom (one last night, two today) and even though I've seen them before and read the books and wrote fanfic, damn it, it struck me really hard how much of an idiot Harry is a lot of the time and how things just fall in his lap. Sometimes literally.

And don't get me wrong, I love the first four Harry Potter books a lot. (The movies not as much and the last three not nearly as much, but the first four, particularly three and four, SO MUCH LOVE.) And I also love the Mercedes Lackey books I've read, which isn't very many, I'll admit, but I read the Arrows trilogy and then BY THE SWORD which has KEROWYN I'LL KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS AND YOU'LL LIKE IT who is my hero, so obviously I'm a fan of that one, too.

But frequently these talented-outcast-child-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-[fill in the blank] narratives really bug me. While reading toft's post I finally figured out why, even though it is really obvious if you know me at all: Basically every awesome thing I have ever done is because I am trying to live up to the awesomeness of my family. No, really, they've set the bar high and it just keeps getting pushed higher. Even though I don't directly follow in anyone's footsteps, what I do is done so I can be as awesome as my family. So of course I don't grok that narrative the way some others might.

Not very awesome that it took me that long to figure it out, but whatever.

(By the way, as we're watching Harry Potter, Mom turns to me and says she doesn't understand why people threw such a fit over Harry Potter being satanic or whatever, nothing they did magically seemed all that bad and I said I thought it was just the idea of ~magic in the first place that was so horrible. She scoffed and said that was ridiculous, kids should grow up with magical stories and reading stories about magic doesn't make them bad Christians. Oh, Mom, you are the best conservative, Christian mother ever! [Though obviously conservative doesn't apply to Christian in that sentence.] Oh, speaking of conservatives, I am not adjusting well to being back in a small town in a red state. Today some guy came around talking about politicians because we're running up on the November election and ads and calls and door to door is going wild. Anyway, dude told me politician is a Democrat and liberal in [these ways], but still conservative, too, in [these ways] and is pro life. I don't think he expected me to say, well, those liberal things are really good, but the pro life thing is generally a deal breaker for me. Too liberal for the liberals here, what?)

~*~

Sons of Anarchy comes back this week! I think I will liveblog it, because OMG FINALLY. J and I were talking the other night and he said the adverts make it look like it's going to be very soap opera-y and the season finale was very much a soap opera. I laughed and said even if it is, if I kept watching after [that thing with Gemma last season], I'll give them a season of being a soap opera before I quit them.

The Vampire Diaries comes back, too, but I rarely talk about that here. Maybe that will change this season. Because [THINGS! THINGS WHICH ARE SPOILERS!]

~*~

I am tired, but I am waiting on a thing and I pulled up my werewolfbigbang, which I keep thinking I won't finish, but the first draft isn't due until later this month, so maybe I will finish. I'm writing a sequel to "wolf woman wild," but I keep wanting to write some ridiculous crossover (er, even more ridiculous than "wolf woman wild" which has BtVS, Angel, Fast and the Furious series, and Ginger Snaps) about a wolf pack that contains characters from BtVS, Fast and the Furious series, Sons of Anarchy, Harry Potter, etc. I do not need to set aside the sequel and write 10k of a ridiculous crossover. I don't.

(Dude, Sons of Anarchy basically is a werewolf pack without being werewolves. And how awesome would it be to have Oz and Faith, Letty and Dom and Mia, Jax and Opie and Donna and Tara, Remus and Sirius, Clay and Gemma all in a wolf pack together? Hell, let's really make it ridiculous and throw in Sam and Dean and John and Mary Winchester and, GOD, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, because obviously after Race Wars, Jesse runs off and becomes Ash. Hell, Chad Lindberg himself brings together Fast and the Furious, Supernatural, and Sons of Anarchy. If I really wanted to go wild, I know I could work in Velma and Daphne.

Good grief, I'm actually considering this.)

~*~

THING is done, so I can go to bed! Except now I'm thinking about the damn ridiculous crossover.

ETA: It has taken me five billion edits to get the coding right, even though I swear I was using the same coding I'd been using since I started crossposting from DW. WHAT THE HELL?

I have never done a big bang before, but this is exactly what I would do if I did decide to do one. I think I've almost talked myself into writing another the Fast and the Furious series/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover about werewolves anyway, either another way in which Letty become a werewolf and hooked up with Faith and Oz or the actual sequel to "wolf woman wild," I'm not sure which.

I think I will sign up now, either way.

Suggestions on what characters you'd like to see me write as werewolves?

This was a part of what was a werewolf weekend (I frequently have werewolf weekends, but this one involved The Wolfman, obviously a new addition, which is always fun), and god, this fic took my breath away. It still has stolen all my words, or at least all my sense, so this rec may be odd.

carlyinrome wrote In Bocca al Lupo for me for femslash_minis Round 25, in which I requested Buffy and Veruca with wolf senses, snarky conversation and flirting, and the ocean. Because I like all those things a whole lot and want them in basically everything ever.

But god, I had no idea I'd get a story as perfect as In Bocca al Lupo. It's a very physical story, not in that they have sex or beat each other up, but in the descriptions, the way the words so perfectly capture the way these two powerful women are physically in tune with their world. In my comment to her, I said it perfectly capture Veruca's werewolfyness and I stand by that. The language is absolutely amazing, grounding this story in the senses, the way the world is to two hunters, to two dangerous and fantastic women.

And the end left me chilled and thrilled and so very happy.

I knew this would be a difficult pairing, but I really wanted it, I didn't request it just to be difficult, but she makes it look easy, like this reality is exactly how it should be.

Go read it and tell her how wonderful it is.

There's a bunch of teenagers taking pictures in the hallway outside my apartment. I'm guessing there was probably a birthday party or something. They sound terribly adorable (if a little loud, but that's teenagers for you!) and I keep having to smother my laughter.

(OMG THEY ARE SO CUTE! They are trying to convince the parents to let them stay, and they talk about how they're all black kids with dreams of fun, and then one of them leaps out and says "I have a dream of staying in this black man's house." They are all so sad to be saying good night and they are ADORABLE and I really, really love my neighbors. Between them and the awesome guys downstairs with their Obama love during the election and the people with the gorgeous dogs upstairs, I don't know how I lucked out with these neighbors. The people downstairs are new this year and either the people upstairs are, too, or their dogs are. Across the hall have been here since before I moved in, because they have decorations on their door.)

This isn't actually why I came here to post, but it was so cute I had to write it down.

---

Vid Recs

Charmax's multi-fandom vid "Destiny Calling" is awesome. Superheroes are wonderful and seeing them all here together made my heart swell with love for these source materials I've loved for so long. Also the song is great; I'd never heard it before, but the chorus really gets to me: "Here we come / this is our destiny calling / we're freaks / this is our destiny calling." There are moments when I get chills. I love the way the vid highlights the way that so many superhero films use the same movements, the same basic actions, and the way these things have built into this epic hero myth which is bigger than any one source material. The repetition could be considered lazy or stereotypical or overdone in the individual sources but in the video they come together to be this repeating litany of how strange the life of a superhero would be, and at the same time highlights how incredible these powers are when they are used well.

Like I said, it gave me chills.

(Also, for writing purposes, I am so inspired by this: Don't believe the adverts / don't believe the experts / everyone will sell our souls and Tell us when our time's up / show us how to die well / show us how to let it all go.)

Eruthors and Thingswithwiths' multi-fandom vid "One Night Fandoms: A Tribute to Yuletide" is also awesome. I'm really intrigued by the idea of one night stand fandoms versus relationship fandoms and how a lot of my one night stand fandoms I don't actually think about as one night stands (and many of which I've written for Yuletide and which are included in this vid) and how we can relate personal opinions on relationships with how we discuss fandoms and monogamy and one night stands, etc.

But mostly I just love seeing all the various sexy bits of fandoms brought together. Again with the similarity of images - kissing and hugging and touching, but also playing guitars and bondage and smoking. I think it appeals to my love of the commonality of stories and imagery, the way things echo within the world.

I may have recced this before, but even if I have, it deserves another rec: Flummery's "Handlebars" is a Doctor Who vid that is creepy and delicious. I don't even watch DW. I don't even like DW, honestly; I tried one episode awhile ago because it had a werewolf, but it didn't do anything for me. This vid, though, is glorious.

Mostly I love the song, and am inspired to write, but I also love the way Flummery builds the images up to follow the driving danger which goes along with the song. I mean, the lyrics build from something not dangerous into an apocalypse, and apparently DW does the same thing, at least based on this vid. It's incredibly well done and it makes my breath catch. It makes me want to watch the show, because it makes the show look overwhelming and unbelievable.

---

Links

"Nevermind Zombies - I've Moved on to Werewolves. Come to werewolf country, it's a lot of fun! I love vampires and zombies, but werewolves are my favorites.

Awesome link from that article: Werewolves are Running the Asylum in Hollywood". Despite the fact that I've read and enjoyed 30 Days of Night, I hadn't heard of Welcome to Hoxford which is a comic about, well, werewolves running an asylum. I need to track this comic down, but even better, 1492 has acquired the film rights. Come on, werewolf movie! I need a new one!

I think thrace_ has figured out why I now love Fringe so much. I didn't start out loving it; it took months for me to make it all the way through the first episode, but by the time I finally watched through to the hiatus, I had fallen in love with it, and I am so giddy that it's back that I can't really put it into words. (Link has some spoilers for a recent episode.)

(I should say that bad, unbelievable science isn't a turnoff for me. I'm pretty much the ideal bad, unbelievable science viewer. As long as you can convince me in the story that the science is supposed to work, I'll believe it. So Fringe didn't lose me based on that, like so many people I know complain. Same deal with Bones, honestly.)

But I think thrace_ has it.

( Cut for light spoilers )

I was looking forward to the Twilight movie for mocking and the recap I'm sure cleolinda will do, but there's this trailer playing on tv which I hadn't seen before, that has James making some sort of lion-like noise, and, um, there is suddenly another reason to go watch it. James, Laurent, and Victoria are hot, and James, with that hair (I have this thing for guys with hair like that, practically the only time I like blonds) and the animal sound and the movement - hot.

I need to watch Never Back Down. He doesn't have the hair in it, but he's ripped and tattooed and, yes please. Funny(ish) story, when I was visiting J. two weekends ago, he rented this movie because he wanted to watch the scene where one fighter does all these fancy kicks and flips and then gets knocked straight down by one hard punch. The movie we needed was NBD, the movie we got - was not.

Two movie things I've noted today.

One, in An American Werewolf in London, when the nurses are talking about David while he's unconscious, one says he looks like a Jew, and when asked, says she knows the look. I always thought she meant the hair; I'd never caught Alex's line about how it's common practice these days. Hee. Totally not the hair then.

Two, in Cursed, I love the scene where Jake and Ellie are talking about the decorations at his new club and he talks about the medieval torture device and then says it could be fun later, innuendo in his voice. How kinky there, Jake. I also really like the (not so subtle) foreshadowing when he says he just wants to crawl into bed and disappear for three days. SUBTLE.

I love this time of year. Werewolf movies all over my tv, horror in the air - it's a good time to be alive, even if I don't want to leave my apartment, even if I don't want to do anything. At least I have horror to keep myself busy. Werewolves.

On Halloween itself, I'll be waiting for J. and my dad to bring me a different vehicle. I don't have class, and I plan to clean, of course, but also to have a werewolf movie marathon. My copy of Cursed isn't here (I think it's in the one last box from this summer, which got sent to my parents' house, and Dad is bringing it Friday), but I have all three Ginger Snaps movies; the werewolf episodes of Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural; The Beast of Bray Road; Cursed from tv, so the rated version I've not seen since the theater; Darkwolf; The Howling; Sleepwalkers, though technically not werewolves; and, to really stretch it, The Village, which I prefer so much more when I pretend it is a werewolf movie. Plus whatever else I can dvr before then, and I have a ton of other horror movies, and maybe there's a Dresden Files werewolf episode, I should research that, since I still haven't watched the dvds I own.

This past weekend wasn't very relaxing, and this week isn't going to be relaxing, and so I'll be glad to have a break, finally.