vanillalime

So many good ones, so little time to write for them...

I swear, I blinked and summer is nearly over. But this also means FOOTBALL. And pumpkin spice food products!

Anyway, I absolutely love the remix idea that cmk418 came up with for hardtime100, but I have a seed of an idea for July's "camping" prompt (a moody B/K AU!) so I'm inclined to start with that, I think. Hopefully I finish it before oz_magi rolls around. ;D

ALSO Someone on Dreamwidth ("wholeyolk" -- I don't believe I know her?) listed Oz as one of her requested fandoms in the annual Fandom Giftbox fest, but neither of her prompts sparked anything in me. Maybe someone else might be interested in taking them on? It's not an exchange, you just post fic (100 word minimum) to whoever's giftbox by September 22. I wrote a couple of things a few years ago for ozsaur and trillingstar when they posted giftboxes. Very low pressure. Anyway, here is wholeyolk's giftbox, and these were her requested Oz prompts:

• Character/Pairing: Chris Keller/Vern Schillinger

Prompts: It’s not love, that’s for sure, but it’s definitely lust…plus a pinch of sadism, just for fun. I’d love some more of their history together, such as during the first time that Keller was put in prison as a teenager and Schillinger “protected” him. Missing scenes from their time in Oz would also be interesting—they certainly do a lot plotting together, so perhaps their liaisons continued in some form? If you wish to incorporate the characters’ canonical relationships/fucked up issues with Beecher into the story as well, that’s absolutely fine.

• Character/Pairing: Miguel Alvarez/Alonzo Torquemada

Prompts: Alonzo’s late, last season seduction of poor, try-hard Miguel is fascinating, and I’d love to know more! Loss of virginity for Alonzo + first time with a guy for Miguel = yummy, smutty times. :D I’m also especially interested in Miguel’s point of view and the despair/hopelessness/oblivion of it: What is it like to go back on drugs and give up on machismo in one fell swoop? What happens to them after the end of the last episode? Or, Miguel has been told that he’s never getting out of Oz, but Alonzo’s not in for life, so maybe he has some string he could pull…


A couple of people posted giftboxes with Stranger Things prompts that I absolutely loved, so I'm going try to put something together for those. In June, I rewatched the show's first 2 seasons, then I watched Season 3 when it came out last month, and I fell in love with it all over again. It's basically become my new obsession. And I think I've found a sub-group of fans whose interests run parallel to mine, so the fandom isn't quite so intimidating anymore. Whereas with the Marvel fandom... it's so big and scary there, man. When I try to wade my way through their stuff, I still feel like somone from small-town Iowa who's been dropped into the middle of New York City. Without a map. LOL

OH, I nearly forgot! spook_me sign-ups will be here before you know it! I CAN'T WAIT. I wonder what new special creature prompt ozsaur has planned for this year.

(a continuation of my Long Lost adventures with Lee -- see HERE for Part 1: The Pre-Lee)

LeeFest 2019

( LeeFest 2019 )

Here's a photo of me, hanging out with LEE TERGESEN. You know, having drinks and sharing a laugh. As you do.

♥ ♥ ♥


(he was being funny here, crouching down to my level)

I can't believe this was nearly two weeks ago! I'm working on a write-up, but it's taking a while because he took us out after his play and chatted with us for literally TWO HOURS. TWO HOURS OF LEE. So there are few things to cover. LOL

HE IS SO AWESOME.

It's been a while since I touched base here! I've actually been super-busy with fun fandom things, but haven't had the time to post about them. So, an update!

First and foremost...

1. LeeFest 2019 !!!

YES, I am going to see Lee again! IN TWO DAYS. This time in a play! And, as you can probably imagine, I'M A LITTLE BIT EXCITED.

Lee is appearing off-Broadway in the play "Long Lost," written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Donald Margulies. The play has been in previews for the last 3 weeks and had its official opening on Tuesday night. My husband and I are attending this Saturday's evening performance, alongside tobyfan, miltil, and discreetmadchen, all of whom I met in 2017 at the PaleyFest Oz reunion. AND in a delightful coincidence, suespur had already made plans to be in NYC this weekend, and she'll be there, too! WOOT! Michiganders represent! A long-time Oz fan named Jessica (she was at Godfather IV), who I've come to know through Twitter, will also be there.

The play sounds awesome, and Lee is basically the co-lead as a recovering-addict ex-con (sound familiar? LOL) who suddenly reappears and wreaks havoc in the life of his wealthy, successful younger brother (Angus?!). Here is a quick montage video of some highlights from the play put out by the theater company:



As awesome as the PaleyFest reunion was, I've always longed to Lee actually *perform* in person, and I can't believe it's going to happen. ZOMG


2. A New Fandom! Kind of!

In keeping with my tradition of discovering fandoms at least 5-10 years after everyone else...

At the end of April, along with half the world, I saw the movie Avengers: Endgame. Now, I've been a casual Marvel fan at best, seeing maybe half the movies in the universe (the other Avengers movies, and the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and a few others here and there). And while I'd enjoyed the ones I'd watched very much, I was never really "into" the whole thing. And that changed when I saw Endgame. I was BLOWN AWAY and thought the whole movie was AMAZING and that it was the most PERFECT way to end the series, and I was like, WOW, I get it! I FINALLY GET IT. So, I went on this big marathon of watching every Marvel movie in sequence (the lone exception being the Incredible Hulk, because apparently that movie's pretty bad and has little tie-in with the rest of the universe and didn't even have Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk), and my excitement GREW, because I finally realized the extent of the intricacies of the plots and I was blown away by how they all came together, and OMG, now I love these movies so much! And then I went back and watched Endgame a second time, and I understood everything so much more, and now I have that FEELING you get when you love something so much you don't even know how to begin to celebrate it.

I thought I might want to write fic for it!

BUT I checked out AO3 to see what was going on there, and OMG, there is SO much stuff. And... I don't like a lot of it. There's a lot of people into things I'm totally not into, at least not in the way they are. Which is fine! Whatever floats your boat, and all that, but it's so overwhelming and it's been hard to find my niche.

Once again, as I discovered with Stranger Things, I'm not sure big fandoms are for me.

*runs back to Oz*


3. Writing :(

I want to do more writing, but I'm in a bit of a funk. There was a superpower prompt at hardtime100 that I was so excited for, but I couldn't transfer the witty banter in my head to the screen. I want to settle down and get back to my neglected Big Oz Fic, but other shiny objects keep distracting me (like the trailer for the new Spiderman movie where he deals with the fallout from Endgame OMG Tom Holland is awesome). I do have this Holly Beecher ficlet that I started way back last Halloween that I'm poking at again. I think I like it, even if there's not much to it. Sometimes I need to remind myself that short stories are OK too. Maybe that will get me going again.


Anyway, that's about it! Hopefully, I'll have something about meeting Lee to post later (maybe not 6,000 words like last time, but *something* anyway :D)!

I am going to finish this Oz Groundhog Day fic if it kills me. IF IT KILLS ME

It is giving me fits, people. FITS

What in the world possesed me to write this in present tense? There had to be a good reason at one point.

Blurghhhh. I cannot even write a coherent sentence at this point. Or if I do, it has at least 18 adverbs in it. Which is probably a few too many.

Oh, but hey, the trailer for Stranger Things Season 3 came out yesterday, and IT IS AMAZING. And not just because they used an awesome remix of Baba O'Reily. Maybe I'll procrastineate by watching that a couple hundred more times instead.



Big Brother Steve + Little Brother Dustin =  ♥ ♥ ♥

And March Madness, baby! After one compete game, my bracket is PERFECT.

this will not last

Michigan FTW Go BLUE!!!

And hush, suespur, I don't want to hear about it.

Thanks to a recent positive review by the_emu, I just finished reading "World War Z" by Max Brooks, a book about a world-wide zombie apocalypse. I really enjoyed it and found the concept fascinating (yeah, I know I'm a little late to the zombie game). I loved the format of the book, too, written as a series of transcripts of interviews with various survivors.

Anyway, NOW I'm craving ALL THE OZ APOCAFIC THAT EXISTS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

I've assembled a list of stories that I know are out there, and here's what I got so far:

Written for oz_magi:

• Island in a Sea of Zack, by marythefan


• Secret by the Unmourning Water, by marythefan


• Equinox, by levitatethis

Written for spook_me:

• Apocalypse, by severina2001


• Chaos Theory, by trillingstar

Written for Oz Graffixation at oz_graffiti:

• The Road (drabble), by cmk418


• A Soul to Steal, by natlet

Written for hardtime100:

• Three Days After the Asteroid Hit, by actizera

No Emerald City series, by catheights


Does anyone know of any other Oz stories out there? (I've already checked the "apocalypse" tag on AO3 and also found a couple of Oz/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers, but I wasn't particularly interested in that combination.)

I believe trillingstar is currently working on a new apocafic story, and hopefully one day I can add it to this list. *nudge, nudge* :D

So, Tom Fontana and I were chatting the other night...

LOL. Actually, we just exchanged comments on Instagram, but I am still tickled pink about the whole thing!

Tom had posted a stock photo of the infamous St. Elsewhere snow globe, and I left a comment asking him if it was true that he still had it (which I had read in a recent interview). And he replied, "There are actually three snow globes (you always need backup just in case...). I have one."



I thanked him for replying and said, "I'm afraid to think what you might've kept from the set of Oz!" :D

And he replied to that! He said, "Among other things, I have (in storage) the electric chair in which Cyril was executed..."



Which, interesting! And kind of funny, because the electric chair had been exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my comment. Heh.

(I'm glad that he specified that it was in storage. I'd be a little unnerved if it was something he had on display in his living room or whatever. O_O)

Anyway, in case you're interested, all episodes of St. Elsewhere are now available to watch on Hulu! Hulu has had Season 1 available for quite some time, but not the other seasons (for who knows what reason). Tom was posting some pics from the show on Instagram to help promote it. I haven't watched the show since it first went into syndication back in the mid-90s (and I never did see the first season), but I remember loving it. (Well, until the finale. Sound familiar?) I'm adding it to my lengthy list of "Shows I'm Going to (Re-)Watch. Really! One Of These Days."

Which reminds me that I need to get back to my Oz re-watch. Entertainment programming tends to fall off my radar when football season starts. (Michigan is currently 8-1, in case y'all are wondering... )

Title: A Solitary Ghost
Characters: Tobias Beecher, Chris Keller
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,133
Creature Prompt: Ghost
Summary: A mentally unstable Toby receives a visit from Chris's ghost. But who's haunting who?
Notes: Written for the 2018 Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon. Cross-posted to AO3. Inspired by the following artwork prompt:


________________________________

( A Solitary Ghost )

I'm trying to start my Oz story for spook_me, and I've realized that probably the hardest part of writing any story is simply starting the damn story. Because the idea is all there in my head, but it's intimidating to take that first step of coming up with and writing down that first sentence. So, I just do it, writing down perhaps not the best sentence, but a sentence that will get me going.

So I wrote, "Toby sat on his tiny bed, his back propped up against the wall," and I thought, "Wow, it seems like I've been here before." LOL

So then I went back through my stories from the last year, and while there isn't anything exactly like that, I did notice a trend that ALL my stories begin with a proper noun--the name of the story's main character:

Principal Tim McManus glanced down at his agenda one last time and started rubbing the top of his balding head.

Toby paused as the words drifted slowly toward him.

Victoria squinted into the distance, searching, until suddenly she saw it.

Toby rolled his eyes at the glowing image in front of him.  

Angus checked his watch and groaned.

Sean parked his car and, dragging his feet, made his way toward the door to Claire's apartment.

Tobias Beecher was sitting on his bed, reading a book, when Ryan O'Reily flounced into their pod with a huge grin on his face. (<< I think this is the sentence that I thought I might be repeating.)

... and on and on.

This tendency of mine is probably now going to bug me every time I try to start a new story, thereby making the process even harder.

I just found it interesting and thought I'd share.

I'm also kind of procrastinating, if you can't tell. LOL

This was another one of those episodes where a lot of things happened that I really didn't remember. I'm glad I'm doing this rewatch!

— Okay, while JD Williams has a nice ass, I did not need to see Kenny get a cavity search, and I definitely did not need to see him pooping out a balloon of herion. Sometimes I'm in the mood for gritty realism and sometimes I'm... not.



( many more pics & observations under the cut )