I think there's a lot of good there, though, Lyra. I mean, yeah, I can see the points where you threw up your hands and said "screw it," but I think you wrote a believable-to-spot-on Dawn. (I particularly liked the moment when she went to tickle Quentin.) And the Connor encounter worked fine.

Plus, it cracked me up that he has frog fear.

Thanks for the nice compliments!

The link to the "master list" at the bottom doesn't go anywhere.

Thanks, I fixed that. (<kicks stoopid HTML for doing what I typed instead of what I meant it to do>)

Plus, it cracked me up that he has frog fear.

Thanks. Though the line "frogs are evil..." came from my requestor. It was just funniest if Connor said it.

A nifty book I've discovered for writer's, from Writer's Digest's series of How-To and Writer's Guide books: How to Write Action Adventure Novels. It's really good for working out how to tell plot-heavy stories while still creating/using characters that have some depth to them. Also how to cover where you don't have the in depth knowledge of some abstruse technology, plus how to orchestrate the action.

The Writer's Digest books are generally very good. One of my favorites is Scene of the Crime, which is about gathering, handling, and evaluating evidence. It's written by a woman who worked crime scenes for a forensic lab in Atlanta, and it's full of anecdotes, such as the tale of the whole neighborhood knowing there was a corpse back behind a house one hot summer and the coroner being willing to declare the guy dead a block away.

Heeheehee!

This is NOT Buffyverse. It's PotC, sort of, Stoppard, kind of, insane? Probably. Also 100 words. For the 882 Ways to Appease the Heathen Gods project, crossposted there.

Chance

"Heads."

Flip, cover, reveal. Heads. Guildenstern suggests changing the type of coin to change their type of luck. This coin's larger than the rest.

Heads again. No luck with luck.

Guildenstern pockets it, talks of probability and monkeys. Rosencrantz thinks of toenails, and hardly talks at all.

They were sent for. Times, they've been told, are indifferent. Or were they told that? It's all shifting.

There was a boat. A message. Pirates. They were sent for?

Another call, another flip.

A message swapped, two bodies dropped.

The coin falls unnoticed from traitor's pocket, where pirate's hand will find it.

Tails.

Rosencrantz thinks of toenails, and hardly talks at all.

(lovelovelove)

LJ, will climb into yours later. SF had a power outage that knocked out half the City yesterday and I'm only just back online.

Good one, Plei. More "Fledgling" Munch POV
I swear, if I could, I'd find a desert island, just for me and the Princess. Except, you know, I can't, because desert islands are bright, so we would be the sexiest pile of dust the world's ever seen. But, when it's just us, things are almost perfect I do sometimes wish she'd be...more appreciative or something. Cause sometimes, in bed, we have this amazing time, which I'm just thrilled to have even the smallest part(in the metaphorical sense) in creating, and I'm just blissed out, and the look on her face is more like "That's nice. Any more champagne?" Like it was just her *due* or something. In the old days, I'm sure she had somebody just fetching her shuddering orgasms. Stableboy, ladies' maid, couturier, orgasm boy. It doesn't happen that way for the rest of us. I want to believe that we are special.(Although if you tell anybody, I'll hide behind the time she brought the twin darkhaired minions in. That was an entirely different kind of special.My God, one of them was a gymnast and...what were we talking about?) Ironically, meaning in sex. Somewhere, if my exes knew what I was going through, they would laugh. I would laugh too, if it wasn't me.

I know enough to know she isn't going to think I'm "the best she's ever had." Over three hundred years? Give me a break. And I know she's not going to scream out "John, you're the king," or anything, cause she's probably been with a king and I don't want her making those kinds of comparisons...It could only hurt me(although the part of me that never got out of ninth grade? Would like that very much.)

John, you're the king," or anything, cause she's probably been with a king

(choking to death)

The Munchkin invades my dreams now! That has got to stop...the connection is freakish enough.Really. And it also explains why I'm dressed like the Woman in Black today.Glad you thought that was funny, Deb, I chuckled writing it. ETA: Found the perfect song for Felton. Country, actually, my friend Steph used to love that stuff. And the B-side of "Achy Breaky Heart" was a song called iirc, "Where'm I Gonna Live When I Get Home" The chorus is totally Beau/Beth, cause it goes "She meant what she said/ When she wished I was dead./Where'm I gonna live when I get home?

Damn, that really is perfect Felton. It would have to be a country song for him, too.

OK. Drabble. This week has two themes - winter and steam - and I combined them. Unusual for me - this one's about Oz.

Soundtrack to a Season

It's the wrong time of year to be unconnected.

There's a full moon rising over the Himalaya this Christmas Eve, and he's lonely. The monks, knowing what they know, trusting him for 30 days of this, the longest and darkest month, have left the ancient stone building at the foot of Lhotse to the small white man. And the small white man is achingly tired of being alone.

As he waits for moonrise , he puts Peter Gabriel's "Us" in his Discman and dances to "Steam", remembering a redhaired girl warm in his arms, lying together in a warmer climate.

Drabble the second. Same theme: steam.

The Steam Room (no spoilers)

There's a woman in the Turkish bath.

The man in the towel, a stockbroker with an ulcer and a BMW, is entranced at first. It's one of those fantasies, going back to college: him, wearing only a towel, a beautiful woman there to service him, snaking a hand down, smiling, twitching the towel from his groin, her lips parting....

The woman is blonde, and very pale. Her lips are too red. He doesn't ask her name, but she tells him anyway, whispering: Darla.

The fantasy is suddenly very cold, as cold as her smile, and her teeth against his throat.