It's icon-meme time again! Okay, the weekend was icon-meme time but better late than never. (The motto of Yuletide writers since 2003! Let's start panicking now!)

Anyway.... I asked torch to pick five of my icons for me to talk about. If you'd like to play, baa at me below and I'll pick five of yours for you.

Here's what she chose:


keywords: king in waiting
comment: by joymaru
Oh, Arthur! How so pretty? I love that you mostly don't see his face, that he's in shiny armor, that this could almost be an effigy on a tomb or a knight-to-be standing vigil. Arthur is always as much symbol as he is reality.


keywords: magically delicious
I have no idea who made this; I think I stole it from copperbadge. Salt is pretty miraculous when you think about it. And pretty hilarous, too. Unless you're Lear.



keywords: facepalm!
comment: (like seeing Bruce jerking off to footage of Selina wasn't scarring enough)
I made this! Well, I cropped it and bordered it. In bare-bones Paint, no less. (And at least one person stole it. :P) Tim seems to me a boy who spent much of adolescence in need of brain bleach. See comment above.


keywords: cleavage (fashion accessory of evil!)
comment: (never underestimate the power of the rack)
I did a couple of dialogue-balloon crops. This one's from Young Justice #16:

Wonder Girl: You're not a villain.
Arrowette: I am. And it's gonna stink. I'm not going to get to win anymore. All my friends will hate me. Oh God... I'll have to get a tight, skimpy black leather outfit that shows off my cleavage. Oh God... I'll have to get cleavage.

I love her despairing tone. I hate that she's right. And I'm bemused at how often this icon is in some way on-topic. Oh, Internet!


keywords: gangsta!piglet will cut you
comment: by ravenous_icons (hardcore, yo)
Piglet has unsuspected depths! This is my go-to for hipster irony, for killing my (or your) childhood, and for all-around menace. You should be quivering in fear.

Well, I enjoyed my earthquake. How about you? (I'm not enjoying the adrenaline hangover, however. Headache and bodyache. Damn glands.)

5.9, jeesh. That's a heck of an east coast quake. The epicenter was less than 75 miles south of us. I watched the entire house sway from side to side. No, sway is too mild a word. It doesn't convey the speed and intensity of the movement. I saw the walls and ceiling flex, people. Over and over. If I'd been on the stairs, I don't know if I'd have kept my balance.

Amazingly, not a thing seems to have fallen and no cracks have appeared. Trust me, given the quality construction (ha!), that's a miracle in and of itself.

Mom and I agree that Dad would have loved it.

psu_jedi just found out she's won a radio contest -- two tickets to the US premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in New York on Monday. Since they can't get child care, her husband suggested she invite me to go with her.

Gee, I'll have to think about it for a mo--

Oh, hell yeah!

So, I'll probably head up to their place on Sunday night and we'll watch Part 1 and then we rendezvous with the radio station's bus at the local mall and leave at 11:30. The premiere is at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. We'll be back to the mall around 2, 2:30 am Tuesday.

Pretty good for my first trip to NYC, don't ya think? (Okay, I did make sure I stepped out on the train platform on a trip from DC to Connecticut, but that really doesn't count, much as two plane changes at O'Hare don't count as visiting Chicago. And damn it, I can't count the plane change in Munich since they didn't stamp my passport. Alas, my unprivileged life.)

I am tenatively announcing that Mom and I have survived the weekend.

Given that:

a) it was the first Father's Day without Dad

b) the 17th would have been their 50th anniversary

c) the flu hit me Saturday evening and I'm still recovering

I'm gonna take "survival" as the triumph it so clearly is.

Mom might be discharged from the hospital today.

C'mon, Universe! It's Easter. Do it for the karmic synchronicity. Do it for the symbolism. Do it for the children.

::crosses fingers::

(Please please please. It's Day 26, dammit.)

1:30 am, a call that he was in v-fib, the top and bottom of his heart beating out of rhythm, and that it would most likely only be 20-30 minutes more.

1:45 am, the call that he was gone.

We finally got Mom out of the hospital -- after 28 days -- and now Dad is in and he's not doing well.

She went in on January 13 for an atrial valve replacement. The surgery went well and despite a fun bout of paranoia and visual hallucinations due to the anesthesia/narcotics/sleep deprivation, healed up well. But her oxygen saturation levels (the O2 in the blood) just wouldn't come up/stay up. And low levels can contribute to heart attack and stroke. Eventually, they re-intubated her and kept her unconcious in the Cardiac ICU for six days. Then, weak as a kitten, back to the Cardiac Step-Down unit for a while, then a week and a half in Inpatient Rehab learning to stand up, balance, walk, go up steps, etc. All while observing sternal precautions because you do NOT want to strain the healing muscles and bones in your chest after open heart surgery.

I was at the hospital almost every day and Dad stayed home; while not bed-ridden, his chronic back pain restricts him walking much, and sitting in most chairs, especially institutional furniture, is impossible for him. So we were both running on empty and looking forward to Mom getting released, which finally happened on February 9.

Mom continued to do well, getting off the oxygen she was sent home on and getting visits from a state physical therapist. But last week Dad started getting sick. It seemed cold/flu-ish at first, with decreased appetite and fatigue. Then he started bouts of intense shivering, so cold that he couldn't get enough blankets on him, with labored, grunting breaths, and being mostly unresponsive. They'd last 45-60 minutes, then he'd get the sweats and pass back into normal alertness.

This all culminated Thursday morning, when at about 1 AM he staggered on his way out of the bathroom and lurched forward like a puppet with its strings cut, slowly falling down. av_lad and I got him picked up and he was getting up and walking by himself a few hours later but he fell again about 5 AM. He perked up and was moving again during the morning but when he started having the intense fatigue and weakness again, I put my foot down and called 911.

The paramedics were fabulous and I followed them to a local emergency facility. We spend nine hours there and he was eventually transported to Virginia Hospital Center, the same hospital Mom had gotten out of two weeks before.

A day and a half later, his kidneys shut down.

He's been having dialysis every day since. He's got E. coli in his blood, possibly from a prostate infection, possibly from some necrotic tissue in his intestinal system. They've been doing scans to try to figure out specifically what/where -- he's a big guy and exploratory gastric surgery is a risk in and of itself. But they could call us at any minute to tell us he's in the OR. His white count is up and he's gotten a number of antibiotics. A muscle enzyme, which should have a count of about 200, soared as high as 41,000. Last check, it was down to 1,000. It could have been caused by an interaction of two drugs he's been taking for years, triggered by the infection.

He was looking pretty good up until yesterday afternoon. I took Mom and her cousin, who's staying with us, in to visit and he was alert and interactive. But then, for the first time since he'd been in the hospital, he had one of the cold, stuporous episodes. His attending physician got to see exactly what it looked like.

When I got there today, he'd just come back from dialysis and I was told his blood pressure had been low during it so they won't do dialysis tomorrow. He was mostly out of it, telling me he'd had surgery on both his feet (um, no) and wondering if I was really there (um, yes). He was never really alert the whole day. When I left, he was about to get the second of two new antibiotics and then get another CT scan this evening for the infectious disease doctor and the gastric surgeon to evaluate.

As with Mom, I'm at the hospital with him every day. She stays at home with her cousin. And thank heavens we have her, because Mom's got some infection going on in a swollen jaw -- they went to a doctor's appointment today, Mom got a CT scan, and has to go to two appointments tomorrow in two different facilities. Her primary care physician is the same as Dad's so he knows the whole family/home/hospital situation and wants to keep her out of the hospital if at all possible.

I'm just exhausted and I have no idea what's going to happen next.

So, breaking radio silence because, trust me, you did not want to be hearing about my unemployment and depression over the last six months, or the fun run during this holiday season of Mom's not feeling well which culminated in a trip to the emergency room the day before my birthday, a diagnosis of pneumonia which led to five days in ICU, culminating in a new diagnosis of congestive heart failure, a return home for Christmas, a cardiac cathaterization on Monday, and an upcoming heart surgery sometime after the New Year to replace her atrial valve.

Which is to say, I am clutching Yuletide to my bosom like a life preserver.

I'm going to try to do some recs later, but right now I'm gonna bask in the glory of the three stories that were written for me.

Yeah, that's right, bitches (by which I mean the fates that clearly have been gunning for me this year, not you lovely folks). Three. All full length, and each in a different fandom.

Now, I try not to be one of those people who scare writers by only being happy with a story that includes a pony and a big fight scene with ninja cats after which Mary Sue tells off those terrible janitors about how they treated poor Gary Stu, all set to the lyrics of Ke$ha's Tik Tok. I throw out a couple of open-ended prompts and then talk about the big themes and concepts that appeal to me. It's truly amazing how my gift writers created stories that truly captured those elements. There's a lot of good writers out there, you know? I thank each and every one.

My stories! Mine!

Not Alone in the Dark (8413 words) by dsudis Fandom: Under Jurisdiction - Susan Matthews

Summary: Andrej, Robert, and Joslire's first few days aboard Scylla.

I have asked for this fandom every Yuletide since the beginning. And after eight years, I got it!

My request, in part, read The fandom lends itself to dark but there's room for the lighter side, too -- getting through a regular day while living in close quarters, negotiating through the cultural differences, etc. (....) One thing that intrigues me is the structure and formality that they have to deal with, imposed from within and without, just to get through basic interactions.

"Pitch perfect" is a phrase often tossed around at Yuletide but I do not use it lightly. This story captures both the subtle and overt alienness of this universe and like the best gifts, was exactly what I wanted while being nothing I could have dreamt of myself.

I've got an idea who wrote it. We'll see. ETA: Yes!

The boys are in (910 words) by Keenir Fandom: Jekyll (TV)

Summary: Scenes and facts of (their) life

To be perfectly honest, I requested this fandom because I really didn't like any of the handful of stories I'd found. Nothing quite matched my understanding of canon and nobody talked about Eddie and Harry, the unprecendented twins.

Enter Anonymous, stage right, who took my glib request (So what's next? Do Claire and Tom tell them about their legacy? What's adolescence like for them? First love? First hate? First day of school? *g* Are they really two (four?) separate people? Inquiring minds want to know!) and ran with it.

The stealth Doctor Who crossover at the end was perfect and a sly tip o' the hat to the shared Powers That Be. (Note to self: A Jekyll/Sherlock crossover? The world needs one many!)

Three Mornings (1515 words) by destroythemeek Fandom: Frequency (2000)

Summary: Frank Sullivan. John Sullivan. Jack Shepard. Three morning vignettes.

There's a dreaminess about this movie that appeals to me and I was afraid to be too concrete in my request for fear of closing down authorial inspiration. I did say I'd love to see something about memory -- who knows what and when, how they deal with shifting pasts and uncertain futures and I got three scenes in the re-made yet still-in-progress timeline -- father Frank in the past, son John in the present, killer Jack in-between, none of them secure that reality won't change horribly with the next sunrise.

Go read! Give love (and kudos and comments)!

fleegull is doing an icon meme and selected five of mine for me to comment on. If anyone wants to be tagged (DW or LJ icons, your choice), let me know. Here's mine:

Keyworded beaux yeux, these actually are my eyes. The contrast on the picture was already blown out; I just fooled around a little to make my skin disappear. I liked the subtly weird color effect on my lids. But damn, did I need to pluck those brows.

Young Frankenstein ("That's Fraan-ken-steen!") for the win. ("Frau Blücher!" *neigh*) ("Werewolf!" "There, wolf. There, castle.") ("Walk this way.") ("What hump?") ("Taffeta, darling! Taffeta!") ("Abby... Normal?") (~Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!~) I could continue. I'm here all night, tip your waitress!

I can claim no credit for this glorious bird on the black and white background. The only thing I did was caption it "Vyola" in a random pseudo-Arabic font. I excuse my act of cultural appropriation in the name of sheer beauty.

I've seen this icon all over the place and don't know where it originated. My humor and my pedantry are hidden in the keywords penguins are polar bears' natural enemy and the comment (Yes. It's a little known fact. That's why they must live poles apart.)

Keyworded and it's baby for the win with the comment spenser puts wishbone in her place, this is borgmama's third child (my eldest niece) and Wishbone, the stupidest dog ever. Old pic, as Spenser will be (oh. my. god.) five in September.

Peter O'Donnell, creator of Modesty Blaise, dies at age 90

O'Donnell and his artist collaborators brought a great deal of fun and joy into my life, giving me a heroine rich in personality and flaws, with a deep backstory and a fabulous present any pulp protagonist would envy. And then he gave her Willie Garvin, the best accessory any girl has ever had.

Rest in peace.

---

Oh, dear. This Yuletide, I wrote Modesty Blaise fic. Yuletide 2007 I wrote A Knight's Tale fic. I refuse to look closer to see if there are any other weirdly coincidental deaths along the way since 2003.