Pretty Poison

The stories from the TS Secret Santa Extravaganza have been revealed, so I can post mine here, now.

I wrote Christmas is Murder, inspired by Katef’s exchange fic. This one is pre-relationship slash; I think it ends in a place where it’s obvious they’re going to get together, but they aren’t there yet.

And two more ficlets. I’ve got this AI program on my iPad, WOMBO.Me. Basically you load in a photograph, or take a selfie, and the program generates a set of images on a theme, like sci-fi, or romance. It’s fun, but it’s not very good at getting the face right. Which with selfies is cool - I quite like how I look as an anime character, you know? But I want fan art to look like the character it’s supposed to be.

So anyhow, I loaded in some pics of Jim and Blair and it spat out some festive images. Most of them were awful - you should see what this software did to Blair’s hair! (I admit I was expecting that to be bad as it does awful things to my hair, too!). But I did get a few that were recognisable. 

So I challenged myself to accompany each image with a little story, and ended up with The Snow Beast for Blair’s picture and All I Want For Christmas…Is Sleep for Jim.  These can be read as gen or slash - it’s all for the reader to interpret. 

I came across 20 amazing facts about the human body a couple of weeks ago. Some of the 20 I already knew, many I didn't. But the interesting ones from a Sentinel fandom perspective are 15, 16 and 20 on the list, as they deal with the senses.

(In case I have readers not in the fandom, the basic premise of The Sentinel is a genetic gift that enhances the five senses to an extraordinary/superhuman degree.)

( Eyesight is pretty miraculous )

Thoughts?

1. Today I learned that my new job has penalties for doing things too well.

I finished up a report I've been slogging over for two weeks. It was irritating work, because my part depended on collating a lot of information that other people were supposed to give me. And mostly didn't. So I ended up doing a bunch of the analysis myself, downloading the statistics myself and pretty much guessing what would be in some of the missing papers. I explained all of the parts I'd imputed (that's what statisticians say instead of 'guess') when I handed the report over to my manager for approval.

She promptly passed it to her manager, who passed it to someone else. I came back from lunch to find J waiting for me. "This is excellent work," he told me, and I thought, okay, this is cool. Then he dropped the bomb. He wants me to present it to the frigging board at a meeting on Monday!!!

(Note: while normally this would be a real vote of confidence, I am conscious that the board are not going to like the content of my report. It concerns this big project and between the lines I'm basically saying they're going about it all wrong.)

2. Today I learned that The Sentinel is my happy place.

Well, I kinda knew that already. But it's nice to be reminded.

I started writing Sentinel fic with stories about serial killers. Wild Justice has possibly the most odious villain I have ever created (and, yeah, I include my SPN fics in that); I still feel the need to scrub out my brain after re-reading those murder scenes. And Predator took a hero and turned him into a serial killer. (Actually I am amused by how close Dexter has become to my Dark!Jim. I wasn't even aware of Darkly Dreaming Dexter when I wrote Predator and the TV series hadn't been made.)

Anyhow, my point is Sentinel used to be a place for my darkest side to come out and play. My creative brain has been in a dark place lately. No light and fluffy stuff for Morgan, I've been all death and addiction, betrayal and PTSD, the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-is-the-headlamp-of-an-oncoming-train kinda dark. My Yuletide assignment fit that perfectly, which is probably why I found it so easy to write. More serial killers and betrayal, though I did manage to squeeze a positive ending out of it.

Tonight, I have written 2,000 words of Sentinel. It's a little angsty, but it's basically two guys in love, trying to live a normal life. It might turn into something...it might not. But it's like a pallette cleanser for my brain. I'm back in a happy place.

Very cool.

Title: Persistence
Author: Morgan Briarwood / briarwood
Fandom: Sentinel
Wordcount: 3500
Rating: All Ages
Pairing(s): Jim/Blair
Warning(s): None
Notes: I think it was slipperieslope who begged me, some time ago, to write a follow up to my Predator series. At the time, I'd told all I could: the story was complete, so I said she'd just have to imagine the jungle sexcapades. But the request stayed with me. This story is set some years after Protector, with Jim and Blair still living with the Chopec. It's not entirely a happy tale, but I hope it will be appreciated. Happy Holidays!
Summary: Jim has an accident while hunting. (Hurt, with a dash of comfort.)

( Persistence )

A very happy birthday to betagoddess!

This story was intended to go into your scrapbook, but I hated my original ending and didn't want to send you a story I didn't like. When I realised I would never fix it in time for the scrapbook, I decided to save it up for your birthday instead.


Title: Partners
Fandom: Sentinel
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Jim/Blair
Warnings: None

Summary: A moment of comfort.

( Partners )

Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5198

All of my Sentinel stories are now up in the Archive of our Own. Fifteen stories, about 273,000 words. Funny that doesn't seem like all that much but still...I found some very fond memories going back through these fics.

What stands out for me is that every single one of these stories under 40,000 words were written for you, my friends here on LJ: in fic exchanges or from prompts you've given me. And now this feels like a goodbye post, which it's not. I just want to say thank you. Thank you all for inspiring me so much in this fandom.

( For the record... )

Title: Twenty Four Hours (1/2)
Fandom: Sentinel/Supernatural Crossover
Rating: Mature
Pairing: None
Warnings: Gory details, but no "on-screen" violence.
Summary: Twenty four hours in the life of Detective Jim Ellison, in which he attempts to solve a particularly bloody murder.
Timeline: In Sentinel canon, this is set during season one, shortly after Cypher. In Supernatural canon, it's pre-series: Sam is 12, Dean 16.
Note 1: The story is a crossover, but heavy on the Sentinel. TS fen need not know anything about SPN in order to read the story. From the SPN side this is an outside-point-of-view story; a little familiarity with the Sentinel characters would be helpful, but is not essential.
Note 2: Written for marishna's multifandom picture challenge; marishna always gives me the best prompts (see my pic here), but I'm terribly late submitting this story. I hope she'll forgive me, and I hope the wait is worth it.
Note 3: A huge thank-you to raynedanser and sunnyd_lite who helped straighten me out when I ran into a writers' roadblock.

( Twenty Four Hours )

Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2704

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/film-star-grizzly-kills-trainer-814224.html

The article isn't about TS, but there's a reference to Moonridge, for anyone interested.

Title: Instinct
Fandom: The Sentinel
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Jim/Blair - Can be read as gen or slash: your choice.
Summary: Blair is injured when an op goes badly wrong.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Written for betagoddess, who has waited far too long for a story I promised her in February! She asked me for hurt/comfort with Blair as the hurt-ee. I have learned that I simply cannot write H/C to order: if it doesn't feel like a natural part of a plot to me, it just doesn't happen. Also, Blair won't talk to me if I hurt him. So, this may not be what you had in mind, dearest, but I hope you'll like it.

Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1640

( Instinct )