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Title: Fractures and Echoes
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe/ Avengers movies
Written for MCU Rolling Remix 2017 (but not actually a remix since this was the original source story!)
Characters: James Rhodes, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson
Rating: Teen (Language, Canonical Character illness and death, gratuitous DJ Khaled)
Word count: 2731
Also available on AO3
Summary: Between "Age of Ultron" and "Captain America: Civil War," divisions are starting to appear in the team, while history catches up with them.
Thanks to muccamukk for beta reading.

( FIC: Fractures and Echoes )

This past weekend was an awesome parkour event that left me exhausted, miserable, thrilled, thoughtful, and delighted. It's my second year going to it, and I think I got a lot more out of it this year than I did last year.

This isn't limited to parkour, but there's both a mental and a physical component to the sport. The first few years of training, I could mostly blame my issues on the physical side of things. I couldn't get my body parts to move in the right ways. I didn't have the arm or leg or core strength for anything. Some of these things are still true. My physical capabilities do limit what sorts of moves I can pull off and at what heights. But now the mental difficulties are starting to come into it.

There's a lot of talk about fear when it comes to parkour. How to approach that fear. How to overcome it. How to deal with it. You hit a certain point and then everything you try in parkour becomes about fear. It's not like, 'jumping off buildings' fear. It's 'trying to jump one step higher on a set of stairs' fear. I feel like recently, fear has dominated my training. I go to classes, which is great peer pressure and a great way to have a set schedule, but it's not great for doing what they call 'breaking' jumps. Finding something that is terrifying and breaking it down into smaller pieces until you achieve it.

I hadn't realized how much that fear had been eating away at me until this weekend. I would love to say that I overcame all of it and got in touch with my inner badass and now I'm doing ridiculous things. That's not how it went. It mostly went 'omg, I'm too tired to try this thing. man, I would love to do this move, but I'm not strong enough and I'll totally clip my toe. oh no, my feet are sore so I can't land anything' over and over and over again. There were a few exceptions. One session, the coaches decided that 'we're going to exhaust you until you can't think and then make you try to break a jump'. I exhausted myself, but I also broke a jump. Kind of. I went a little easy on myself. But that session stuck with me.

It's good to be shaken out of your own complacency. I need to find more ways of confronting my fear head-on. The solution isn't to throw myself at things and hope they work, either. I've already injured myself a few times that way. The solution, I think, is to carve out more training time for myself. To spend more time getting in touch with my fear. What it looks like. How it works. How valid is it. How to manage the risks when I do push myself past that line.

Easier said than done, of course, but I'm glad I can see the shape of it.

Also, I need a parkour icon, goddamn. I should make myself one.

Title: Forgotten But Not Gone
Author: KouriArashi
Reader: Opalsong
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairings: Allison/Scott, Derek/Stiles, Erica/Stiles
Rating: Teen
Length (total): 6:02:00
Music: Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance
Cover: Opalsong (heavily influenced by Kylie L's gorgeous covers for this series)
Summary: Stiles starts losing his memories and nobody can figure out why or how to stop it.

Podbooks Link:
Podbook [6:02:00; 171.1MB]

Chapter Links [length; size]:
Chapter 1 [26:06; 20.0MB]
Chapter 2 [31:42; 25.1MB]
Chapter 3 [31:33; 43.5MB]
Chapter 4 [35:53; 28.1MB]
Chapter 5 [27:57; 38.6MB]
Chapter 6 [32:23; 25.2MB]
Chapter 7 [28:15; 39.0MB]
Chapter 8 [32:58; 45.5MB]
Chapter 9 [34:07; 26.7MB]
Chapter 10 [38:54; 30.9MB]
Chapter 11 [42:12; 32.4MB]

Thanks to Paraka for hosting!!

cross posted at amplificathon, my journal, and AO3

Archivists: Please do not archive this work.

Sometimes, the best part of a crossover is wondering how two characters could possibly get on, and then being happily convinced that they absolutely would.


Smoke by esama
Fandoms: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)Sherlock (TV)
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Mary Morstan/John Watson
Words:48420



I am terribly lazy and procrastinating sharing this simply because it didn't have a handy share button. I am very spoiled these days.

I've been pretty low energy all week (lucky me) but at least part of the fatigue I can lay blame to a case of Shingles. Color me surprised when that's what my spotty, itchy, ouchie self came down with. I always thought that was an "over 50" malady, but not so.
I'm on the mend, but still a bit tired. It's hard to tell what of that is just poor sleep (I always sleep poorly before my period), what's a Shingles symptom, and what might be a side effect of the anti-virals I got prescribed. I guess in the end it doesn't matter! Tired is tired.
The meds also give me a bit of the queasy-guts, which is both new and not particularly fun. Only another 2 days on them, though.

Reading news:
I finished "Broken Homes" (4th in the Rivers of London series) and am about 40% of the way through the 5th book, "Foxglove Summer." Still having a lot of fun with this series! So far "Moon Over Soho" is the obvious weak link, and I'm glad the subsequent books have kept my interest. Unfortunately it looks like my library system/Overdrive doesn't have the 6th book on audio. This is deeply sad. :< I really adore the reader.

Cooking news: 
No new experiments, but the remaining jars of my coconut yogurt have been delicious, and I can still make a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Life news:
Put in a few hours of OT today, and a new Thing I'm Doing is trying to be as CHILL AND NOT STRESSED as possible. ;) You may note from the all caps that this isn't super easy right now. I'm in a higher-than-usual baseline anxiety state at the moment, and trying to ease that down. Nothing awful, just... higher baseline. :/
Apparently one of the triggers for Shingles is stress.
>_____________>;;;;
Part of it is work, part is probably hormones, part is just my brain.
Things I'm doing-- I downloaded a meditation app and am trying to do at least one tiny little guided meditation per day. I'm also trying to do more yoga.
Things I need to figure out how to do-- not absorb my bosses endlessly escalating stress levels.

I was overly pessimistic in my 'two or three survivors' estimate for Ginger's Until Dawn run; there were four!


( Chapters eight to ten of Until Dawn. )

Late in the game, Ginger picked up on the fact that Mike's relationship stat with Sam had increased a lot.

Ginger: They're not going to get Sam and Mike together, are they?
Riona: Breaking my heart, they are not. I 'ship Sam and Mike a lot.
Ginger: Sam can do so much better!
Riona: I don't care!


Another stat observation:

Ginger: Huh. Chris has become less funny.
Rei: I don't think it's possible for him to become less funny.

I cracked up. Sorry, Chris.

Ginger's playthrough of Until Dawn continues! We're now at the start of chapter eight. Some good decisions, some very bad ones.


( Spoilers for the entirety of Until Dawn. )

This is so interesting to watch! The playthrough that introduced me to this game, by the Scary Games Squad, had the controller in the hands of someone who was extremely good at QTEs, so it hadn't really hit me that decision-making isn't the only danger in Until Dawn; most people don't hit every QTE effortlessly, and it's easy to lose someone to a mechanical slipup as well.

http://alexandregregoire.com/billets/2017/06/24/payer-les-gradues-une-mauvaise-idee/

Gérald Larose et Alexandre Taillefer étaient invités de Franco Nuovo à la radio il y a une semaine ou deux. On y discutait de plein de trucs, entre autres de la proposition de Mitch Gerber de donner 1000$ aux élèves qui obtiennent un diplôme d’études secondaire, pour enrayer le décrochage scolaire. L’échange qui suit me trotte dans la tête depuis.

Sans surprise, Gérald Larose s’indigne. C’est une tentative de marchandisation de l’éducation, c’est inacceptable, nous dit-il. Taillefer, lui, n’est pas catégorique. Toutes les idées valent la peine d’être étudiées, nous dit-il. La carotte et le bâton ont toujours été des motivateurs puissants.

La discussion continue pendant quelques minutes, mais on n’avance pas beaucoup plus.

J’aurais préféré entendre Larose s’opposer de façon plus concrète. Parler de marchandisation de l’éducation, c’est bien intéressant d’un point de vue philosophique (et je suis d’accord avec l’opinion), mais je crois pas que ça serve à grand-chose sur le plancher des vaches.

Il me semble que ça aurait été plus concret de remarquer que ce qui sous-tend la proposition de Gerber, c’est que les problèmes de décrochage au Québec sont extérieurs au système. Gerber suppose que si un élève ne gradue pas, c’est parce qu’il est paresseux et qu’on va pouvoir le motiver avec un peu d’argent. Exit le contexte familial, le quartier, les troubles d’apprentissage, le sous-financement de nos écoles…

Cette opinion est dangereuse parce qu’elle cautionne le désengagement du gouvernement envers notre système d’éducation. Il n’y a pas de place pour la gouvernance provenant du privé dans notre système d’éducation. Les motivations d’une entreprise privée ou d’un entrepreneur ne sont pas compatibles avec la mission d’éducation. Un entrepreneur, ce n’est bon que pour une chose: s’enrichir.

C’est pourquoi je déprime quand j’entends Taillefer, avec toute la candeur qu’on lui connaît, dire à propos du système d’éducation que la carotte et le bâton ont toujours été les motivateurs les plus puissants. J’ai le goût de lui faire remarquer que jouer avec la carotte et le bâton, ça sert pas à grand-chose si l’étable est en train de tomber en ruine et qu’il y a pas assez de moulée pour tous les chevaux.

(ce petit texte a été originalement posté sur Facebook)

http://alexandregregoire.com/billets/2017/06/24/payer-les-gradues-une-mauvaise-idee/