quote of the day

 "They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under."

Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed.

Some context: the quote is a  letter from a man to his sister, who was separated from him when they were both very young. By the time they finally meet again, his Alzheimer's has progressed to the point where he does not recognise her. It's simple but affecting. 

pretty good year

So it's a bit of a tradition to do a New Year post detailing everything that rocked, rolled and sucked completely over the last 12 months. Since I mainly use this journal for fic, let's have a roundup. 

Fics written:  10: After This Age, T'inquiete, je gere, Heirs of All Eternity, These Times and Their Players, Land of the Free, Tea Ceremony, Vegetarianism, Every Third Thought Shall Be My Grave, Yoho, and The Little Fishes and the Sharks, plus assorted comment and three sentence fics. Total: 50, 500 words (compared to 37,000 words in 2011 and 54,000 words in 2012), plus another 15,000 words of fics that are nearly or half finished, and should be going up relatively soon.

Word count: Not bad in comparison. I wish I'd written more original stories: total for 2013: 0, but it's been a tough year in many ways and writing fan fiction is one of many things that helps me cope. So overall, I'm happy with that.

Life events:moved to NZ, started a new job, celebrated three year anniversary (yay). I've met some amazing people, seen some awesome things and drunk some pretty damn good beer. So hey. I reckon it's a win.

2014: so far 2014 has been both awesome (Milford Sound in the rain has to be one of the more impressive things I've seen) and awful (concerning family news of unknown importance, I'm waiting to speak to my family about it tonight and boy does being thousands of miles away suck some times) But yeah. 

every third thought shall be my grave

Title: Every Third Thought Shall Be My Grave
Fandom: Pacific Rim
Spoilers: Yes, for movie.
Warnings: mild swearing, frank discussion of a character's death.
Summary: Written for azarias for the 2013 Pacific Rim Secret Santa on AO3 and the prompt: 'Herc Hansen & Stacker Pentecost'. Herc and Stacker have a heart-to heart the night before Stacker and Chuck suit up to go drop the bomb on the Big Bad of the movie. Short and introspective.

( Stacker climbs until the only things above his head are glass and stars... )

Boys In Cages

So..., concerning the 2013 retrospective and the aforementioned Possibly Very Bad News that I'm waiting to hear...I seem to recall ignipes  
 having a recent post about early SPN fandom and her fondness for Boys In Cages, which are two interests I also share...

So..., The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug features Thorin Oakenshield. During the events of the film, the dwarves are locked in cages. Therefore, there HAS to be fic (don't interrupt me) in which Thorin is locked within a cage. Except I cannot find it...

So...,anyone got any recommendations (or failing that, just good fic recs)

three sentence stories

 For silvr_dagger , Firefly, any, some of us are pirates/some of us are damned/but all of us need all of us to ever find the land

Scripture

"What's that?" asks River as she peers at the Shepherd, inhaling the scent of old books in the dry shipboard air. "Is it a song?"
"It's not a song," replies Shepherd Book, "it's scripture."