a. I am wearing an ugly sweater. I can't say it's the world's ugliest sweater™, because I lived through the '80s, but it's superfug. That's why I only wear it at work in my cubicle.
ii. I have managed not to kill my seriously irritating co-worker, but only because she's working from home today.
3. I don't normally insta-rec things, and this is not really insta! because the story is almost two years old, but oh, I think MY HEART GREW THREE SIZES this morning while I was reading it, and there really is a sad, sad lack of Middleman fic in the world. Also, it made me all teary, and not in the spot you'd expect.
So if you are in the mood for some Middleman holiday fic, you couldn't do better than to read
The Holiday Homecoming Intervention by
hematitebadger. It's gen with some incidental Wendy/Tyler, and it involves Lacey possibly getting the gift she's always wished for. Also, there is a Holiday Zombie. ♥♥♥♥♥
D. I posted a story yesterday:
Some Dream, Others RiseInception; Mal, Arthur; pg; 2,010 words
Mal wakes up. Dom doesn't.
Aside from the weirdness of writing about a Mal who isn't Mal Reynolds, and a guy with my brother's name, this is the story that inspired my post about titles, because it had about three different ones before I settled on the one I used.
First it was "My beautiful construction," which is a phrase from an Andre Breton poem, and which was meant to refer to the whole movie as Mal's construction to get Dom to wake up, but I hated it. Every time I opened the document, it glared malevolently at me, making me unable to write. So I used a placeholder generic title, and went trawling for something better, and came up with "Rise up, my love, and come away," from Song of Songs, which I still like, and probably would have been happy with, had I not walked past a kid the other day wearing a t-shirt that said, "Some Dream Others Rise," which is apparently a Nike slogan? and I said to
angelgazing, "that would make an awesome title for an Inception story." and then I said to myself, says I, "that would make an awesome title for my Inception story." And writing went more smoothly after that.
Clearly, I need to have a title I like or I can't get the job done anymore. It's weird, the roadblocks your brain will throw up during the writing process.
But man, there were points I really hated this story, because it's not what I originally envisioned, but what I originally envisioned needed far more of a commitment - and a plot - than I was prepared to make. I was not really emotionally engaged by the movie. I did think, though, the first time I saw it, that we were going to get a huge twist of Mal waking up when she jumps to her death in Dom's dream. And I saw other people online had had the same idea - that the whole thing was a dream and Mal was really the one who was awake. and I liked that a lot better for her than what the movie gave us. but I wasn't really invested enough to want to spend that much time on her story, and also, I think this fits better with the movie.
I wish I'd had the idea, that someone mentioned in the comments, that in the dream, Ariadne was actually Mal. It would make SO MUCH MORE SENSE (after all, Miles introduces her to Cobb, and also, it would mean the name was an in-joke in-text as well as a meta joke) and I'm so jealous that I didn't think of it. Someone should write THAT story, STAT.
Also, I couldn't resist writing a story about a character named Mal Cobb. It makes me giggle every time I think about it. Mal and Jayne would be SO REVOLTED. Heh.
5. Two hours and then I can go home. Or to the parents', at any rate. Woo!
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