monkeys and ponies

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 01:29:26 GMT

Not dead; just increasingly have less to say in the type of long form Dreamwidth supports. I'm keeping this account and will post here occasionally, but you'll find me more often under this name on Tumblr and Bluesky.

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oh, hey, fic

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 23:40:21 GMT

A couple (adult-rated) short fics for Wanksgiving IV:

In the Vault
Doctor Who: Missy/Clara
There’s a dead woman locked in the basement. And also a live one, but that’s not the one who concerns the Doctor right now; Missy is fully capable of taking care of herself.
Teaspoon, AO3

One Night in [Redacted by the KGB]
The Americans: Elizabeth/Philip
It's midnight when Elizabeth finally stirs, hand skating across Philip's chest until he wakes.
AO3

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Fic: 299 (1/1, all ages)

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:11:17 GMT

Title: 299
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Donna Noble
Rating: All ages
Word count: 1,408
Spoilers: None
Summary: The intersection of coding and design satisfied Donna's restless brain in ways it hadn’t been satisfied since before ... well, before whatever she’d lost had left her adrift again and her mother and Gramps tight-lipped but supportive.

Author's notes: My last story for Keep Fandom Weird bingo, using the Bring Your Fandom to Work bingo square. I gave up the front-end development portion of my business about a decade ago to focus primarily on user experience strategy, but it's still something I know how to do, and it got me where I am today.

Anyway, wonder how Donna got so good at computers by the time "The Giggle" rolled around? This is my explanation.

Thanks to platypus for the beta.

( fic, after the cut )

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Five Moments in Liz Shaw's Life as an Alien (and One Before She Knew) (Teen, 1/1)

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 18:57:48 GMT

Title: Five Moments in Liz Shaw's Life as an Alien (and One Before She Knew)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Liz Shaw, Third Doctor, the Brig, Benton
Rating: Teen
Word count: 1,681
Spoilers: None
Summary: Liz Shaw, unexpectedly always an alien.

Author's notes: Written for the Always an Alien square on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Thanks to platypus for the beta.

( fic, after the cut )

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The Satchel (1/1, all ages)

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 20:32:32 GMT

Title: The Satchel
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Characters/Pairing(s): Jett Reno, Pelia
Rating: All ages
Word count: 1,998
Spoilers: None
Summary: "Truth is, I used to move hard-to-find folios for a shady antiquarian archivist."

Author's notes: Written for the Accidental Baby Acquisition square on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Hey, it didn't say that had to be a human baby!

Thanks to lizbee for both the beta and the idea that Jett Reno and Pelia needed to have shenanigans together. I would honestly watch six seasons and a movie of these two.

( fic, after the cut )

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Fic: The Boundless Sky (Gen, 1/1)

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:50:18 GMT

Title: Once More, This Time to the Left
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Characters/Pairing(s): Michael Burnham, Amanda Grayson, Sarek, Spock, Gabrielle Burnham
Rating: All ages
Word count: 1,961
Spoilers: None
Summary: Growing up as a human on Vulcan is hard. Growing up as a human with wings is even harder.

Author's notes: Written for the Wingfic square on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Hey, it's baby's first wingfic!

Some dialogue taken from "Such Sweet Sorrow," parts 1 & 2. Many thanks to lizbee for the beta.

::xposted to AO3

( fic, after the cut )

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Fic: Once More, This Time to the Left (1/1, All ages)

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:06:42 GMT

Title: Once More, This Time to the Left
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Characters/Pairing(s): Katrina Cornwell, Carl the Guardian of Forever, Michael Burnham
Rating: All ages
Word count: 500
Spoilers: None
Summary: You made your choice, Kat thought, and her body burst into starlight. Five connected drabbles about what happens to Kat after the torpedo explodes.

Author's notes: Covers prompts for “You made your choice,” “Seated together at a bar,” and “Where is Katrina Cornwell right now?” Many thanks to lizbee, who both beta’d this story and inspired it with a question I wondered about when I beta’d her Katoberfest2024 story even though it turns out I already knew the answer because I'd beta'd previous stories of hers. All I can say in my defense is that it's been a long goddamned year.

::xposted to AO3 and Ad Astra

( fic, after the cut )

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2024 Hugo Best Novel nominees

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:33:24 GMT

Am I gonna have time to read everything in all the main literature categories before voting begins? Very definitely not! But I did get through 5.1 of the novel nominees and have a few opinions. ( after the cut )

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Fic: Anonyparty (1/1, Adult)

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 16:18:20 GMT

Title: Anonyparty
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Characters/Pairing(s): Katrina Cornwell/Original Universe Gabriel Lorca, Katrina Cornwell/Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Pelia
Rating: Adult
Word count: 3,477
Spoilers: None
Summary: The invitation arrived in Kat’s Starbase 16 quarters wrapped around the napkin accompanying her replicated cumin lamb and noodles. ANONYPARTY 37. Storage bay Gamma-12 at 2100. No uniforms. No ranks. No shop talk. No regrets.

Author's notes: Look, sometimes you're having a nice Discord chat with a friend about whether Katrina Cornwell needs a boytoy and whether that boytoy would be Montgomery Scott and next thing you know, this happened. Many thanks to lizbee for the beta and the prompt "shore leave, no one is in uniform, conversations about jobs and ranks don't come until AFTER and then everyone is a sensible adult."

::xposted to AO3 and Ad Astra

( fic, after the cut )

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Fic: BETTINA (1/1, all ages)

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 18:21:20 GMT

Title: BETTINA
Characters/Pairing(s): Fourth Doctor
Rating: All ages
Word count: 6,397
Spoilers: None
Summary: The Fourth Doctor must protect a scientist and her invention from the people who want to exploit it. Entry for Big Finish's 2023 Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip Opportunity.

Author's Notes: Obviously, I didn't win this year's Big Finish story competition – but I still love this story a lot. Many thanks to Platypus for beta work.

The engine technology described in this story is real, but not ready for commercialization yet.

::xposted to dwfiction, and archived at A Teaspoon And An Open Mind and AO3

( fic, after the cut )

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Thanksgiving 2022

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 15:57:24 GMT

Honestly, I feel like yesterday's meal was one of my best, which is good, because we've got enough leftovers for several days even after the guests took stuff home. ( a log for myself as much as anything else )

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Sat, 29 Oct 2022 23:17:30 GMT

I don't post much publicly, primarily because a lot of what I post has to do with my work/clients, and that's not a thing I discuss where Google can find it. But there's nothing in this post that can't be posted where search engines can find it, so:

I would like to be writing something. What, I'm not sure, but I am going to get something posted to Teaspoon or AO3 before the end of the year, dammit.

Cooking! There's lots of that right now! Currently on the stove: waaaaay too much posole verde made with the St. Louis ribs we got from the fancypants butcher that someone to whom I'm married disappointingly refuses to eat as ribs, but will eat if stewed, so anyway, ribs + all the remaining green tomatoes from the garden + non-Goya hominy = posole verde.

Also on the cooking front: Melissa Clark's gâteau Breton with fresh plums and cardamom from her book Dinner in French, because the CSA gave us fresh damson plums this week, and why the hell not? I'm not convinced this is going to turn out well – there was definitely some butter leakage from the springform pan (glad I put it on a foil-covered baking sheet!), and the recipe took a solid 30 minutes more than Clark specified. But I feel like with these ingredients, it's hard to go wrong, so we'll see.

I don't normally turn over the garden on October 29, but I'm putting winter rye in for the first time as a nutrient-rich cover crop. Good for my garden, bad for my lower back, lol, but:

Cortisone shot time on Tuesday for the lower back. This is my fourth one, but because these are related to disc issues and not joint ones, my spine guy has said I can have them for quite a while longer.

Still, it would be nice to not have to have them at all.

Or to be "I have a spine guy" years old.

Anyway, still here, still on Twitter at @nonelvispub if you want to follow the public account, still planning on making that shithead's life hell in whatever small way I can now that he's bought Twitter.

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Rara Avis (1/1, Teen, Gritty/Murph)

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 01:58:30 GMT

Did I mean to write Gritty/Murph-the-terrifying-new-NERF-mascot fic? No. Did I wonder if it existed, discover it didn't, and thereby set my brain off on a YOU MUST WRITE THIS spiral? Uh. Well.

Rara Avis, on AO3.

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Sun, 08 May 2022 13:11:38 GMT

GOOD MORNING, WE HAVE A NEW DOCTOR

(I am pumped about this even if I realized I am also officially old enough to be the Doctor's mum.)

Anyway, just the other day I was wondering what new series I should pick up in my spare time, and I guess the answer is Sex Education on Netflix, since I've never seen Gatwa in anything.

WOOOOOOOO EXCITEMENT

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Fic: A Scattering of Stars (1/1, Adult)

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 14:43:00 GMT

Title: A Scattering of Stars
Characters/Pairing(s): Thirteenth Doctor/Dhawan!Master
Rating: Adult
Word count: 3,553
Spoilers: through Flux
Summary: After the Flux had chewed its way through the universe, after the Doctor had let her friends off for a brief stop to comfort their families, after she’d found herself flat on her back in the console room pointedly trying not to listen for her previous voices whispering to her from somewhere deep and unknown within her ship, she’d heard an entirely different voice calling to her and had known she had to follow it.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta platypus, who found all the rookie mistakes a writer makes when cranking up the fic skills after a year off.

::xposted to dwfiction and dwfiction, and archived at A Teaspoon And An Open Mind and AO3

( fic, after the cut )

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What's that sound? Oh, it's just the rats.

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 18:19:46 GMT

... the Star Rats, that is.

In case you can't wait an entire month for Mystery Hunt, we on Team Palindrome now have an optional prologue available for your enjoyment at starrats.org.

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Registration now open for MIT Mystery Hunt 2022!

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 20:03:36 GMT

What I haven't been doing this year: writing fic, doing the analysis I wanted to do for a Gally academic talk submission, drafting a proposal for a chapter in a nonfiction book about DW fandom.

What I've been doing instead: planning the MIT Mystery Hunt.

Registration is now open. If you like complicated puzzles, the Hunt is for you! Feel free to ask me questions about it here, though note that I will probably not be making any public posts about Hunt puzzles I wrote, because they have my real name on them, and this account does not 😅

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Thanksgiving 2021

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 22:19:06 GMT

Logging this here for my own memory as much as anything else:

Cherry tomatoes stuffed with guacamole – do not do this again unless the tomatoes are much bigger, my god, what a pain in the butt no matter how good they were

Cheese pennies, of which I have now made two batches in about as many days, 'nuf said

Grilled turkey & gravy, bird butterflied, of course; a 12lb. bird on a grill in 50° weather took a bit more than 2 hours

Vegetarian main: tater tot casserole, with many sautéed mushrooms instead of sausage

Cranberry-tangerine conserve

Cornbread dressing

Roasted brussels sprouts with vegetarian fish sauce vinaigrette, all hail Bragg's Liquid Aminos

GF biscuits

Homemade pistachio-honey ice cream

Mendiants with candied orange peel and walnuts, and hooray, I have enough chocolate and orange peel to do another batch

GF cheesecake brought by my friend J

That was more than enough food for six, but my god, how good it felt to be able to have a proper Thanksgiving meal again. Also, the lightly smoked turkey is going to make one hell of a gumbo tomorrow night, but that's columbina's responsibility. (If you'd like to cook along, here's the spouse's recipe writeup.)

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2021 Hugo nominees: Best Novelette

Sat, 04 Sep 2021 01:28:52 GMT

Not quite as good a category as Novella, but still pretty consistently good: ( reviews and rankings, after the cut )

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2021 Hugo nominees: Best Novella

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 23:06:23 GMT

Again, no surprises if you follow me on Goodreads: ( some very brief reviews, and the ranking )

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2021 Hugo nominees: Best Novel

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 01:22:13 GMT

It's that time again! Or rather, it's past the usual time, but Worldcon was delayed for Obvious Reasons, so Hugo voting isn't until this fall. Which is good, because between work and Mystery Hunt planning, I haven't had a ton of brain for recreational reading.

Anyway, my thoughts on this year's nominees (with no surprises if you follow me on Goodreads): ( after the cut )

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Fic: The Destination (1/1, Teen)

Tue, 18 May 2021 18:12:36 GMT

Title: The Destination
Characters/Pairing(s): Tenth Doctor/the TARDIS
Rating: Teen
Word count: 2,161
Spoilers: none
Summary: His ship took him nowhere without a reason. And that reason was ... fake marriage. Or maybe even the real thing.

Author's Notes: Happy birthday, nostalgia!

::xposted to dwfiction and dwfiction, and archived at A Teaspoon And An Open Mind and AO3

( fic, after the cut )

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2020 fic meme

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:22:39 GMT

I didn't do this meme last year, because I wrote one (1) fic in 2019, uggggh. But this year I have seven! It's a 2020 miracle!

( the year in fic, after the cut )

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The Sixteenth Move (1/1, Adult)

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 19:09:40 GMT

Title: The Sixteenth Move
Characters/Pairing(s): River Song/Dhawan!Master
Rating: Adult
Word count: 2,544
Spoilers: none
Contains: pegging
Summary: "I assure you," River said, draping herself over the Master's back so she could nip at his earlobe, "the Doctor isn't involved in this in any way. And he definitely doesn't know I'm here, or he'd probably be here, too, trying to stop me from doing something he'd call 'foolish and dangerous.' Spoilsport."

Author's Notes: I wanted to write one more fic this year, and looks like there's no River/Dhawan!Master. Shame on you, fandom! Fortunately, this is a fixable problem.

::xposted to dwfiction and dwfiction, and archived at A Teaspoon And An Open Mind and AO3

( fic, after the cut )

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Thanksgiving 2020

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 19:08:11 GMT

We normally have three friends over to share dinner with us. This year, of course, that didn't happen, which was pretty depressing, but also didn't stop me from cooking enough food for five people. (Actually, that's not entirely true: there was enough capon for five, even though only three of us are meat-eaters; leftovers have been split into chicken salad and Sunday's gumbo.)

Anyway, the menu, just for my own records, if nothing else:

Just enough chopped liver on buttered toast for two, since our picky cats won't eat giblets, WTF

Capon roasted with the gochujang glaze from this recipe

Mashed potatoes with caramelized onions (and two bags of caramelized onions frozen for future deliciousness, go me)

Roasted brussels sprouts with cotija and this roasted jalapeño vinaigrette (some minor mods here, like all orange juice so I didn't have to slice up a lime for such a small amount of juice; parsley instead of cilantro to accommodate my spouse's defective cilantro gene; and a touch of simple syrup instead of agave nectar)

The usual cranberry-tangerine conserve

Pecan pie

The sprouts and vinaigrette in particular are a real keeper of a recipe. We have some of both left over, so I think I'm going to roast some carrot chunks and toss them in on the grounds that pretty much anything will taste good with the vinaigrette.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good holiday, or at least as good of one as it's possible to have in this benighted year. May we all have a better one next year.

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