Rec: Once and Future

Recommendation: Once and Future
Author: malteaser
Rating: Teen and up
Fandom: Captain America/Doctor Who/The Avengers
Summary: Who doesn’t love a happy ending?
Pairing: Rory/Amy, Steve/Peggy

Why You Should Read It: So I’m not a Doctor Who fan. I just speak the language well enough to get along with other nerds. My friend Ayefah calls this fandom osmosis, and it fits. I like to know what happens without having to actually watch the episodes (I stopped watching after Amy’s baby turned into plastic goo or whatever), which means I know what happened in Saturday’s episode. This fic was recommended on an LJ I follow, and I knew enough DW stuff to follow along, which is marvelous because the fic is wonderful. Peggy Carter and Time Lords. You cannot go wrong with Peggy Carter and Time Lords. Plus, Natasha makes an appearance and we all know about my weakness for the Black Widow, and Peggy Carter.

Monday Stuff

First off, same address, new blog. If you missed it, I’ve made some changes around here and here’s why.

Secondly, and more importantly, College Years is back. That’s right, Wepdiggy is going through his archive and finishing out everything he’s left incomplete, which is a treat for me especially because I’ve always adored CY. He’s already recently completed his awesome fic where Sarah and Anna pull a Freaky Friday, so if you didn’t catch that, be sure to go read Sarah vs. the Switch right now. It’ll make your day.

And speaking of Chuck fanfiction, we’ve lured my pal Michael over to the dark side. WITH CARINA. Carina vs. the Bartowskis can be read here.

Seth MacFarlane is going to host the Oscars. Make of that what you will. Nervert and I are holding out for the Muppets.

Dexter premiered for its seventh season, now with extra awesomeness in the form that is Yvonne Strahovski. What’d everybody think of the premiere? I’m genuinely curious, and I’m also told that the lack of a wind machine on her entrances puzzled people.

If you like Avengers fic/Darcy Lewis, she blinded me with political science will have you laughing for about six hours. Warning: it’s a long read, so do not undertake lightly. That said, the author really writes an excellent Tony and an even better Darcy.

And this has been your Monday update. Fingers crossed that I'll remember to do exactly the same thing next Monday.

- Frea

The Dust Has Mostly Cleared

Here we go. I have made most of the major cosmetic changes (you’ll probably see some minor changes happening over the next few days if you keep a sharp eye on the blog) so we have a new theme that is very, um, bluey-green. But whatever. I like bluey-green.

One of the biggest changes is that I've cut down on the number of pages on the blog. That's right, I've shoveled Curtain Call, RaJ, and the Guide to Fates into the same page (with handy navigational links because holy mother of pearl, that's a LOT of text).  I'll work on making sure that's a full archive in the coming days.

Another major change is that I've sorted everything into labels, much easier to read.  Handy navigational tips:

• The Chuckfic tag is any posted story on the blog, be it story preview, ficlet, chapter, or outtake.  If it's tagged with Chuckfic, there's actual fanfiction inside the post, as opposed to the fanfiction tag, which is the umbrella tag for anything to do with fanfiction.
• I have a minions tag, which is where you'll find posts written by anybody not named mxpw or Frea.
• I have a Columns tag, which is where you'll find all of the old columns like Chris's Why We Write, the short-lived MST3K column, my Roundup posts, and all of my Vonnegut posts
• The writing tag is writing advice, pure and simple.
• Fates has its own tag, but if you're looking for something on other Fatesverse stories, you'll have to go to the Fatesverse tag.

The pages at the top have been bumped up to actual tabs. FAQ and Home are fairly self-explanatory, but you also have Downloads, where you can find all of the ebooks I've made public. Feast and enjoy!

- Frea

Pardon Our Dust

I got bored with the layout.  We'll be seeing some changes going on over the next little while (the one I've chosen is temporary).  Right now, I've thrown up a Fauxlivia header because it's Friday and that means Fringe.  My plan is to update this blog in tandem with my Dreamwidth blog and my LJ blog (thank bob for clients that cross-post), which means this is definitely moving away from being a primarily Chuck fanblog.  Truth be told, I'm a little amazed that didn't happen sooner, as the proprietor of said blog isn't entirely a Chuck fan anymore.  But this is CI.  We don't let details get in our way!

Upcoming Changes I'm hoping to make:

• A set of regular graphics to denote what type of post each will be (aka, each post will be framed with icons similar to LJ and DW)
• A better, more comprehensive tagging system
• A unified theme throughout my blogs
• More cowbell
• A directory of junk I'm up to, which includes the free short story I will be releasing to celebrate Halloween next month, under my official pen name
• More posts on writing, as that has really fallen to the wayside. Maybe I'll even finish that Vonnegut series.
• An unprecedented show of unholy narcissism, aka more personal "What is Frea doing?" posts, including cross-linking to other stuff I'm doing on the web (*coughNiceGirlsTumblrMyOtherPenNamecough*
• Fan Recs/Vid Fridays/Suggestions

Something I'm Working On

Title: Chaos, Control, and the Color Red
Rating: PG-13 for Violence, Language, Possible Sexual Situations
Fandom: The Avengers (Movie Verse), Chuck
Pairings: Carina & Natasha, Natasha/Clint
Summary: It's a partnership that shouldn't work and yet somehow does. Mostly. Sometimes. Okay, not usually, but it's so much fun that Carina Miller doesn't give a damn.
Complete: In progress.
Length:  2,060 words

Happy Birthday, mxpw!!!!

So it’s mxpw’s birthday once again.  Usually this means that I post some rambling fic where Sarah gets hurt or hit in the face in some way or other.  But this year...I switched things up.

That’s right. This year: I had a tumblr. And on that tumblr, I did a meme.  The challenge: Pick a pair.  Pick an AU. And I get three sentences to write a fic.

It was a lot of fun.  I know not everybody’ nuts about Tumblr, so I thought I’d archive all 30 (yes, there are 30) snippets over here on the blog to let mxpw know how much we all love and appreciate him.  You’re the BEST, Max!

So without further ado, here’s the story of 30 times Frea created an AU on Max’s birthday.

NaSkeWriMo Entry #1

From the W11 Universe!

Set, Spike, Dive! Deleted Scene from Chapter 6

Catrogue wondered what the story behind Carina putting Devon in a headlock was. So...I wrote it. Enjoy!

Also, you can download the ebook version of the entire story here. Yay!

There's a New Story in Town

...and it's written by me.

Yes, that's right. I came back to Chuck. This idea hit me a week and a half ago and I've been working on it pretty furiously ever since (just ask any of the people I talk to on gchat). It meant doing a lot of research. Like, seriously, A LOT of research.  For a woman who can barely swim and ducks when she plays volleyball, writing a story where Sarah's the fandom equivalent of Misty May-Traenor and Chuck's diving off of the 10-m platform in no way qualifies under the rule "write what you know."

Erm, yeah, you read that right. Sarah does beach volleyball.  In the bikini and everything. If anybody's wondering if this story is my attempt to truly break mxpw, you're not far from the truth.

But so far, he's managing to hold it together while he betas one chapter after the next. Barely. It was touch and go for a little bit, but we only needed the defibrillator once, okay?  But I have not forgotten the ladies in the audience, either as Chuck is a diver. And you know what divers wear?

Yeah.  I hope you like the new story.  You can read it here on ff-net or here on AO3, and there's lots of adorables, Olympic antics, and Carina.  Like, lots of Carina. Way more Carina than Morgan.

Happy reading!

Frea

PS -- this is relevant.

Head's Up!

quistie64 has a blog!  You can read it here!  I've been scarce due to the fact that I went to Disneyland last week and took a true vacation with my family (yes, Space Mountain trumped my blog. Go figure), but I thought you should know that's where she is nowadays when she's not on Twitter.  You can catch updates from her story Chuck vs. the Sound of Music II there.

:)

Frea

New Ebook for Yous

Hi, all, Frea here, reporting to you from the ether, as apparently this blog has proved that I've died. (I haven't, I think. I'm just usually on Tumblr or Twitter and forget that I have things like blogs and whatnot.

But yeah, anyway, I wanted to let you know that there's a new ebook for downloadin' on the newly renamed Downloads page (don't ask why it's renamed, that's a long story). That's right, I've finally gotten around to creating the ebook for Chuck vs. the Rogue Spy, written by our resident Frenchie, the one, the only, the crumbless Crumby! Be sure to pop over and download that here and then maybe drop by her ff-net profile to leave her a review if you haven't.

Anyway, time for me to vanish once more!

-Frea

How Fates Might Have Gone

So I wrote Parts I-IV of Fates. Originally I planned to write Parts I-VIII of Fates, but…

Well, have you seen how long Parts I-IV actually are? It’s like 1.5 Robert Jordan novels. And I’ve had a lot of people try to take me to task for the “rushed” ending, or the fact that “Fates doesn’t have an end.” You may agree with them; you may not. I don’t really care much either way, honestly.

I stopped writing Fates because it was driving me insane. I picked a place that I thought was a decent ending for everything I had written so far, where the characters were together without any hindrances between them, where everybody was in a good place and ready to go out on the next adventure, which was to get the Intersect out of Chuck’s brain. Am I obligated to write everything I've ever thought about the story since I started it?

Personally, I don’t think so. Others disagree. Again, let them. Here’s what I had planned for Parts VI, VII, and VIII. These aren’t Fates-canon unless I actually sit down and write them, so disregard them or regard them as you see fit. 

The Non Downton Abbey Fan's Guide to The Abbey

So I've been writing in the Downton Abbey fandom for a few weeks now and I'm putting out a three chapter short in which all of the characters are spies, kind of in the same tone as Chuck. It's called The Abbey.  I know quite a few people get emails for stories and might be curious about this one, and I'm always willing to help out, so I've put together a guide to Downton Abbey and yet still want to read The Abbey, click the More button and prepare for some very, very pale, pretty people to flood your window. Let's do this thing! Oh, right, spoilers. Duh.

Rogue Spy – Chapter 12 Sneak Peek

Hey, guys!

It's been a little while since I've updated this story. Remember Chuck vs. the Rogue Spy? No? Well, to freshen up your memory, I'm previewing a brief excerpt from Chapter 12, before updating in a few days.

That's right, "The Buy More Campaign". I finally got to write the Morgan-centric chapter you all wanted! You're welcome.

Frea Interprets Vonnegut - Rule #7

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

The alternate title of this rule: you can’t win them all.

Writing is psychological. With the advent of self-publishing overtaking traditional publishing, the idea seems to be that any random Joe off of the street can sit down at the computer and put out a book, and maybe they can. But what I’ve found is that writing can be the greatest thing ever and it can also be the worst feelings you will experience. You are literally baring your soul for the world to see, and a lot of those people just don't get that. Remember that narcissism I talked about earlier in this series? Probably not, as it was a couple months ago. But writing is narcissistic at its very core. You’re telling people that they should pay attention to you, that what you have to say is important. And because of that, it’s natural to want to be universally-liked. When somebody doesn’t like something you’ve written, it can feel like a punch to the gut. Some writers get defensive (I’m certainly guilty of this), others get depressed, and some will actually stop writing.

It’s actually hypocritical of me, somewhat, to tell you Don’t let them get to you because in truth, they’ve gotten to me a few times. But then, I’ve never claimed to be perfect—awesomely close, maybe, but that’s another blog post for another day—so I can say that:

Don’t let them get to you.

You will drive yourself crazy trying to please everyone. So: don’t. Pick your ideal audience and write for them. For me, I’m a Chuck fan that likes intelligent characters that aren’t humiliated for the sake of the plot or a silly joke. I enjoy a good romantic build-up, amusing one-liners, and a plot that won’t fall to shambles if poked hard enough . So I imagine my audience is the same and write for that audience. I keep that person—basically a mirror-me—in mind while I write, and I think: Am I explaining this correctly? Could this be clearer? Will they find this funny? Writing, normally a solitary activity, actually becomes something of a dialogue as I open it up to my imaginary audience.

… This is starting to sound a little like A Beautiful Mind, isn’t it? Rest assured, my imaginary audience isn’t sitting beside my computer desk, smoking an imaginary pipe. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was Paul Bettany…

So that’s what I think this rule is saying. Come up with the audience/person you want to impress and set out to impress them. If people don’t like your story, screw ’em.* At least you wrote the best, most honest story you could, then.

- Frea

Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

*If your story is universally hated, though, you might want to reevaluate your audience. Or possibly you’re a troll.

What Fates Impose Ebook!

The What Fates Impose ebook is shiny and ready for your reading pleasure on the downloads page. This isn't the annotated one I promised (that will take awhile), but it has all 68 chapters, hopefully with the proper quotes and everything.

- Frea

Fates Free-for-All!

Well, it's over.  And now, I imagine, there are questions.

A picture for Chapter 66 of Fates

This is my desktop background, and has been since I started pushing to finish Fates.  Staring at it helps me out quite nicely.  It's taken from near the a piè de má Wine Bar that Chuck and Sarah patronize during the chapter.  The sunset on my second day in the region.

:)

Frea

Sound of Music II

I would like to apologize to the world for this.  That is all.

Warning: This post contains spoilers

...if you haven't read Fates 65 yet.  If you haven't, don't go beyond the "more" link.  If you have...

Come on in!

Also, before you click, once I post the final chapter of What Fates Impose, I'll post an open forum here on the blog and answer as many questions people have about Fates and the writing process involved. I may even share embarrassing stories about mxpw.