sanginmychains

Here are the links to everything I've written. There are two sections -- the main section, in alphabetical order for lack of any more compelling categorization, and the "Warts" section, which contains things I'm embarrassed to have written. I like to read an author's earlier stuff, though, so I'm leaving it here. I won't deny having written it, but I'm putting on it the caveat that I see a ton of mistakes I'd never (I hope) make at this point in time.

MAIN SECTION

Body in Pieces
Summary: Written for Kinkfest #7. Kink: gentleness, post-Countrycide.

In, Around, and Out
Summary: Jack teaches Ianto some new tricks to do with his hands. (R)

Love the Coat
Summary: After Ianto is hired, Jack has some tension to work off. When Ianto starts to work, the tension, not so much worked off yet. (NC-17)
Part 1/5: Love the Coat
Part 2/5 :Poker Face
Part 3/5: A Touch Monstrous
Part 4/5: Tangled Mess
Part 5/5: You're a Bit Evil

More Richer Than My Tongue (R to NC-17)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Summary:This fic is my exploration of the Jack/Ianto relationship post-Cyberwoman. The boys have some issues, to say the least, so I sent them away from the world, stuck them in a tent, and rained on them. Total length: approx 24,500 words.

Pitch
Summary: Pre-Cyberwoman. Ianto has told Jack that he thinks they shouldn’t see each other anymore except as colleagues. Jack tries to play by the rules. (R)

Take Your Coat, Sir? (NC-17)
Summary: Ianto likes to take Jack's coat. Ianto likes it a lot.


WARTS

Point Blank Range
Summary: After the events in "Meat," Jack has some choice words for Gwen. (PG)

Reconnecting
Summary: Jack has asked Ianto out, so they go on a date, and try to reconnect.
Part 1 (R)
Part 2 (R)
Part 3 (NC-17)

What are you thinking about?
Summary: After the events in "Small Worlds," Ianto decides that Jack could use a break from being in charge. (NC-17)
Part 1
Part 2

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. Pick the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.


This list is chock full of high-falutin works from the Western Canon, but I swear these really are the ones I thought of. I like chewy things, what can I say?  This took me much longer than 15 minutes, because my life is like that, but I tried to be true to the spirit of the meme.

 

1.  The Sheltering Sky, Bowles

If I were spending time arranging things I'd make this book last, the sort of #1 on a countdown, but as it is I don't have time to be artful here so I'll just lead with my favourite book.  I can't argue for this book being better than the others; it's just the book that has always stuck with me since I read it.  It's the one I keep always in reach so i can read a passage here and there as I need something beautiful. I open it and read a few pages to check the techniques:  the beautifully pared-down diction, the straightforward syntax.  

 

And I love the story. People on the edge of civilization, classic gothic trope there, who find that their humanity is not stronger than The Earth's Sharp Edge, incidentally my favourite chapter title ever.  People who go farther and farther away, and are both loved and destroyed by the world. The takeaway message that I always got was, you are not big or important, you are owed nothing special, you will not be protected or provided for, but it's okay, and it's kind of beautiful.  Get what I love about this book and you go a long way towards getting me.

 

2. Great Expectations, Dickens

My mom had this idea that she'd start a ritual of us reading aloud to each other at the dinner table. This was not a totally crazy mom-idea. For years she'd accepted me bringing a book to the dinner table, I think she was just trying for some interaction. She picked the book; she picked this one. And it didn't go all that well. I didnt' much like the story. I don't think we finished.

 

Cut to later, maybe half a year? And this book was required reading in Grade 9 English. I read it, and it was okay.  I enjoyed it more or less.  The characters were kind of goofy fun, and I rooted for Pip to...well I couldn't tell what I was supposed to root for, which tickled me intellectually.  

 

Cut to first year university, and it was assigned again. I read it again, add on some good lectures, and I loved it!  I got so much more of the social commentary type stuff, and the characters were still goofy fun but there was something much more under the apparent caricature of it all.  This was a book with levels, and I suddenly got why peopel made such a big deal of Dickens. Here were stories you could come to at different times in your live, with different reading skills, and get new things out of. I read a fair bit more Dickens after this discovery.

 

3. Lolita, Nabokov

Here is an author who writes a story about a pedophile and makes you (well, me) sympathetic. Not with his actions, but with him. That's an impressive feat. And the first few sentences simply must be read aloud. There's some terrific poetry there, beautiful rhythm and sound -- a second impressive feat for someone writing in his second language. Also, I like to say NaBOkov.  It's fun.
 

I still haven't seen the Jeremy Irons movie. I fear it.

 

 

4. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

This anthology of Didion's gentle-seeming vicious skewering of a lot of the "philosophy" of the 60s in California impressed me at the time and stuck with me. It taught me a lot about characterization, because she maintained the appearance of objective journalistic perspective while still raking her subjects over the coals for their illogic, mean-spiritedness, and general imbecility. I also like that there's an antidote to the fuzzy Romanticism of the hippie movement, an alternative perspective that doesn't dismiss it but doesn't let it get away with logic flaws either. And the central, title essay contained a bit about how the philosophy of the time and place could never be useful because the philosophers were too young, and did not have enough words to create any useful structures. The words are tools, bricks, mortar, and if you lack them you will never be enough.

 

5. Heart of Darkness, Conrad

Dude, it's Heart of Darkness.

 

6. Cat's Eye, Atwood

Coupla things. I generally hate Canadian fiction. I can point to very few authors from my home and native land that I'm proud to claim as my own people (lotsa filmmakers! few novelists). I generally don't like many female authors, and why that is is a question I've never adequately answered.  And I really find Margaret Atwood pretty dry most of the time.  However -- this one got me. Her portrayal of girl bullying was chilling (and realistic), and the fact that the story was about how a girl remained traumatized most of her life by that bullying was oddly empowering. It told me that it wasn't uncommon, and it really did suck as much as I felt it did. And I thank "Peg" for that one.

 

7. Invisible Man, Ellison

This book taught me a lot about race in America. I had a real thing for African-American lit for awhile, and I've read a fair bit of it. This is the book I keep recommending, though, because I liked it best.

 

8. Sonny's Blues, Baldwin

I read this in high school, and while I remember us all laughing at the phrase "deep and funky hole," the mood of this piece, it's slow, circling rhythm, has always stayed with me. I liked that it was about how one person can be very much all about another person, and how we can love, and look, and know, and wonder, but still not get even close to what that other person is about.

 

9. Catcher in the Rye, Salinger

I was a very book-loving kid, and so when my mom's boyfriend wanted to do something nice for me, he got me a book -- he got me this book.  For my fourteenth birthday. My dog grabbed the package when it was still wrapped and sunk his teeth a good several pages in. I can't think about this book without seeing it, maroon cover, yellow title, toothmarks.  I was grateful for the gift and I read it eagerly, but I didn't really get it. I know now that it's considered one of *the* books of adolescent angst, but I didn't get it.  I re-read it much later though, during grad school maybe? And it made a lot more sense then. So this book is another example of a text that showed me that a good book keeps giving, and just because something isn't working for you at one point in time doesn't mean it won't later.

 

10. Winter Market, Gibson

I first heard this story being read on CBC radio some morning when I was home in my first apartment during university. It was winter, it was sunny, and I was working on something or other, not really paying attention, until I realized that I was listening to something wonderful that deserved notice. I listened, rapt, to this story that was sci fi but it was about a girl, that was sci fi but was about the experience, that was set in the future but wasn't about the tricks and tropes of Future! Wow! but instead used an imaginary world to bring the reader's focus onto the parts of living that are shared and real.  This remains one of my favourite short stories.

 

11, King Lear

I love tragedy as a genre, I love lots of Shakespeare's plays, but this is the one that always hits me hardest. I think it's because Lear is more massively flawed than most of the tragic heroes. There isn't anything really admirable about him at all.  He's petty and narcissistic, he's short-tempered.  He sucks as a parent, really, really sucks. I responded to this story about how a person can love, but love badly, and in loving badly, just takes *everyone* down.

 

12. The Color Purple, Walker

I saw the Spielberg movie when it came out, and I guess I was about 10? 12?  I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was a very long movie and I had to pee, badly, for most of it.

 

I liked it enough to read the book, and I was amazed by how much more was in that book. It was a three and a half hour movie! But the book just kept telling more and more story. It impressed me that you could get a lot more content into text.  And what I liked about the book that was missing in the movie was that it showed the relationship between Celie and Mister do a total turnaround. It was the worst kind of relationship, abusive, vicious, cruel. But at the end of the story, they're sitting on the porch together, sewing.

 

This book taught me that life is long, and you get a lot of chances. If you can managed to just not fuck up *some* of them, you can still come out okay.

 

13. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

I didn't enjoy this book while I read it. I read it because it was on the GRE English Lit reading list and I was trying to bolster up before writing the test. I pushed through, disliking it the whole way.  When I was done though, and for months after, and a decade later now, it just lived in my mind. I can remember images, feelings. This is my usual reaction to Dostoevsky, it turns out.

 

14. The Metamorphosis, Kafka

Boy did I love me some Kafka for awhile. Actually, not entirely true. I couldn't tell whether I liked it or not, so I kept reading it. Kept reading and reading it. Eventually I decided that I *must* like it, or else I wouldn't be doing this. Normally I'd dismiss Kafka as having a bad case of needing a therapist but writing stories instead, and that's not untrue...but nevertheless, there's a sincerity in his writing that I respond to. And Kafka was my answer to those who felt you had to live and breathe writing and pure art in order to be a "true" artist or some such crap. I think there was an argument in there for why they needed to take drugs, too. Kafka kept his day job, and produced all those little gems. So there.

 

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Monster angry, monster sad. Monster wants a hug from Daddy. Monster wants to kill Daddy, and Daddy's girlfriend.

 

I also loved that you could totally tell which passages had been written by Mary, and which had been re-written by Percy. Total style change. Always found that amusing. I heard that there was an edit out there that reverted to Mary's un-edited manuscript? I'd like to read that.

I remember my Grandma as a woman who made things. Preserving, knitting, sewing, embroidery, quilting, she turned her hand to so many things. She made things for her kids and grandkids. She made things for her friends, she made things for charity.

She embellished a sweatshirt for me once. The last thing I wanted as a 14 year old in 1989 was a pure white, size small sweatshirt with pastel-coloured, embroidered flowers around the yoke, but I kept that thing in my closet for years, sometimes wearing it under a sweater where it wouldn’t be seen, because even though I didn’t like it, I loved the person who had made it, and I knew how much work she’d put into it.

She gave me things I loved, too – sweaters I wore out, pillows and pillowcases I still have. A knitted bunny for my daughter, a handmade doll.

In a fit of what I have to assume was craft-madness, she cross-stitched a greeting card. I don’t judge her for it. I have fits of craft-madness, myself. I joined her in her decoupage phase and I spent my first summer after university obsessed with embroidering pillowcases because I was away from home and I missed the ones she’d made for my mother.

When I was a kid, summer visits to her house meant craft projects, trips to the fabric store, and if I was lucky, special outings to Mary Maxim’s. From her I learned embroidery and stenciling, knitting and sewing. She was one of the only people who could satisfy my endless appetite for making things.

I still have her iron, the one I wielded at her house pressing seam after seam while we did sewing projects together. In 1987, my desire for a bubble skirt led to a weekend of complicated, frustrating sewing that nearly resulted in us not speaking to each other. I just wanted it to be done, but she wanted it to be done right.

Grandma taught me to be methodical and to take care of the details. She taught me to reach for perfection, and she showed me that it was possible. She made me feel powerful.

One summer day – the same summer I was embroidering pillowcases because I missed home, in fact – I was seized by the urge to make the dishes I remembered from family barbeques: deviled eggs, potato salad, jello salad. I’d never made them before, but I didn’t need a recipe; I’d just watched her make them enough times that I knew how. I spent the afternoon making them and then ate that odd meal for dinner. The familiar tastes made me feel less lonely for a bit.

I was so proud to sometimes make things for her. A few years ago I made her the softest mittens with the finest yarn, thinking as I knit about her arthritic hands bent by so much handwork that she couldn’t knit anymore. Last year I knit her a lace shawl, and I knew that she’d know it was made with care and with love in every stitch, just like she used to do for her loved ones.

I have her knitting needles.

I think those afternoons spent sewing with me probably made her want to pull her hair out. I was so impatient to be done, to stop fussing with the details. But now I’m a professional handcrafter and I live and teach the lessons she was teaching me as we worked together: that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and time and skill are precious gifts that we give to others.

She made me feel capable and loved. I hope that I made her feel loved in return.

My grandmother died on Sunday night. She was in her 80s and I’m in my 30s. I was lucky enough to have her for as long as I did. I’ll miss her.

Hey all. There's this writer who didn't get in to Writer in a Drawer but she's writing along anyway, which I think is awesome. It's like a tailgate party, except with admirable writerly discipline instead of brats. I beta'd this piece, and the author isn't pimping it to any comms but I think more ppl should read and comment, so Go read this. /a>

Did anyone else expect the Home Office to contain a huge, blinding white room with a black panther in it?

Okay fandom, a topic for discussion. I can afford a tiny splurge -- one episode of Torchwood for my iPod. Which one should it be? Or if you don't have a strong opinion on your favourite, help me decide which one I'll enjoy best.

I'm thinking about this in lieu of actually watching a bunch of episodes as a lead-up to the new series. I'd prefer the DVD marathon approach to solving the problem, but while I'm not generally into major censorship for kids, even I can see that Torchwood is not appropriate viewing material for a four year old. "Mama, why did that woman in the silver bikini take that man's eye out?"

The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ (if you want to) and find out what people don’t know about you.

I took this meme from cruentum; could be fun. It's like the laziest form of blogging -- getting others to choose the topic for you.

Not f-locking because the journal is pretty much anon anyway.

Hey all, check out the cute! Details to follow when I pull myself together enough to write out a birth story and whatnot, for those interested in the gory details. But in the meantime, here's a picture of her fat loveliness. She was born Tuesday morning, 8 lbs 14 oz, after an intense but med-free delivery. We're home and doing very nicely so far.

I'm about ready to admit that I've lost my ability to produce any creative writing whatsoever. The tiny bursts of writing, which come when available time and available brain align, have been getting smaller and farther between, and now I can hardly even muster the ability to remember my overall plans much less motivate myself to work on them. ( Read more )

Title: Dawdling
Author: sanginmychains
Rating: R
Summary: Well it had to happen eventually.
Thanks to onebrightroad for the beta work.


Gwen tips her head back to rest it on the tiles while she closes her eyes. A moment later, she snaps it forward, locking eyes with Jack as if she doesn’t want to miss anything and gripping his shoulder blades. She’s breathing into his face, and not in self-righteous fury for once.

As soon as Jack had realized she was dawdling – she’d actually sat down and opened one of the reports they’d need to file, eventually – he’d known. He’d even let her work for a few minutes. Her eyes had stayed locked to the screen, even when he’d come up behind her and stood there, too close and silent.

She’d kept typing, filling in boxes.

“Not going home to Rhys?”

“He’ll be asleep.”

“You’re not tired?”

“Not really.” With spots of colour high on her cheeks, she’d typed another name and a location. “I’m going to take a shower. Before I go home.” She’d finally shut the file and closed her eyes, or maybe just looked down. Hard to tell at that angle. “Join me?”

She’d waited a second to turn and half look at him for a reaction, so Jack had had more than enough time to arrange his face and body to convey just the right amount of surprise. Not shock. Shock puts her off.

He’s from the future. He has a lot of practice looking surprised at the things that he knows are coming. It makes it easier for everyone else.

And now, with wet hair clinging to her face and neck, her eyes are searching his, so he shows her bland acceptance, he shows her that this is nothing she needs to think about too much. She doesn’t want to think about this. She just wants to do it.

He also shows her how he can hold her up against the wall with just one arm and his hips while he thumbs her right nipple. She likes that, and he adores doing it to her. Her tits are fantastic. He feasts on the sight of them shaking while he fucks her, and her chest and neck flushing as he brings her up higher and higher.

He makes sure that it takes long enough that it’s good, that it’s the mind-blowing fantastic thing she’s obviously built it up to be, but not so long that she has time to think twice about what she’s doing. He’s had this end abruptly in her tears and self-recriminations before. There’s no need for that.

After, she helps herself to a small-dose Retcon pill and puts it in her left pocket. She turns around, eyes wide, half brandishing the pill like she’s a shoplifter about to claim that she intended to pay for it after all. “Jack. I – look. We can’t do this again. Don’t mention this to me later, okay?”

Jack steps in, runs his fingers under her still-damp hair and up the back of her skull, and leans in for a kiss. He loves the way she lets her head rest entirely in his hand.

“I never do.”

She tenses and pulls away. She leaves quickly.

Gacked from blackbird_song:

Post a single sentence from each WIP you have (or as many as you want to pick). No context, no explanations. No more than one sentence unless you're a cheater like me and posted occasionally a dialogue line.

Here they are:

1) “You can use your free hand in whichever way you choose, except to take the gag out. Do that, and we stop.

2) You don’t often get the chance to apologize to someone for shooting him in the head.

3) "I'm going to dismiss the Weevil fetish out of hand."

4) And now, with wet hair clinging to her face and neck, her eyes are searching his, so he shows her bland acceptance, he shows her that this is nothing she needs to think about too much.

5) When the final knot is secure, he runs his hand up Ianto’s taut triceps – gorgeous like this, all the definition showing – and presses himself in closely, softly.

6) "We had to have it dry cleaned after."

7) This is the very definition of neither the time nor the place, but Torchwood has never been about convenience or regularity, or about schedules of any kind.

8) "Insufferable egotist," Ianto said, but purred under the attention.

(Originally posted to TWU, but I thought the plan deserved a more wide-ranging announcement)

On reflection, I am embarrassed to have participated in the who_anon wankstorm, even as little as I have done, and I hereby propose a new plan.

Write More Porn.

You know what the problem is? We're all a bit bored, apparently. We need something like the new series to start, but that's a few months away so no help there. A new epic fic being published might keep us all occupied for a few days, but those take some time to write. But you know what doesn't take too long to write?

Porn.

Now, xtricks has gotten us started with a fantastic sex club smut story that he published a few days ago. Round of applause for xtricks. *clap clap clap clap* Who's next? This is an excellent chance to try your hand at writing that spanking fic you always wanted to. You could try a deeply smutty drabble. Take a scene from an existing fic you've already written, and try rewriting it where no one is wearing underpants, see what happens. If you can't write porn, then read some porn and send the good links along to all your friends. Anything good? Link it here.

You think I'm kidding.

I won't be writing mpreg, and I promise not to baby blog, but as I am now at 18 weeks along and in possession of ultrasound images that show that all is well, I wanted to share the good news with the Internet.

And in case anyone spared a thought for why it took me 8 weeks to get the final part of More Richer done -- this is why. In between the "OMGOMGOMG" panicking and the trying not to throw up, not to mention the sudden inability to consume either caffeine or alcohol (on both of which I was, I'm ashamed to say, more than a little dependent for my writing process), my ability to write was thrown a bit off kilter. All is well now, though. Give or take. I'd still really, really like to have a nice scotch and water in the evenings...but oh well, time enough for that later.

Yeah, well. The six years of formally studying the subject before I felt qualified to actually write fiction says...this is true. And it's not so much "share hobbies" as "aggressively push hobbies upon," but ya know. Tomayto tomahto.

In writing news, I signed up for a prompt at Kinkfest 9 mostly in a bid to push cruentum into doing the same, and it worked, so woo! another good writer for the plotty, character driven smut fold. It's not like I don't have other things to write. I have an Aliens Made Them Do It piece on the go that I'm getting to be very pleased with, and a potentially very long Ianto, Owen, Jack story that could occupy some considerable writing time. But I have a soft spot for the rounds_of_kink comm, so what the hey, I'm going for it.

Title: More Richer than my Tongue – Part 8/8</a>
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Notes, credits: This section somehow took two months to write; my life went a little nuts a couple months ago. But it’s done! I want to express my appreciation to my awesome betas, invisible_lift and blackbird_song for letting me do even more agonizing and navel-gazing than usual, and a special thanks to the latter for helping me out with some not insignificant reworking in the 24 hours before she got on a plane for a trans-Atlantic flight. You’ve both helped with considerably in this, my first sustained writing project ever (not counting grad school papers), and I’ve become a more confident writer because of the time and energy you’ve spent on me. Lastly, in case anyone is wondering, I don’t have any immediate plans of continuing this story line, but if you’re dying to know what happens next, Body in Pieces could very reasonably fit in as the next installment. I think I’m going to do a little work in Series 2 now, though. After all, my DVDs came; I should put them to some good use.
Summary: This fic is my exploration of the Jack/Ianto relationship post-Cyberwoman. The boys have some issues, to say the least, so I sent them away from the world, stuck them in a tent, and rained on them. This section contains 5846 words. The entire story, if you’re curious, clocks in at around 24,500 words.

( Part 8 )

Title: Spank
Author: sanginmychains
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing/character: Jack/Ianto
Rating: FRM
Prompt: "Behavior like that will get you a spanking"
Kink: Spanking, punishment (real or roleplay)
Notes: Drabble

I have vague intentions of making this a fic that's longer than 100 words, because first spanking, that's gotta be fun, right? But at the moment it's a tiny, polished-to-sparkling 100 words. I usually like to make a better showing for Kinkfest, but it's kind of been a weird time in my life, so it is what it is. There's always Round 9.

And a status update for anyone wondering: More Richer Part 8 (last part!) is done. It's back from beta #1, it's currently living with beta #2, and it will be posted more or less as soon as I get it back and incorporate the edits.

Title: Take your coat, Sir?
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Notes, credits: A while back, four of us wrote porn to the same prompt, then workshopped them together. This is mine. Alpha/beta credit goes to definehome, demotu, and onebrightroad.
Summary: Just a little bit of coat!porn, largely without plot. Set around the second half of Series 1. 1160 words.

UPDATE: Here is the link to the one resourceress wrote. Here is demotu's.


( Read more )

So I told antelope_writes just in passing that I was hoping someone would write me a birthday fic, a Jack/Andy fic in particular. ( Read more )

Pick 10 people and give them the "you make my day" award, in no particular order. If you're picked, you are charged with picking 10 of your own (unless you've already done it.)

For reasons I can't quite articulate, this meme is trigging all kinds of Middle School alarm bells, but I was tagged so I'll play along. However, this entry is going to be You Make My Day (but I've Never Had an IM Conversation With You), in the interests of avoiding the strange circularity of the whole endeavour. So here are my 10:

kalichankalichan and rm (who made crossdressing and snuff seems plausibly IC, not to mention scaldingly hot)
and kalichan on her own (who graced me with several emails on the subject of how she and her partner manage the process of co-writing)
skellerbvvt (who turned Ianto in a panda, and Lisa into a robot cat.)
cherry_soup888 (who wrote a scene involving phone sex and a garden shed that I've never managed to forget)
smokeringhalos (who wrote THE stopwatch fic, the one that none other has ever come close to matching for complexity, thoughtfulness, uniqueness or sheer rock-melting hotness)
ceefax_the_sane (writer of drabbles extraordinaire, guaranteed to make me laugh out loud no matter where I am, even hours later when I suddenly remember it)
osprey_archer(for writing Ianto/Owen in a way that makes me cringe with the staticky discomfort of it all, and I adore her for it)
blackbird_song (whose attention to detail and extraordinary semantic skill, not to mention wit and respect, make her a beta I wouldn't want to be without)
thefannishwaldo (without whose prompts at rounds_of_kink I probably wouldn't be writing anything nearly as smutty)
tencrush (GDL picspam!)

Title: More Richer than my Tongue – Part 7
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Notes, credits: This section was given beta-love by invisible_lift and jbs_teeth; sorry about the verb tense tangle, guys. All quotations are from King Lear. Thanks also to antelope_writes for poking me with the Rose stick until I realized how she figured in. She’s poking me with a Suzie stick for part 8.
Summary: This fic is my exploration of the Jack/Ianto relationship post-Cyberwoman. The boys have some issues, to say the least, so I sent them away from the world, stuck them in a tent, and rained on them. This section contains 3753 words.

( ”Part7” )
forward to Part 8