Two drifters, off to see the world.

Freaking Cold

2026-01-26T03:06:36Z

Ugh. I'm so tired of this fucking cold. Snow, negative temps, and frozen pipes. Can spring get here soon? Like I don't mind cozy season, but I'm not looking forward to the heating bill next month. And cozy season is only nice when you don't have to go outside.

Also I really miss being able to pop out for a walk in my neighborhood without three layers and a give 'em hell attitude.

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cuda @ 2026-01-19T18:46:00

2026-01-20T01:11:49Z

So I'm back again. And I've made this promise a few times, to update more, and I always failed before. Something feels different now, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll translate into activity. I'm learning that once I'm past the 'I'm back!' post, thinking of things to post about gets harder.

That struggle to make my own posts is something that's been on my heart for a while. Dreamwidth has been here while I was straying off to other pastures, but I haven't been using it because at some point I stopped thinking anything I made that wasn't fic or art mattered. And I used to be really active on Livejournal, the vast majority of what I was posting wasn't fic or art. When I joined Tumblr, the most novel thing about Tumblr was the option to easily broadcast other people's words to my followers. That changed my habits almost overnight, because a) it was popular and b) it made posting my own thoughts simultaneously feel like an inconvenience to everyone else and dangerous. Tumblr's firehose made it feel like saying anything was drawing a giant spotlight to me. Back in the days when it was extremely busy, everything I say on that platform felt performative. I'm a comedian. I'm an activist. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. But I also saw people saying what mattered to me in a much more impactful way. I used to dash off a Livejournal post without really thinking about how much it would resonate with anyone outside of my direct friend group, because reblogs didn't exist; the likelihood of someone outside my direct followers seeing that post was vanishingly small.

The end result was me second-guessing every post I make. Everything gets carefully packaged for easy consumption on Tumblr. I have a multitude of drafts where I'm angry and hurt, impatient and annoyed, but it doesn't get posted because it's not intended for anyone but the handful of active followers who give a damn, but it could feasibly get picked up by anybody. And I want the people who know me to have the capacity to weigh in, but I don't want or need someone who's never met me having an opinion on how I see the world today.

And I've been thinking a lot lately about how compartmentalized I am. And how damned performative that Tumblr is. It's gotten a bit better as Tumblr has both gotten quieter and older, but it's still a bit I commit to when I post something of my own. I don't have any pretensions that my perspective has any value to anyone other than me and people who care about me. I just want to have a point of view again, one that's mine, and stop feeling like I can't make messy personal posts because it's just going to be noise clogging up other people's dashes.

So hopefully, I'll be back. Because I think I need to do this more. I think I lost my voice in the habit of using other people's voices and other people's perspectives instead of using my own. Writing blog posts feels like hard work right now, but I've been learning that a lot of the things I used to do are hard right now because I haven't been doing them, among other reasons. And in a world where ai slop is gobbling up the landscape and everything feels less and less human, just taking some fucking time to make something of my own in a quiet place where a few people can see it and maybe connect sounds pretty fucking nice.

I'm so tired. I'm sad, and I'm exhausted, and I have so much unprocessed grief about the last five years (and the four before that). None of that is going to get better by doomscrolling.

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Giant Nerds Sharing a Brain, News at 11.

2018-12-08T20:23:02Z

Out and about with my partner today, when she leans over and conspiratorially tells me that she's wearing her Ravenclaw socks, and then shows me.

Y'all.

I wore my Hufflepuff socks today.

Neither of us planned this.

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cuda @ 2018-12-07T20:50:00

2018-12-08T02:54:14Z

I've got a glass of rose and a give 'em hell attitude, and I'm trying to make my blog layout at least slightly more mobile-friendly.

God that footer is so UGLY, though. And I want my links at the TOP, dammit! Without bullets! My official job title is 'graphics/web coordinator.' How can I not seem to coordinate this web?

I think I'm gonna need more wine.

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I Feel Like There's Going to be a Lot of Long Posts in the Future.

2018-12-07T03:48:13Z

Two blog posts in a week, what is this?

My partner is upstairs finishing a final paper for her Composition class - because she's going back to school to finish her Associates', y'all! Which I am mentioning because I'm so proud of her and hopeful for her. In order to resist the urge to just snag a book and curl up in her vicinity (and probably distract her from Doing the Thing as a result), I'm down here starting the labor of transferring things and backing things up from Tumblr.

You may see some weird things cross your reading page. I'll try to backdate my experiments to mitigate the weird. I want to try to save gifsets and I'm not exactly sure how to go about that. It feels like I'm reverse engineering my own Tumblr experience here, since I bungled the first time I tried to post a giftset there, assuming that these Perfect Layouts everyone managed were a result of clever table coding. Now I'm probably going to have to do some clever table coding to make the gifsets line up on DW. We'll see.

I'm starting with the smaller side blogs for now. I'll pick some Saturday when I'm supposedly writing to start the backup on my main blog, so I have an excuse to keep the computer on for a long period of time. Can you walk away from a backup and just check in every few days to see if it's done? I haven't read the instructions all the way through, I confess.

( And now for something completely different... )

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Season of Change

2018-12-05T15:39:26Z

Hard to believe it's been almost 5 years since I've been back here.

Well, I mean, after reviewing my 'interests' list... yeah. Not so hard.

Wtf, 2014!me? You were into that?

The thing is, coming back to DW is just one of a great big bag of personal upheaval this season. Usually, I don't notice change until I look back from a distance. A year, five years later, I see the progress of things clearly delineated. Right now, I'm noticing it as it's happening. And it's happening right the hell now, leaving me wondering what I'm going to look like inside by the end of December, even.

Coming back to DW also feels like returning to a personal touchstone. Like listening to an album that marked a hyperspecific time of my life. This was my life raft, post-LiveJournal, and it feels like that again. The controls are familiar-strange; a little tougher to navigate on mobile than I'm used to, and I don't mind.

Posting this, I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Because I can post this. Because this place, unlike the wilds of social media elsewhere, makes me feel safe to have a voice. My voice. A voice that isn't consciously cultivated for mass appeal.

Yeah, this is harder. This change is so visible and it's going to be habit changing in multiple facets of my life. But I guess, while it hurts to limp back in here, angry at the world and staring down the headlights of the upheavals coming at me, it's also not as bad as it could be.

So to the changes coming, I say: let's see how this goes.

If you're following me and you're new to Dreamwidth, welcome! If you're an old friend and this post is crossing your reading page after years of silence, hi again - how are things?

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Feeling much better already

2014-03-10T14:15:52Z

This makes one week without the tumblr app. I made a couple necessary posts to keep up with previous commitments, but overall it hasn't been hard at all to avoid tumblr. In fact, I feel more motivated to write and the internal critic has been bothering me less while I'm working.

I still have commitments there, and friendships I value and want to keep. I think that it's critically important for me to limit my time on tumblr to just the evening, when I have my laptop on, in the same way and for many of the same reasons that I have all of my alcohol stored in a cabinet that can only be reached via stepstool. Easy access is a bad thing for me in both cases.

It's been a breath of fresh air to go tumblr-free. And the weather has finally started improving. Things are - in cautious estimation - looking up.

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First Impressions [Gen, PG, Supernatural/Torchwood/Doctor Who/SERRAted Edge Crossover]

2014-03-07T06:49:48Z

Title: First Impressions
Characters:
Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Rose Tyler, with brief appearances by Castiel, Gwen Cooper, Jack Harkness, the Ninth Doctor and Martha Jones.
Summary:
Adopted by the Sidhe as a teenager, Dean Winchester goes out into the world again for the first time with his trusty elvensteed named "Baby" and his adoptive brother "Sam" (Samanderil, a young Sidhe orphan raised alongside Dean at Singer's Grove). They're on their way to Torchwood Grove, hopefully to find work in the rough world of the SouthWest Road Racing Association.

Their first impression isn't exactly what they'd hoped for.

Notes: Written for Fanwork Friday - this time the theme was 'species switch.' I got a crack idea to crossover one of my favorite urban fantasy worlds (from the SERRAted Edge novels by Mercedes Lackey) with SuperWho. The end is a bit rushed, but I got wind of this challenge a little late and wanted to make sure the story was as complete as possible for Friday. Also, I'm mean to Ianto again. I know, I'm really sorry.

-

Baby made a decent imitation of a V8 Chevy small block. The sound didn't belong to an actual motor, so Dean couldn't call himself a completely satisfied customer. An actual motor would mean it was a car and not a magical construct, though. A car wasn't sentient enough to save his ass on its own steam. Plus, a real Chevy Impala would be a gas hog and contained enough steel to rip the very foundations of Underhill... well... asunder, for lack of a less Seeleighe-court word.

Dean was kinda tired of Seeleighe-court words. It was his first unchaperoned trip out of Underhill since he'd been brought there as a teenager, and for years he'd been chafing to get the hell out of Dodge.

Well, 'unchaperoned' was open to interpretation.

"I thought you wanted a Mustang," Sam ran both hands along the upholstry as their wheels left the grassy downs of Ellen's keep and touched down on solid pavement. Underhill snapped closed behind them like a coin purse, and they were alone in a wilderness of New Mexico cliffs.

Dean shrugged. "Changed my mind. The pun was horrible, I'd never keep a straight face."

( Read more... )

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Castiel headcanon

2014-03-07T01:59:52Z

Brought on by the wee one selling Girl Scout cookies tonight.

Castiel has a thing for citrus flavors. Someone, somewhere introduces him to Lemonades... delicious shortbread cookies with lemon frosting on the undersides. Once he discovers where these cookies come from and how to procure them for himself, Castiel makes it a point never to pass by a Girl Scout selling cookies so he can snag a box of Lemonades.

And he rarely shares. If you get a Lemonade from Castiel, that's like getting a phoenix to give you one of its feathers.

I can just see him sitting in the back of the Impala, blissfully munching his cookies until Sam turns around to look at him. And then for a split second he mentally mantles over the box in his lap until it's obvious that Sam doesn't want to take his cookies.

Sam cottons on, of course, and does it occasionally just for the face Castiel makes at him when he does it.

Bonus headcanon: Castiel tries to give the Winchesters cookies from the back seat to make them stop fighting.

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Gallery Show Today

2014-03-07T00:15:21Z

So this requires backstory, but I'm participating in my third art gallery showing this year! I promise there will be backstory eventually.

Anyway, I've had some okay luck with selling prints and original artwork pieces. Through the gallery I've also taken and completed my first ever professional commission, which wasn't a bad experience as I've heard (and seen) commissions go for other folks. I don't think I'll be doing that very often though for the stress factor.

I'm hiding in my studio for the moment, just to catch my breath. It's been a really, really busy day and kind of a frantic week, but I have Friday off and amberdark and I are headed out of town for the weekend. Hopefully I can get some of my writing done... I have a piece I really really want to get to a stopping point tonight so I can submit it for SuperWhoLock the Comic's Fanwork Friday.

Damn, just had a weird moment of deja vu.

On the plus side, I made some really delicious cider for the gallery tour, and got a gorgeous chocolate cupcake with a cookie dough ball inside.

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The Undertaker's Daughter by Jeffery Rudell

2014-03-05T07:15:55Z

Listen to the story on The Moth.org here

This is my favorite story from The Moth radio hour. I listened to it again tonight and remembered why, and wanted to share.It’s a true story about coming of age, sex, and… dead bodies.

"Bleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaagh."

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Tumblr hiatus

2014-03-05T07:04:59Z

On tumblr hiatus, indefinitely. That shit's making me crazy. Uninstalled my tumblr app tonight, which will at least save me a chunk of data plan to use somewhere else. If I can get back to a normal level of self worth and confidence in my own writing, I'll go back.

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Crap, about to be Jossed

2014-03-03T19:15:53Z

I've been ~~mainlining~~ watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer since early last year and I've finally almost finished Season 5. I just survived the Buffy!bot episode (I am so, so glad the characters reacted to that the way they did, that was really really disgusting and obscene, and I'm also glad they addressed the possibility that the AI might have feelings and that there was an established quandary from the previous episode about the robot girlfriend.) and I read the episode summary for the next one.

Nope. Nope nope nope.

I don't think I'm ready to lose Tara or to watch Willow go Dark Side. I know it's coming, but I am not ready.

But I also have to add that Tara and Willow have amazing chemistry. The actresses and/or directors and writers get kudos for making the relationship tangibly intimate, even though they're rarely allowed even low-level physical affection. Considering the standards of the day, I feel that love. Thus, I want to cry and cling to it right now.

EDIT:
This was not the episode I thought it was going to be. It was still miserable, but it wasn't Tara's last, so at least there's that.

But still. Poor Tara, man.

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Trying again for regular blog updates

2014-03-02T17:59:56Z

I'm going to at least halfheartedly try blogging again.

Back in the old, busy days of Livejournal, I blogged because I needed to. I was still living with my parents, struggling to understand my sexuality, and hiding all of my interests from ridicule. I won't say I'm 100% better, but I do have different priorities. Positive encouragement has done a great job of helping me be more open about who I am and what I like. So I don't necessarily need a secret place to go pour all of my bottled-up self anymore.

But it would be nice to write every day again. Just re-establishing the habit of writing regularly could help me get past some major stumbling blocks in my fiction. Besides just sitting down and writing the damn fiction already.

So here goes. I will be checking DW more regularly while the SPN/TW kink meme is going on, which means I'll remember this is here. With any luck I'll have a little habit established again soon.

The other thing about blogging here is that content is relatively easy to lock down, in as much as anything on the internet ever is. It's more time-consuming for someone to take my posts here, add their own opinion or condemnation, and spread them. Tumblr, unfortunately, reinforced the belief that I needed to keep things hidden unless I was prepared to let everyone have a venue to come at me. Don't get me wrong, I still like Tumblr, but I'd like to have a little more control over my personal content than I do there. I'd also like to engage more in dialog rather than have people I don't know talk AT me, in a venue that makes it almost impossible to respond without feeling like I'm just trying to get more attention.

Meh.

So, blog.

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Brian/Dom, NC-17, PWP

2012-05-31T01:40:14Z

But to Understand the Future, We Have to Go Back in Time
Brian/Dom, NC-17, 863 Words
No major warnings this time around. Pretty much just fun making out on a car. 'Cause really, why not?

Dom figured he had a right to be smug. Brian's ego was based on the fact that he could do anything with an import car. Though good natured about it, he regularly needled Dom about 'not getting with the program.' He approached Dom's preferences for Detroit muscle as a weird religious practice or a stubborn cling to tradition. Dom was pretty sure Brian knew better - just teased Dom about it because it was a chink he deliberately left open for prodding. But today Dom's old-world knowledge turned out to be Brian's saving grace. Bits and pieces of import cars had a few vestigials leftover from old Detroit, like leopard spots on the occasional housecat.

( Read more... )

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SuperWho Big Bang FINALLY POSTED!

2012-04-28T23:00:54Z

YAAAAAAAY OMG *flailly dance!*

Posted on the community here!

If you're into SuperWho, there's lots of good stories there.

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SuperWho Big Bang Fic Master Post

2012-04-20T06:33:33Z

Title: Play It Again Jack
Author: cuda
Artist: xnoventumx
Characters/Pairings: Castiel/Captain Jack Harkness, some past Ianto/Captain Jack Harkness, mentions of past Angelo/Captain Jack, a little unrequited Castiel/Dean. Characters include: Rex Matheson, Martha Jones, The Winchesters, Ninth & Tenth Doctors, Rose Tyler, Torchwood 3 Team, and others from Supernatural and Torchwood. If you're a Clive Cussler fan, there's a little bit in here for you, too!
Fandoms: Supernatural, Torchwood, Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13 for a little sexuality, some violence, and some language.
Word Count: 41,676 words
Disclaimer: This work was not created for any profit. I do not claim ownership of any of these characters, worlds, or various television shows.
Warnings: Some canonical character deaths are mentioned, but not in detail.
Spoilers: VERY VERY SPOILERY for Torchwood, covers a lot of canon material all the way through Children of Earth and Miracle Day. Also spoilers for Supernatural up through the first two episodes of season 7. Story canon diverges from there.

Summary: Set after Miracle Day Torchwood, and current Supernatural Season 7 canon (disregarding anything that happens to Castiel following episode 2). Captain Jack Harkness is in the process of re-forming Torchwood on the west coast with the remnants of his team. A dire threat to the future of humanity has arrived on Earth without his knowledge and worse yet? They're looking for him. Jack is rescued short of catastrophe by Castiel. Claims to be an angel of the Lord, but all Jack knows for sure is that he's pushy, arrogant, humorless, and more buttoned up than the Royal Guard on parade day. Thus Jack finds himself on the Highway to Hell (or really, Kansas) on a mission to defeat a quasi-biblical, ferociously hungry race called "the Leviathan," change history and save the world. Again. ...Or was it for the fifth time? Maybe the seventh? Whatever. All he knows is that his directive explicitly forbids flirting.

This? This is going to be no fun. At all.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Epilogue

Mirror on Ao3: HERE

Link to art master post: HERE

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I'm Still Up

2012-04-20T06:09:54Z

I'm trying to take completely nonsensical concepts from Minecraft and turn them into some sort of mythos with underlying reasons that I can apply to this fic in order to write myself out of a corner.

Clearly I need to go to bed.

Because really. Minecraft.

In other news, will be posting my SuperWho Big Bang fic soon! It's already all posted under super secret journal lock, I've just got to go through and add all the bells and whistles. It's certainly going up on Ao3 afterward.

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Play It Again Jack, Epilogue

2012-04-20T06:02:45Z

Play It Again Jack, Epilogue
The Bit That Never Happened (Or Maybe It Did)
(But if it had, it would have happened in October of 2011, outside Crowley's lair)
Martha

"Rules, my ass," Martha said to the man leaning against a telephone box in the middle of the pines, "that was direct intervention and you know it."

The Doctor crossed his arms and tipped his head thoughtfully. "We-ell, possibly. But then again, maybe it wasn't. Those rules, well," the arms uncrossed again, hands flashing restlessly, "they're more like guidelines, anyway."

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 7

2012-04-20T05:56:24Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 7
December 11, 2012
Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.
Jack

"Tell me again," Rex crossed his arms to bundle himself up tighter in his parka. His breath smoked contrails off the side of the ship, "what the hell are we doing out here? If you want to dump a body, there's warmer places to do it. I could name you five, right now."

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 6

2012-04-20T05:38:27Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 6

Stars filled my vision, one horizon to the other. I took a deep breath and sat up, and the distant rosy glow of city lights swam into view.

Where was I?

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 5

2012-04-18T04:49:28Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 5

Gwen knew not to call. She had my number, of course - in more ways than one - but she had a family to protect. Until we made some progress with the Three Families, the entire world population was a potential threat.

So when Gwen called, somewhere between Breckenridge and Silverthorne, I got a little tense.

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 4

2012-04-17T05:33:54Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 4

As far as I understand it, Henderson, Nevada is the place to live if you want to be in Las Vegas but at the same time you're sort of annoyed by... well... Vegas. It's filled with ritzy estates and expensive condominiums, along with the usual pretentious coffee bars and boutiques. I'm sure plenty of decent people live there too - after all, Angelo Colasanto lived there. He had his faults, but he wasn't a bad guy when I knew him.

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 3

2012-04-16T00:44:33Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 3
Present Day
Jack

I'll never know how all this would have played out without intervention. The Doctor, Castiel, me - we'd all had a hand in it by then, whether we knew it or not. Maybe it was supposed to be fiddled with. Maybe time's like a half-finished song that way. It just waits around for someone to tweak the harmony just right, until the whole thing's so beautiful it breaks your heart.

( Read more... )

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Play It Again Jack, Part 2

2012-04-16T00:23:38Z

Play It Again Jack, Part 2
April 29, 2011 - London
Rose

Rose hadn't known the Doctor very long. They'd had a few adventures together, but the whole thing seemed a bit of a lark yet. He liked her, she was rather sure of that, and she certainly had more fun with him than she'd had in her previous nineteen years of living. The daring leather jacket, the air of mystery, the whole flying-through-space bit… maybe she was still waiting to wake up.

( Read more... )

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