Alphas, Betas, Omegas: A Primer by norabombay - all you ever wanted to know about A/B/O'verses, in detail. If you could only see the conversation this came from.

( the social issues hit us: twenty hours of knotting and nothing to do )

You see this is a complex issue that should be explored very fully. I'm stuck on teh laundry sitch. I mean. Dear God. Rubber sheets?

Level with me: how close are Ringo and George to killing Paul and John messily, with drumsticks? Ballpark; that was several takes by the clothing changes and the vocals. The Beatles almost ended that day, didn't they?

( this only works if you've watched the vid )

...seriously. Paul was about two takes away from a drumstick up the ass there.

ETA: The more I watch, the more hysterical I get at the look on Ringo's face. Dear God, Paul, don't turn around. Just, better you never see that.

ETA 2 Reading the wikipedia on this song makes it that much more hilarious.

Okay, so there was surgery and whatnot, and I want for the record...

Ouch.

My stomach muscles hurt. My chest muscles want to hurt, I think, and feel left out that they don't. My shoulders hurt. I get this is because I was the equivalent of a human balloon animal and then glued--GLUED--shut. I mean, I get this is not Elmer's glue or anything, but still.

Ouch.

The following for anyone who is staring at this and saying "OKAY NO SURGERY EVER", waht I've learned.

( yeah, my life, the glamour )

By the way, this is what svmadelyn has to deal with tonight.

( existential surgical crisis )

She's still speaking to me, even.

svmadelyn: no honey. *grins* it was not you I was making the plate breaking jokes with.
svmadelyn: so you are completely lacking in context and your confusion is understandable!
seperis: ...you're joke cheating on me?
seperis: I have no words.
seperis: If I didn't have a fic with Kris Allen possibly dating Lady Gaga right now, I'd be so offended.
svmadelyn: but I replaced her in my head with you!
svmadelyn: so there, you should be honored.
svmadelyn: I was all: BUT WE WROTE CHATFIC.
svmadelyn: only that wasn't us.
svmadelyn: *pats*
seperis: Uh huh.
seperis: ...chatfic with someone else?
svmadelyn: back in the day, I used to do that with everyone.
svmadelyn: you've had me to yourself for a couple years now
svmadelyn: the times, they are changing.
svmadelyn: *pleased*
seperis: Monogamy is classier, I'm just saying.
svmadelyn: Wow. It's amazing that you didn't like, catch on fire.
svmadelyn: From the burning hypocrisy.
svmadelyn: ...are you on fire? you're not responding.
svmadelyn: *worries*
seperis: I am not emotionally cheating.
svmadelyn: oh GOD ARE YOU ON--
seperis: It's all typing and text.

And

svmadelyn: uh. you cheat with EVERYONE UNDER THE SUN.
svmadelyn: [names redacted to protect their reputations from horrible slurs]
seperis: I DO NOT.
svmadelyn: SEE EXHIBIT A.
svmadelyn: I AM SANDRA BULLOCK.
svmadelyn: YOU ARE JESSE JAMES.
svmadelyn: THE ONLY QUESTION IS WHICH ONE OF THEM IS MICHELLE "THE BOMBSHELL" MCGEE.
seperis: IT DOES NOT COUNT IF I TELL YOU ABOUT IT
svmadelyn: I AM TELLING YOU ABOUT IT TOO.
seperis: NOT UNTIL YOU MISTOOK ME FOR SOMEONE ELSE
seperis: MY GOD.
svmadelyn: It was probably one of the best chatfic sessions I ever had

Maybe we should get counseling? *worried*

Part A

Dell fought me and fought me, because they totes don't want my money (God, I think I should just start signing off my paychecks to them and amazon already; it would make all our lives easier), but by God, I got a replacement keyboard for my laptop (and wasnt' that hideously expensive) and a new internal hard drive (which ironically cost the same as the keyboard). I don't actually know how that part is going to go; I really want a new laptop, but I hate Vista and I am wary about Windows 7 since people were perky about Vista in self-defense for about six months and then it all went to darkness and tearing their hair out and crying hysterically, so yeah. So the hard drive is larger, faster, and compatible, so that means I'll trnasfer everything to an external, panic, install XP on the new hard drive, and reinstall all my stuff. This might also have a welcome secondary purpose of a clean install of XP--this thing is slowing down more every second.

Part B

I am delaying more Christmas shopping until I need the retail therapy. With work the way it is, I feel I am going to need it soon. Possibly by Friday.

Part C

One day, I am going to stop playing All American Idols (but Mostly Adam Lambert) All the Time, but that's not yet. I really don't know how I feel about the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, stop chanting For Your Entertainment everytime the C2 (conversion) environment at work goes down. I know I have a really questionable relationship with computers and networks, but I'm not sure I want to acknowledge it's become a bdsm scene every time I try to run my tests, and the environment isn't giving me a safe word. Nor do I feel good leaving it--sort of dirty, and not a little used, and not in a good, wholesome way. Computers and I have always played rough, but I'm afraid my limits are being reached.

In other words, another day like today, and I don't care if the windows are shatterproof, my CPU is going through the window at a rate of speed roughly what I can manage in a dark, mindless rage, and let me tell you, that's going to be really really fast.

Part D

You know, I think the preceding section may cover my emotional equilibrium nicely.

Chimera by nymphaea1, AIRPS, Adam/Kris, in progres--this may be the only good thing in my life (aside from the new keyboard). It's a WIP, and read it anyway, because it's fantastic. Magical realism, world-building, show-not-tell, elves, a war that's over but not for those who fought it, and everything I never knew I wanted in a story. And several things that I did.

You could go to the llus-gorn and trade the memory of your first kiss or your ability to feel the sun on your face. The fey were hungry for human experience and would pay heavily for it—though to be fair, the trade went in both directions. But the hottest selling items were the darker ones—the memory of your husband’s last breath as he lay dying in the hospital or the last fading remembrances of flight from a pixie who’d lost his wings. People would go in there, thinking they were ridding themselves of their most jagged pieces, but they forgot that a llus-gorn always kept his word. They took the memories, but not the emotions that accompanied them. It left people lost in a depression they no longer had the context to understand and then had no possibility of healing.

....

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Adam snapped his attention back to Kris, sharp and dangerous. Not human, Kris remembered.

“He’s not touching you.”

That was rich. “But you, you’re totally on the menu, right? That’s--”

“Necessary,” Adam said. He held up a hand. “And that would be true even if I were alone.”

He squeezed Kris’s shoulder. “It’s not anything I’m excited about—but there are ways of dealing with them if you know what you’re doing.”

“Everyone says that.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “I’m not everyone.”

Run, do not walk. Four parts so far. Warning for violence in parts two and three.

ETA:

Part E: I am not Typhoid Mary for keyboards, svmadelyn. I cannot make it break by the power of yahoo suggestion. Otherwise holy God would I be using that power every day. You know, when I had to. Not for like, petty revenge purposes or anything. For non-petty and epic revenge, of course.

Okay, poll. Context below the cut. Do not read context before giving your answer!

[Poll #1435167]

Filled it out? Good. Now click.

( context crazypants )

ETA: THIS IS A TOTALLY UNBIASED POLL TRUFAX.

On a very basic level, my body confuses me sometimes. I mean, not in a way that makes sense, like blood cells and mutation. I have some insane, endless block on two regular features that in fact are in the Care and Feeding of the Human Body Manual.

The first is my period, always. I can write it down, I can track it on a calendar, but it is always an eternal surprise. What madness is this? I feel homicidal against air! Why God, why do you send me this crazy? And you know, then all comes clear, and I'm yet again marveling at the weird way my memory just shuts down despite almost twenty years of this. I mean, there are people on my flist who can predict me by my entries--you think I'm kidding, a couple OF them proved it once in comments and dear God, my shame--but I never seen it unless it happens to occur to me that suddenly my reading for three days slides from ooh plot to so my reading log has a lot of porn suddenly, but even then, it doesn't sink in.

The second is dehydration. I know I'm dehydrated, and I mean this literally, when svmadelyn, over chat ffs, tells me I am. I have a headache, I say, grumpy. Coffee isn't helping. I feel sick. I think I'm dying. Do you want my laptop?

[To be fair, coffee actually does wipe out allergy headaches sometimes. I mean, I'm a caffeine addict, but it's for a lot of reasons. Or so I claim.]

Mmm hmm she says, and I almost say cherry coke, because I am spiteful, but that's a story for another day. Hey, you had any water today?

And like that, I remember, get up, and drink two glasses of water and bring a third back to the laptop. In thirty minutes, I'm fine.

I hate you, I tell her moodily. Hey, what are you reading?

This passes for normal conversation for us in the last half-decade that we've avoided killing each other.

Anyway, I realized that this works without her being here, as I was in the kitchen, with a headache, making a cup of coffee this morning after a long day of headache and not sure what the hell is up with that (I went to bed at nine okay? I didn't go to bed that early when I was hospitalized. It was that icky.), and suddenly, there's this voice--You have a headache?

Me: This is like, proof I'm on the internet too much, isn't it?

Hey, you had any water today?

Two glasses now, thanks. I'll finish the third before I go to work.

I'm curled up warm on a rug in Chicago and watching the snow fall.

My relationship with snow is like anyone's relationship with a miracle: startled awe and not a little fear cut with a general sense of unreality. Who expects ice falling from the sky? People not born and raised in the south, that's who. I got up this morning finally before eight feeling too awake and bothered svmadelyn for keys to go to the 7 Eleven for coffee and trip over piles of white fluff like marshmallow cream piled messy around the doors and by unexpected corners. It was still perfect and still falling, and I slid through pristine white bewildered by the flakes melting into the sleeves of my coat.

It's taking my breath away.

We're going to get cupcakes and then to the museum to look at--something, I have n idea why, I don't have a relationship with art more complex than pretty and what is that? Really?

I, for one, imagine the cupcakes will be very, very good. And the person looking blankly at anything abstract and saying blankly "Very interesting," while covered in snow, well, that will be me and you know, that will be good, too.

(svmadelyn and V are getting along a little too well. I cannot prove they are going to leave me friendless and alone in the snow, but it could happen. Also, I left my phone on the plane (yes, go ahead, laugh), so I could be abandoned to die very easily. At least I have snow, which I understand standing under could be dangerous? I am pondering this eventuality.)

Continued from Madelyn's Rat Saga

svmadelyn: i think i am wussing out on the crockpot tonight.
svmadelyn: *indecisive*
seperis: *stares at you*
svmadelyn: i can't do it!
svmadelyn: i am clumsy from exhaustion.
svmadelyn: yes.
seperis: YOU CAN
svmadelyn: and what if it climbs under the lid
svmadelyn: and gets in the soup
seperis: It won't.
svmadelyn: and i ladle myself a portion
seperis: It does not have opposable thumbs.
svmadelyn: and then FOOD IS RUINED FOREVER.
seperis: NO THUMBS.
svmadelyn: then I'd turn into someone with an eating disorder.
svmadelyn: and skeletal
svmadelyn: and cranky because hi, I like eating.
svmadelyn: then I'd have to be admitted somewhere.
seperis: NO THUMBS HONEY.
svmadelyn: and we know how I feel about hospitals.
seperis: BREATHE
svmadelyn: I CAN'T IT IS HOLDING MY ATROVENT HOSTAGE.

...are there rats with thumbs? *worried*

The thing is, svmadelyn knew, and still she pasted it.

After 38 Years, Israeli Solves Math Code, which is one of those things that is basically, for both of us, like really really expensively out of reach chocolate. Because we can stare at it for a while and think, wow, that's so cool and then now in human speech?

Because, quote:

"Say you've lost an e-mail and you want to get it back — it would be guaranteed," he said. "Let's say you are lost in a town you have never been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are no street signs — the directions will work no matter what."

We both stared at it and didn't speak for a few minutes, then simultaneously pasted what we'd been secretly googling.

The Road Coloring Problem by A. N. Trahtman
Note: Lots of words that do not mean what you thought they meant. Ask me how i ended up printing the explanation of a finite machine. I don't know. I just know I am afraid.)

The Road Coloring Problem on Wikipedia.
Note: There's a picture!

There was another length of silence.

( i wonder what i used to do before wikiing. about math. and wonder, what would rodney do? )

I don't remember Smallville making me do homework. Besides the one on nuclear detonation and the speed of jets flying to the Fortress.

*fond* This is how you know you are loved.

Amireal: - *starts stopwatch to see how long it takes before madelyn posts about you being sad and pathetic and trying to become one with your IV in some hospital*

Also if you text me pictures, I will totally send you some in return.

And the betting begins.

Besides the betting book currently in progress--I did send her pictures? And I did not get one back.

*coughs pathetically*

Yay Bahamas!

This will, in svmadelyn's words, probably be the last public call for anyone interested in coming to Slumberparty this year. The destination is the Bahamas, via cruise, in June.

Check here for pertinent information. And we look forward to seeing whoever decides to come!

Is svmadelyn Satan's daughter?

Before you answer, let me just point out, a quote:

I COULD, YOU KNOW. I WILL -- KILL RODNEY IN TEACHER'S PET. THAT'D STUFF YOU INTO A REAL BIND, WOULDN'T IT.

SHE WILL KILL RODNEY IF SHE WINS!

[Poll #901400]

ETA: Also, ,this is a time of sadness. As you might not know, I was demoted to *fifth* in Madelyn's favorite people list. I think my heartbreak deserves affection. And cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

I'll be over here, crying in teh corner for a while. Don't mind me.

So this is how my day is going. Transcribed from email to svmadelyn, who is currently eating chocolate and mocking my existence with her--um. Chocolate.

*****

THIS IS MY MAJOR BTW AND ALSO HELLO I WORK FOR THE STATE GOVERNMENT AND MY
STATE IS RED AND MAKES ME CRY FOR MY INTERGRITY MMMKAY? SO MY PAIN IS FAR
FAR GREATER AND MORE MEANINGFUL AND MAYBE EVEN DEEPER BECAUSE MY DIRECT
BOSS LAYERS AWAY IS PERRY AND WE ARE NEVER GETTING RID OF HIM!!!!!1111!

I AM IN A BALL ON TEH FLOOOR ANSWERING QUESTIONS FROM WEIRD PHONE PEOPLE.

Do you have any food? I want cookies.

*****

Seriously. I need cookies right now.

Okay, so svmadelyn (and me, yes, fine, I miss having something to do that isn't WiPs) needs a project.

Here is her poll on what on earth she should do with her shiny new domain.

We all know and love svmadelyn. If you are like me, you also save incriminating conversations for the future know that she really really needs to be organizing, or doing something. And I? I have a wonderful history of helping her. And nodding. So. Run over and make a suggestion. A desperately needed archive, something. Seriously. She gets bored, I get bored, tragic things occur to her friends (my friends just block me on AIM and YAHOO). Seriously. Ask us about it. I mean, we can't talk about it--the scars are still healing--but still.

Go go shoo. Madelyn = fun! Huge fun. How often has she been wrong, really? Ask yourself that.

In other words--we are bored. We can only mock badfic for so long before it starts seeming revolutionary and the word 'post-modern' starts being tossed around and you know what? I doubt either of us can safely assume we know what that word *means*? Do you really want me reccing Rodney-marries-Mary-Sue-as-a-metaphor-for-the-deep-manpain-of-his-neglected-childhood-and-Sheppard's-demonic-abuse-of-his-delicate-and-sensitive-person?

*hopeful* Run. Now.

So Madelyn decided that whole "sanity" thing was totally overrated.

So. ficbyzee offered to make 1 minute vids as a challenge type thing and now I have to decide on my prompt. I've decided on John/Wraith as the pairing, or possibly Rodney/John/Wraith triangle of jealousy and doom, however Zee wishes! BUT. I need a SONG. rageprufrock and I are overwhelmed with the possibilities, so I am turning to you fandom, in my hour of need.

This is obviously an idea whose time has come.

Now take her poll here!

ETA: Becuase I'm an idiot and forgot to add this on.

spaggel has ART! MYSTERIOUS ART!

Check it out!

So svmadelyn was like, is the package there yet?--for a week. Or perhaps two.

It worried me. Perhaps it was her mention of things definitely not being alive in it. And how many times she said this. So. Many. Times.

But after two weeks, it is here. It is--and yes, I'm being serious--she sent me Thumper. Thumper is a rare cactus rabbit, found only in the incredibly weird minds of Madelyn and Pru, with white and pink felt ears. He's fine, green and liberated from bubble paper, sitting on the kitchen counter. I gave him water. He did not reject me. Five seconds after we met and he's already way ahead of Reggie.

I have been sent cookies and brownies and DVDs and seasons of Smallville and oh my God, she stuffed Supernatual in this latest one--candy and music and stuffed bears and if I whine, more chocolate. I can honestly state I have never, ever received a cactus.

This is *so cool*. I'm putting Thumper on my desk at work.

*hugs to Madelyn and Pru* Thanks, chicas.

*speechless with rage*

SHE'S SENDING ME VICIOUS TOYING EMAIL I CANNOT ANSWER!

*****

"Five. I was five."

Rodney closes his eyes against the edge of desperation bleeding through the toneless voice. "Five. That's when your father took you up in a jet. That's when you knew you wanted to fly."

John's head in his lap turns, dark eyes as unreadable as blank glass. He's lost weight again--Rodney hadn't known the chair could do that, because God knew, they got enough to eat, but John's worn down to bone and thin skin, angular beneath the loose cotton-like clothes they'd been given when their uniforms gave out. Pared down, and somehow, it makes him look weirdly younger, dangerously fragile.

A little shake rocks him, and Rodney braces his hands on John's shoulders until it passes. A few seconds, and John evens out again. It takes longer every night. If John's not a junkie for them already, he will be soon. "I don't remember my mother."

Rodney hadn't ever thought to ask about her. Fuck. "She was like you. Smart. Sharp." Carefully, he touches John again. Body memory, he thinks, when John doesn't jerk away instantly. "Brilliant."

"Homicidal." Thinning lips twist, and John tries to pull away. He could, easily, but Rodney tightens his fingers.

"No. You're not."

He is, an unsheathed knife, a gun with a broken safety. Rodney hadn't known how to hate like this--the Wraith were the manifestations of the boogeymen of childhood closets and nightmares, but even that paled to the here and now of watching them take John and then bring him back a little less.

The sheer, unending nausea of watching John pulled to pieces in front of his eyes; knowing that John comes back every day knowing there's something forever missing. He keeps his touch gentle, and John relaxes back into him, eyes closing with a sigh, going boneless. Not asleep--he doesn’t sleep without whatever they give him to counteract whatever the fuck else they give him to get him in that chair--but almost, almost at peace.

"Rodney." John's voice is soft, echoes of an amused drawl from a lifetime ago, when that and a smile could light up a room, no ATA gene required. When he could take Rodney's breath with just a look. "I remember your name, you know."

Rodney smiles, and his hands move on their own, brushing across dark hair gently, just feeling him here. "Yeah?"

"Even--" John shivers again, and Rodney reaches for the blanket, pulling it up around the too-thin body, tucking it securely. They've fallen asleep like this, John's arm, like now, wrapped tightly around his thigh, like Rodney might vanish if he doesn't. Waking up with those fingers twisted in the front of his shirt, face buried against his side. Rodney can't remember a time he wasn't able to touch John. "Even when I forget mine."

Rodney forces himself to breathe, stroking the dark hair back. "I'll remember for us both."

*****

I will mpreg every character you ever loved Harlenquin romance style, I swear.

svmadelyn waxes lyrical on the call of strangefic.

svmadelyn: but this story gets more and more odd as I progress.
svmadelyn: *waits for stripper donkeys or something*
Jenn: Stripper. Donkeys.
Jenn: You did not just say that.
svmadelyn: it could happen.
svmadelyn: this story makes me believe anything could.
Jenn: You. Did. Not. Just. Say. That.
svmadelyn: It. Could. Happen.
svmadelyn: See--sometimes?
svmadelyn: a story reaches this--plateau.
svmadelyn: where anything and everything is equally plausible
svmadelyn: because it's like the author wrote down one thousand random words and cut them up and put them in a jar
svmadelyn: and is like, ooh, let us combine--windex! andddddddd monkeys! Somehow! Or--oooh, strippers! and....donkeys! hmm. that's a little out there. *draws again* PROSTITUTE DONKEYS AND MONKEYS HERE WE GO.
Jenn: *giggling too hard*
Jenn: Oh God.

There is inspiration, and there are challenges, and then there is the Random Jar of Plot Complications. Okay, just from curiosity--anyone have their own Stripper Donkey story? Cause that, my friends, is worth gold.

seperis: He's so not letting that Lex out from under as tight a tether as he can manage.
seperis: Cause that way leads Lex to getting off watching Clark bleed.
seperis: And not in a normal fun bloodsport way.
svmadelyn: *sad*
svmadelyn: hmm, if i were evil
seperis: ..is there any universe that sentence isn't disturbing as hell?
seperis: I imean, besides fandom.
seperis: In fandom, it is perfectly okay.
svmadelyn: we can pretend.

Also.

*shakes fist at astolat*

SGA. I had to think, oh, I wonder what that show is about? Oh look, a story.

I barely know what they *look* like.

*worries at fingernails*

This so cannot be good. Also, using other frog icon. Got to make more. They are just too cute.

How do I love her? Let me count the ways.

1.) She writes pretty things.
2.) She writes happy things.
3.) She writes things that make me laugh *so much* and it's a tango and Batman and Clark and Lois and Lana and everything in the world is so so so much better for that little moment in time.

Storytime With Bruce Wayne

And all I had to do is beg. A lot.

Post-Somewhere snippet of doom, Bruce Wayne makes a visit to the White House. Strawberries, stories, and hilarity ensue. It's so good I giggled myself into tears. It so happens like this. Especially the tango.

Read! Read now! It will make you happy! Really!

svmadelyn, AKA Ether....

You either get online right now to entertain me or there will be triplets.

And in a very traumatizing way.

ETA: I WIN! I WIN! And it only took--well. Almost an hour.

Come play on AIM, thecaelum. Traumatizing svmadelyn is like fine wine. You never get tired of it!