magibrain

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 07:02:13 GMT

> Be me

> Write a Red Dead Redemption 2 oneshot that uses the theology from Lois McMaster Bujold's World of the Five Gods (The Curse of Chalion, etc.)

> Fic has massive game spoilers and no Five Gods / Chalion spoilers

> Tag for massive full-game spoilers

> Get four comments

> All are from people who seem to have read the books but not played the game

> Welp_

(I'm going to guess that the Chalion fandom is just ravenous for fic, so much so that they rejoice even when that fic uses none of the characters, plot events, or locations from the actual books. Now I want to do something nice for them! But I have no ideas for fics in that canon! It didn't leave me feeling restless and irascible or incomplete in a way I needed to remedy with fiction!)

(Though, you know, this may also just be karma for daring to epigraph this using Robert Bly's excellent poem People Like Us. Hello, friends! I am the wrong professor! But I'm honored you think this is a great poem.)

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Tell me, Lady...

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 05:55:44 GMT

Okay, no, seriously, which of you people got me started on the Steerswoman books? Because now I've read all four of them, and there aren't any more, and the mystery is still unraveling.

Why did you do this to me.

:|

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[Fic][SG1] V is for Vellum

Wed, 02 Mar 2016 18:50:59 GMT

V is for Vellum, by magibrain (T)

Summary: Heimdall holds the past close.
Word count: approx. 750 words
Characters: Heimdall, Freyr
Era: Season 5-6, just post-Revelations
Categories: Character study
Author's notes: I miss the Asgard.

Excerpt: Heimdall regarded him. The controlled mutations in their genome manifested in such strange and curious ways, sometimes – his own significantly divergent voice, Freyr's tendency toward cynicism. That faint pessimistic outlook made him a conservative military commander – adaptive, in its way.

Still. He missed much of the... wonder that Heimdall could see. He was not temperamentally suited to the sciences, as Heimdall was.

( V is for Vellum )

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[Fic][SG1] Z is for Zenith

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 09:52:19 GMT

Title: Z is for Zenith
Summary: The sun also rises, and shines into the dark places on alien worlds, and delivers life-threatening amounts of thermal and ionizing radiation and maybe a minor revelation every once in a while.
Word count: ~1500
Characters: Daniel, Jack, Sam, Teal'c, an unnamed alien sun
Era: Early season 7
Categories: Vague angst? Character study?
Author's notes: I had a whole backstory for this involving ribbon worlds and the effects on global weather of same. All that backstory is basically Sir Not Appearing In This Film.

Excerpt: Somewhere in the darkness of an imperfect and incomplete recall was an understanding of this universe – his understanding; the sum of the things that he'd seen and he'd learned, and all the memories of all the different worlds he'd set foot upon. Every day a bit more of it rose to his conscious grasp, but it didn't come complete, and it didn't come easy.

( Read more... )

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December Rambletopics Days - ...Whatever. (adraekh)

Sat, 06 Dec 2014 07:41:01 GMT

Final Fantasy VIII! Anything about Final Fantasy VIII!

Oh, FFVIII, my first great fandom love! This will contain spoilers, but if you haven't played the game, I'm going to guess it's not high on your priorities list.

I feel like addressing this one is going to delve into my early sexual confusion, the methods by which I could successfully interact with friends, the computer I had as a tiny magi, and the hilarity of an unexpected NORG.

( Also, snipers using shotguns. SNIPERS USING SHOTGUNS. )

In writing this, I realized that I didn't have an FFVIII icon on this account, and I uploaded one. Then, as I was scrolling down my icons page, for an instant I thought my Sam Tyler icon had Balamb Garden in the background. I'd say I really need to write that fic now, except that I already did.

This post has been brought to you as a service of the December Posting Meme.

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Random things I vaguely want to write (or want someone else to write)

Fri, 05 Dec 2014 06:40:41 GMT

• An SG1 fic set in Ancient Egypt, wherein it turns out the Goa'uld are terrible at architecture and engineering (because of their habit of, you know, stealing all of their technology and not innovating), and so they have no idea how to actually build pyramids beyond going "Rargh! Humans! Build us a great platform!" So it would follow all the Egyptian engineers who had to design the Pyramids, solve the resource management issues, and manage conscription and labor. Because fuck you, alien conspiracy theories, the Egyptians were-too smart enough to pull that off and occasionally I come up with braintics to give agency back to people whom plot convenience has casually robbed of agency.

• A White Collar fic where some criminal trolls the police and eventually the FBI, in part by making latex fakes of Al Capone's fingerprints and using them to leave bewildering evidence at crime scenes.

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December Rambletopics Days - What's the deal with White Collar? (thebaconfat)

Fri, 05 Dec 2014 06:25:25 GMT

thebaconfat: What's the deal with you and White Collar? I think i have maybe watched one episode but whenever you bring it up I'm startled because I never would have figured it would be a show you'd be into.

Ahaha, well, one thing you have to remember is that the things I tend to get wildly, fanficcingly into are the thigns that make me fall absolutely in love with their potential and then annoy me enough to make me go "I NEED TO FIX THIS. AND THIS. AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS." So this may turn into a post of me squeeing over half of the show and ranting about the rest. We'll see.

( Anyway, on with the con. )

Hey, it was less ranty than I thought! More rambledy, though.

Of late I've been falling out of love with the ongoing White Collar canon, which is just normal progression for me with shows; I fell out of love with Stargate: SG-1 over late S7 through S8, and eventually just stopped watching. I took my gathered fandom love and headcanon and parked myself on a little parcel of magibrain land and just considered that my SG-1. In the grand scheme of things, I think my White Collar may be concentrated around in S2, with occasional forays out of it.

This post has been brought to you as a service of the December Posting Meme.

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December posting meme!

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 20:37:37 GMT

I am feeling (perhaps unwisely) confident in my ability to get (non-fiction) stuff done! So I think I'll do a modified version of the December Days Posting Meme, modified on sholio's post:

no dates, no specific commitments to respond (that is, you may or may not get an answer), but ...

... is there anything you want to ask me about? Anything you'd like me to talk about in a post? [...]if there is anything you'd like me to talk about, feel free to prompt me and maybe I'll make a post about it. :)

Fandom stuff will go on magibrain, other stuff will go on magistrate. I reserve the right not to answer anything, but, y'know.

I am still working on all of the prompts from the Trick or Treat meme! I really am. I just had a week of sickness and then two weeks of depressive cycle, and at the moment rambling on about real-life stuff seems less terrifying than producing fiction. It'll clear up. Even if I may be delivering Halloween treats in January. :/

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This is just to say...

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 06:43:51 GMT

I still plan on eating the plums that are in the icebox, and which you were probably anticipating for Halloween – no. Wait. That's not right.

I still will be getting to all of the Trick or Treat meme ficlets! This week has just been ridiculous, and I'll be travelling from Friday through Monday. But I will write them. And people who haven't asked for a ficlet are still free to do so. I don't hate all of your prompts or anything, I've just been busy. :)

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[Fic][SG1] Y is for Yearling

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 06:18:50 GMT

Title: Y is for Yearling
Author: magistrate
Rating: T.
Genre: Character study. Shenanigans.
Beta: Upside-down in the desert.
Continuity: Canon-compliant.
Prerequisities: The movie, actually, mostly.
Summary: Sha'uri is woken in the middle of the night.
Disclaimer: I can't even keep up with what's going on with the Stargate movie-centric franchise these days – partially because I don't own it. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters and not of Dave C. Avillo. Mastadges may spit. Questions, comments and kalasiris can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!

=

( Y is for Yearling )

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That trick-or-treat meme!

Tue, 28 Oct 2014 18:34:24 GMT

You know the drill! Prompt me, and I'll write a snippet of fic for your candy bag. (Y'all should know the fandoms I write in now, and if you want an original snippet, I'll be happy to provide.)

Additionally, as I'm now staying with the former editor of a podcast, I have access to a fancy microphone which is no longer being used in the household. So if you'd like me to read something – say, up to 500 words? Flashfic, snippets of fic, my fic, your fic, poetry from around the web, Shakespearean monologues – you may request those, too!

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A thing! An incomplete A/B/O thing!

Sun, 26 Oct 2014 06:20:11 GMT

I am mostly posting here about this because some people wanted to be notified, but I have since lost track of who those people were. Hello, people. I hope you're paying attention to this journal.

But! I have posted the first of the (very incomplete) White Collar A/B/O braintics to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2514038

In which alpha, beta, and omega are psychological modes, not immutable biological characteristics – and omega swings are not an atypical response to psychological trauma. All of which adds up to no fun at all for Neal circa "Withdrawal".

And there is no sex.

Because I'm me.

...anyway, carry on.

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AO3 Experts... assemble?

Sat, 18 Oct 2014 19:34:03 GMT

[EDIT: I have a braintics pseud now! Now we'll see how utterly ridiculous it gets. (For example: do I want to put the 10K RP fanfic tic up there? I... I might.) ]

H'okai so.

I have a crapton of scribbledy braintics, written out to varying degrees of incompleteness, which for one reason or another (vastly unconquerable scope, logical/logistical/self-indulgent problems inherent in the premise, loss of interest halfway through, etc.) will never actually turn into complete fics. They generally exist as patchy bits and bobs (and artefact of my nonlinear writing process) which I occasionally compare to ancient, fractured stone tablets from which you have to reconstruct the full story. Like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Or something.

For the most part, these languish in the depths of my Scrivener files or Gmail, and I occasionally share snippets. But it seems like a lot of them are in the most complete form they're likely to get into, and it seems like a shame that all that work results in nothing sharable – I mean, they routinely get up to many thousands of works. (Something like 30K for the ridiculous Sam Carter And Her Goa'uld Conquer the Galaxy thing; over 7k for the Angsty Neal Caffrey Almost Gets Eaten By Peter's Invisible Secret Dragon Friend thing.) And I imagine that they might tickle someone, so I've been tossing around the idea of archiving them somewhere. AO3 seems like the natural choice.

Thing is, I don't really want these mingling with the rest of my fiction; I'd like to offer the stuff that's actually a complete story on my profile, and have all of this ridiculousness somewhere partitioned off from it. A click away, p'raps. And I haven't used all of AO3's various features enough to know how to do that sort of thing. So.

How would I go about that? Would a pseud do what I'd want it to? Would I need a second account? Collections and the like would still show up in my main list of works, if I'm not mistaken – am I? Or am I just thinking of series, and confusing myself?

Elp?

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I don't even know how I got onto this train of thought.

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 05:47:42 GMT

AO3 informs me that it has no fics in which Elizabeth Burke hangs out with Abby Bartlet, and this makes me sad in the deep recesses of my soul.

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Non-fandom fun stuff

Sat, 21 Jun 2014 21:27:14 GMT

For the next few days, I'm doing a prompt call at my (more) professional journal. Free snippets of fiction for prompting, and flash fiction/scenes of potential longer stories for donations.

As an added bonus, stories written for donations will become part of my Shared Worlds project, which aims to create a body of work that encourages transformative works and supports authors who want to write them commercially.

Basically, this is all part of my continued efforts to port some of the cool communal aspects of fanfiction into original fiction. Because c'mon, fandom has the right idea about some things.

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Further updates on the demographics generator.

Sun, 08 Jun 2014 06:03:34 GMT

Now the demographics generator has an option to use each option in a given category only once in the result set.

That means that if you have a "tropes" option set, say, and you're planning to use it to fill out a bingo card (as I did in my last example), you can click a clickybox and not have to worry about repeated tropes showing up on your eventual card. You can still freely rotate through three universes/fandoms, while making sure that every single trope prompt is different.

You could also conceivably do this to generate random casts of characters. So, you could have "protagonist", "sidekick," "antagonist", etc, make sure the generator only generates one listing for each of them, but randomize all the other attributes like gender, age, profession.

Or you could set two sets of "use each option only once" categories and have the algorithm decide who you need to marry, shag, and throw off a cliff.

( miscellany )

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Continued fun with bingo and demographics generators!

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 23:08:26 GMT

Today, in an effort to avoid actually writing anything (because writing is scary), I programmed functionality into my demographics/random sets generator which let you import comma-delimited lists of values. This, combined with the option I worked up a while ago which let you import random sets from the demographics generator into the bingo generator, means that I can do wacky stuff like working up a bingo card with a bunch of randomly-generated sets of things like fandom, trope, and wordcount. See below:

( I sound my fearsome procrastination across the land. )

Now, the demographics generator (unlike the bingo generator) is still in alpha, is desperately ugly, and lacks a ton of stuff that would make it easier to use – like, say, paging down to show you that your options have, in fact, been added when you click the button in the comma-delimited list options. That's because I'm a back-end developer by trade, and just getting jQuery to play nicely enough that it would import the comma-delimited list in the first place meant an hour of hand-to-hand coding. Nicer stuff will happen later, once my urge to procrastinate on writing exceeds my frustration with front-end technologies again.

But, you know, if this sort of challenge appeals to you, there's now a clunky interface on my site that allows you to set up bingo cards like this.

In other news, today I have learned that jQuery does not like passing data out of its AJAX scope, and that you have to tell it not to run its AJAX asynchronously if you actually want to provide its information to another part of your script. Even if that part of the script comes after the AJAX call. ...I feel like that one, I should have known.

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[Fic][SG1] J is for je ne sais quoi

Tue, 27 May 2014 01:57:35 GMT

Title: J is for je ne sais quoi
Author: magistrate
Rating: T.
Genre: Mostly talking. Character study, episode-related.
Beta: Can only control the host at night.
Continuity: Canon-compliant.
Prerequisities: Nightwalkers.
Summary: In which Jonas considers ethics, and when ethics feel wrong.
Disclaimer: You know, I write in all these different canons, and as far as I can tell the legal status of fanfiction is more or less the same in all of them. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters and not of America, Bedrosia, or Kelowna. The difference between theory and practice is that in practice there's a difference between theory and practice. Ethics may confuse. Questions, comments and creeping suspicions can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!

==

( In which scientists play the most fun games. )

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[Fic][SG1] Fire and Calm

Fri, 16 May 2014 11:04:13 GMT

Title: Fire and Calm
Rating: T.
Genre: Character study.
Beta: Only in spirit.
Continuity: So far as I know nothing directly contradicts canon, but I'm fuzzy on my Seasons 8-10.
Prerequisites: Maternal Instinct, assorted Bra'tac episodes here and there, Full Circle.
Summary: Daniel wasn't the only one who began a journey at Kheb.
Disclaimer: You must renounce evil to achieve oneness with Oma Desala. Likewise, MGM et al would have to renounce their copyright on Stargate and its associated characters before it had half a chance of somehow belonging to me. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters and not of the tradition of Buddhism. Fic has not been proven to cause discarnation of laboratory mice. I wish I could have given you this beautiful moon. Questions, comments and confessions can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading.

Wordcount: About 4000.

Sleep frightened Bra'tac at first. Perhaps it was because he knew that final sleep was approaching, the one from which he would never open his eyes; perhaps it was the theft of those precious hours he had used to spend in kel'no'reem, returning again and again to the center of himself to face the truths there. Bra'tac had heard it said – heard even Teal'c say it, seeming to echo the words of Daniel Jackson – that dreams could teach, that dreams were messages from that place hidden beneath the surface of self. But neither Teal'c nor Bra'tac himself had ever been accustomed to traveling there without control.

It made it even more important to meditate when he could.

( Read more... )

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Welcome to the new age. The age of teddy bears with terrifying powers.

Wed, 14 May 2014 07:43:45 GMT

So I was looking up Kate Moreau's actress, because I was toying with the idea of doing some sort of Gunnerkrigg Court Realm of the Dead ficlet with her and I wanted to know which psychopomps would be fighting over her when some guy with a terrifying visage &/ bad costume showed up to offer her an out.

(That idea is backburnered because I realized I didn't have a plot for it. This happens surprisingly frequently.)

Anyway, I ran into the line, "At the end of 2012, Alex [Daddario] starred in the music video, "Imagine Dragons' Radioactive"."

Huh. Okay. I went to check that out.

This is one of those videos I've seen a grand total of once, both because I think the Lindsey Stirling version sounds better (strings! I fall so hard for string renditions of things) and because I'm not a big fan of the "pretty white girl, suffering white guys, and villainous brown men" imagery in the vid itself.

But... no, that's Kate. Engaging in some illicit underground muppet fighting. For the salvation of white guys and teddy bears everywhere. Not sure how to feel about this.

Part of me wants to prompt it as an AU on collarcorner, and part of me wants to go back to pretending that actors only ever exist in one role shhhhh.

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Brain reboot memes?

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 05:43:35 GMT

My brain seems to have completely shut down for working on any sort of complete creative work. (Thanks, brain.) In an effort to try to get it doing something, I'm doing a snippet meme. So, if you care to, please:

1) Comment with the premise of a fic I would never write, or
2) Comment with the premise of a fic you wish I would write.

I will attempt to write a snippet of that fic. Probably not anything so formal as a drabble; just whatever bit first comes to mind.

For this experiment, let's say that anything goes. Request slash, request het, request smut, just be advised that I will probably find hilariously contrived ways of not actually writing romantic or sexy times.

White Collar, SG-1, original... hell, request fandoms for which I wrote back in antiquity (Final Fantasy VIII, Space: Above and Beyond), request fandoms I've fallen out of writing (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Life on Mars), request fandoms where I'm familiar enough with the canon to write something but never seem to write anything for for one reason or another (Alphas, Avatar: The Last Airbender) request fandoms where I have absolutely no grasp on how to write any of the characters or confidence to write them well and so the snippet I'd produce would probably be bizarre and OOC (MCU Captain America, Orphan Black, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Black Butler, Welcome to Night Vale, Dangan Ronpa). Chaos will ensue.

I'll try to write as many as I'm able to.

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These pictures tell a story.

Thu, 17 Apr 2014 08:16:03 GMT

This is the elevator that leads to the White Collar offices.
From this, we know that the floors at least go up to 24.
We don't see whether or not this is the top of the button plate, though.

For ficcing purposes, I need to know exactly how high the buttons on the plate go.

Larger image under cut.

( I just want to do something screwy with the number of floors in this building. LOOKS LIKE HALF MY WORK'S BEEN DONE FOR ME. )

Considering that the sets and props department obviously didn't think I'd ever need to find out many floors were in the building by counting the buttons in the elevator, I decided to just ask the internet how many floors the NYC federal building has.

Cue Wikipedia:

The Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza on Foley Square in the Civic Center district of Manhattan, New York City houses many Federal government agencies, and, at over 41 stories, is the tallest federal building in the United States.

...

Sometimes I don't know why I bother doing research.

(Counting the windows suggests to me that "over 41 stories" means "41 floors of offices and a ground floor that probably has a lobby or something". I can work with that. Though I need to come up with a plausible reason for Neal to accidentally hit a floor button that's twenty floors off his actual destination.) (It would be a lot easier if the federal building were only 24 floors tall, to be honest.) (I wonder if I could just claim that it was. Would anyone except me care?) (I could claim that in White Collar 'verse, the federal building was at 41 Federal Plaza and had 26 stories...)

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[Fic][White Collar] Many a Gleaming Golden Hoard

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 14:45:44 GMT

Title: Many a Gleaming Golden Hoard
Rating: T.
Genre: Character study, collected vignettes, crackfic
Beta: Not even one-drop.
Continuity: Close-canon AU.
Wordcount: ~5,200.
Prerequisites: The series through the beginning of S4.
Summary: In which Mozzie may or may not have oracular powers, Peter is part-dragon, and Neal is longsuffering.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the setting, I don't own the mythological creatures. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters, and not of JRR Tolkien. Do not taunt Ninki Nanka. Questions, comments and chupacabras can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!

( Seriously though I had too much fun with this. )

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Oh, door. Why so door?

Sat, 12 Apr 2014 07:21:26 GMT

This is a very small photo appreciation post for White Collar's tendency to put Neal in scenes with people or objects which make him look like a tiny thing.

( It just makes me really happy for reasons I can't articulate. )

That's it, White Collar writers. That's how to make me happy. Put Neal in a scene with someone 6'5", and/or with ostentatiously oversized furnishings.

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Mozzie tries to pass that off as proof.

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:31:01 GMT

One of my quirks with regards to White Collar is that I tend to think Neal is kinda overloaded on narrative shininess, and so even when it might seem more congruent to give him wacky supernatural stuff, I tend to balk and aim the supernatural stuff at whoever else is in the vicinity instead. Which mostly translates to Peter. Sometimes Peter and Diana both. (Unless the supernatural stuff inconveniences Neal in some way, like that braintic I have where Neal died at eighteen and then got accidentally resurrected.)

But, you know, it tickles me when Peter gets to hand-rear a dragon hatchling or gets solicited to perform Great Works for various deities or gets to be a BTR-style guardian angel or has made friends with the eldritch creature that lives in Records and has been granted superpowers or, you know, etc.

So today I got the idea that Peter should have draconic blood. And some people with draconic blood hoard gold or jewels or sports cars or cats or something, but Peter? Peter hoards evidence. Also puzzles. Clues. Unsolved mysteries books.

And then it just kept getting better.

( *My* draconic blood only makes me hoard ill-advised braintics. )

…though I feel like at some point I should give Jones some supernatural awesome, because poor Jones always gets left out.

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