Herein is a list of all of the projects on my various assortment of back burners, and (if applicable) how many parts remain. Short blurbs will tend to accompany them as well.

I've switched to this instead of a "WIP" list primarily because I have a number of proposed projects which aren't actually started yet. The list is organized by fandom, universe-within-fandom, and alphabetical order. The organization of the list does not reflect priority in terms of when they'll be written.

Updated: 18 May, 2009

( Stargate Atlantis )
( Torchwood )
( Various & Sundry (Less than 3 Fics in the Fandom, Crossovers, Gift!Fic, Etc) )

Anything I'm missing?

Fandom Impact: I'm falling off the grid, pretty much completely, through at least the end of this semester, if not next spring. However, I'm going to keep chugging away at my overdue/long-running fic projects. I'm shooting to tie off most of my major universes w/ next year's 14 Valentines, including my Torchwood Universe ("Bound"), at least one Stargate: Atlantis Universe ("Ripples"), my Were the World Mine Universe ("Semantics"), and at least two of the major "Bridges" Universe long-shots ("Safe Haven" and "Scenes from a Tokyo Romance", likely "Gone, But Not Forgotten" as well). I'm also hoping to close out my Smallville, Narnia, and SG-1 projects.

Everything else is probably on hold until late 2010, barring further notice.

Projected Return: Possibly not until next summer.

Explanation: So, as I'm sure you've all noticed, I vanished off the face of the planet somewhere in the last month and haven't really surfaced. This post should have gone up when I fell off the grid, so I apologize for the delay - I didn't realize I was going to fall so quiet so quickly. What happened, you may ask?

Despite the decision to defer my MA, I've ended up taking a full courseload at a local college this fall while waiting for my BA to be granted by VIU. I'm carrying a combination of Music & TV Production classes - i.e. all stuff in areas of personal interest. While it's fun, it's also time consuming. Add in volunteering at the local non-profit TV station for work experience, the fact that I've signed on for the Nike Human Race, and the fact that I'm volunteering w/ an NIH study for experimental HIV vaccines, you start to get the picture. In short, I'm sleeping little and running around at high speed like a mildly disturbed fowl quite a lot.

If given the choice, I'd love to put fandom closer to first, but it's just not practical. As always, My Life = Soap Opera. Cheers, eh?

Spring Awakening, the Tony winning musical about puberty and society's failure to handle it in anything resembling a healthy manner (based on a book written in, I believe, 19th C Germany, although I'd have to double-check) is currently touring.

While I missed the DC-area performances, they're going to be in Hershey (01/05/10-01/10/10) and Cincinnati (01/12/10-01/24/10), both of which I can drive to for an overnight excursion without having to call in "dead" to RL.

Is anyone interested in getting together to see one of the performances?? This is their 2007 Tony performance, if anyone's curious. They had to censor it a bit (the title of the third song in the medley is "Totally Fucked"), but the general meaning still comes through pretty clearly.

I'm also hoping to go to the showing of the Big Gay Musical @ Reel Affirmations on October 24. I think I've roped taffimai into joining me, but the more the merrier, so chime in if you're interested!

ION: Not dead. School's still kicking my ass, more from a logistical POV than anything else. 14 hour days just aren't fun, even when they've got awesome vocal training in the middle of them. Learning a lot, though, which is good. Currently off dairy entirely for vocal reasons, which may or may not end up a permanent situation. *LOVING* this season's Dollhouse (although I've handed off my massive DH plot b/c there's just no way I can do it in anything resembling a timely manner), still on the Glee!bandwagon, haven't been able to bring myself to watch the SG:U pilot, yet, although I've promised myself I would give it enough rope to hang itself. I'm also starting to sit down and organize my Valentines to make sure that at least *those* get done in a timely manner. If you want onto that beta filter again, give me a shout, I'll be making the 2010 14V Beta listing somewhere in the next few weeks.

Those of you waiting on Torchwood fic, I can tell you for sure the end of the "Bound" universe is going to be done and posted in the first half of the 14V.

I have this sick feeling that I'm going to be writing fanfiction for "Glee".

Call it a hunch.

Just, wow, does that show promise to push my buttons liek woah.

Title: Terms of Endearment (1/2)
Author: mardahin
Beta: ladyholder (Drive-By Variety)
Series: Semantics
Counterpoint: What’s in a Name?
Fandom: Were the World Mine (It’s a film, so consider the whole thing fair game when it comes to spoilers).
Pairing: Jonathon/Timothy (Primary), Cole/Cooper (Secondary)
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Third in the fic series that emerged after I spent way too long driving around the Midwest after watching the film “Were the World Mine”. This installment is roughly 9,000 words long, and many apologies for taking so long. I promised hllangel that I’d have something up before she starts classes on Monday, so here it is.
Author’s Note (II): Unlike Northwestern, Boston College's Rugby website sucks at providing useful information - we’re talking levels approaching dead rat through a straw. As a result, I took some liberties. If you attend/attended BC and I've mucked things up when it comes to your ruggers, I do apologize. Also, I have it on good authority that the phrase “Our drinking team has a rugby problem” is one that is bandied about in the real world, and not just a bad joke.

Summary: ( Freshman Year = Highly Overrated. )

ETA: Wow. That’s a lot of header.

Met muse_neko, olotie, and laitaine2004 for dinner.

The food was even better than I remembered, and the company just as good as expected (9thcircleofhell wanted to be there, too, but she had work). There is currently a slab of "Great Wall of Chocolate" sitting in my kitchen and taunting me.

I have also received some rather interesting encouragement and FB on my proposed NaNoWriMo topic. Whee!

So, cesperanza makes awesome vids. This is kind of a given - she's been doing since I first ran into her back in 2004.

This year, she premiered a vid called Metaphor at Vivid-Con which is just awesome. Check it out. It's all multi-fandom goodness and just general fannish joy.

The only reason I know this is because norabombay recently linked me to one of cesperanza's slightly older vids because MY LJ IS IN IT. How cool is that, yo?

( Embedded Player Version of 'Metaphor' )

I was struck this evening by the fact that, while most of the time I tend to give them really minimal credence, my hormones are a definite force in what I'm in the mood to read/watch at certain points in the month.

Take today/yesterday, for example. I've been trawling the web for romance fic (and in the mood for movies in the same genre - 10 Things I Hate About You, Sliding Doors, Underworld, anyone?) with way narrower of a focus than I normally have for these things, although it wasn't until I went hunting for a specific fic to pass along to a friend that I even realized what it was I was so intensely craving.

I have since been binging my way through Inter-House romance stories from the Harry Potter universe with WAY more abandon than I normally would even consider. Draco/Ginny? Sure. Harry/Draco? Why not. Pansy/Ron? Marcus Flint/Katie Bell? Bring on the love. I've even spent a bit of time flipping through Ashwinder.

Hopefully, I'll start bleeding tomorrow and manage to shake the fog that's currently wrapping itself around my brain.

ION, yesterday taffimai was kind enough to agree to meet me IRL (a rather terrifying ordeal, or so I'm told). We hit up a local asian place, stumbled through the middle of a fashion shoot involving cars (one of which had not been disarmed, apparently), and then saw District 9. taffimai was also awesome and offered me a ride home b/c I'm currently having bureaucratic issues w/ the State of Maryland and won't have my local driver's license for another 2 weeks. *Cough!bastards!cough*

Without going into spoilers or specifics, I'm going to say that D9 was A. much, much gorier than it made itself out to be in the trailers (it wasn't even the exploding heads/bodies. I'm fine w/ people getting blown up by futuristic weapons on a big screen. It was the research lab/mutation stuff to which the main character was party. Just, ew. *shudders*) and B. it really struck me as a short film which had gotten a the opportunity to remake itself with a bigger budget and went a little nuts in some areas and didn't bother to flesh out others.

In short: Points for an interesting premise/concept. Middling marks on the execution in general. Negative notation on the OTT gross factor (and I'm not exactly squeamish) - honey vs. vinegar and all that. You can't make your social commentary point if half your audience starts zoning out b/c they're nauseous/wincing.

A brief, and belated, post to say that I survived both Comic-Con 2009 and the return trip to the East Coast(1). With that successful return, I'm officially done with my summer travels (go me!). Now, real life gets to begin again. Um, yay?

Along with the return to a more-or-less sane pace of life *should* come a return to the writing that's been neglected these last three weeks. I had a really good groove going on, and I'm hoping to sink back into it and get some things (the "Semantics" Universe in Were the World Mine, my "Bound" Universe in Torchwood (yes, it was 'Jossed' after KKBB, yes, I'm still going to finish it anyway), "Ripples" and "Bridges" in SGA, and a few of the related larger projects)(2). No specific time-table, mind you, but I'm getting back at it again and I've got some really good ideas (as well as some serious motivation - somehow, I've picked up a cheerleader for my True Blood AU Fluff!Fic not-quite-epic). *Cracks knuckles ominously*

So, yeah, not dead. Hopefully I'll get a con report up at some point, although I spent most of the weekend hanging out at Cafe Diem (dude. The pancakes(3). And the Stargate Sticky-buns...) and wandering the Expo Hall (I managed to get a free tribble from the Orion Girls at the Paramount Booth! To keep my Rage!Activated Tribble(5) company!). I did make it to a few panels (including the "Powerful Women in Popular Culture" panel featuring Eliza Dushku/Sigourney Weaver/Zoe Saldana/Elizabeth Mitchell, the "Cassini Quantum Quest" panel, and - almost by accident - the combo panel for Torchwood & Being Human(6)), and (of course) the Annual Slasher's Dinner (some very cool people, as always, and I look forward to seeing everyone again next year!).

It all boils down to Comic-Con = Good. Being done with my summer travel = Awesome. Getting back to writing = V. Awesome. Now, if I can only get around to updating my "Book Battle 2009" entries. I've got well over a half-dozen books I still haven't written up, and I keep falling further behind.

Footnotes:
1. Unfortunately, while in San Diego (due to a number of factors) my internet access was limited at best, hence the notable lack of proof of life on my end of things. Like, for example, the fact that hllangel's ISP hates my guts.
2. For those of you who know me, no, I haven't forgotten about the pet projects various parties are cheering on. If you see me online, ping me and ask about them. These are just the ones at the top of my personal "Wow, I want to read these!" list at the moment.
3. Sunday morning, fortysixth and I stopped in for breakfast, and (after some serious warnings on my part) she ordered the pancakes (4). The bartender later told us (as she was bemoaning her inability to even get halfway through the four cake stack) that in 2+ years he's never seen someone finish a plate, and that included his coworker when v. stoned and going on 24 hours w/out food.
4. I ordered them on Saturday morning when I met adafrog, scififreak, and commodoremarie for breakfast. They could easily have fed 3 people.
5. Seriously. You have to smack this thing on a table/wall to activate it, and then it squeaks and warbles and shakes. It's kind of awesome.
6. I'm not joking when I say it was just shy of totally accidental. I have something akin to an allergy to wank, which goes with my more all-encompassing issues with fannish entitlement, and didn't feel like standing in a line for Ballroom 20 just to watch people act like idiots around Russell T. Davies. However, since I walked by the ballroom just before the panel and there was plenty of open seating (and I was quite curious about Being Human, since I hadn't heard about it until the week before con), I ended up sitting in on the panel. To my great relief, the laws of realistic demographics played out, and the Torchwood panelists were very sensible about what minimal fuss there was.

ETA: Oh, right, other interesting and noteworthy event of Comic-Con? I (quite literally) almost tripped over Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds - he had a knee brace on, and was being pushed in a wheelchair, which is the only reason I noticed him in the kill-or-be-killed crowd outside the Warner Brother's booth. I had to do a double-take, because honestly - not someone I was expecting to see at Con.

At Comic-Con.

Saw the "Wonder Women in Pop Culture" (title paraphrased) panel today.

Sigourney Weaver is AWESOME.

Eliza Dushku & Zoe Saldana are not far behind.

Oh, and I've managed to pick up a Star Trek foam hand (a la basket-ball games).

Comic-Con, as always, rocks.

For the past few days, my life has been an internet-free zone due to moving from WV to Silver Spring, MD. Having moved, I'm feeling *drastically* better about my life. A lot of things got sorted/aired over the last couple of days, and my QoL is a lot better for it.

Interweb goes in tomorrow afternoon, while I'm off doing tea with The Other Nine (my long-running group of LOTR Ladies, one of whom I've known since before I had an LJ (and isn't that a scary thought?).

Hopefully after Comic-Con I'll settle down, get into a routine with DCAC and the Washington Wetskins, and get back into the swing.

[/drive-by update]

So, I adore the Nike online summer clearance. Because I like Nike clothing, especially their workout gear and goggles (Remoras FTW), but I just don't have the kind of disposable income to sling around to buy their stuff full price.

For a number of reasons (several relating to the abusive tendencies of a now-deceased individual) I always think of myself as being really heavy/large. Yes, I have friends who are larger than I am, but it doesn't impact my self-perception at all - it's one of the few areas in which I'm horrible at perspective. Today, my shipment of Nike goodness arrived, and I was shocked to be reminded that I am apparently actually a Large (as opposed to an XL) in a bunch of their stuff. I knew I had an L Nike T-Shirt that I wear frequently, but I hadn't put together that it meant that the L stuff (which I ordered b/c they didn't have XL in the clearance section and I'm planning to go back into training for a triathlon so will drop 30 pounds in the next few months, meaning roughly a dress size for me due to muscle mass increases) would fit now.

Color me pleasantly surprised.

Also, my WtWM universe is currently at 16,700 words and exploding rapidly. WTF, brain?

At the moment, I'm spending the summer with my mom in West Virginia before moving to Maryland for the next 2-3 years. Our town has, according to the last census, just under 700 people. We're the county seat, which is why we have a high school, and we've also got the only geothermal hot springs on the East Coast, meaning that we do a lot of business in tourism.

I just called the PD/FD non-emergency number to double-check if we were allowed to do a burn on the Fourth of July (some holidays they won't allow it, b/c the local FD is 100% volunteer, and dragging them away from their families if an intentional blaze gets out of hand on, say, Thanksgiving is just cruel). So, I call in, and the response I get on the other end of the line?

"County 911, what's your emergency?"

See, our non-emergency and 911 feeds? All go to the same person. The guy on shift today had a lovely voice, I have to admit, and he was really nice about explaining the burn policies.

Yeah, sometimes I kind of love this town...

One is that wow, do my various inboxes fill up when I go a week without logging into the interweb for more than 10 minute intervals.

Second is that I am craving Due South fic liek woah, which is bad since I still have betweeen 10-20K words of Were the World Mine fic to finish so I can just put that particular universe to rest and get back to the regularly scheduled fic-writing for the summer.

I wholly blame norabombay. We spent (literally) hours discussing the RayK/Fraser housing situation and car logistics in Chicago. While in Chicago. And discussing why RayK has totally gone undercover as a lesbian and not realized it.

There's a fic that needs to be written, there, which will probably end up written by me. Also Nora's fault.

And yet, all I want to do is read mid-length DS fic about the true love that is RayK and Fraser. That fandom? Probably one of the places I come closest to actually having an OTP.

I got back from my whirlwind tour of the MidWest (for the second time in 2 weeks) yesterday afternoon. I'd originally planned to be back on Sunday, but the glory of a flexible schedule is that I was able to take an extra day.

Even though I didn't make it to any of the interesting festivities, I picked a winner of a weekend to meander through Chicago. "Taste of Chicago", Pride, etc were all going on, and the background ambiance was nice even if I didn't happen to hit any of the events proper.

As usual, norabombay was fantastic as a hostess, providing not only a bed/dachshund/food/computer-for-use, but also entertaining company. We went out to a local bar on Friday evening and spent 2-3 hours exploring logical fallout of various international and diplomatic disasters (and entertaining the bartender with our coaster!continents). It was awesome.

Saturday, I finally managed to catch up with neviachiel, whom I've been sending holiday cards to for the last 6 years. It's always such a lovely experience when you get on with someone even better than you'd hoped, and she's an absolute sweetheart. We spent Sunday morning wandering around her old/current campus, and somehow she came away unscathed while I managed to both broil-like-a-lobster *and* blister up my feet horribly (although the feet were my own fault - I'd picked up a pair of cheap flats b/c my flipflops were starting to rub a bit, and didn't have socks, and then walked several miles in them). I still look like someone spray painted me, right down to the China!White purse-stripe across the middle of my chest.

The only down side is that, between changing my driving plans geographically and chronologically, I managed to catch up with neither scarlett_o or khyrra, but I'm sure this will be far from the last trip I make in the general vicinity in the next few years. I also managed to not catch fortysixthhour, but that was more a matter of goings-and-comings not quite meshing.

Got back yesterday afternoon around 4:30 EST, found out the electrician had rewired a number of phone jacks and unplugged the modem (amongst other things), so I didn't get online until today. Got 8.5 hours of sleep last night, and will be shooting for more like 10 tonight, given the 3 hour night at Nora's before the 12 hour drive back to WV.

*Waves* In short, not dead. And people in Illinois are kind of awesome, at least the fannish ones.

Title: What's in a Name?
Author: mardahin
Beta: hllangel
Series: Semantics
Counterpoint: Terms of Endearment
Sequel to: Not Boyfriends
Fandom: Were the World Mine (It's a film. Thus, All Canon = Fair Game)
Rating: PG-13 (like the film)
Pairings: Cooper/Cole (Primary), Timothy/Jonathon (Secondary)
Author's Note: So, originally I was just going to write one fic in this “fandom” (I use the term loosely). And then it was far, far larger than I'd intended, and I hadn't included half the scenes I was thinking about. So apparently it's going to be more like a series. This piece clocks in around 3300 words.
Author's Note #2: This is the first half of a fic duet, each piece of which can be read independently but which is designed to function best as a completed pair. The second fic, “Terms of Endearment,” should be up within the week.

Summary: ( 'Wait, what exactly *did* you tell them about me?' 'Oh, you know, the usual. Friend from high school, on the rugby team, boyfriend.' )

Today, I'm wrapping off my For-Fun online class on Women in Athletics (it seemed appropriate).

Somewhere between now and midnight, I've got to take 4 30-minute quizzes and a 2 hour final.

Of course, cupidsbow also posted one of her ever-worth-reading rec-lists in the last 24 hours, and I've been sucked into the 40K Kirk/Spock she endorsed (while the Captain Jack/Chewbacca sounds intellectually fascinating, I'm just not up for that mental image any time soon).

If you see me online, talk to me. Ask about my coursework. Bug me. Especially after about noon PST. Because as soon as this is done, I can jump back into the sequel to Not Boyfriends that's currently about 500-words in. And I can proof the other two fic-pieces that are waiting to go up.

In short, procrastination kills. Don't let my GPA(or my sanity) be a victim.

Things I have learned/remembered this evening:

- Twizzlers =/= a food group

- It's better to check when your final/paper/etc is being held/due before you have the panic attack

- Writing is so much easier once you're back on the horse. There are apparently 2 sequels in the works to "Not Boyfriends." And at least 2 parts of multi-part fic are also done and just awaiting beta. Dude.

- Job hunting is a bitch. 2 hours of filling out online forms, and even money the position I have the best shot at is already filled.

Cross-Continental Driving Trip the Third is coming up next week, so I'm putting a shout-out to all of my friends in the metaphorical flight path.

• Tuesday night I'm driving West Virginia to Somewhere-in-Ohio along route 80/90.


• Wednesday morning I'm driving Somewhere-in-Ohio to Two Rivers, Wisconsin.


• Thursday I'm spending in Janesville because my grandmother is turning 90, although I'm spending the night in Madison.


• Friday, I drive Madison->Chicago and hopefully spend the next 2 nights on norabombay's guest bed.
• Who's up for drinks next Friday Night??


• Somewhere between Friday and Monday, I need to hook up with neviachiel.


• Sunday I tentatively drive Chicago->West Virginia, with a hopeful stopover to see scarlett_o a bit shy of Pittsburgh on the way (the only way this changes is if I spend half of Sunday driving around Illinois to meet up with neviachiel), in which case I only drive part of the distance from Chicago to WV on Sunday and finish on Monday).

Thoughts, suggestions, desires to meet up?

Title: Not Boyfriends
Author: mardahin
Beta(e): hllangel, oparu
Fandom: Were the World Mine (It's a film. Thus, All Canon = Fair Game)
Rating: PG-13 (like the film)
Pairings: Cooper/Cole (Primary), Timothy/Jonathon (Secondary)
Author's Note: Written at the request of dancinbutterfly, who brought the plight (read: loose end) of Cooper & Cole to my attention and then begged very prettily for fic to address said plight. Many thanks to both of my betae, without whom this probably would not have actually exited my skull and landed on the electronic page. There are minor allusions to the massive future which I mapped out for Timothy & Jonathon in the space between going to bed and falling asleep over the last few weeks, but I have no idea if that'll turn into fic as well or not. This clocks in at around 4500 words.
Author's Note #2: ( Basic Plot Info for WtWM if you just want to read the fic. Spoilers, obviously )

Summary: ( The first thing to understand about Cole Bochner and Cooper Stevens is that they were not, are not, and never will be boyfriends. )