A random prompt on Tumblr asked for Minutemen zombies; I wrote the promised vignette but there seems to have been interest for more? So I started writing more, and wow, I am having so much fun. But I'd like to keep this informal, so, see the comment section below for pieces of this as I finish them!

I've had to disable anonymous commenting, at least for now. My inbox is nothing but wall-to-wall spam these days, reams of junk comments I have to delete one by one, and it's getting unmanageable.

So I'll give the bots maybe... a month? To figure out that this journal is useless, then try turning them back on and see what happens.

Sorry about this to my legitimate anonymous commenters.

An idea that struck me while I was stuck in class!

1) Pick a fic I've written.
2) Give me a twist - a different AU, different order of events, genderswap, character swap, whatever. More than one is okay as long as it's manageable!
3) Pick a scene or else leave it up to me and I'll pick one.

And I will rewrite a scene from that fic for you, using the requested twist.

HOWEVER I am a happy drunk tonight so: no permanent character death, no sad sad sad angst. :D

(Also: this is the part where i realize I only have like ten followers and hope fervently that some of them are actually around tonight, haha)

Title: Night of the Living Derp
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Rorschach, Dan, from the Possumschach AU
Date Written: 2012
Summary: Why am I using a full formal header for this crap? It's just possumschach being a zombie, idk idk.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for disgustingness and ridiculousness.
Notes: KM AU-mashup. Possumschach AU belongs to the anon who writes it (who may not be anon anymore, but I'm playing it safe here). This fic is completely pointless.

( Oh god, he looks like roadkill.Collapse )

Title: Engulfed
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Rorschach, Dan
Date Written: 2012
Summary: Rorschach and Nite Owl and Molotov cocktails. Or: In Which Eth Completely Blows Off the Reality of Burn Injuries For the Sake of Fluffy H/C. Sorry, guys.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for injuries? Idk idk.
Notes: Nothing new here, just an old unclaimed KM fic.


( Rorschach is on fire.Collapse )

I don't usually ask for help, but this time I don't have any choice. Two weeks ago, my SO's father killed himself, suddenly and unexpectedly and, even now, for no reason any of us can figure out. I've just spent those two weeks in New Jersey trying to help them sort out the legal and financial affairs, and we're both completely shellshocked and devastated here on top of all the procedural crap. Here's the rundown of financial facts:

-There's no life insurance
-The house is under water and on a reverse mortgage (more on this further down)
-The 401K's have all been drained
-$10,000 in back taxes owed
-There is no money, at all

On top of this, his widow has been mentally deteriorating for years now and can neither live alone nor can live with any of her children, none of whom have the space or are there all day to provide her the care she needs. The trauma of this event--she was there when it happened, in the house, trying to stop him--has accelerated her decline dramatically and she needs professional care. However, in most states her social security income is both woefully inadequate to pay for care and too high to qualify her for aid, because hey, I guess in the good ol' USA old ladies with dementia are also supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, idek. I would be more furious if I had the energy for it.

Additionally, if the house sells for less than its appraised value--which it will, because who the hell wants to live in a house where something like this happened--she loses progressively more months of medicaid eligibility depending on how far under it sells for.

And even if she somehow kept her medicaid eligibility AND they were willing to cover her care--which they probably aren't--that 'care' would amount to them sticking her in a state-run institution, which is very close to being a prison. The only way out of this is to spend a lot of money now to get her situated somewhere nice, let the money run out, and bank on the government being reluctant to uproot and move her. But spending a lot of money requires having a lot of money, which we don't.

Add to this the fact that legally in NJ this kind of event requires sanctioned crime scene cleanup which charged such a grotesque amount of money I can't even type it out, and the fact that in order to keep the SO's mom from completely losing everything she had left I and the SO had to take on her two sick cats, both of which are chronically ill and one of which has diabetes, and build an outbuilding to house them in which runs somewhere around $5000 all told, and the SO's incoming MRI bill for unrelated medical problems on our end, and the fact that I had to spend almost my entire savings on last minute plane tickets to fly us out there when it was all I had to live off of for the next six months... and we are pretty fucking squarely screwed--me, the SO, his brother and his wife, their mom, the cats, everyone.

It is the perfect storm of misery and horrible life choices, and I need help, we need help. We need money to pay their bills, to pay the mortgage long enough to sell the house, to pay the backtaxes, to pay the ripoff cleanup people. We need money to guarantee their mother's care. We need money to pay our own medical bills, to pay for the cats' housing and bills, and I need money to fucking eat.

I know times are rough all around, and I know tragedies like this are happening every fucking day, but if you can help by donating even a tiny amount, I am swallowing my pride and asking. My paypal is etherati@gmail.com. If you can't, then if you could just pass this along I would really appreciate it. I really appreciate anyone even just reading this all the way to the end.

Thank you all.

Title: The Center Only Holds
Fandom: Watchmen/Homestuck
Characters/Pairings: Rorschach, Spades Slick. 
Date Written: 2012
Summary: Hold onto your memories, they say, because eventually they're all you have and they're yours, inalterable. Until they aren't. Or: two short, violent, irritable, noir-styled grumpasses meet in the afterlife.
Rating/Warnings: R for stabby stabbings and language, though not so much in this part. This part is most just deathbubble!Rorschach having existential issues.
Notes: FML, FML. Also: Art by liodain, gorgeous as always.

( Rorschach doesn't expect anything in particular to happen to him, once Manhattan's hand comes down.Collapse )

I just need to say something here, because so much of what's on my dash over on Tumblr(not so much over here, but what the hell) is making me feel vaguely ill.

First, of course SOPA and PIPA are horrific piles of shit. They are the worst example I've seen of laws governing the internet being made by people who do not understand it; they are egregious and if they were to pass, we would all be completely screwed. (They won't, because Obama's already promised to veto them and they don't have enough support to overrule, but I digress.)

That said, guys? Piracy is still an actual fucking problem. Everyone saying 'oh but if it weren't for piracy I wouldn't have legally bought z y and z'? Yeah, that sounds familiar-- those are the justifications I used ten years ago, when I was young and ignorant and trying to excuse running napster when the real reason was that I didn't want to spend the money, or be bothered bumming a ride to best buy, etc.

The music industry is a piece of shit. The RIAA is a piece of shit. No love lost there. But was I buying music from good acts to encourage the industry to give us something worth buying, or protesting the legislation that gave the RIAA blanket power to do things like suing twelve year olds? No, I was sitting there gleefully downloading from napster, then audiogalaxy, then kazaa, on and on, not realizing that I was being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Bottom line: You do not get to decide something someone has created is YOURS NOW without paying for it, unless said creator has explicitly allowed it. IP is worth something. People's creative effort is worth something. There is no justification for piracy that isn't actually just an excuse.

Do I sometimes do it anyway? Of course. But I don't pretend it's okay, I don't make excuses. I'm impatient to see something that won't air in the US for months, or I'm just too lazy to go to the store, still. I'm not being revolutionary. I'm just stealing.

SOPA/PIPA are horrible, and they are the worst imaginable way to try to 'do something' about piracy. But that does not mean that the pirates are the heroes, here. :\

Title: A Winter's Tale
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Hollis/Sally, Dan/Rorschach
Date Written: 2011
Summary: A generation apart, two heroes learn about proper winter attire, offers of warmth, and how to say yes. Or: Dan learns from Hollis's mistakes.
Rating/Warnings: Hard PG-13/Soft R? Fluff, peril, cocoa, and Dan being a brazen little owl.
Notes:  For tortoisegirl, for wm_secretsanta :D Tried to nail down a few things on the list, sorry I couldn't hit them all!

( The first Nite Owl doesn’t like to dwell on it—nothing can be done for it and obsessing just makes it seem worse—and Sal will never admit to it, but winter can be a really, really rough time to be in their line of work.Collapse )