Lizardbeth's Tale

 While I wait for Yuletide matching, I'm trying to figure out what I should do for NaNo (yes, I probably should figure this out sooner!).  Basically it comes down to a Supernatural Romance, or a YA Fantasy (with a bit of romance) and I have no idea which I should go with. The Romance one is more plotted, because I've actually written some of it already, and it's an AU with the serial numbers filed off so the characters are a bit easier. And it's a romance, so I know how it ends. :)  the Fantasy one ties into the same 'verse as a previous NaNo project, but I don't actually know how that ends. Because, I guess, I don't know the story. So I should figure that out. *sigh*  Or just fuck both ideas and do the Mer vs human fantasy that's sitting with 5K in my drafts folder. I DUNNOOOOOO.

I suppose, to be ruthlessly practical, I should do the romance first, because that can be an e-book more easily. And that could serve as  a gateway to others. So maybe that's how I should approach it.

I've also written some Crimson Peak fic, which is either going to be my recipient's story if the Yulegoat is kind or I'll find some requestor to give it to for a treat, because, yes. how could I not? That movie is like FIC CITY  I suppose it proves the adage that imperfect things draw fic more than perfect things, but it's certainly true in this case. Things sketched broadly long to be filled in and things that are tragic want to be fixed, that's kind of a given of fandom/fanfic imo.

A lovely stranger actually said that I should change Last Contract into a non-fanfic story. And granted it's not that close already - if I changed the names I'm not sure anyone would guess (and they'd probably guess the wrong canon anyway, since "Loki" isn't even brothers with "Thor" in this 'verse).  The real "issue" and it's not really one I guess would be to change it from a thinly-disguised Norway to a more-disguised Norway probably. 

One of these days I will have to talk about tv.

All this dithering brought to you by Yuletide, Nano and BEARS.

 Since I keep getting emails from nanowrimo, it's a reminder that I'm going to have to decide what to do, if anything.  I bombed out last year, trying to write a whole bunch of (different) fics - it's just a hassle to keep track of, for one thing. Also, I really liked when I did an original draft, it felt like something useful to do for nano rather than, more of the same, basically. 

Also, fic-wise, Nano will fall in a lull this year -- my Marvel Bang posting date is right in the middle (nov 13) but it's already in a pretty full draft, so it'll be in revisions. Comes the Hurricane will be posting also, likewise in revisions. I can put Last Contract on hold. And Yuletide I can do in Dec. So in terms of a project that'll be in first draft stage, I won't be in the middle of one, at least.

But of course, that means I need a new (original) idea that I'm excited about enough to whip out 50K.

So possibilities:
- the ghost story/romance I thought about before (bad thing about this one is it's partly written as an AU, but I think I'd take the general idea and start over.) 
- port a different AU 
- I have a MG book idea
- or none of the above and I need something else

(and then I find out that Stephenie Meyer publishes a search-and-replace genderswap of Twilight and jfc why even bother? lol) 

While poking around in my LJ for something else, I found a couple more ficlets that I never crossposted to AO3 (I've never moved all the drabbles, but anything that's a couple hundred words I figure I might as well). So a couple of them were Kara/Sam and so I do what I've done a bunch, and I type in "Sam" in the Relationship field so it'll bring up the autocompletes that have "Sam" in them. Sam/Kara is usually on the top because it's the biggest that has him in it.

Except it's not there. At all. Like, Sam/EVERYBODY ELSE is in the list. there's Sam/Kara/otherpeople ot3. But Kara/Sam by itself isn't in the list. IT WAS THERE. WHERE THE FUCK DID IT GO??

(I mean, yes, it's just the autocomplete, it's not like the ship doesn't show up at all, I just don't get how it can disappear out of the list or at least doesn't come back when I put in new fics). I sent a message to support, so hopefully they can fix it, or whatever.

Anyway so that made me grumpy. :/

Fiddling with that (and reading old LJ entries - back when I actually made them!) was sorta distracting away from my plan of the week, which was supposed to be put up another chapter of Last Contract, which didn't happen. and get ready for Comes the Hurricane, which sort of happened. I still want to at least start it in Sept since (a) I promised, and (b) it doesn't do any good to wait longer, probably.

However the main thing that happened was that I suddenly realized that the Maximoffs needed to show up in my Marvel Bang so I was busy writing on all that instead. Or really they decided they needed to show up, which is probably a good choice, I just wish I'd thought of it earlier, so I have less to rewrite/figure out again.

Trick or Treat exchange 2015 is open for signups! 300 word minimum, pretty wide open fandoms to pick from and "or" matching, so you only have to write one character of those requested. I mean, I wrote a ficlet about Bear the dog from Person of Interest last year, it's pretty open to writing fun little things. 

And of course fandom nominations for Yuletide are coming!

It feels like fall/holidays ish, if only it weren't so HOT.  today was cooler, but it's going back up on Thurs so it's only a short break. yuck

Because I suddenly remembered I had requested one of these, and then couldn't find what I'd done with it...

( My hc_bingo card )

Spouse has been dealing with his mother, who's not at the stage where she needs to be in a care place, but definitely can no longer live by herself. So he was gone most of last week to get her house ready to be turned over for rental while she moves in with my SIL. My parents had a rental unit for a while out of my grandmother's place after she died, and renting it was a clusterfuck, so I hope this goes better.

while he was gone Kiddo and I went to watch Jupiter Ascending, which was great fun, I wrote a thing comparing it to GotG, which was also fun.  parallels! 

So I was without the spouse for V-day which was ok - he sent flowers anyway and kiddo made me a delightful card. Less great, I also had computer issues on Valentine's day:  my phone freaked out (turns out both the battery and sd card needed replacing), my computer got infected by some virus which luckily I was able to get rid of early plus quite a bit of bloatware that had been hanging around unneeded besides. AND kiddo's mac got some kind of malware infection. probably caused by unwise site navigation (since all he does on it besides homework is minecraft).  So funny story, I was on the phone with the apple care person and so she has me look at the list of stuff found by the malware finder program, and she can see it because we're doing the share thing, and you could just hear the "OH. MY. GOD." as the list of bad things in Safari came up. Pretty sure she hadn't seen something quite that bad in awhile.  I made sure to tell her it wasn't actually mine.  I do know not to click on random ads on gaming sites. But now he knows better too, so lesson learned, I think.

 In other RL news, Kiddo has just finished both basketball and robotics for the year, so now we're off to baseball. He's definitely more into and better at robotics. We went to the Legoland competition and his team placed out of medal contention, but ninth or tenth so that's pretty good. They had a really good final run, it just wasn't quite enough. Kids had a lot of fun. 

Borrowing a tumblr thing in case anyone around here wants to play just to have something to post. You get out of the habit and suddenly it's like NOTHING seems worthy of posting about... 


(or all of them for any story, I'm also fine with that. Because I do like to talk about fic. Any of them.) 

 Happy New Year!  I hope 2015 is better for you than 2014 was - even if it was good, it could always be better, and lord knows, a lot of people had an awful 2014 so hopefully it'll be a better one.   (though lol it's funny since I'm usually near the last in the world for the new year - this year not quite so bad pacific time, but Hawaii was always hilarious because Australia would be almost Jan 2 and yet, JUST DOWN THERE NOT TOO FAR to the west. lol) 

We've completed our usual New Year's Eve duty of getting the christmas tree out of the house before the New Year. It always seems so bare and lonely in the living room without it, for a few days. Though I can see the tv again, so there's that. It was kind of a bushy tree this year and blocked most of the screen - luckily there's been little I've cared about watching, so it doesn't matter anyway.  Later, we're eating dinner with my parents, tonight we'll do the Midnight thing, and then tomorrow it's to have potluck with the hubs' relatives. 

I think I kudo'd everything I read for the various fests. I'm just - like, unless I don't finish it because it's not for me - I decided why the hell not? I don't think they mean that I think the fic is perfect, just that I enjoyed it. (there's a perfectly good system of recs/bookmarks/comments after all) And no one else can see your collective kudos, only each individual story, so anyway-- That's my new 2015 philosophy, a few days early.  generosity ,not stinginess. *nods*

Tomorrow I'll post my 2014 fic wrap up and reveal of the two anon-fics I wrote for Yuletide and M&M (though tbh, I don't think the M&M fic is that hard to figure out which one's mine). 

Hope the new year treats you all well. :) 

Title: The Ice Demon and the Hydra
Author: lizardbeth_j
Characters: Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Peggy Carter, Col Phillips, Thor, Frigga, the Howling Commandos (minor Steve/Peggy)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 50K
Continuity: AU to Captain America:The First Avenger
Series: The Ice Demon Series, The Snow Queen and the Ice Demon and The Ice Demon and the Snow Princess. They take place 150 years earlier, as a crossover with Frozen. They aren't necessary, but certainly useful for backstory and explanation for this particular 'verse.

Summary: More than a century ago, a Snow Queen melted the heart of the Ice Demon. When Arendelle is invaded, Loki vows to keep his promise to her, to protect their people. But these mortals are not as ignorant as he remembers, especially not his new enemy Johann Schmidt. What begins as an attempt to protect a small kingdom becomes a more important quest to protect the world from the evils of the Red Skull. But at least, he doesn't have to do it alone.

Notes and Acknowledgments: Because this runs parallel to First Avenger, I do obviously lean on the movie pretty heavily, including a few lines here and there. This story is, in essence, What if Loki joined the Howling Commandos? Note however that while Steve and Company are pretty much the same, Loki's point of divergence is long ago (as detailed in the previous Ice Demon tales), so he's quite a bit different.

Thanks to gaslightgallows and rayniskies who undertook beta, even under pretty trying circumstances, and to enknowen for the beautiful cover page -- see here at AO3.


Part One: Livejournal or Archive of Our Own or ff.net

A Crocus in the Snow

Pairings: Loki/Sif, Frigga/Odin
Characters: Loki, Sif, Frigga, Odin, Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Tyr, Malekith, Algrim
Continuity: MCU, Canon divergent AU for Thor: The Dark World
Rating/Warnings: Adult. contains an animal death and (past) child abuse.
Wordcount: ~50K total

Summary: Loki and Sif are on a quest to stop a war, but the true struggle is not with Malekith, but with the shadows of the past. In Asgard, Loki's family must deal with difficult revelations.


NOTE: Sequel to A Seed in Barren Lands (AO3 | LJ) . It would be helpful to read that first.


Written for norsebigbang 2014. Beautiful cover page by magnacrack/Ju'McLia




Go to the Prologue (LJ | DW) or at Archive of Our Own.