...sure, why not!

[magibrain]

I've made a blood pact commitment to sholio that I'd clean something up and post it this week, but in the mean time, it's quiet around here, as always. So I'll steal other people's memes and tweak them a little. And maybe give people a way to get to know me that isn't just me being awkward and weird at them in comments.

So. Ask me anything! Fannish, real life, hypothetical, etc.

If you ask me something I'm just not going to answer, like "What's your home address and social security number?", I'll just write you a drabble for a fandom we're both in. (If I'm not aware of any shared fandoms, I'll just write you a drabble about an improbable crime-fighting duo or something.)

Comments

[fignewton]

Write me a drabble about an improbable crime-fighting duo in Stargate SG-1.

Sha'uri and Skaara! They fight crime.

Other improbable (or not so improbable) duos include: Walter and George, Siler and Simmons (the one with the crush on Sam), Kasuf and Daniel, Sam and Janet, Selmac and Saroosh...

:)

[squeemu]

I want to ask you things I know you won't want to answer now just so you write me drabbles. 8|

BUT NO. I will be good. What's your favorite scientific discovery of the year (so far)?

Which character do you miss writing about the most? Which interaction?

Have you discovered any new amazing recipes lately?

Also, have I missed your birthday or is it tomorrow?

[sholio]

If you could rewrite just one thing about White Collar -- BUT ONLY ONE -- what would it be?

[magibrain]

I feel like Sha'uri and Skaara are not that improbable, so far as crime-fighting duos go. :P

...here you go: Harriman & MALP, Crime-Fighting OTP. A double drabble, because 100-word stories confound me.

Jack expected to reach the Stargate and find their contact long gone, artifact in hand, intel in head, and one more black mark on the Free Jaffa's ability to accurately judge who was and wasn't on their side. Instead, he found the man cursing on the ground ten meters in front of the event horizon, with the MALP's gripping arm hanging onto his shirt and its treads crushing his ankle.

Jack had to wince, at that.

His radio crackled. From the other end of the wormhole, Sgt. Harriman said "Colonel! General Hammond wanted me to dial in and inform you that we got final approval on the negotiations. You can relay that to the Thegn."

"Good to know," Jack said, and approached the MALP. "Sergeant, did you happen to apprehend our friend here, by any chance?"

There was a pause from the other end. "I didn't think he was authorized to take the artifact, sir," he said.

"Oh, he wasn't," Jack said. "I just didn't know our MALPs were empowered to make arrests."

Their contact spat a few choice curses in Jack's direction. Jack ignored them.

"We're not liable for medical costs, do you think?" he asked.

"Um," Harriman said.

[magibrain]

Hah! Maybe I'll do one of these things some day. I do need to learn how to write short things.


[What's your favorite scientific discovery of the year (so far)?]

Man, I am shamefully out of the science loop. But something I just learned about recently was ghost organs, and I think that's very cool!


[Which character do you miss writing about the most? Which interaction?]

Jeez. One of my characters from beyondtherift, I think. Probably either Dmitri or Jack, though I loved just about everyone I played there. Even Thane. (Fucking Thane.)

But, I mean, seriously, Dmitri. I really want to figure out a way I can get her into an original canon that'll do her justice, because I adore her so. Because she pulls things like this and also this and also also this.

As for interactions, probably the Jack/Suzie thing I had going in that same RP, because it was this strange, immensely intimate, deeply powerfucky not-exactly-a-romance based primarily on torture and damage. And then they had goofy cuddly time on a piano bench. And it was the literal best.


[Have you discovered any new amazing recipes lately?]

I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT IF YOU COOK BROWN BASMATI RICE IN A RICE COOKER BUT YOU USE CARROT JUICE AND COCONUT MILK INSTEAD OF WATER, AND THEN IF YOU ADD THYME AND CURRY POWDER AND SEA SALT, AND YOU SAUTE UP SOME DICED ONION AND PEPITAS AND TOSS IT ALL TOGETHER, IT IS THE RICE SIDE DISH OF THE GODS.


[Also, have I missed your birthday or is it tomorrow? ]

Oh my god, everyone needs to stop remembering my birthday, it's really distressing given that I cannot remember the birthday of anyone outside my immediate family for the life of me, I am the worst friend ever. (It's tomorrow.)

[magibrain]

HAH! You know this already, I think. :P I would have directed the writers that one of the major themes of the series was also the complexity of consequence. And then I would have sat back and watched everything spool out like a wonderfulRube Goldberg machine of characters looking at their lives and looking at their choices.

[sholio]

Hmm, yes, I guess I did already know the answer to this one. XD (I would watch the hell out of that show ...)

How about another question, then: What would you like to learn how to do, that you don't already know how to do?

[magibrain]

Oh, that's a fun one.

There's a lot of writing-related stuff which I've talked about at some length, before - how to write at novel lengths, how to stick with projects, how to write at short lengths, how to effectively establish character.

Beyond that, there are some skills I think it'd be really awesome to have, but for one reason or another (usually due to having other priorities that knock them back onto other burners) I haven't ever sat down and really studied. Art is one – I would love to be able to do really finely-detailed and anatomically convincing pictures like this one, or to have the economical command of line that this person does, or to be able to do, let's face it, just about ANYTHING that the Lackadaisy artist can pull off.

I'd also like to be fluent in another language, and it's an enduring sadness that I'm not. But I keep taking enough to pick up scraps of various languages, and then, um, not sticking with them.

Also: I would like to be good at game design and programming. Because I feel like that would be awesome.

And, one final thing, that I can dream of but probably don't have the guts or stickwithitiveness (or grace, or balance) to ever try is parkour. Or freerunning. Either one. If I could have a superpower, mad parkour skillz and shapeshifting might be the ones getting in a fistfight for my affection.

[sholio]

That's a good list! :) The language thing is exactly why I started taking French courses this winter, because one of the things I would like to change about myself is that I'm thoroughly monolingual, and I don't want to be anymore. I'm not sure if I'll ever manage fluency, but I would like to be able to handle basic social transactions in at least one other language.

I know I could never do parkour -- I mean, I'm literally, entirely incapable of those sorts of movements -- but I really admire people who can. :D (I have to say that if I could only pick one superpower, flight would win hands down, though ...)

[magibrain]

Have you encountered Duolingo? Very cool site, independently verified to be as good as a college class, crowdsources things like translating Wikipedia into different languages (so that the target language gets access to a body of originally-English material and the translators get practical work translating real documents), generally quite friendly. I played with it for a while but never stuck with it, mostly because the languages I really want to learn aren't on it yet. (Russian is the big one. I'd love to be able to speak Russian. I'd also love to be able to speak Yoruba, but I am under no illusions that Duolingo will have that anytime in the plannable future.)

And oh man, yeah. There's actually a school not too far from me that teaches kids how to freerun, and I'm more than a little jealous. Then, I managed to drift out of every structured physical activity I ever tried, from fencing to Judo to cross country, so even if I had been enrolled in it as a kid, I'd probably still have drifted away and gone back to writing things.

(Flight would be pretty cool! But I enjoy the mental image of turning into something big, armored, and stompy (preferably). Possibly because I spent a lot of my childhood playing monster.)

[fignewton]

Squee!

And of COURSE Walter would take the line about liabilities seriously!

The MALP has many uses, yes. Theft prevention is only one of them.

This was fun, thanks!

And yes, Sha'uri and Skaara are not that improbable at all. In fact, it's difficult to think of any duo in Stargate for whom it would be improbable to fight crime. That is gleefully the point.

[magibrain]

I wanted to work out a line about MALPs and the lowest-speed chases possible, but there wasn't room. ^^

[aelfgyfu_mead]

That's hilarious! I love it!

[sid]

I love how Walter is all business-as-usual until Jack asks about the cursing dude on the ground! :-D

[lolmac]

fignewton pointed me over here to squee over the crime-fighting duo drabble! I wish I weren't a complete stranger, so I could set you up for another of the same. I loved it!

[magibrain]

Hah! No worries; this journal is generally stranger-friendly – this post, especially. :) Would you like a question or a drabble?

[magibrain]

Hah. Thank you!

[magibrain]

I love Walter and his incredible unflappability. XD

[gategremlyn]

Walter, you sly dog!

I see a spinoff series in this.

[magibrain]

You know, I might well watch that series.

[gategremlyn]

Have MALP Will Travel.

I'll bring the popcorn.

[squeemu]

I only remembered your birthday because it's two days after Zell's birthday St. Patrick's Day, and so whenever the people around me talk about the holiday, I end up thinking about you. (And I can never remember if it's two days before or after, hence my question.)

MINE IS THE VERY LAST DAY IN JULY /unhelpful

Ghost organs are most cool! I think most of my science-y discoveries have been via Tumblr lately, which is... kind of sad, actually, but also encouraging in terms of my time there not being a total waste. I guess. ;P

[magibrain]

I knew yours was somewhere in the summer J months! (Baco's too, right? Somewhere?) (I will forget this within three days.)

Tumblr! It's a mix of the absolutely fascinating and wonderful and the sucking angrymaking timesink un-fact-checked horrid.

Have I pointed you at Things I Won't Work With? Because it's amazing. The article on FOOF especially. (I want a chemist character who screams "FOOF!" as an obscenity.)

[lolmac]

A drabble would be delightful! If possible, I'd opt for either MacGyver or Sam Carter from SG-1, paired with some madly inappropriate cartoon character such as Hadji from Jonny Quest, or Patrick the Starfish, or Lisa Simpson. Is that sufficiently improbable?

[magibrain]

It sounds sufficiently improbable to me! I haven't watched MacGuyver, and my cartoon knowledge is sadly lacking, but I figured a Disney villain would be safe enough? (Don't mind the delay; it's been an... interesting week.) One drabble-and-a-half, with... an improbable, inappropriate, and probably non-crime-fighting duo!

"Insurgents," the lion sneered.

Sam had moved beyond questioning why there was a talking lion, and was leaving it up to Daniel to quibble over whether or not one could, in fact, sneer a word. Those concerns were all secondary to the fact that the rest of her team had been taken hostage.

By... talking hyenas, apparently.

None of them would ever live this down.

"I do know the area," Scar said. "And I can help you infiltrate their camp. But I do require a certain quid pro quo, as it were."

The lion, Sam had thought, was probably a Goa'uld. He acted like a Goa'uld. Just one of the ones who tried to bargain with you before they ordered the Jaffa to kill. "That would depend on what you're asking."

Scar's lips curled into a smile. If it was meant to be friendly, it failed.

[lolmac]

Oooooo yay!!!

To be honest, my cartoon-fu has pretty much stagnated since my own childhood, other than the Simpsons. I only know Patrick the Starfish from internet memes.

Scar would definitely be reminiscent of a Goa'uld!

question!

[green]

for the bingo generator thingy, did you compile the list of "little actions for self care"? (I asked ysabetwordsmith and they pointed me here)

Re: question!

[magibrain]

I did, yes! I've been hoping to go back and improve them, as I had trouble spinning off 25 from the top of my head, but I wasn't sure where to find a comprehensive list of the kind I was looking for.

Re: question!

[green]

I have been planning on writing little somethings (probably blog posts?) with those prompts in mind, but I wanted someone to credit for the ideas! I will make sure to mention you when I do so. Thank you for letting me know!

Re: question!

[magibrain]

Alright. Thanks for checking in, and have fun with your project! :)