stunt_muppet: (Solitaire: A writer's best friend)
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Working through my collection of memes...

One from [livejournal.com profile] brewsternorth:

Try to write all the different categories of fanfic (angst, fluff, UST, bromance...can you think of others?) in 10 words or less.



Angst:

It takes time, getting used to the idea of "gone".

Fluff:

They're in 1912 the first time he kisses her goodnight.

UST:

He watches his hands as he works, follows every motion.

BromanceSmarm:

(What? I think "bromance" sounds silly, is all.)

"I'm glad you're alright," he says. "And thank you."

Darkfic:

He winces, involuntarily, as the other man raises the syringe.

Adventure:

She feels like she's been running forever; still they follow.

Smut:

"Shut up and fuck me."

"What, now?"

"Yes, now."

"...Okay..."

Crack:

It all went downhill once the ninja pirate zombies appeared.



And one from me:

The Bonsai Story Generator transforms your story from a coherent fic into a series of pseudo-profound word salad sentences, perfect for incomprehensibly poetic fic.

Plug in one (or more) of your fics and post three (or more) of your favorite bonsai story sentences. No fair picking sentences that come out almost the same (i.e. "What's that?" or "She stood there" or something like that). Annotate as you like.




From The Waiting-Room World:

"A new, unknown life become concrete as he observed, spiraling out the storm. " I rather like this one, actually.

"There is no basis in stasis." lol rhyme

"His dreams are full of atmosphere and drift into another universe."

"He is grave and empty space." Another one I rather like. I might use it, if I can ever write an entire fic in poetical nonsense.

"Mathematics is functionally useless, no mind."

"The endless testing of forgetting, after all."


From Block Transfer Computations

"You’re in spite of ages, at least the long way." So there.

"He hasn’t been shed with another faint smile, supplies in no state to do any sort because then he’ll forget it, or third time instead of elimination if he wasn’t careful; any equation became easier than the relative coordinate stability...I would’ve thought of any sort because why would it need the projector, then, just the clothes making him look that he could still see around the weight of ages, at first." The trouble with having quotation marks in there is that they tend to chop up an otherwise nicely nonsensical sentence.

"After a – a library with that absurd scarf of working through sounds that wouldn’t crumble and he sounds almost like apologizing."


From An Experiment, of Sorts (1/2):

"That’s not even a good time, though."

"Run more to sit down and those faraway planets, telling probably half-true stories of the galaxy. " There's a couple of words missing there, but now it almost makes sense.

"The screwdriver stays at three in spite of light. It might even touch it."

"It occurred to interest you. " Nicely solipsistic, I think.

"He didn’t seem to occupy your generous offer of the day, he’d said I doubted that."


From Concerning Multiverse Theory:

"She pins down right now, because you know there is it? " A rearrangement of just two words would have made that make a bit of sense.

"Or had some way to the bones – for as long ago – the universe like her, feels like her, feels like she was his choice, the lower rib as she buttons up the pretense of some sort." I rather like it up until the last clause.

"Perhaps sentient beings exist even those where divergence at all."

"Conclusion: Theory provides no way to tell a choice, any other, or to spare you the pretense of other, outside changes."

"I’ve told him to tell her what he saw in superposition, a way to trigger fracture." Poetical technobabble!

"What increments are you?" Why is a mouse when it spins?



Back to my research paper. Good night, good night.
Mood:: 'blah' blah
There are 25 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] airie-fairy.livejournal.com at 04:31am on 07/12/2008
Are those microfics original stuff or fanfic and you're just not telling us who they're about?

Also, that generator is just asking to be overused. *clicks*
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 04:56am on 07/12/2008
Um...both, I think? A couple of them, I was just trying to capture a mood in ten words ("Angst" "Smut" and "Adventure", I think); some of them are sort of obliquely fic ("Fluff" was based on a Doctor/Jo fic I almost wrote where they went to see Harry Houdini's underwater box escape; "UST" is Doctor/Master); for "Crack" I just thought ninja pirate zombies would be nicely cracky. :)

Isn't it, though? I spent far too long on that generator.
 
posted by [identity profile] airie-fairy.livejournal.com at 05:07am on 07/12/2008
OMG HOUDINI FIC PLEASE. Oh, the comments about escapology that could come up.
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 05:35am on 07/12/2008
The escapology thing is what gave me the idea, actually - I figured Jo would want to see the most famous practitioner of her particular discipline. Also I think, at some point, there were shenanigans involving handcuffs and Jo being an Impressive Escapologist and perhaps some UST along the way. I don't quite remember.
 
posted by [identity profile] airie-fairy.livejournal.com at 11:05pm on 07/12/2008
PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE.
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 11:40pm on 07/12/2008
Oh, I'm sure I will at some point, don't worry. XD At the moment, finals and such are eating up my ficcing time, but I'm sure eventually I'll crack and write Houdini!fic when I should be doing something else.
 
posted by [identity profile] pimpmytardis.livejournal.com at 07:53pm on 07/12/2008
Seconding the desire for Houdini fic OMG. Have you ever seen the movie Fairy Tale? It's a delightfully intelligent kid's fantasy about the Cottingley Fairy pictures, and Houdini is one of the main characters. It's also got Paul McGann in it!
ext_3685: Stylized electric-blue teapot, with blue text caption "Brewster North" (*blush*)
posted by [identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com at 08:29pm on 07/12/2008
*raises hand* I saw it! If only for the PMG-love, sigh. (Though I lol'd at the chess scene.)
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 11:26pm on 07/12/2008
Oh, I remember that movie! I remember really wanting to see it when it first came out (I was quite young and in my "fairy" phase, as it were), but I never ended up doing so. Knowing that Houdini (and Paul McGann) is in it means I might just have to seek it out.

Man, I'd forgotten about that movie. And I begged and begged my parents to take me to see it, way back when. :D
 
posted by [identity profile] rainbowstevie.livejournal.com at 06:58am on 07/12/2008
Wow, your microfic is *excellent.* I can't even...angst! Adventure! Dark! The only smut I'll ever read from you! But clearly, nothing beats pirate ninja zombies.

Ooh, the Bonsai thing is fun. I get frustrated with it quickly because nothing of mine comes out sounding good like that. I've run six stories through it and only come out with maybe three lines that stood on their own...sigh.

"His dreams are full of atmosphere and drift into another universe."
Like that. Why can't I get sentences like *that*? Fantastic.

"He is grave and empty space." -- that IS profound.

Finally, poetical technobabble ftw.
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 11:35pm on 07/12/2008
Pirate ninja zombies make everything better! Trufax. I think someday I need to write a fic where they show up, just because. The swordfights would be epic and quite possibly beyond my power to describe.

...a thought occurs to me. The first Pirates of the Caribbean had pirate zombies, right? And the third had ninja pirates, sort of, in the form of Sao Feng's crew, although I suppose they wouldn't really be ninjas since they're Chinese, not Japanese...anyway, the point is, clearly there need to be Japanese pirate ninjas who stole some of the cursed treasure from the first movie, so we can have ninja pirate zombies.

I suddenly have this urge to watch the third Pirates movie again. Which I haven't had...pretty much since it came out.

The reason I picked those four fics to Bonsai were that they were the only ones that came out interesting, heh. And in truth, the sentences I posted were pretty much the only good ones. I think one needs to write more poetic fic than I do to really make the thing work.

I got the idea from a post on [livejournal.com profile] fanficrants in which someone had posted an incomprehensibly poetic and weird Brokeback Mountain fic and no one could figure out what they were trying to say. Someone ran it through Bonsai, and it actually didn't turn out all that different. XD
 
posted by [identity profile] rainbowstevie.livejournal.com at 12:00am on 08/12/2008
I liked that fic!! By which I mean I saw the post this afternoon, threw up my usual hackles in defense of poetic word art, checked out the fic to make sure, and determined that it was in fact worthy of defense. I approached it with the mindset that it was like an exam question - where fact, this has some kind of deeper meaning and your job is to find/explain/support them - and it really wasn't very difficult at all.

But um, yeah. I think the trick of the Bonsai generator is that it requires a lot of time and patience. Time I clearly don't have, and yet spent today anyway, and I managed to come out with some interesting lines after all. Weirdly enough, some of the better ones were from "Piano Lessons," which doesn't have any poetic language at all.

anyway, the point is, clearly there need to be Japanese pirate ninjas who stole some of the cursed treasure from the first movie, so we can have ninja pirate zombies.
CLEARLY. I like the way your mind works!
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 12:07am on 08/12/2008
I was willing to give the fic a chance until they got to the "kingfisher" bit. Being poetic is one thing; not identifying one of your characters at all is, to me, overstepping a boundary. Some of the imagery was nice, but after a while I felt like it just got lost. But YMMV.

Time I clearly don't have, and yet spent today anyway

THE STORY OF COLLEGE, in ten words. XD
 
posted by [identity profile] rainbowstevie.livejournal.com at 01:45am on 08/12/2008
not identifying one of your characters at all is, to me, overstepping a boundary.
*blinks* See, this is what I didn't understand about the comments. It's a bird. It's just an observation from a bird's perspective, isn't it? *ties into brain into knots* Now I've over-thought it and am confused! Ahhhhhh!
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 04:19am on 08/12/2008
I thought the kingfisher was supposed to be Jack! What with the "not removing his belt" dealie, although that doesn't make any more sense whether or not it's Jack. I thought they were constructing this whole metaphor with Jack as "the kingfisher" for no apparent reason, since there seemed to be a scene going on between two people and one of them hadn't been mentioned...

Gaaaah. I don't know. *throws up hands*
 
Yeah, see, that's where I got thrown for a loop. I mean, not the belt part - I'm going to paraphrase my comment from memory, because I already got snarked at by the scary OP and I'm afraid to go back there - I assumed that was a distinction between humans and animals; they remove their belts, he has none to remove, no agenda beyond his wait. The part where my brain twisted into knots was wondering why the one line specifies Ennis, which I had originally rationalized as him being outside or something, in the kingfisher's line of sight where Jack wasn't, but...but...*breaks brain*

OK. Am done.
 
I just got confused about why they mentioned the belt at all if the bird didn't have one to begin with - I suppose that they might be setting up a parallel to imply the removal of a human's belt by noting that the bird wasn't doing it?

*shrug* Am done as well, I think. Like I said, there were some nice lines in there. They could just have stood to be spread out across a bit more story.
ext_3685: Stylized electric-blue teapot, with blue text caption "Brewster North" (H/W)
posted by [identity profile] brewsternorth.livejournal.com at 08:31pm on 07/12/2008
(What? I think "bromance" sounds silly, is all.)

Fair enough; blame the dude at TV Guide who referred to the House/Wilson smarm as "bromance" - the originator of the meme is a House fan.

And your microfics are ace. I am in awe.
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 11:40pm on 07/12/2008
blame the dude at TV Guide who referred to the House/Wilson smarm as "bromance"

Oh, I do. :D It's not a big deal, but I guess I heard the term "smarm" first, and I've never heard two guys actually refer to each other as "bro" (I'm sure they do, but it still sounds odd to me), so "bromance" always sounded awkward.

Of course, my favorite term for smarm is still Jay and Silent Bob's "hetero man-love". *g*

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed them - I had fun writing them!
 
posted by [identity profile] rainbowstevie.livejournal.com at 01:49am on 08/12/2008
I've never heard two guys actually refer to each other as "bro" (I'm sure they do, but it still sounds odd to me), so "bromance" always sounded awkward.
Well, I always think of How I Met Your Mother...< ah ref="http://www.amazon.com/Bro-Code-Barney-Stinson/dp/143911000X">The Bro Code.

But I must admit that I have never heard of "smarm." Ever, in any context. Where did that come from?
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 04:23am on 08/12/2008
*snerk* Oh, Neil Patrick Harris. Are you the greatest thing Evar, or are you the greatest thing EVAR? I just can't decide. *giggles*

"Smarm" is a term I've heard from fic writers, referring to fic focused on close friendship/affection/love between two male characters that was nonromantic or nonsexual. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'd heard it used by ficcers before the more mainstream media ever caught on to bromance, so it's the phrase I tend to use.

Actually, no, that's a lie. The phrase I tend to use is hetero-man-love (or hetero life-mates), because it's a more amusing phrase and I like it better.
 
posted by [identity profile] gorengal.livejournal.com at 09:26pm on 07/12/2008
Well done! I feel the need to try the microfic meme....
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 11:36pm on 07/12/2008
Do iiiiit. It's quite fun, trying to capture a mood and a story (after a fashion) in so little space. Besides, I want to see what you come up with. :D
 
posted by [identity profile] gorengal.livejournal.com at 06:54pm on 08/12/2008
It *was* fun! But difficult. Grr. I posted a CI set...DW set possibly to come....
 
posted by [identity profile] stunt-muppet.livejournal.com at 05:38pm on 11/12/2008
So I saw! I've posted my comments there.

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